Quantifying catchments sediment release in arid regions using GIS-based Universal soil loss equation (USLE)

Soil erosion triggers several global environmental and economic problems. The Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) and its updates are the most widely used models for soil erosion evaluation. USLE includes several parameters that describe rainfall and soil characteristics. The application of the USLE is challenging due to the variability of accuracy and resolution of the required data for each parameter from one region to another. In the current study, a methodology to collect and process the required data for the USLE is proposed. Remote sensing is utilized to estimate the soil components percentages and land cover. ArcGIS is used to evaluate the topographic slope and length parameters. Lastly, synthetic SCS type II storm distribution is used to distribute the available daily rainfall events to calculate the rainfall ero-sivity factor. The results showed good agreement between the calculated and measured catchment sed-iment release for two catchments in the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt.(c) 2022 THE AUTHORS. Published by Elsevier BV on behalf of Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams Uni-versity. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

Soil erosion is a global challenge that causes environmental and economic problems. The Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) and its updates are widely used for assessing soil erosion. The application of USLE is difficult due to the variability of data accuracy and resolution across different regions. This study proposes a methodology that uses remote sensing, ArcGIS, and synthetic storm distribution to collect and process the necessary data for USLE. The results show good agreement between calculated and measured sediment release in two catchments in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt.