Impact of land cover change on soil erosion hazard in northern Jordan using remote sensing and GIS

Jordan is dominated by arid ecosystems that are vulnerable to human interventions and activities. It receives little rainfall with high intensity, which renders land degradation, soil erosion and desertification imminent threats of the ecosystem balance. Several changes in land cover have also occurred during the last decades. The above mentioned processes and changes can be mapped using remotely sensed satellite images and modeled in a Geographic Information System (GIS) environment. This study aims at assessing the impact of land cover change on the erosion in agricultural areas of northern Jordan. It was achieved by quantifying and analyzing the soil erosion in the study area between the years 1992 - 2009, and by comparing it with land cover changes. The Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) was employed in a GIS environment to create soil erosion maps of the specific years using data from meteorological stations, soil surveys, topographic maps, Landsat satellite images and results of other relevant studies. The mean soil loss in the study area was 9.53 t/hr and 8.97 t/hr in 1992 and 2009 respectively. This was subsequently reclassified to erosion risk levels. By comparing the change of the erosion risk levels with the land cover change map of the study area using geographic overlay analysis, it was evident that the main reason for soil erosion change was the abandonment of rainfed crops and their conversion to rangelands. The differences in soil erosion risk between the two years were considerable indicating that changes in land cover affects significantly the soil erosion rate. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.