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Geospatial-based soil management analysis using novel technique for better soil conservation

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Abstract

In the current times, anthropogenic activities and natural change in the processes cause much change in the world, causing multiple hazards and disturbing the natural flow. One such hazard is soil erosion, which is increasing day by day due to changes in climate and anthropogenic activities. Thus, identifying the soil erosion vulnerable zones and map such regions is extremely useful for the town and land planning. Such soil vulnerability mapping gives a quantifiable and reliable method to evaluate soil erosion in a wide variety of circumstances. In the current research, the soil erosion method, revised universal soil loss equation (RUSLE) integrated with geographic information system (GIS), has been applied for soil erosion approximation in the Rawalpindi Tehsil situated in the province of Punjab in the northeast part of Pakistan. The Rawalpindi metropolis is a semi-arid area with a drainage area of 259 km2 up to the gauging station. The datasets of the RUSLE model were valued from the remote sensing data, and the probable soil loss regions were estimated with the help of GIS. All the datasets, i.e., slope, soil, precipitation, crop management factor, was then used for soil erosion potential mapping. The potential map is generated from the weighted overlay method that gives an output showing that most of the study area is in medium (67.2%) to high (20.2%) erosion zone with erosion intensities of < 20 tons ha−1 year−1 and < 40 tons ha−1 year−1 respectively. Concurrently, few patches lie in high potential zones that need to be looked after and need to be pondered in terms of mitigation measures. Accuracy assessment for land-use and land-cover classes for the Rawalpindi watershed was also accomplished by comparing ground-truth with satellite data, and the Kappa coefficient of the agreement was also obtained. The overall accuracy was 85%, and the Kappa coefficient was found to be 84%, inferring the acceptability of results. Few mitigation solutions have also been described in this study, which might be helpful to minimize erosion. This research provides a positive impact on the execution of soil management and preservation practices to lessen the erosion of the soil in the Tehsil Rawalpindi.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, COMSATS University Islamabad, Wah Campus, Wah Cant, Pakistan

    Umer Khalil

  2. Department of Data Sciences, Riphah International University, Islamabad, Pakistan

    Bilal Aslam

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  1. Umer Khalil
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  2. Bilal Aslam
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Correspondence to Bilal Aslam.

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Khalil, U., Aslam, B. Geospatial-based soil management analysis using novel technique for better soil conservation. Model. Earth Syst. Environ. 8, 259–275 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40808-020-01078-0

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