Soil Water Erosion Modeling in Tunisia Using RUSLE and GIS Integrated Approaches and Geospatial Data

Mohamed Moncef Serbaji (), Moncef Bouaziz and Okba Weslati
Additional contact information
Mohamed Moncef Serbaji: Laboratory for Environmental Engineering and Eco-Technology, National Engineering School of Sfax (ENIS), University of Sfax, Sfax 3038, Tunisia
Moncef Bouaziz: Institute for Mine Surveying and Geodesy, Freiberg, University of Technology, 09599 Freiberg, Germany
Okba Weslati: Laboratory of Water, Energy & Environment, National Engineering School of Sfax (ENIS), University of Sfax, Sfax 3038, Tunisia

Land, 2023, vol. 12, issue 3, 1-22

Abstract: Soil erosion is an important environmental problem that can have various negative consequences, such as land degradation, which affects sustainable development and agricultural production, especially in developing countries like Tunisia. Moreover, soil erosion is a major problem around the world because of its effects on soil fertility by nutriment loss and siltation in water bodies. Apart from this, soil erosion by water is the most serious type of land loss in several regions both locally and globally. This study evaluated regional soil erosion risk through the derivation of appropriate factors, using the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE), which was applied to establish a soil erosion risk map of the whole Tunisian territory and to identify the vulnerable areas of the country. The RUSLE model considers all the factors playing a major role in erosion processes, namely the erodibility of soils, topography, land use, rainfall erosivity, and anti-erosion farming practices. The equation is, thus, implemented under the Geographic Information System (GIS) “Arc GIS Desktop”. The results indicated that Tunisia has a serious risk of soil water erosion, showing that 6.43% of the total area of the country is affected by a very high soil loss rate, estimated at more than 30 t/ha/year, and 4.20% is affected by high mean annual soil losses, ranging from 20 to 30 t/ha/year. The most eroded areas were identified in the southwestern, central, and western parts of the country. The spatial erosion map can be used as a decision support document to guide decision-makers towards better land management and provide the opportunity to develop management strategies for soil erosion prevention and control on the global scale of Tunisia.

Keywords: RUSLE model; GIS; soil water erosion; integrated approach; sustainable development; land degradation; vulnerable areas; soil loss rate (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/12/3/548/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/12/3/548/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:12:y:2023:i:3:p:548-:d:1078944

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

More articles in Land from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().