GIS-Based Estimation of Soil Loss from Hilly Urban Area Incorporating Hill Cut Factor into RUSLE

Sagarika Patowary () and Arup Kumar Sarma ()
Additional contact information
Sagarika Patowary: Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati
Arup Kumar Sarma: Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), 2018, vol. 32, issue 10, No 18, 3535-3547

Abstract: Abstract Unplanned residential development in hilly areas leads to steep cuts in natural hillslopes, which in turn, results in excessive soil loss. GIS-based Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE), applied in such a case, underestimates soil loss since such near vertical surfaces are not completely projected in orthorectified satellite images. This paper introduces a "hill cut factor (Hf)", which is input into the cover management factor of RUSLE model. Model is validated with observed soil loss data of a mini hilly urban watershed located in Japorigog hill of Guwahati city. GIS-based soil loss estimation has been carried out for two scenarios: with and without consideration of Hf. Results reveal that consideration of Hf in GIS-based RUSLE replicates the picture of erosion more accurately and gives a similar result with observed soil loss data. Without consideration of Hf, RUSLE underestimates annual soil loss from the studied watershed by almost 28% than the observed value. Adequate design of drainage system by using more accurate soil loss information, derived in this way, can lower the urban flood problem caused due to blockage of drains and culverts with sediments brought down from the inhabited hills in a city.

Keywords: Soil loss; Urban settlement in hill; Hill cut factor; GIS-based RUSLE (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11269-018-2006-5 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:waterr:v:32:y:2018:i:10:d:10.1007_s11269-018-2006-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11269

DOI: 10.1007/s11269-018-2006-5

Access Statistics for this article

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) is currently edited by G. Tsakiris

More articles in Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) from Springer, European Water Resources Association (EWRA)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().