Detection of high erosion risk areas and their incorporation into environmental impact assessment

Efrén Tarancón-Andrés, Jacinto Santamaria-Peña, David Arancón-Pérez, Eduardo Martínez-Cámara and Julio Blanco-Fernández
Additional contact information
Efrén Tarancón-Andrés: Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of La Rioja, Logroño, La Rioja, Spain
Jacinto Santamaria-Peña: Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of La Rioja, Logroño, La Rioja, Spain
David Arancón-Pérez: Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of La Rioja, Logroño, La Rioja, Spain
Julio Blanco-Fernández: Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of La Rioja, Logroño, La Rioja, Spain

Soil and Water Research, 2023, vol. 18, issue 2, 102-115

Abstract: Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is normally used independently of the physical and temporal location of the product, process or service under analysis. This makes LCA results more easily comparable and globally accepted. At the same time, it has drawbacks though, e.g. land use will have the same impact regardless of location. However, the use of certain terrains in high erosion risk areas as compared to others in low erosion risk areas will have a different impact on the ecosystem. The availability of airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data (ALS) allows a quick and accurate morphogeometric analysis of any terrain. For this reason, this article offers a methodology, based on Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) method and airborne LiDAR data, for the straightforward detection of zones with high vulnerability to erosion problems. Based on these local erosion risk data, a method is developed to assess the environmental impact of land use, based on its location. In this way, the LCA methodology is incorporated to gather local data, dependent on the specific location of the activity under analysis. The methodology developed has been applied, as a case study, to a specific municipality in the high mountains of the Autonomous Community of La Rioja (Spain).

Keywords: environmental impact; land use; LiDAR; life cycle assessment; soil erosion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://swr.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/91/2022-SWR.html (text/html)
http://swr.agriculturejournals.cz/doi/10.17221/91/2022-SWR.pdf (application/pdf)
free of charge

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:caa:jnlswr:v:18:y:2023:i:2:id:91-2022-swr

DOI: 10.17221/91/2022-SWR

Access Statistics for this article

Soil and Water Research is currently edited by Ing. Markéta Knížková, (Executive Editor)

More articles in Soil and Water Research from Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Ivo Andrle ().