Estimation of Soil Losses Using Various Soil Erosion Models in a Sample Plot in Mediterranean Part of Turkey

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between soil erosion and land use/cover change (LUCC) in an erosion hot point area using the RUSLE, modified Morgan-Morgan Finney (mMMF) and revised G2 erosion models in the Mediterranean Region of Turkey. Landsat satellite images that belong to the same months from different years (1990, 2010), were used to derive LUC maps. Maximum Likelihood Classifier (MLC) was applied to all images for classification, and overall accuracy for the determination of LUC maps was >90%. Meteorological and soil data, and information obtained from land observations were used to produce past and present erosion risk maps and potential soil losses. Results from the RUSLE, modified Morgan-Morgan Finney (mMMF) and revised G2 soil erosion methods were controlled by the field works. Results had shown that RUSLE and mMMF approaches produced more reliable/realistic results than rG2. Soil erosion had increased in the last 20 years according to all soil erosion prediction models.