Soil erosion risk

Author: Fabian Becker
Date: February 2015
Document: Soil erosion risk assessment in the Upper Mefou subcatchment, Southern Cameroon Plateau [Master's Thesis]
Database: Institue Géographique National 1956; El-Swaify et al.1982; Nill et al.1996; Jarvis et al.2008; NASA and Japan ASTER Program 2011; own data (2012–2014)

Classification

Risk class	(relative^∗) soil loss
nill	0 t ha^-1 yr^-1
very low	0–1 t ha^-1 yr^-1
low	1–3 t ha^-1 yr^-1
medium	3–5 t ha^-1 yr^-1
high	5–10 t ha^-1 yr^-1
very high	10–20 t ha^-1 yr^-1
severe	20–40 t ha^-1 yr^-1
very severe	40–100 t ha^-1 yr^-1
extremly severe	>100 t ha^-1 yr^-1

^∗: values are relative and only qualitative estimates,
as USLE-models might overestimated soil erosion;

Actual soil erosion risk

Actual soil erosion risk (RUSLE3D) is a function of land use and land cover, soil erodibliy, rainfall erosivity and terrain characteristics (slope, flow accumulation).

Potential soil erosion risk

Potential soil erosion risk (RUSLE3D) is a function soil erodibility, rainfall erosivity and terrain characteristics (slope, flow accumulation). In contrast to the acutal soil erosion risk, land use and land cover is not important for the potential risk. Using an RUSLE3D-approach, the C-factor is set to unity to model the potential risk (cf. Grimm et al. 2001).
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