Assessment of Harir Basin Against Soil Erosion in Kurdistan Region-Iraq

Abstract

Soil erosion negatively impacts water management, agricultural lands, amounts of sedimentation in reservoirs and rivers, water pollution, human health, countries' economies, and ecosystems. This study is important for water, soil, and environment management. In the present study, the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) has been integrated with the Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) techniques to calculate the annual rate of soil erosion of Harir Basin and to classify it on this basis and according to the soil erosion risk classes. The spatial distribution of the average rainfall erosivity factor (Average (R-Factor)), soil erodibility factor (K-Factor), slope length and slope steepness factor (LS-Factor), cropping management factor (C-Factor), and conservation practice factor (P-Factor) have been created and mapped using ArcGIS 10.8.1 software based on the average annual rainfall map from (2000 to 2021), soil map, slope map in percentage with flow accumulation map, land use and land cover map, and slope map in percentage for Harir Basin, respectively. Overall, the results of assessing Harir Basin against soil erosion have illustrated that the annual rate of soil erosion for the area of study ranges from 0.0 (ton.ha^(-1).year^(-1)) to 8.46 (ton.ha^(-1).year^(-1)). Moreover, 99.99% of the study area was under slight soil erosion, while only 0.01% was under moderate soil erosion.

Keywords

• Average rainfall erosivity factor (average (R-factor))
• Conservation practice factor (P-factor)
• Cropping management factor (C-factor)
• Harir basin
• Slope length and slope steepness factor (LS-factor)
• Soil erodibility factor (K-factor)