Land use change effects to soil erosion in the Coastal Thailand and a lesson for Vietnam

Abstract

Abstract Remotely sensed data that is a free download from the internet as Landsat 7 images and rainfall data was obtained in 1989, 2005, and 2020. These data were integrated with maps and field surveys to produce 30-year historic land use and land cover (LULC) changes. Multi-Criteria Modeling (MCM) was constructed for mapping soil erosion risk areas in the provincial scale in the coastal of Thailand. To identify possible soil erosion risk regions, classified satellite images were combined with soil properties, slope, and rainfall data. Ground truth data with Global Positioning System (GPS) was applied for accuracy assessment of satellite image classification that achieved over 81% land use mapping accuracy level. The study finds that urban and orchards increased by 4.58% and 4.96%, respectively, while evergreen forest decreased by 10.18%. GIS analysis and modeling presented the estimation of areas of very high risk of soil erosion as 337,483.90 ha (0.53%) in the study area. A lesson for Coastal Vietnam as Thua Thien Hue province where soil erosion is caused by its high terrain and heavy rain.