Quantifying the water soil erosion rate using RUSLE, GIS, and RS approach for Al-Qshish River Basin, Lattakia, Syria

Abstract

Soil erosion is one of the most prominent geomorphological hazards threatening environmental sustainability in the coastal region of western Syria. The current war conditions in Syria has led to a lack of field data and measurements related to assessing soil erosion. Mapping the spatial distribution of potential soil erosion is a basic step in implementing soil preservation procedures mainly in the river catchments. The present paper aims to conduct a comprehensive assessment of soil erosion severity using revised universal soil loss equation (RUSLE) and remote sensing (RS) data in geographic information system (GIS) environment across the whole Al-Qshish river basin. Quantitatively, the annual rate of soil erosion in the study basin was 81.1 t ha−1 year−1 with a spatial average reaching 55.2 t ha−1 year−1. Spatially, the soil erosion risk map was produced with classification into five susceptible-zones: very low (41 %), low (40.5%), moderate (8.9%), high (5.4%) and very high (4.2%). The current study presented a reliable assessment of soil loss rates and classification of erosion-susceptible areas within the study basin. These outputs can be relied upon to create measures for maintaining areas with high and very high soil erosion susceptibility under the current war conditions.