Tag Archive for: soil erosion

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1191 | 444 | Remote Sensing Techniques for Monitoring Land degradation due to Soil Erosion: A Case Study in the Nitra District of Slovakia | Tomáš Rusňák, Andrej Halabuk

Land degradation due to soil erosion is one of the major environmental concerns worldwide, affecting the sustainability of agricultural productivity and the health of ecosystems. Data regarding the actual scale of soil erosion is important information for conservation policies. Nevertheless, this kind of data is often unavailable on a large scale. Remote sensing techniques have become a powerful tool to monitor and assess land degradation. In this study, we used Sentinel 2 satellite imagery to detect soil erosion in the Nitra district in the western part of Slovakia. The Nitra district has an agricultural character and is significantly affected by erosion. We used a combination of Sentinel data and soil subtypes for classification. The Random Forest classification has been performed. We classified two classes – eroded soil and non-eroded soil. The results showed that the proposed method is effective in detecting soil erosion in the study area with an overall accuracy of 94.04%. Our findings show the potential of using remote sensing data on actual soil degradation by erosion. Remote sensing can be used as an efficient tool for monitoring and assessing soil erosion, aiding in the development of effective land management strategies. However, there are some limitations related to the variability of soil cover, the effect of clouds, shadows, vegetation, or residues after agricultural crops, and the spectral separability of each class.

Tomáš Rusňák, Andrej Halabuk
Institute of Landscape Ecology v. v. i., Slovak Academy of Sciences

 
ID Abstract: 444

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1191 | | Land Degradation Challenges and Sustainability | Matija Zorn (1); Joaquim Farguell Pérez (2)

Land degradation is the result of human-induced actions that exploit soil and lead to degradation of its benefits, biodiversity, soil fertility and overall health. Land is being rapidly degraded around the world. Healthy natural resources and thriving ecosystems are needed to ensure food security for a growing global population. However, our current agricultural practices are causing the world’s soils to be degraded up to 100 times faster than they are regenerating through natural processes. We have already altered 70% of all ice-free land, affecting over 3.2 billion people. If we continue as we are, 90% of the land will bear our mark by the mid-21st century. The impacts of land degradation will be felt by most of the world’s population. Land degradation also alters and disrupts rainfall patterns, exacerbates weather extremes such as droughts or floods and causes accelerated erosion, not to mention influencing climate change. It leads to social and political instability that fosters poverty, conflict, and migration, thus sustainable solutions are needed to tackle all these challenges.The Land Degradation Challenges and Sustainability session will be organised by the Commission on Land Degradation and Desertification (COMLAND) of the International Geographical Union, which has been promoting and coordinating interdisciplinary research on land degradation and desertification for three decades and seeks to find sustainable solutions. Session type: presentationsLanguage: English

Matija Zorn (1); Joaquim Farguell Pérez (2)
(1) Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Anton Melik Geographical Institute, (2) Universitat de Barcelona, Facultat de Geografia i Història, Departament de Geografia

 
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1165 | | Advances in the study of badlands and gully systems | Mariano Moreno De Las Heras (1); Milica Kasanin-Grubin (2); Ona Torra Truncal (3); Estela Nadal Romero (4); Francesc Gallart (5)

Badlands are highly dissected areas, comprising hillslopes and divides carved in soft bedrock and unconsolidated sediments, with little or no vegetation, that are useless for agriculture. These stunning landscapes of extremely rugged terrain with intense present or past geomorphological activity can occur all over the World under a broad variety of climate conditions, including arid, semi-arid and both sub-humid and humid conditions. Badlands differ from gully systems in the sense that the former include both hillslopes and divides, whereas gullies represent essentially linear erosive forms. However, gully systems can be closely related to badlands, as gully development may start or reactivate badland dynamics.
Badland and gully systems typically represent minor sections of the terrain, but are commonly perceived as hotspots of sediment production at large regional scales, impacting downstream freshwater ecosystems and the security of water reservoirs, and also playing a key role for organizing the sedimentary structure of rivers and maintaining river deltas. Furthermore, these erosive landforms are natural laboratories that allow the study of many different pedological, biological and geomorphic processes, with both on-site and off-site implications of water and soil management. The study of badland and gully systems has, therefore, important implications for both land and basin management, particularly in the present context of Climate Change, where precipitation concentration in more extreme rainfall events may result in increased soil erosion and mobilisation of sediments to river channels and reservoirs.
This EUGEO 2023 badland and gully session is co-sponsored by the Badlands Working Group of the International Association of Geomorphologists. We welcome theoretical, modelling and empirical studies, including (i) the detection and mapping of badland and gully systems applying GIS data analysis and the use of remote sensing resources, (ii) the study of bedrock weathering and denudation activity and other associated geomorphological processes acting in these erosive landforms (e.g., mass wasting, gullying, rilling, piping) using sparse observations (e.g. pins, profiles and volumetric methods) and high-resolution surveying (e.g., TLS/LiDAR and Structure from Motion techniques), (iii) the relationships between physical (hydrological and erosive) processes and biological activity, (iv) the study of sediment dynamics of badland and gully systems at the plot, catchment and basin scales, as well as (v) process-based exploration of the origin of these erosive landforms and their evolution in the present context of Global Change. If the EUGEO organization finds it feasible, the people involved in the organization of this session may also organize a supplementary one-day post-conference field trip for the participants of the conference to visit a set of research badland/gully sites near Barcelona (i.e., the Upper Llobregat basin and the Vallcebre experimental catchments).

Mariano Moreno De Las Heras (1); Milica Kasanin-Grubin (2); Ona Torra Truncal (3); Estela Nadal Romero (4); Francesc Gallart (5)
(1) University of Barcelona, Department of Geography, Barcelona, Spain, (2) University of Belgrade, Institute of Chemistry, Technology and Metalurgy, Centre of Chemistry, Belgrade, Serbia, (3) BarcelonaTECH Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Geotechnical Engineering and Geosciences, Barcelona, Spain, (4) Pyrenean Institute of Ecology (IPE), Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Zaragoza, Spain, (5) Institute of Environmental Assessment and Water Research (IDAEA), Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Barcelona, Spain

 
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