Predicting sediment deposition rate in check-dams using machine learning techniques and high-resolution DEMs

Sediments accumulated in check dams are a valuable measure to estimate soil erosion rates. Here, geographic information systems (GIS) and three machine learning techniques (MARS-multivariate adaptive regression splines, RF-random forest and SVM-support vector machine) were used, for the first time, to predict sediment deposition rate (SR) in check-dams located in six watersheds in SW Spain. There, 160 dry-stone check dams (~ 77.8 check-dams km−2), accumulated sediments during a period that varied from 11 to 23 years. The SR was estimated in former research using a topographical method and a high-resolution Digital Elevation Model (DEM) (average of 0.14 m3 ha−1 year−1). Nine environmental-to…