Search results for "gully erosion"
showing 8 items of 28 documents
Predicting gully occurrence at watershed scale: Comparing topographic indices and multivariate statistical models
2020
In this study, the ability of five topographic indices to predict the gully trajectories observed in two adjacent watersheds located in Sicily (Italy) was evaluated. Two of these indices, named MSPI and MTWI, as far as we know, have never been employed to this aim. They were obtained by multiplying the stream power index (SPI) and the topographic wetness index (TWI), respectively, by the convergence index (CI). The predictive ability of the topographic indices was measured by using both cut-off independent (AUC: area under the receiver operating characteristic curve) and dependent statistics (Cohen's kappa index κ, sensitivity, specificity). These statistics were calculated also for 100 MAR…
A GIS-based approach for gully erosion susceptibility modelling: a test in Sicily, Italy
2013
The aim of this study is to analyze the susceptibility conditions to gully erosion phenomena in the Magazzolo River basin and to test a method that allows for driving the factors selection. The study area is one of the largest (225 km2) watershed of southern Sicily and it is mostly characterized by gentle slopes carved into clayey and evaporitic sediments, except for the northern sector where carbonatic rocks give rise to steep slopes. In order to obtain a quantitative evaluation of gully erosion susceptibility, statistical relationships between the spatial distributions of gullies affecting the area and a set of twelve environmental variables were analyzed. Stereoscopic analysis of aerial …
Using very high resolution (VHR) imagery within a GEOBIA framework for gully mapping: an application to the Calhoun Critical Zone Observatory
2019
AbstractGully erosion is a form of accelerated erosion that may affect soil productivity, restrict land use, and lead to an increase of risk to infrastructure. An accurate mapping of these landforms can be difficult because of the presence of dense canopy and/or the wide spatial extent of some gullies. Even where possible, mapping of gullies through conventional field surveying can be an intensive and expensive activity. The recent widespread availability of very high resolution (VHR) imagery has led to a remarkable growth in the availability of terrain information, thus providing a basis for the development of new methodologies for analyzing Earth's surfaces. This work aims to develop a ge…
Gully Erosion Susceptibility Mapping Using Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines—Replications and Sample Size Scenarios
2019
Soil erosion is a serious problem affecting numerous countries, especially, gully erosion. In the current research, GIS techniques and MARS (Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines) algorithm were considered to evaluate gully erosion susceptibility mapping among others. The study was conducted in a specific section of the Gorganroud Watershed in Golestan Province (Northern Iran), covering 2142.64 km2 which is intensely influenced by gully erosion. First, Google Earth images, field surveys, and national reports were used to provide a gully-hedcut evaluation map consisting of 307 gully-hedcut points. Eighteen gully erosion conditioning factors including significant geoenvironmental and morph…
Modelling of piping collapses and gully headcut landforms: Evaluating topographic variables from different types of DEM
2021
Abstract The geomorphic studies are extremely dependent on the quality and spatial resolution of digital elevation model (DEM) data. The unique terrain characteristics of a particular landscape are derived from DEM, which are responsible for initiation and development of ephemeral gullies. As the topographic features of an area significantly influences on the erosive power of the water flow, it is an important task the extraction of terrain features from DEM to properly research gully erosion. Alongside, topography is highly correlated with other geo-environmental factors i.e. geology, climate, soil types, vegetation density and floristic composition, runoff generation, which ultimately inf…
Landslides and gully slope erosion on the banks of the Gauja River between the towns of Sigulda and Līgatne
2013
This study examines contemporary and past slope erosion processes in the Gauja River valley and adjoining area between the towns of Sigulda and Līgatne. In the field survey landslides and gullies were mapped. Spatial landslide and gully data were correlated with the landslide- and gully-related features (local relief, slope lithology, slope form, slope angle and density of gullies). A novel approach was applied to establish the relationships between slope processes and factors influencing them. This approach uses correlation between raster values of landslide-related factors in specific slope sections and the number of slope processes in these sections to determine the areas prone to slope …
Assessment of Gully Erosion Susceptibility Using Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines and Accounting for Terrain Connectivity
2017
In this work, we assessed gully erosion susceptibility in two adjacent cultivated catchments of Sicily (Italy) by employing multivariate adaptive regression splines and a set of geo-environmental variables. To explore the influence of hydrological connectivity on gully occurrence, we measured the changes of performance occurred when adding one by one nine predictors reflecting terrain connectivity to a base model that included contributing area and slope gradient. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and the area under the ROC curve were used to evaluate model performance. Gully predictive models were trained in both the catchments and submitted to internal (in the calibration cat…
Proposing a Novel Predictive Technique for Gully Erosion Susceptibility Mapping in Arid and Semi-arid Regions (Iran)
2019
© 2019 by the authors. Gully erosion is considered to be one of the main causes of land degradation in arid and semi-arid territories around the world. In this research, gully erosion susceptibility mapping was carried out in Semnan province (Iran) as a case study in which we tested the efficiency of the index of entropy (IoE), the Vlse Kriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje (VIKOR) method, and their combination. Remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS) were used to reduce the time and costs needed for rapid assessment of gully erosion. Firstly, a gully erosion inventory map (GEIM) with 206 gully locations was obtained from various sources and randomly divided into t…