Soil Erosion Risk Assessment Using ICONA Model and GIS/RS(Case Study: Aghagir Area)

Soil erosion is one of the most important environmental problems in most area of World. The aim of this research performed in Aghagir Watershed located in Qazvin province is to create map of the distribution soil erosion risk classes using ICONA model. This study uses remote sensing to describe the contribution of several factors that control erosion. The soil erosion risk assessment stages of this model are occurred seven steps. Main parameters are slope, geology, land use, land cover information. A potential erosion risk map was obtained from the slope and lithofacies layers generated using a digital elevation model (DEM) and digital geological and soil maps and Land use and land cover layers derived from ETM+ 2013 image data classification were combined to produce the soil protection map. As a result of Soil erodibility showed 1.5% (Very low), 8.6% (Low), 69.4% (Medium), 7.2% (High) and 13.12% (Extreme). Map soil protection showed 8.2% (Maximum protection), 42.2% (High protection), 39.9% (Medium protection) and 9.6% (Minimum protection). Soil erodibility and soil protection layers were combined to form the ICONA soil erosion status map in the final step. This final map showed that 22.4% of the study area had high and very high for erosion sensitivity. On the other land, 48.1% of the study area has lower (very low, low) erosion condition. Only 29.4 of the total area has moderate erosion risk class. This study also showed that GIS and RS techniques play an important role in determine of soil erosion risk studies

Keywords:

iCONA , soil erosion , gis and rs , Aghagir watershed