Mapping of potential soil loss due to erosion in Oke-Oyi dam agricultural watershed, Ilorin, Nigeria
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
The increasing rate of urbanization in Nigeria has led to serious disruption in the landscape which has made some areas (on-site and off-site) susceptible to various forms of erosion. Due to scarce resources, erosion goes on continually without notice. Erosion most times is only observed when gullies are beginning to form, at this stage much damage would have been inflicted on the soil and the recovery process will be more expensive compared to what it would have been if pre-emptive measures were taken. In this regard, therefore, there is need for an inquisition to determine the current state of soils in the watersheds of Nigeria by estimating and mapping soil loss. To achieve this, a study was conducted in the Oke-Oyi dam watershed in Ilorin, Nigeria to estimate annual soil loss using the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) with the aid of Remote Sensing and GIS techniques. Thirty-eight (38) samples of surface (0–15 cm depth) soil were collected from the watershed area with respect to the topography and land use/cover type. Secondary data included a multispectral satellite image of Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI), with a spatial resolution of 30 m for the purpose of land use and cover mapping of the area. A Shuttle Radar Topological Mission (SRTM) Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of 30 m spatial resolution was used to derive the topographical map of the area. Monthly precipitation data for the last 25 years which have been recorded and available in the nearby Ilorin International Airport Meteorological Station was used to derive the erosivity of the area. Results indicated that rainfall erosivity of the study area was 83.48 MJ mm ha-1 y-1 and was projected to reach 94.17 MJ mm ha-1 y-1 in the next decade. Erodibility of the soil was high whereas the annual soil loss ranged from 0 to 1,272 t ha-1 y-1. Soil loss in 22% (164 ha) of the study area was severe. The soil loss in the watershed fell far above the maximum tolerable limit of 12 t ha-1 y-1 set by the FAO for sustainable land use. The total annual soil loss for the whole watershed is about 327,709.58 t ha-1 y-1 with a mean soil loss of about 1,310.84 t ha-1 y-1, this figure is expected to continue to rise if adequate soil management measures are not expediently instituted. In the long term, if the present erosion control practices of contouring are substituted with strip-cropping or terracing, soil loss will be reduced from 630.73 t ha-1 y-1 to 315.40 t ha-1 y-1 (50%) and 126.15 t ha-1 y-1 (80%), respectively.
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
References
Al-Ansari, N.A. 2013. Management of water resources in Iraq: perspectives and prognoses. Engineering. 5: 667–684.
Anejionu, O.C.D., P.C. Nwilo and E.S. Ebinne. 2013. Long term assessment and mapping of erosion hotspots in South East Nigeria. In: Proceedings of the FIG Working Week 2013: Environment for Sustainability, 6–10 May 2013. Abuja, Nigeria.
Ano, A.O. and J.A. Agwu. 2005. Effect of animal manure on selected soil chemical properties. Nigerian J. Soil Sci. 15: 14–19.
de Carvalho, D.F., C.A. Montebeller, E.M. Franco, R. Valcarcel and I. Bertol. 2005. Rainfall patterns and erosion indices at Seropedica and Nova Friburgo, Rio de Janeiro - Brazil. R. Bras. Eng. Agríc. Ambiental, Campina Grande. 9(1): 7–14.
Efe, R., D. Ekinci and I. Curebal. 2008. Erosion analysis of Sahin Creek watershed (NW of Turkey) using GIS based on RUSLE (3d) method. J. Appl. Sci. 8(1): 49–58.
Eifediyi, E.K., S.U. Remison, H.E. Ahamefule, K.O. Azeez and P.O. Fesobi. 2017. Performance of Agric. Environ. 9(1): 5–17.
European Environment Agency. 1998. Europe’s Environment: The Second Assessment. State of the Environment Report No. 2/1998. Aarhus, Denmark.
FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations). 1984. Types of erosion damage, pp. 23–25. In: Soil Erosion by Water: Some Measures for Its Control on Cultivated Lands. United Nations, USA.
Gbadegesin, A.S. and E.O. Oriola. 2004. Evaluation of irrigation farming at Oke-Oyi, Kwara state, Nigeria. Agrosearch. 6(1): 39–47.
Gee, G.W. and J.W. Bauder. 1986. Particle-size analysis, pp. 383–411. In: A. Klute, (Ed), Methods of Soil Analysis Part 1: Physical and Mineralogical Methods. American Society of Agronomy and Soil Science Society of America, Madison, Wisconsin, USA.
Gelagay, H.S. and A.S. Minale. 2016. Soil loss estimation using GIS and remote sensing techniques: a case of Koga watershed, Northwestern Ethiopia. Int. Soil Water Conserv. Res. 4(2): 126–136.
Hudson, N.W. 1981. Instrumentation for studies of the erosive power of rainfall, pp. 383–390. In: Proceedings of the Florence Symposium: Erosion and Sediment Transport Measurement, 22–26 June 1981, Ontario, Canada.
Karaburun, A. 2010. Estimation of C factor for soil erosion modelling using NDVI in Buyukcekmece watershed. Ozean J. Appl. Sci. 3(1): 77–85.
Kim, S.H. and P.Y. Julien. 2006. Soil erosion modeling using RUSLE and GIS on the IMHA watershed. Water Eng. Res. 7(1): 29–41.
Korea Institute of Construction Technology. 1992. The development of selection standard for calculation method of unit sediment yield in river. Research Paper 89-WR-113. South Korea.
Kouli, M., P. Soupios and F. Vallianatos 2009. Soil erosion prediction using the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) in a GIS framework, Chania, Northwestern Crete, Greece. Environ. Geol. 57: 483–497.
Kuok, K.K.K., D.Y.S. Mah and P.C. Chiu. 2013. Evaluation of C and P factors in Universal Soil Loss Equation on trapping sediment: case study of Santubong river. J. Water Resour. Prot. 5: 1149–1154.
Lee, G.S. and K.H. Lee. 2006. Scaling effect for estimating soil loss in the RUSLE model using remotely sensed geospatial data in Korea. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss. 3(1): 135–157.
Lu, D., G. Li, G.S. Valladares and M. Batistella. 2004. Mapping soil erosion risk in Rondonia, Brazilian Amazonia: using RUSLE, remote sensing and GIS. Land Degrad. Dev. 15(5): 499–512.
Lufafa, A., M.M. Tenywa, M. Isabirye, M.J.G. Majaliwa and P.L. Woomer. 2003. Prediction of soil erosion in a Lake Victoria basin catchment using a GIS-based Universal Soil Loss model. Agric. Syst. 76(3): 883–894.
Machado, R.L., D.F. de Carvalho, J.R. Costa, D.H. de Oliveira Neto and M.F. Pinto. 2008. Analysis of rainfall erosivity associated to pluvial precipitation patterns in the Ribeirão Das Lajes Region, Rio De Janeiro State, Brazil. R. Bras. Ci. Solo. 32: 2113–2123.
Mbagwu, J.S.C. and F.K. Salako. 1985. Estimation of potential soil erosion losses on an agricultural watershed in southeastern Nigeria. Beitr. Trop. Landwirtsch. Veterinarmed. 23: 385–395.
Ogunleye, K.Y. and O.T. Yekinni. 2012. Crop farmers’ knowledge level of climate change in Ilorin East Local Government Area of Nigeria. Dev. Ctry. Stud. 2(7): 6–13.
Panagos, P., P. Borrelli and K. Meusburger. 2015. A new European slope length and steepness factor (LS-Factor) for modeling soil erosion by water. Geosciences. 5(2):117–126.
Parveen, R. and U. Kumar. 2012. Integrated approach of Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) and Geographical Information System (GIS) for soil loss risk assessment in upper south Koel Basin, Jharkhand. J. Geogr. Inf. Syst. 4(6): 588–596.
Pérez-Rodríguez, R., M.J. Marques and R. Bienes. 2007. Spatial variability of the soil erodibility parameters and their relation with the soil map at subgroup level. Sci. Total Environ. 378(1–2): 166–173.
Piccarreta, M., D. Capolongo, F. Boenzi and M. Bentivenga. 2006. Implications of decadal changes in precipitation and land use policy to soil erosion in Basilicata, Italy. Catena. 65: 138–151.
Renard, K.G., G.R. Foster, G.A. Weesies, D.K. McCool and D.C. Yoder. 1997. Predicting Soil Erosion by Water: A Guide to Conservation Planning with the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE). Agriculture Handbook No. 703. United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Washington, D.C., USA.
Ritchie, J.C. and J.R. McHenry. 1990. Application of radioactive fallout cesium-137 for measuring soil erosion and sediment accumulation rates and patterns: a review. J. Environ. Qual. 19: 215–233.
Roose, E.J. 1977. Use of the Universal Soil Loss Equation to predict erosion in west Africa, pp. 60–74. In: G.R. Foster, (Ed), Soil Erosion: Prediction and Control. Special Publication No. 21. Soil Conservation Society of America Ankeny, Iowa, USA.
Selassie, Y.G. and Y. Belay. 2013. Costs of nutrient losses in priceless soils eroded from the highlands of northwestern Ethiopia. J. Agric. Sci. 5(7): 227–235.
Shabani, F., L. Kumar and A. Esmaeili. 2014. Improvement to the prediction of the USLE K factor. Geomorphology. 204: 229–234.
Simms, A.D., C.D. Woodroffe and B.G. Jones. 2003. Application of RUSLE for erosion management in a coastal catchment, southern NSW, pp. 678–683. In: Proceedings of the International Congress on Modeling and Simulation: Integrative Modeling of Biophysical, Social and Economic Systems for Resource Management Solutions, 14–17 July 2003, Townsville, Queensland, Australia.
Szilassi, P., G. Jordan, A. van Rompaey and G. Csillag. 2006. Impacts of historical land use changes on erosion and agricultural soil properties in the Kali Basin at Lake Balaton, Hungary. Catena. 68(2–3): 96–108.
Tiruneh, G. and M. Ayalew. 2015. Soil loss estimation using geographic information system in Enfraz watershed for soil conservation planning in highlands of Ethiopia. Int. J. Agril. Res. Innov. & Tech. 5(2): 21–30.
Tiwari, A.K., L.M. Risse and M.A. Nearing. 2000. Evaluation of WEPP and its comparison with USLE and RUSLE. Transactions of the ASAE. 43(5): 1129–1135.
Trimble, S.W. and P. Crosson. 2000. U.S. soil erosion rates—myth and reality. Science. 289: 248–250.
Vaezi, A.R., H.A. Bahrami, S.H.R. Sadeghi and M.H. Mahdian. 2010. Modeling relationship between runoff and soil properties in dry-farming lands, NW Iran. Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss. 7: 2577–2607.
Van der Knijff, J.M., R.J.A. Jones and L. Montanarella. 2000. Soil Erosion Risk Assessment in Italy. European Soil Bureau, Ispra, Italy.
Vannière, B., G. Bossuet, A.V. Walter-Simonnet, E. Gauthier, P. Barral, C. Petit, M. Buatier and A. Daubigney. 2003. Land use change, soil erosion and alluvial dynamic in the lower Doubs Valley over the 1st millennium AD (Neublans, Jura, France). J. Archaeol. Sci. 30(10): 1283–1299.
Walkley, A.J. and I.A. Black. 1934. Estimation of soil organic carbon by the chromic acid titration method. Soil Sci. 37: 29–38.
Wischmeier, W.H. and D.D. Smith. 1978. Predicting Rainfall Erosion Losses - A Guide to Conservation Planning. Agriculture Handbook No. 537. United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C., USA.
Wischmeier, W.H., C.B. Johnson and B.V. Cross 1971. A soil erodibility nomograph for farmland and construction sites. J. Soil Water Conserv. 26: 189–193.
Yildirim, U. and T. Erkal. 2013. Assessment of soil erosion in the Ihsaniye watershed area, Afyonkarahisar, Turkey. Sci. Res. Essays. 8(10): 388–397.
Zeleke, G. 2000. Landscape Dynamics and Soil Erosion Process Modelling in the North-western Ethiopia Highlands. African Studies Series A 16. Geographica Bernensia, Berne, Switzerland.
Zhou, P., O. Luukkanen, T. Tokola and J. Nieminen. 2008. Effect of vegetation cover on soil erosion in a mountainous watershed. Catena. 75(3): 319–325.