Effect of Land Use Change on Soil Erosion in the Upper Yom Sub-watershed

Abstract

This study assessed the effect of land use change on soil erosion in the upper Yom sub-watershed. The objectives were to determine the land use changes during 2007-2018 and applied the Dyna-CLUE model to predict future land use. We estimate that the expansion in area under agriculture in degraded forest and miscellaneous land was about 3% of the total area and the appropriate land use based on the watershed classification (class I and II) by using GIS. Moreover, the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) was used to estimate the soil erosion under the different land use types. The results showed that the forest area was mostly decreased at about 6.62% of the total area, while the agricultural area was increased about 7.13% of the total area. The land use prediction model indicated that the degraded forest would decrease, while the agricultural area would increase. The suitable land use based on the watershed classification (class I and II) indicated to an increase in the dense deciduous forest area, by about 3.89% of the total area. For the soil erosion estimation with the different land use types, we found that a land use according to the watershed classification (class I and II) with soil and water conservation on the terraces was the most, as indicated by a decrease in soil erosion rate of 54.77% when compared to a scenario without soil and water conservation.

Keywords: Land use change, Soil erosion, Upper Yom sub-watershed.