Watershed Management Research (Pajouhesh & Sazandegi) No 108 pp: 92-110 Estimation Method of Soil Erosion Using Integrated Method of Geomorphology-AHP (Case study: Latian catchment, Iran)

Various erosion models have been introduced since the beginning of the 20th century. However, application of these empirical models has been limited to specific climatic and geographical conditions. In the previous models, a method was developed to assess soil erosion based on land use information. In this paper, we present another approach that uses environmental data to assess soil erosion. This article presents one of these efforts in applying Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) which has shown promising results in estimation of soil erosion. In this regard, total six criteria(vegetation, soil, topography, land use, climatology, geology) and sixteen indicators(percentage coverage vegetation, growing forms, soil texture, infiltration, organic matter, slope, aspect, land use, type of precipitation, average annual rainfall and lithology) were considered. The weight of each thematic layer is determined through the AHP technique. This model is then applied in predicting soil erosion. The results indicate that the presented methodology is practicable for establishing a risk assessment model for soil erosion.