Soil erosion mapping in sediment gauged watersheds of Iran

Soil, as one of the components of any ecosystem and an important source of food production, has a very serious role in the continuation of human life. Therefore, the need to support and protect the soil and prevent its erosion is essential. Regarding the amount of soil erosion and sediment yield in the country, different figures have been mentioned and in some studies, the difference is with several times. These figures vary from less than one to more than five billion tons per year. Therefore, calculating and plotting erosion and sedimet yield maps provides important information that is used in the design of dams, reservoirs, canals, soil protection operations, onsite and offsite erosion damage assessment, and land use planning and land capability assessment projects. Soil erosion map is one of the basic, scientific and applied maps in various executive, research and educational sectors. Due to the need of determining the amount of soil erosion and sediment yield for the entire country and determining the executive priorities in areas with high soil erosion potential, this project was defined and carried out by the Soil Conservation and Watershed Management Research Institute. Accordingly, the watersheds of the seventh category were divided into seven regions or districts, including 1) Eastern Alborz 2) Middle Alborz 3) Western Alborz 4) Central Iran 5) North Zagros 6) Middle Zagros and 7) South Zagros. Long-term sedimen data of 118 hydrometric stations in these areas were analyzed and the amount of sediment in each station was determined by the logged mean load within discharge classes method. According to the amount of river bedload rates and using EPM model, the amount of sediment yield and cosidering sediment delivery ratio of watersheds, the amount of soil erosion were etermined and the soil erosion map of watersheds overlooking hydrometric stations was prepared. Results showed that the average sediment yield and soil erosion in the watersheds overlooking hydrometric stations are 3.3 and 16 tons per hectare per year, respectively. The lowest and highest soil erosion rates of 9 and 32.4 tons per hectare, belong to the Middle Zagros and South Zagros regions, respectively.