Investigating the performance of the entropy maximum model in determining the importance of effective environmental factors in creating gully erosion in semi-arid areas

One of the most important types of erosion that causes widespread land degradation is gully erosion which has many changes in different climates. In this study, environmental factors such as soil type information layers, Lithology, land use, NDVI, precipitation, Drainage density and distance to drainage and climate type were obtained using GIS for Sarab Halil watershed of Kerman province. Then, using PCA method, the most important environmental factors were identified and finally, using entropy maximum model, the map of the areas prone to gully erosion was obtained using environmental factors. The results showed that the most important environmental factors affecting gully erosion in the study area are climate, lithology, precipitation and soil type. Map of susceptible areas of gully erosion to environmental factors showed that environmental factors in east, south and southeast have more effects on reducing gully erosion and increase to the center of watershed and north and west of the watershed and the effects of environmental factors in increasing gully erosion increase. Meanwhile, the AUC in calibration modes of entropy maximum model was 0.861 and in validation mode was 0.837. Therefore, the entropy maximum model showed excellent ability to predict prone areas to gully erosion and the model is assumed to be excellent.