Assessment of Soil Erosion under Various Land-use/Land-cover(LULC) and Annual Rainfall Conditions in the Kubanni River Watershed, using RUSLE

Abstract

The current study aims to assess the problem of soil erosion in the Kubanni River watershedasaresult of gradual land use/land cover (LULC) conversion. The Revised Universal Soil LossEquation (RUSLE) model with GIS data is used to achieve this goal. The investigation revealsasignificant amount of soil erosion for its size, with an annual average of 388.1 tonnes per hectareper year for the 2022 LULC and decreasing to 285.11 tons/ha/yr when the LULCdescendsto2013. This study examined a situation relevant to LULC, when rainfall increased, suggestingthepossible aggravation of soil erosion under these conditions. The paper proposes using traditional
agriculturally based soil conservation strategies to control and avoid soil erosion. Terracing, contouring, and strip cropping were the three agricultural practices evaluated. Terracingwassuggested as the most effective method, capable of reducing yearly soil loss by at least 50%. Asa result, it is offered as a partial solution to protect rural agriculturally dominated watershedsfrom soil erosion and to improve land management within the watershed.