Soil erosion risk assessment with CORINE model: case study in the Danjiangkou Reservoir region, China

Soil erosion is one of the major threats to the conservation of soil and water resources in the Danjiangkou Reservoir region (DRR), China. In order to describe the areas with high soil erosion risk (SER) and to develop adequate erosion prevention measures, SER in the DRR was assessed by integrating the CORINE model with GIS and RS. The main factors of soil erosion including erosivitiy, soil erodibility, topography and vegetation cover were determined from daily meteorological data, field survey soil profile data and soil sample analysis, digital elevation model (DEM), and land use and land cover (LULC), respectively. Landsat 5 TM imagery was used to generate a LULC classification. The results indicate that 59.1%, 31.2%, and 2.3% of the study area were under low, moderate, and high actual erosion risks, respectively. The results also indicate the study area is in low to moderate erosion risk level on the whole. The areas with moderate to high erosion risk continuously distributed in the southwest of the study area, and sporadically distributed in the north of the study area. Low erosion risk areas mainly located in the east. Up till now, most of the semi-quantitative models have not been applied extensively. The semi-quantitative CORINE model was mostly applied in the European and Mediterranean countries, while spatial comparison of actual SER map and field investigation in this study indicates that the CORINE model can be applicable in the monsoon region of China.