Soil Erosion Risk Assessment Using GIS and ICONA: A Case Study in Kahramanmaras, Turkey

Abstract

Turkey is one of the countries that have highest rate of soil erosion due to negative topographic structure, soil and climate characteristics along with the problems caused by improper land use practices. Besides other negative effects, soil erosion is the source of sediment that fills reservoirs and thus shortens economic life of dams. Therefore, this study has been carried out on Haman river basin which deposits sediments into Menzelet Dam Lake located in north of Kahramanmaras. In this study, ICONA (Institute for the COnservation of the NAture) model was used to assess soil erosion risk using Geographic Information System (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) techniques. ICONA erosion risk map has been derived by overlaying soil erodibility and soil conservation maps. NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index) values were generated from Landsat 5 TM satellite imagery. According to the results, it was determined that 53.67 % of the study area has very high risk, 38.1 % of the area has high risk, 6.94 % of the area has medium risk, 1.17 % of the area has low risk, and 0.12 % of the area has very low risk of soil erosion.

Keywords

• ICONA
• land use
• NDVI
• soil erosion
• topography

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