Application of GIS to estimate soil erosion using RUSLE

This paper describes the use of the Arc/Info and ArcView GIS tools to estimate soil erosion with Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE). Calculations are be done by using capabilities available. This study start with a digital elevation model (DEM) of Shaanxi, which was created by digitizing contour and spot heights from the topographic map on 1∶250 000 scale and grid themes for the USLEK andC factors. It is note worthy that USLEK can be obtained by adding the K factor as an attribute to a soil theme's table. TheC can be obtained from tables or using the information about land use and management given by USLE program. A land use theme can be used to add theC factors as an attribute field. The purpose of this study is to establish spatial information of soil erosion using USLE and GIS and discuss the analysis of the soil erosion and slope failures in GIS and formulate the possible framework.