• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.61 no.6
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• pp.55-65
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• 2019

Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) is to estimate potential soil loss and has benefit in use with its simplicity. The equation is composed of five factors, one of the factors is the slope length and steepness factor (LS factor) that is for topographic property of fields to estimate potential soil loss. Since the USLE was developed, many equations to compute LS was suggested with field measurement. Nowadays the factor is often computed in GIS software with digital elevation model, however it was reported that the factor is very sensitive to the resolution of digital elevation model. In addition, the digital elevation model of high resolution less than 3 meter is required in small field application, however these inputs are not associate with the empirical models' backgrounds since the empirical models were derived in 22.1 meter field measurements. In the study, four equation to compute LS factor and two approaches to determine slope length and steepness were examined, and correction factor was suggested to provide reasonable precision in LS estimations. The correction factor is computed with field area and cell size of digital elevation model, thus the correction factor can be adapted in any USLE-based models using LS factor at field level.

• Journal of Korean Society of Rural Planning
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• v.11 no.4 s.29
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• pp.67-74
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• 2005

The Doam watershed is located at alpine areas and the annual average precipitation, including snow accumulation, is significant higher than other areas. Thus, pollutant laden runoff and sediment discharge from the alpine agricultural fields are causing water quality degradation at the Doam watershed. To estimate soil erosion from the agricultural fields, the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) has been widely used because of its simplicity to use. In the early spring at the Doam watershed, the stream flow increases because of snow melt, which results in erosion of loosened soil experiencing freezing and thaw during the winter. Also, extremely torrential rainfall, such as the typhoons 'RUSA' in 2002 and 'MAEMI' in 2003, caused significant amounts of soil erosion and sediment at the Doam watershed. However, the USLE model cannot simulate impacts on soil erosion of freezing and thaw of the soil. It cannot estimate sediment yield from a single torrential rainfall event. Also, it cannot simulate temporal changes in USLE input parameters. Thus, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model was investigated for its applicability to estimate soil erosion at the Doam watershed, instead of the widely used USLE model. The SWAT hydrology and erosion/sediment components were validated after calibration of the hydrologic component. The R$^2$ and Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient values are higher enough, thus it is found the SWAT model can be efficiently used to simulate hydrology and sediment yield at the Doam watershed. The effects of snow melt on SWAT estimated stream flow and sediment were investigated using long-term precipitation and temperature data at the Doam watershed. It was found significant amount of flow and sediment in the spring are contributed by melting snow accumulated during the winter. Two typhoons in 2002 and 2003, MAEMI and RUSA, caused 33% and 22% of total sediment yields at the Doam watershed, respectively. Thus, it is recommended that the SWAT model, capable of simulating snow melt, sediment yield from a single storm event, and long-term weather data, needs to be used in estimating soil erosion at alpine agricultural areas to develop successful soil erosion management instead of the USLE.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2020.06a
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• pp.172-172
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• 2020

In recent years, soil erosion has come to be regarded as an essential environmental problem in human life. Soil erosion causes various on- and off-site problems such as ecosystem destruction, decreased agricultural productivity, increased riverbed deposition, and deterioration of water quality in streams. To solve these problems caused by soil erosion, it is necessary to quantify where, when, how much soil erosion occurs. Empirical erosion models such as the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) family models have been widely used to make spatially distributed soil erosion vulnerability maps. Even if the models detect vulnerable sites relatively well by utilizing big data related to climate, geography, geology, land use, etc. within study domains, they do not adequately describe the physical process of soil erosion on the ground surface caused by rainfall or overland flow. In other words, such models remain powerful tools to distinguish erosion-prone areas at the macro scale but physics-based models are necessary to better analyze soil erosion and deposition and eroded particle transport. In this study, the physics-based Surface Soil Erosion Model (SSEM) was upgraded based on field survey information to produce sediment yield at the watershed scale. The modified model (hereafter MoSE) adopted new algorithms on rainfall kinematic energy and surface flow transport capacity to simulate soil erosion more reliably. For model validation, we applied the model to the Doam dam watershed in Gangwon-do and compared the simulation results with the USLE outputs. The results showed that the revised physics-based soil erosion model provided more improved and reliable simulation results than the USLE in terms of the spatial distribution of soil erosion and deposition.

• Journal of Korean Society for Geospatial Information Science
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.3-10
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• 2010

The development of various spatial information and GIS has led to the research on interpretation of natural phenomena and correlational studies. This study is aimed to analyze the correlation between RUSLE(Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation) around Nakdong River area during the period of 1955 to 2005 and the amount of area change in the islets at the estuary terrain calculated in the study "Change Detection at the Nakdong Estuary Delta using Satellite Image and GIS". For the calculation of RUSLE, The 'Revised-USLE' model, a modified USLE model commonly used in Korea was used. For the rainfall erosion factor to calculate and compare the area of islets, the actual observation data for one year before the observation of satellite image from all observatories across Korea was used. The correlation coefficient between RUSLE and area change of islets was 0.57 for Jinwoo Islet; 0.7 for Sinja Islet; 0.87 for Doyodeung. This results showed that there was a great influence from Doyodeung where the main water way of Nakdong River runs. This study showed that the study using USLE for various fields and through identifying the characteristics of each factor is useful to understand natural phenomenon in practice.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.991-997
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• 2011

Soil erosion and sediment has been known as one of pollutants causing water quality degradation in water bodies. With global warming issues worldwide, various soil erosion studies have been performed. Although on-site monitoring of sediment loss would be an ideal method to evaluate soil erosion condition, modeling approaches have been utilized to estimate soil erosion and to evaluate various best management practices on soil erosion reduction. Although the USLE has been used in soil erosion estimation for the last 40 years, the USLE model has limitations in estimating event-based soil erosion reflecting rainfall intensity and rainfall duration for long-term period. Thus, the calibrated model, capable of simulating soil erosion using hourly rainfall data, was utilized in this study to evaluate the effects of rainfall amount and rainfall intensity on soil erosion. It was found that USLE soil erosion value is $3.06ton\;ha^{-1}\;yr^{-1}$, while soil erosion values from 2006~2010 were $2.469ton\;ha^{-1}\;yr^{-1}$, $0.882ton\;ha^{-1}\;yr^{-1}$, $1.489ton\;ha^{-1}\;yr^{-1}$, $2.158ton\;ha^{-1}\;yr^{-1}$, $1.602ton\;ha^{-1}\;yr^{-1}$, respectively. Especially, soil erosion from single storm event for 2008-2010 would be responsible for 30% or more of annual soil loss. As shown in this study, hourly soil erosion estimation system would provide more detailed output from the study area. In addition, the effects of rainfall intensity on soil erosion could be evaluated with this system.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.52-64
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• 2020

The universal soil loss equation (USLE), a model for estimating the potential soil loss, has been used not only in research areas but also in establishing national policies in South Korea. Despite its wide applicability, USLE cannot adequately address the effect of seasonal variances. To overcome this limit, the ArcGIS-based Sediment Assessment Tool for Effective Erosion (ArcSATEEC) has been developed as an alternative model. Although the field-scale (< 100 ㎡) application of this model produced reliable estimation results, it is still challenging to validate accuracy of the model estimation because it only estimates potential soil losses, not the actual sediment yield. Therefore, in this study, a method for estimating actual soil loss based on the ArcSATEEC model was suggested. The model was applied to eight watersheds in South Korea to estimate sediment yields. Correction factor was introduced for each watershed, and the estimated sediment yield was compared with that of the estimated yield by LOAD ESTimator (LOADEST). Sediment yield estimation for all watersheds exhibited reliable results, and the validity of the proposed correction factor was confirmed, suggesting the correction factor needs to be considered in estimating actual soil loss.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Surveying, Geodesy, Photogrammetry, and Cartography Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.353-358
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• 2003

Soil loss by the rains has effect on natural environment. But It is difficult to find out the data that is surveyed in watershed. In this paper, we chose USLE erosion model, which could be connected easily with GSIS and available generally, and extracted factors which is entered model by using GSIS spatial analysis method. Especially, As revised USLE model, It should be applied in watershed and as it calculated soil loss before forest fire and behind, it analysed the degree that it have an effect on soil loss. Each analyzed factors and the result of soil loss estimate consist of 22m-pixel size, we could identify soil loss by each pixel and distribution form.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.58 no.6
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• pp.23-30
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• 2016

Soil loss is an accompanying phenomenon of hydrologic cycle in watersheds. Both rainfall drops and runoff lead to soil particle detachment, the detached soil particles are transported into streams by runoff. Here, a sediment-laden water problem can be issued if soil particles are severely detached and transported into stream in the watershed. There is a need to estimate or simulate soil erosion in watersheds so that an adequate plan to manage soil erosion can be established. Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE), therefore, was developed and modified by many researchers for their watersheds, moreover the simple model, USLE, has been employed in many hydrologic models for soil erosion simulations. While the USLE has been applied even in South-Korea, the model is often regarded as being limited in applications for the watersheds in South-Korea since monthly conditions against soil erosion on soil surface are not capable to represent. Thus, the monthly USLE factors against soil erosion, soil erodibility and crop management factors, were established for four major watersheds, which are Daecheong-dam, Soyang-dam, Juam-dam, and Imha-dam watersheds. The monthly factors were established by recent fifteen years from 2000 to 2015. Five crops were selected for the monthly crop management factor establishments. Soil loss estimations with the modified factors were compared to conventional approach that is average annual estimations. The differences ranged from 9.3 % (Juam-dam watershed) to 28.1 % (Daecheong-dam watershed), since the conventional approaches were not capable of seasonally and regionally different conditions.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.518-526
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• 2007

There have been serious soil erosion and water pollution problems caused by highland agriculture practices at Doam-dam watershed. Especially agricultural activities, chemical and organic fertilizer and pesticide applications, soil reconditioning to maintain soil fertility are known as primary causes of soil erosion and water qaulity degradation in the receiving water bodies. Among these, soil reconditioning can accelerate soil erosion rates. To develop soil erosion prevention practices, it is necessary to estimate the soil erosion from the watershed. Thus, the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) model has been developed and utilized to assess soil erosion. However, the USLE model cannot be used at watershed scale because it does not consider sediment delivery ratio (SDR) for watershed application. For this reason, the Sediment Assessment Tool for Effective Erosion Control (SA TEEC) was developed to assess the sediment yield at any point in the watershed. The USLE-based SA TEEC system can estimate the SDR using area-based SDR and slope-based SDR module. In this study, the SATEEC system was used to estimate soil erosion and sediment yield at the Doam-dam watershed using the soil properties from reconditioned agricultural fields. Based on the soil sampling and analysis, the US LE K factor was calculated and used in the SA TEEC system to analyze the possible errors of previous USLE application studies using soil properties from the digital soil map, and compared with that using soil properties obtained in this study. The estimated soil erosion at the Doam-dam watershed without using soil properties obtained in the soil sampling and analysis is 1,791,400 ton/year (123 ton/ha/year), while the soil erosion amount is 2,429,900 ton/year (166.8 ton/ha/year) with the use of soil properties from the soil sampling and analysis. There is 35 % increase in estimated soil erosion and sediment yield with the use of soil properties from soil reconditioned agricultural fields. Since significant amount of soil erosion are known to be occurring from the agricultural fields, the soil erosion and sediment yield from only agricultural fields was assessed. The soil erosion rate is 45.9 ton/ha/year without considering soil properties from soil reconditioned agricultural fields, while 105.3 ton/ha/year after considering soil properties obtained in this study, increased in 129%. This study shows that it is very important to use correct soil properties to assess soil erosion and sediment yield simulation. It is recommended that further studies are needed to develop environment friendly soil reconditioning method should be developed and implemented to decrease the speed of soil erosion rates and water quality degradation.

• Proceedings of the Korea Water Resources Association Conference
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• 2016.05a
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• pp.260-260
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• 2016

Soil erosion is a very serious problem from agricultural as well as environmental point of view. Various computer models have been used to estimate soil erosion and assess erosion control practice. Universal Soil loss equation (USLE) is a popular model which has been used in many countries around the world. Erosivity (USLE R-factor) is one of the USLE input parameters to reflect impacts of rainfall in computing soil loss. Value of R factor depends upon Energy (E) and maximum rainfall intensity of specific period ($I30_{max}$) of that rainfall event and thus can be calculated using higher temporal resolution rainfall data such as 10 minute interval. But 10 minute interval rainfall data may not be available in every part of the world. In that case we can use hourly rainfall data to compute this R factor. Maximum 60 minute rainfall ($I60_{max}$) can be used instead of maximum 30 minute rainfall ($I30_{max}$) as suggested by USLE manual. But the value of Average annual R factor computed using hourly rainfall data needs some correction factor so that it can be used in USLE model. The objective of our study are to derive relation between averages annual R factor values using 10 minute interval and hourly rainfall data and to determine correction coefficient for R factor using hourly Rainfall data.75 weather stations of Korea were selected for our study. Ten minute interval rainfall data for these stations were obtained from Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) and these data were changed to hourly rainfall data. R factor and $I60_{max}$ obtained from hourly rainfall data were compared with R factor and $I30_{max}$ obtained from 10 minute interval data. Linear relation between Average annual R factor obtained from 10 minute interval rainfall and from hourly data was derived with $R^2=0.69$. Correction coefficient was developed for the R factor calculated using hourly rainfall data.. Similarly, the relation was obtained between event wise $I30_{max}$ and $I60_{max}$ with higher $R^2$ value of 0.91. Thus $I30_{max}$ can be estimated from I60max with higher accuracy and thus the hourly rainfall data can be used to determine R factor more precisely by multiplying Energy of each rainfall event with this corrected $I60_{max}$.