Analysis of the impact of land cover spatial structure change on the erosion processes in the catchment

Abstract

Soil erosion is one of the main environmental problems of this time. Erosion in its recent accelerated form is the reflection of the human activities in the landscape. Soil erosion is a complicated process. Its behaviour and final rate are results of an interaction of whole group of factors. One of these factors is the character of land cover whose main role in the erosion process consists in its protective function. Intensive land use do not dispense with the land cover change and the change of its spatial distribution thus the main content of this contribution is the study of the influence of the land cover change on the erosion processes in the catchment. To quantify that the dynamic erosion SWAT model was used together with the GIS tools. As a study area the Stonavka river catchment was chosen and the erosion processes were analysed using the three CORINE Land Cover layers (specifically CORINE Land Cover of the years 1990, 2000 and 2006) as a model input. The outputs of the analyses in the form of average annual specific sediment loss from the catchment were relativized to the reference years 1990 and following 2000 and were cartographically visualized in the form of cartograms.