Potencialidad de las técnicas SIG para la gestión medioambiental: Aplicación al estudio de la erosión

Abstract

Soil loss due to erosion constitutes a serious environmental problem, its importance is even more severe in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula. To manage this problem, areas that are more vulnerable to erosion must be identified through risk analysis in order to spatially target soil conservation measures. For this task, as for many others, most of the available tools can be based on Geographical Information Systems (GIS). This paper assesses the potential of GIS for erosion evaluation, applied to study the erosion in the Valley of Granada. Erosion is evaluated using the USLE model (Universal Soil Loss Equation) to calculate soil loss rates, this data is the base for creating erosive states cartography that allows the identification of the areas most susceptible to erosion.