Quantitative Assessment Of Potential Soil Erosion In The Eastern Siberia Region (Using The Example Of The Markha River Basin)

• Main Author: Oleg P. Yermolaev, Kirill A. Maltsev
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Zenodo 2018
• Subjects: the Arctic watershed, the Asian part of Russia, watershed of the Lena River, small river basins, the Markha River, GIS technologies, soil losses, runoff of suspended sediments.; Arctic; Markha; lena river; Siberia
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1439335; https://zenodo.org/record/1439335

The paper presents the results of estimations of potential soil erosion in the basins of the small rivers of the Markha River watershed (the Lena River basin), using geoinformation technologies. The creation of specialized geoinformation database and GIS for the basins of small rivers of the Arctic watershed of the Asian part of Russia is considered in detail, in the scale 1: 1,000,000, adopted for the research, corresponding to the regional level of spatial detail. The source materials for filling the geodatabase were the following: digital model of relief (the unit of regular raster grid was 250*250 m), maps of climatic parameters, maps of land cover properties, maps of landscape structure, and types of land use. The prototype of created geodatabase was used for estimation of potential soil losses on the test site, in the conditions of a flat relief - in the Markha River basin. Calculations were carried out, using the mathematical formula, recommended by the Scientific-Research Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Channel Processes of the Moscow State University n.a. M.V. Lomonosov. This model provides for the calculations of soil losses by the following categories: soil losses from snowmelt runoff, soil losses from storm runoff, potential total soil losses. The maximum possible values of the potential soil losses were obtained. The next stage of calculations provided for additional calibration of input parameters, in particular, consideration of the types of land cover. The results of calculations were approximate to the actual values of soil losses. In order to verify the values of soil losses in the Markha River basin, the values of runoff of suspended sediments were used. The obtained values are quite similar and comparable. The information is new. Keywords: the Arctic watershed, the Asian part of Russia, watershed of the Lena River, small river basins, the Markha River, GIS technologies, soil losses, runoff of suspended sediments.