Prediction of Land Use Management Scenarios Impact on Water Erosion Risk in Kashidar Watershed, Azadshahr, Golestan Province

Soil erosion is a serious problem especially in northern parts of Iran. One themost important side effects on soil erosion may be the decline in qualities of soil refers toagricultural productivity. So it is very important to assess the soil erosion risk for thesustainable development of agriculture. This study outlines ways undertaken to provide anew tool to manage water erosion from physical and economical perspectives. KashidarWatershed in north of Iran is used as a case study. The focus of this study is on exploringthe economic and physical impacts of eight land use-based scenarios for water erosionmanagement as well as conducting a trade-off analysis using the Multi-Criteria DecisionMaking (MCDM) technique. This involves developing a modeling system to assist decisionmakers in formulating scenarios, analyzing the impacts of these scenarios on water erosion,interpreting and suggesting appropriate scenarios for implementation in the area. This studywas conducted with object of modeling and assessing soil erosion risk in KashidarWatershed with the application of IMAGELDM. Rainfall erosivity index, relief index, soilerosivity index and land cover index were four basic factors used in IMAGELDM. Soilerosion risk can be divided into six groups. Furthermore, the spatial distributioncharacteristics were also analyzed with the application of GIS in the view of elevation, landuse types. Among 8 scenarios for water erosion management, most appropriate ones thathave minimum proportion of high water erosion hazard classes, maximum gross marginand minimum establishment cost were chosen as best scenarios.