Soil Loss: Measured and Modeled
Measure gully erosion using LIDAR data, model soil loss using RUSLE2.
130 acres — Henry County, Illinois
64 ft of relief · 5.1% mean slope · 8 soils
Change from 2009 to 2019, with 1.6 cm resolution
Areas in red lose soil. Blue areas get filled.
23 patches, ranked
Channel median over 10.5 years is zero. The signal is the tail, and it is spatially coherent.
| Area | Median drop | Deepest |
|---|---|---|
| 1,913 m² | -0.16 m | -0.99 m |
| 1,183 m² | -0.10 m | -0.38 m |
| 1,071 m² | -0.09 m | -0.23 m |
| 1,025 m² | -0.09 m | -0.27 m |
9,753 m² · 21.6% of the channel network · 3.6× enriched over interfluve.
RUSLE2 calculations over the field
Annual soil loss
5.19t/ac/yr
Over T by 2.2
Tolerance (T)
3.0t/ac/yr
Sediment delivery
5.19t/ac/yr
L factor
1.1748
S factor
0.6057
Calculated using the RUSLE2 model directly integrated into the system. Available over API — see the services.agkit.io catalog.