Rapid assessment of regional soil erosion based on fuzzy neural system and GIS

Reliable soil erosion investigation and assessment are important parts for implementing effective soil and water conservation measure. In order to assess soil erosion status at regional scale rapidly and effectively, this paper presented a assessment approach integrating fuzzy neural system and GIS technique. By using that approach, five environment factors of soil erosion were selected as evaluating indicators, and proper basic assessment units were then created with GIS overlay analysis, after that comprehensive erosion assessment rules for basic assessment units were extracted from field survey data with neuro-fuzzy system. Thus it was capable to establish evaluating criteria, which could reflect the inherent characters between the multiple environment factors and the soil erosion patterns in the specific areas. Supported with GIS technique, it was easily to scale up erosion assessment from field-plot scale to regional scale. Application of the approach to Hubei Province, the results showed that about 30.1% of the total land area in Hubei Province was affected by different levels of soil erosion problem. In the western and eastern mountain areas soil erosion damages were very severe, and the northern hills mainly suffered from moderate erosion and chiefly slight in the central plains. Comparison of the results with actual conditions, it indicated that they were in good conformity, proving that the approach was reasonable and applicable.