DEM data availability and GIS-assisted processing of the data have extended the usage of DEM to a great extent. Taking 5 m grid resolution DEMs of 48 test areas in the Loess Plateau in north Shaanxi as test data, this paper introduces the definition, calculation, extraction and stable threshold area of terrain driving force (T_d) for soil erosion. Then, spatial distribution of T_d is investigated with a method of geostatistics analysis. Results show that spatial distribution of T_d is correlatable with spatial distribution of the soil erosion intensity and T_d can be taken as a regional terrain factor of regional soil erosion in the Loess Plateau. But T_d is not exact enough in evaluation processing of regional soil erosion, an integrated analysis combining the climate, vegetation cover, soil and water conservation management is demanded. Then, some problems existing in the research of regional soil erosion are analyzed and a preliminary model of regional soil erosion contained T_d is proposed. Subsequent research is focused on data collection and integration of regional soil erosion and its applicability in the Loess Plateau.

Date Published: 28 October 2006
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 6420, Geoinformatics 2006: Geospatial Information Science, 64201W (28 October 2006); doi: 10.1117/12.712980

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6420:
Geoinformatics 2006: Geospatial Information Science
Jianya Gong; Jingxiong Zhang, Editor(s)