Soil erosion modeling using “USLE”: two approaches for evaluating the parameters “L” and “S”

Agricultural activities can accelerate significantly the soil natural erosion processes. Thus, for a sustainable environment, the modeling of soil erosion losses is a fundamental step towards the rationalization optimization of the agricultural land use. In this research, the model “universal soil loss equation” (USLE) was used; test site was a watershed in a region of highly intensive agriculture in Sao Paulo State (Brazil); and GIS/remote sensing techniques were employed for spatializing the soil erosion losses by water. The main objective was to test different approaches of modeling the USLE topographic parameters: “Z” and “S”. For the “S” parameter there wasn´t a statistical difference, but for “L” the approaches of modeling cause significant differences in the final spatialized results, showing the need to improve the methods of modeling the most USLE impacting parameters