Soil Erosion Estimation for Secaşelor Plateau, Romania, Using the E30 Model and Landsat Imagery

At present, increasingly large areas are affected by surface and deep erosion as well as landslides. In this paper we will estimate soil erosion in the case of Secaşelor Plateau using the E30 model and Landsat imagery for the period 1986–2011. As a result of applying the E30 model we were able to draw soil erosion maps reclassified into the following erosion classes: absence, low, moderate, high and extreme. The results show that low soil erosion increased by 18.79% in the analyzed period, while for the moderate class the increase was of 1.3% for the period 1986-1994, after which, in the interval 1994-2011, it decreased by 4.54%. In the high erosion class the surface decreased by 15.5%, and in the extreme erosion class by 1.89%. Soil erosion in Secaşelor Plateau was triggered and maintained by both anthropogenic and climatic causes.