Quantitative Evaluation of Gully Erosion Using Multitemporal UAV Data in the Southern Black Soil Region of Northeast China: A Case Study

• Published in: Remote sensing (Basel, Switzerland) Switzerland), 2022-03, Vol.14 (6), p.1479
• Main Authors: Wang, Ranghu, Sun, Huan, Yang, Jiuchun, Zhang, Shuwen, Fu, Hanpei, Wang, Nan, Liu, Qianyu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adaptability; Agricultural watersheds; black soil region of northeast China; Erosion rates; Freeze-thawing; Geomorphology; Gullies; Gully erosion; headcut retreat; High resolution; Land degradation; Morphology; multi-forces; Photogrammetry; Precipitation; Rainfall; Rainy season; Remote sensing; Satellite imagery; Sediment yield; Snowmelt; Soil erosion; Soils; Terrain models; UAV; Unmanned aerial vehicles; Vegetation
• ISSN: 2072-4292; 2072-4292
• DOI: 10.3390/rs14061479

The black soil region of northeast China is experiencing severe gully erosion. The lack of periodic, high-resolution, short–medium-term, annual, and seasonal observations considerably limit the comprehensive understanding of the processes and mechanisms of gully erosion caused by multiple forces at the watershed scale. Therefore, in this study, we periodically monitored the geomorphic, morphological, and volume changes of a stabilized gully both annually and seasonally in a small agricultural watershed (6 ha) in the southern black soil region in northeast China based on the centimeter-level resolution of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-derived orthoimages and digital terrain models (DTMs) from 2015 to 2020. Compared with submeter-resolution satellite images, the multitemporal UAV data exhibited strong adaptability and various advantages for the assessment of short–medium-term (≤5 years) gully erosion rates in this region. The results demonstrated that the gully has an actively retreating headcut that was always the main source of sediment yield. The linear, areal, and volumetric gully headcut retreat (GHR) rates were 0.74 m year−1, 7.29 m2 year−1, and 9.66 m3 year−1, respectively. GHR in the rainy season accounted for 94.62% of the annual linear erosion and 87.64% of the areal erosion. In particular, sidewall collapse and gully head expansion dominated in the early rainy season, which accounted for 66.67% of the annual linear erosion and 49% of the areal erosion. Our results provide high-resolution orthoimages and a DTM time series produced by a UAV to evaluate short–medium-term (5 years) GHR rate and quantify the contribution of freeze–thaw processes, snowmelt, and rainfall to gully erosion in the region. The findings contribute to understanding the gully erosion processes induced by multiple forces in the southern black soil region of northeast China.