Soil Erosion Mapping and Severity Analysis Based on RUSLE Model on Welmel Catchments of Ganale-Dewa River Basin Bale Lowland South Eastern Ethiopia

Soil erosion is a kind of environmental deterioration, decreased agricultural output, increased floods, and habitat loss, soil degradation has an impact on many people's livelihoods, either directly or indirectly. There isn't precise scientific research that gives information, identifying locations that are susceptible to soil erosion is also insufficient in welmel watershed. Through the use of a geographic information system (GIS), remote sensing (RS), and numerous characteristics such as land uses, and climate, this study has attempted to identify prospective places in need of SWC techniques by undertaking a spatial modeling of soil erosion within the Welmel watershed's Genale Dawa basin. It made use of data from a digital elevation model (DEM) on interpolated rainfall erosivity (R), soil erodibility (K), plant cover (C), topography (LS), and conservation practices (P) from satellite pictures. The study demonstrates that the RUSLE using GIS taking into account various climates and land management practices. An estimated 546,769.92 tons of top, productive soil are lost from the watershed each year at an average rate of 32 t ha -1 year-1 of soil erosion. The percentage of the watershed from moderate to extremely high soil erosion rates was calculated to be 3.42%. The local people should quickly put into place soil conservation measures on their agricultural lands by employing a variety of soil preservation techniques, such as mulching, strip cropping, terracing, contour plowing, multiple cropping, and other conventional indigenous soil conservation practices.