Soil erosion is a major environmental problem in many parts of Syria generally, and in coast basin in western part particularly. The main objective of this paper is to integrate information from various sources including remote sensing and geographic information system data to accurately quantify and map the spatial distribution of the potential soil erosion risk in Alhusain basin, Tartous, Syria, using geospatial modeling and analysis tools.
The results show that 58% of the study basin has a low loss of soil, 27% moderate loss, 11% high loss, and 4% a very high loss, respectively. Alhusain basin is in the extremely severe level of soil erosion rates with about 15% of land affected by high and very high soil erosion risk. Therefore, the generated soil erosion map represents the effective base to spatial strategies for decisionmakers to avoid soil erosion risks and consequently to soil conservation.
