• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.22 no.7
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• pp.1331-1343
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• 2000

Through the integration of USLE and GIS, the methodology to estimate the soil loss was developed, and applicated to the Sacheon river in Gangrung. Using GIS, spatial analysis such as watershed boundary determination, flow routing. slope steepness calculation was done. Spatial information from the GIS application was given for each grid. With soil and land use map, information about soil classification and land use was given for each grid too. Based upon these data, thematic maps about the factors of USLE were made. We estimated the soil loss by overlaying the thematic maps. In this manner, we can assess the degree of soil loss for each grid using GIS. Annual average soil loss of Sacheon river watershed is 1.36 ton/ha/yr. Soil loss in forest, dry field, and paddy field is 0.15 ton/ha/yr, 27.04 ton/ha/yr, 0.78 ton/ha/yr respectively. The area of dry field, which is 4% of total area, is $2.4km^2$. But total soil loss of dry field is 6561 ton/yr, and it occupies 84.9 % of total soil loss eroded in Sacheon river watershed. Comparing with the 11.2 ton/ha/yr of an average soil loss tolerance for cropland, provision for the soil loss in dry field is necessary. Run-off and water quality of Sacheon river were measured two times in flood season: from July 24, 1998 to July 28 and from September 29 to October 1. As the run-off of the river increased, SS, TN, TP concentrations and pollutant loadings increased. SS, TN, TP loads of Sacheon river discharged during the 2 heavy rains were 21%, 39%, and 19% of the total pollutant loadings generated in the Sacheon river watershed for one year. We can see that much pollutants are discharged in short period of flood season.