• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.83 no.3
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• pp.322-330
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• 1994

The Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) has been widely used to predict long-term soil loss by incorporating several erosion factors, such as rainfall, soil, topography, and vegetation. This study is aimed to introduce the LISLE within geographic information system(GIS) environment. The Kwangneung Experimental Forest located in Kyongki Province was selected for the study area. Initially, twelve years of hourly rainfall records that were collected from 1982 to 1993 were processed to obtain the rainfall factor(R) value for the LISLE calculation. Soil survey map and topographic map of the study area were digitized and subsequent input values(K, L, S factors) were derived. The cover type and management factor (C) values were obtained from the classification of Landsat Thematic Mapper(CM) satellite imagery. All these input values were geographically registered over a common map coordinate with $25{\times}25m^2$ ground resolution. The USLE was calculated for every grid location by selecting necessary input values from the digital base maps. Once the LISLE was calculated, the resultant soil loss values(A) were represented by both numerical values and map format. Using GIS to run the LISLE, it is possible to pent out the exact locations where soil loss potential is high. In addition, this approach can be a very effective tool to monitor possible soil loss hazard under the situations of forest changes, such as conversion of forest lands to other uses, forest road construction, timber harvesting, and forest damages caused by fire, insect, and diseases.