Development of Automatic Extraction Model of Soil Erosion Management Area using ArcGIS Model Builder

Due to increased human activities and intensive rainfall events in a watershed, soil erosion and sediment transport have been hot issues in many areas of the world. To evaluate soil erosion problems spatially and temporarily, many computer models have been developed and evaluated over the years. However, it would not be reasonable to apply the model to a watershed if topography and environment are different to some degrees. Also, source codes of these models are not always public for modification. The ArcGIS model builder provides ease-of-use interface to develop model by linking several processes and input/output data together. In addition, it would be much easier to modify/enhance the model developed by others. Thus, simple model was developed to decide soil erosion hot spot areas using ArcGIS model builder tool in this study. This tool was applied to a watershed to evaluate model performance. It was found that sediment yield was estimated to be 13.7 ton/ha/yr at the most severe soil erosion hot spot area in the study watershed. As shown in this study, the ArcGIS model builder is an efficient tool to develop simple models without professional programming abilities. The model, developed in this study, is available at http://www.EnvSys.co.kr/~sateec/toolbox for free download. This tool can be easily modified for further enhancement with simple operations within ArcGIS model builder interface. Although very simple soil erosion and sediment yield were developed using model builder and applied to study watershed for soil erosion hot spot area in this study. The approaches shown in this study provides insights for model development and code sharing for the researchers in the related areas.