Analysis of the Latest Research and Improvement of Universal Soil Loss Equation

Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) is an empirical model widely used in the domain of soil erosion by water. Although USLE has a simple structure, the result of the model can reach the requirement for soil erosion prediction under certain precision with less input data. The improvement of USLE includes the expansion of application scope, the enhancement of suitability, and the improvement of estimate precision. There are two developing trends of USLE, one is traditional way, which enhances the prediction ability of USLE through introducing new applicable parameters or optimizing parameter values without modifying model structure. The other is nontraditional way, which makes more flexible and reasonable confirmation of factors as well as more valuable and ascertainable result of soil loss quantities by using fuzzy logic or artificial neural networks to modify USLE structure.