Bulletin UASVM Horticulture, 67(2)/2010

Print ISSN 1843-5254; Electronic ISSN 1843-5394

Study of the Hydric Erosion Area using GIS

Florica MATEI1), Marcel DIRJA1), Ioana POP1), Jutka DEAK1), Alina CIOBAN2),
Alexandru COLISAR1)
1)

Faculty of Horticulture, University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine,

3-5 Manastur Street, 400327, Cluj-Napoca, Romania; faldea@usamvcluj.ro
2)
Edmond Nicolau College, II/2 Campului Street, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Abstract. In this paper we build a geographical information system used to study the hydric
erosion of Chinteni area from Cluj County. The geo-database of our GIS contain information about
vegetation, soil profiles characteristics and soil moisture for the interest sites. The digital terrain model
was obtained from terrain dataset that was build from geo-database. The area affected by water erosion
was predicted using spatial analysis.
Keywords: GIS, ArcInfo, hydric erosion.

INTRODUCTION
One of the most powerful and useful technique for the management of the
environmental problems is given by the geographical information systems. An important
negative process attached to soil is its erosion that goes to decreased productivity and
represent a danger for the agriculture (Budiu, 1996; Dirja et al, 2002).
In this paper we consider the hydric erosion because in Romania there are numerous
areas affected by landslides favored by water. Due to the slope problems in order to fight
against erosion on the landslide area is mandatory to eliminate the excess of moisture by land
improvements works. We studied the water erosion through geographical information system
(GIS) using ArcInfo software based on the digital elevation model that take advantage of
spatially distributed information for prediction. The studied area is that of Chinteni Valley
included in hydrographic basin of Somesul Mic river. The entire characterization of the
interest area was made by our team in previous paper (Budiu et al., 2008).
MATERIALS AND METHODS
The setting up of the geographical information system gather together data from maps,
observational data and spatial data collected from GPS. All these data were included in a
personal geodatabase compatible with Access software and ArcInfo software. General
structure of the geographic information system is given in Figure 1.
The basic topographical data derive from a map with scale 1:1000 that was
georeferencied as raster dataset and then digitized. The projected coordinate system is Stereo
70. Georeferencing procedure had used control points collected using GPS technology and the
points coordinates were transformed using free software TransDatRo 4.0. (On its Web site
OCPI Cluj). The raster dataset chinteni.jpg was displayed in the same area as the target layers
using Georeferencing toolbar, the control points were added. Figure 2 shows that we add 8
links and used the second-order polynomial transform such thar the residual erros (RMS) had
the smalest value from all other transformations and numbers of links involved.
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Fig. 1. General structure of our GIS

Fig. 2. Transformation window for georeferencing procedure

The digitizing process was based on the georeferentiated h_ch_georef.jpg. All layers
resulted from digitized procedure are feature classes in the feature dataset dig_harta from
chinteni.mdb personal geodatabase. The digitizing process was made in point mode or stream
mode in accordance with shape and particularities of the features using snapping technique
and topological rules and behaviors (dig_harta_Topology) for the management of the
coincident geometry in geodatabase

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All the points collected from field were transposed in Excel worksheet classified by
destination of the points, imported to chinteni.mbd geodatabase and added as layers in the
maps created with ArcMap.

Fig. 3. The personal geodatabases: chinteni.mbd for digitizing and teren.mbd for DEM

Figure 3-4 show that previous, points together with other feature classes generated in
digitizing process were used to construct the terrain dataset model_ter included in teren.mdb.
For the terrain dataset the projected coordinate system was Stereo 70 and vertical
coordinate system is Black Sea. Terrain datasets can be visualized as a 2D map in ArcMap
and as a 3D globe in ArcGlobe through a terrain layer. 3D scenes can be generated using
ArcScene but ArcScene does not directly support the terrain dataset.

Fig. 4. Terrain dataset characteristics

Fig. 5. Conversion from terrain to raster

To generate resourceful surface models for a 3D scene and to analyse this is

mandatory to export the extents of the terrain dataset to a Digital terrain model DTM raster
surface as in Figure 5. This transformation allow to use many analysis tools available for
rasters or TIN if the transformation was made from terrain to TIN.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
As a result of the georeferencing and digitizing the map had obtained for the studied
area is given in Figure 6. For 2007, 2008 and 2009 the measurements for moisture were made
from April to October at different depths. The input data are collected in the database
moisture.mdb and the table was imported in personal geodatabase chinteni.mdb and joined
with prof_sol feature class. The values represented in chart moisture_2 are the graphical
representation of the querying data from attribute table of prof_sol feature class.

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Fig. 6 The ch_digitizat.mxd file and chart for moisture(%) for all sites:
2007 Vertical Bar, 2008 Vertical Bar 2 and 2009 Vertical Bar 3

The main purpose of this paper is to determine the area exposed at hydric erosion. For
this the terrain model was built model_ter and digital terrain model was obtained in raster
form Figure 7. The digital terrain model was used to get information about slopes, aspects of
the slopes, watersheds and steepest point for soil profile. All the above features was combined
and used to determine the area exposed to water erosion.

Fig. 7. Digital terrain model of investigated area

The slope histogram from Figure 8 shows that most of the slope are between 6% and
27% and the aspect of the slope histogram shows that the most faces have eastern aspect. The
aspect is the direction that a slope faces so the moisture evolution is influenced by this
characteristic; thus sites 2 and 3 are nearst a slope with notdth-eastern aspect and are more
moist then site 5 that has a eastern aspect.

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Fig. 8. Aspects of the slopes and histogram for slopes aspect

For the runoff study to all soil profiles we determined the watersheds and the steepest
path. Based on the DEM model_ter_map raster was determined the flow direction for every
cell in raster, the sink point were only 4 cell so we proceed to determine the flowlength and
considered the snap pour point the soil sites we obtained the watershed as is illustrated in
Figure 9.

Fig. 9. The watersheds and steepest path for all soil profile thick lines

The highest moisture was determined for profile 4 for all years and this result is in
agreement with the characteristics of the soil (Budiu, 2008), the watershed that is the second
as capacity and the steepest path that is very short. The small values for the moisture are
reached in all years for site 5 because its watershed has a steep slope and the steepest path for
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site 5 is ended in the watershed of site 4. The moisture for the other three sites is ascending
ordered: site 1, site 2 and site 3 because the watershed for site3 is the largest and in the
deepest layer of the soil profile there is more clay than in other tow sites. Due to the position
of site 1 and 2 top of the hill theirs watersheds are very small area and the site 1 has more
sand then site 2 the moisture for site 1 is smaller then moisture for site 2.
To predict the soil erosion were considered the aspect of the slope with north,
northwest, and northeast aspect and drainage basins with value greater then a selected
threshold. After miscellaneous analysis made with raters or features the area exposed to soil
erosion is situated after ravine in the area not affected by land improvement works and is
illustrated in Figure 10 with darkest color.

Fig. 10. Prediction of soil erosion pred_er in table of contents

CONCLUSIONS
The results from above are provided by ArcInfo software and extensions Spatial and
3D Analyst together with the skills of the team to manage this complex software and
implement its own algorithms in order to provide desired analysis.
The study of the hydric erosion in context of a geographical information system leads
to the following conclusions:
The soil erosion is an unwanted phenomena and our prediction emphasize that area
with land improvement works does not intersects area affected by landslide that is
situated between ravine and border of the studied area. Also, the prediction can be
used to fix the area for the next land improvement works.
Using the SQL queries it is possible to determine the moisture for each month at
different depth for each soil profile depending of the users wish.
In order to design the geographical information system is very important to fix form
the begging the inputs connected with the aims. Small changes for the inputs lead to
unforeseen situations. To avoid this situation is mandatory to use ArcInfo support (On
its Web site ESRI).
Anyone that have a personal geo-database and follows above steps can obtain theirs
own results about area exposed to water erosion.

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Acknowledgments. This work was supported by CNCSIS UEFISCSU, project

number 413 PNII IDEI ID_893/2007.
REFERENCES
1. Budiu, V. and D. Muresan (1996). Imbunatatiri funciare, desecari si combaterea erozoinii
solului. vol. II, Ed. Genesis, Cluj-Napoca.
2. Budiu, V., A. Ciotlaus, F. Matei, M. Dirja, I. Pop and M. Micula (2008). The Study of the
Soil Porosity on Landslide Area. Bull. UASVM 65:490-495.
3. Dirja, M., V. Budiu, I. Pacurar, D. Tripon and V. Neag (2002). Eroziunea hidrica si
impactul asupra mediului. Ed. Risoprint, Cluj-Napoca.
4. ***OCPI Cluj, http://www.ocpicluj.ro/downloads.
5. ***ESRI, http://support.esri.com/en.

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