Combining a modified Universal Soil Loss Equation with a digital terrain model for computing high resolution maps of soil loss resulting from rain wash

Soil loss must be predicted with high resolution for landscape planning in areas of complex toporaphy. In the first part of this paper the length-slope factor LS is differentiated for an application on complex slope geometries, with specific consideration given to catchment convergence and divergence. The result is a differentiated Universal Soil Loss Equation: dUSLE. The second part describes its computational implementation on a surface model, which has the structure of a triangulated irregular network (TIN). The third part shows an example of how this method can be combined with the functions of a geographical information system. This leads to an application of the differentiated USLE, which produces high resolution maps of soil loss by rain fall, if the values of the R-, C-, K- and P-factors are given.