Spatial study of soil erosion in the Republic of Moldova

Abstract

: The study represents a detailed spatial analysis regarding soil erosion in the Republic of Moldova. The territory of the country (including the Transnistrian region), from the point of view of the administrative-territorial structure, is made up of 983 units. Thus, the analysis of eroded lands was carried out on administrative units at the level of villages, communes and cities, according to the data of the 2021 year from the Land Cadastre, developed by the Agency for Land Relations and Cadastre of the Republic of Moldova . The created database was later imported into a GIS (Geographical Information Systems) program and processed using ArcGIS software. The mapping and classification of the data regarding the proportion of eroded agricultural land (total; strongly, moderately and weakly eroded) allowed the identification of the most vulnerable areas to these processes - the Central Moldavian Plateau (Codrilor), the Ciuluc Hills, the Dniester Plateau etc. The frequency rate of agricultural land in total per country was 73.7%, including arable land constituted 54.9%. Of the entire agricultural area, 73.2% was monitored from the point of view of soil and geomorphological processes: approximately 1/3 of all agricultural land is affected by some degree of erosion, including 4.5% that are heavily eroded. The specific factors of soil erosion and the main consequences are evaluated, with an emphasis on the most affected regions.