Urban Erosion Potential Risk Mapping with GIS

With increased regulatory focus on eroded sediment and its bound pollutants, methods are needed to predict areas with high erosive potential (EP) in urbanized areas. Using EP to prioritize urban areas for maintenance, implementation of Stormwater Control Measures (SCMs), stream restoration or monitoring is crucial. This study utilizes commonly available geospatial layers in conjunction with a computational procedure for prioritizing the contribution of site specific- and transport-erosion to compute relative EP risk throughout a target urban watershed.  Factors that contribute to erosion were evaluated: local cell slope, soil erodibility, land cover, runoff volume, distance and slope to nearest stormwater conveyance point along a surface flow travel path. A case study of the developed methodology was performed on a 1.6 square kilometer urban watershed in Blacksburg, VA, to generate EP risk maps. Results of the study indicate areas of erosive potential within the target watershed and provide a methodology for creating erosion potential risk maps for use by MS4 planners, engineers and other individuals that manage erosion control programs.