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Map of Soil Erosion Risk for the Mancos Shale Formation

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posted on 2024-02-13, 13:56 authored by Kenneth McGwire

This product used the rangeland hydrology and erosion model (RHEM) to map erosion risks affecting water quality of the Colorado River that originate on the Mancos Shale formation in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. The Mancos Shale is a significant source of salinity, and a portion of that salt load derives from erosion of rangeland soils. Inputs to RHEM included digital elevation data, statistically modeled maps of soil properties, the LANDFIRE vegetation map, Landsat and MODIS satellite imagery, field data from the Rangeland National Resource Inventory program of the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service, and rainfall data from Atlas 14 of the U.S. National Atmospheric and Oceanographic Administration. RHEM predicted sediment yield at a 30 m spatial resolution for a storm with a 60-minute duration whose intensity corresponded to a 25-year return frequency. Results corresponded reasonably with prior field experiments that used the Walnut Gulch Rainfall Simulator (WGRS), with a Spearman’s rank-order correlation of 0.76 for cumulative sediment yield after 20 minutes of rainfall. This high-resolution map of erosion risk developed from RHEM can help to prioritize specific areas for more intensive study and action.

This dataset represents areas of the Mancos Shale geological formation that do not have high levels of urban or agricultural development and which have slopes less than 35%.


Resources in this dataset:

  • Resource Title: Predicted Soil Erosion on the Mancos Shale Associated with a 60-minute 25-year storm.

    File Name: rhem25y60m.zip

    Resource Description: Data is a large GeoTIFF raster dataset indicating predicted amounts of soil erosion (metric tons per hectare) for a 60-minute 25-year storm at a 30 meter spatial resolution. Predictions are based on the Rangeland Hydrology Erosion Model (RHEM) with a variety of geospatial inputs. Areas of high urban or agricultural development or slopes greater than 35% are not included. RHEM is a hillslope-scale model, so sediment transport and deposition across a watershed are not considered. Data are best used for relative ranking of sites rather than direct quantitative use.

Funding

USDA-ARS: Cooperative Agreement 59-2060-6-001

U.S. Bureau of Land Management: 60-5370-4-001

History

Data contact name

McGwire, Kenneth

Data contact email

kenm@dri.edu

Publisher

Ag Data Commons

Intended use

The high-resolution map of soil erosion risk developed from RHEM can help to prioritize specific areas for more intensive study and action.

Use limitations

Erosion estimates from the RHEM model will be affected by errors in the input map products. Soil crusts were not included in the calculations. RHEM is a hillslope-scale model, so sediment transport and deposition across a watershed are not considered. Data are best used for relative ranking of sites rather than direct quantitative use.

Temporal Extent Start Date

2018-07-01

Frequency

  • irregular

Theme

  • Not specified

Geographic Coverage

{"type":"FeatureCollection","features":[{"geometry":{"type":"Polygon","coordinates":[[[-112.48901367188,36.146569173186],[-112.48901367188,41.070903318021],[-105.89721679688,41.070903318021],[-105.89721679688,36.146569173186],[-112.48901367188,36.146569173186]]]},"type":"Feature","properties":{}}]}

Geographic location - description

Mancos Shale geological formation, Western United States

ISO Topic Category

  • environment

National Agricultural Library Thesaurus terms

soil erosion; risk; shale; Utah; Colorado; New Mexico; Arizona; soil erosion models; water quality; Colorado River; salinity; rangeland soils; soil properties; vegetation maps; Landsat; moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer; remote sensing; rangelands; inventories; Natural Resources Conservation Service; meteorological data; sediment yield; storms; field experimentation; rain; data collection; agricultural development; sediment transport; watersheds

Primary article PubAg Handle

Pending citation

  • No

Public Access Level

  • Public

Preferred dataset citation

McGwire, Kenneth, C (2020). Map of Soil Erosion Risk for the Mancos Shale Formation. Ag Data Commons. https://doi.org/10.15482/USDA.ADC/1518465