Soil Erosion by Water Assessment Tool

Indicator: 

• Estimated soil erosion by water (ESS code: 15_50 )
• Close UN indicator: 15.3.1

Pilot:

 Romania’s Olt River Basin: learn more

The Soil Erosion by Water Assessment Tool combines scientific rigor with operational usability. It implements the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) using up-to-date Earth Observation inputs.

• Rainfall erosivity (R) is derived from ERA5-Land data and refined via a neural network trained on rain-gauge measurements, capturing short, intense storms. In addition, alternative methods to compute rainfall erosivity are available to support offline ensemble analysis.
• Soil erodibility (K) draws on national surveys and European soil maps.
• Topography uses 10 m-resolution digital elevation models to calculate slope length and steepness (LS), optionally accounting for the impact of transport infrastructure.
• The land cover factor (C) is updated seasonally with Sentinel‑2 imagery and vegetation indices, reflecting dynamic changes in crops and forests.
• The support practice factor (P) remains conservative, but the system can integrate local data on terraces or contour farming when available.

Beyond calculating erosion, the Soil Erosion by Water Assessment Tool produces user-friendly outputs. It generates quarterly soil loss maps at 10 m resolution, allowing comparisons across time and space. Detailed layers show the individual factors of the RUSLE model (R, K, LS, C), helping users understand what drives erosion in each location. A web-based interface enables users to visualize and download maps, aggregate data by administrative unit, and extract statistics. Because the system is open source and modular, other regions can replicate the workflow by adding local datasets.

Crucially, the Soil Erosion by Water Assessment Tool was co-designed with end users. National environmental agencies, statisticians, and local stakeholders provided input on functionality, ensuring the interface meets operational needs. The Soil Erosion by Water Assessment Tool aligns with policy frameworks by automatically calculating Eurostat’s 15_50 indicator, ready for official reports.

The Soil Erosion by Water Assessment Tool enables automated estimation of soil loss due to rainfall and modulated by land natural and man-made features. Upon user input of the date, the tool integrates diverse typologies of data to compute the factors contributing to overall erosion and then applies the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE). The outputs generated are spatially explicit quarterly soil loss maps and the related RUSLE factors, and the overall amount of soil loss in the selected area.