Catena 196 (2021) 104902

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Soil erosion modeling using erosion pins and artificial neural networks T
a,⁎ b c
Vahid Gholami , Hossein Sahour , Mohammad Ali Hadian Amri
a
Department of Range and Watershed Management and Dept. of Water Eng. and Environment, Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Guilan, Sowmeh Sara, Guilan,
Iran
b
Department of Geological and Environmental Sciences, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI 49008, USA
c
Department of Soil Conservation and Watershed Management, Mazandaran Agricultural and Natural Resources Research and Education Center, Agricultural Research,
Education and Extension Organization (AREEO), Sari, Iran

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: Assessment of soil erosion is crucial for any long-term soil conservation plan. Traditional in-situ measurements
Splash erosion provide a precise amount of erosion rate; however, the procedure is costly and time-consuming when applied
Surface erosion over an extensive area. This study aimed to investigate the use of erosion pins and artificial neural networks
GFF network (ANNs) to assess the spatial distribution of annual soil erosion rates in the mountainous areas of the north of
Hillslope
Iran. First, annual surface erosion and splash erosion were measured using two types of erosion pins. Next, the
Soil erosion map
variables affecting soil erosion (vegetation canopy, the shape of slope, slope gradient, slope length, and soil
properties) were identified and estimated through field studies and analysis of a digital elevation model (DEM)
and the data set were divided into three subsets of training, cross-validation, and testing. Seven artificial neural
network algorithms were used and evaluated to estimate the annual soil erosion rates for the areas without
recorded erosion data. Finally, the modeled values were mapped in GIS, and the longitudinal profiles of soil
erosion were extracted. Findings showed that (1) Consideration should be given to the generalized feed forward
(GFF) network, given the high accuracy rate (NMSE:0.1; R-sqr:0.9) compared to other tested ANN algorithms.
(2) Vegetation canopy was found to be the most significant variable in annual soil erosion rate (R: −0.75 to
−0.85) compared to other input variables. And (3) Annual measurements of erosion pins revealed that the
splash erosion is higher (contributing 62 percent to total erosion) compared to surface runoff erosion (con-
tributing 38 percent to total erosion).

1. Introduction
Soil erosion is one of the most important types of soil degradation,
causing environmental concerns in many parts of the world
(Luetzenburg et al., 2020; Li et al., 2020). Soil erosion is the movement
and transport of soil by various agents, such as water, wind, and mass
movement (Bullock, 2005). In the humid and semi-humid climatic re-
gions such as the north of Iran, the dominant form of erosion is water
erosion (Esmaeeli Gholzom and Gholami, 2012; Khaleghi and Varvani,
2018). Water erosion may occur as splash erosion, surface erosion, or
stream erosion on the hillslopes and piping or gully erosions at foot
slopes. Human activities can also result in erosion in two ways, directly
through soil moving operations, such as quarrying, and indirectly
whereby activities such as cultivation destabilize slope materials and
accelerate erosion through the wind, water, or gravity.
The above-mentioned factors exacerbate soil degradation by redu-
cing soil fertility and loss of vegetation cover in forests and rangelands
and result in adverse effects on agricultural and food production as well
as water resources through contamination and sedimentation in dam
reservoirs (Aldrich et al., 2005; Pierson et al., 2007; Akay et al., 2008;
Gholami and khaleghi, 2013).
Various factors affect soil erosion including the amount and in-
tensity of rainfall, land-use, vegetation cover, soil properties, and length
and gradient of slopes (Yair and Lavee, 1974; Masson, 1971; Pastor and
Castro, 1995; Martınez-Casasnovas, 1998; Uson, 1998; Di Stefano et al.,
2000; Pickup and Marks, 2000).
Soil erosion has been investigated in numerous studies. Descroix
and Poulenard (1995) demonstrated that soil erosion increases with the
slope to some certain gradient (27%). Bohm and Gerold (1995) de-
monstrated that vegetation cover is the most significant compared to
other controlling factors such as soil properties and slope gradient.
Kirkby et al. (2005) concluded that the soil erosion rate on hillslopes
generally is affected by the combination of slope and vegetation.
There are several methods for measuring soil erosion on hillslopes,

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: Gholami.vahid@guilan.ac.ir (V. Gholami).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2020.104902
Received 15 April 2020; Received in revised form 31 August 2020; Accepted 1 September 2020
0341-8162/ © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
V. Gholami, et al.
including field plots, erosion pins, or using empirical models. Field plots
are used to estimate soil erosion or runoff from specific rainfall events
or within a given time interval. The use of plots provides an accurate
estimate with the choice of time intervals from a storm event to a
monthly or annual time scale. However, field plots need continuous
maintenance and reconstitution that makes the process costly and time-
consuming.
Another method is to use erosion pins, which have been used in
previous studies and proven to be a simple and efficient tool (Schumm,
1956; Emmett, 1965; Ranwell, 1964; Clayton and Tinker, 1971; Kirkby
and Kirkby, 1974; Haigh, 1977; Shi et al., 2013; Boardman et al., 2015(.
The erosion pins are cheaper and easier to use compared to field plots,
and they are suitable for long time scales such as annual erosion rate;
however, it is challenging to use erosion pins for estimating soil erosion
in short time scales (e.g., a specific rainfall event or specific day)
(Ireland, 1939; Emmett, 1965; Haigh, 1977; Loughran, 1989; Hancock
et al., 2008; Boardman and Favis-Mortlock, 2016; Kearney et al., 2017(.
The selection of technique or method of measurement depends on the
type of erosion, the purpose, and the target accuracy of the measure-
ment.
Numerous studies have been conducted to measure various forms of
soil erosion using erosion pins (Boardman and Favis-Mortlock, 2016).
According to Haigh (1977), the use of erosion pins in soil erosion
measurements originated in the USA by Colbert (1956) and Schumm
(1956). They used erosion pins to estimate soil erosion rates in bad-
lands. Erosion pins were also used to estimate various forms of erosions,
such as riverbank erosion (Lawler, 1978, 1991, 1992; 1993), down-land
paths (Streeter, 1975; Summer,1986), badland erosion (Clarke and
Rendell, 2006; Nadal-Romero et al., 2011; Boardman et al., 2015;
Hancock and Lowry, 2015), wind erosion in sand dunes (Jungerius
et al., 1981; Jungerius and Van der Meulen, 1989; Wiggs et al., 1995;
Livingstone, 2003) and gully erosion (Harvey,1974). It was reported in
several case studies that erosion pins are an efficient method to estimate
soil erosion on hillslopes (Tervuren, 1990; Harden et al., 2009; Keay-
Bright and Boardman, 2009). For example, Nadal-Romero et al. (2011)
used and tested various methods to estimate sediments in Mediterra-
nean badland areas. According to their results, erosion pins were the
second-best method after gauging stations. Kumar Ghimire et al. (2013)
used erosion pins to evaluate various types of erosion (e.g., gully ero-
sion, sheet erosion, bank erosion, and landslides) in the Himalaya re-
gion. They demonstrated that the erosion rate in the Himalaya is sig-
nificantly high compared to other regions.
Soil erosion measurement is an expensive and time-consuming
process, and it can not be performed over an extensive study area. To
address this issue, field-based measurement models can be used. These
models are based on establishing a relationship between estimated soil
erosion (as output or target) and affecting factors in soil erosion (e.g.,
slope, vegetation cover, soil properties) in the field plot or erosion pins
area and applying those relationships to the rest of the study area with
unknown erosion rates. Therefore, Modeling methods such as artificial
neural networks (ANN)s in conjunction with field data can reduce the
costs and workload of the process and enables us to estimate the soil
erosion throughout the study area. ANNs have been widely used in
hydrological and environmental modeling processes (Anctil and Rat,
2005; Isik et al., 2013; Gholami et al., 2018; Sahour et al., 2020;
Alshehri et al., 2020). Rosa et al. (1999) evaluated the interaction be-
tween land-cover and land-use characteristics and soil erosion using
decision trees and ANNs. Harris and Boardman (1998) used expert
systems in conjunction with ANNs as an alternative paradigm to mea-
surable process-based erosion modeling for the South Downs in Eng-
land. Moreover, geographic information system (GIS) is a useful tool for
mapping and analyzing the soil erosion intensity when coupled with
ANNs (Martınez-Casasnovas, 1998; Dixon, 2004; Zhao et al., 2009;
Rosas and Gutierrez, 2020).
The objective of this study is to model, map, and analyze the soil
erosion using erosion pins and an optimum ANN coupled to a GIS and
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Catena 196 (2021) 104902
identify the critical hillslopes for soil conservation plan operations.
2. Methods and materials
2.1. Study area
The study area is a portion of the Alborz Mountains in the north of
Iran, extending between 36°05′ N to 37° N and 53°05′ E to 53°10′ E and
has a semi-humid climate (Esmaeeli Gholzom and Gholami, 2012). The
predominant pattern of precipitation in the area is rainfall and rarely
snow (Tehrani et al., 2019). The majority of precipitation events (about
70 percent) occur during the cold seasons (winter and autumn). Spring
and winter precipitation contribute to 20 and 10 presents of annual
precipitation, respectively. The mean annual precipitation is 600 mm,
and the mean annual temperature is 10° C. The average slope of the
study area is 17°. Major land-use types include forest lands, poor ran-
gelands, and dry farming. The mean depth of soil is about 60 cm, and it
mainly consists of silty clay loam and clay loam texture. In order to
minimize the impacts of human activities, far from the residential and
agricultural area, a hillslope with a length of almost 1400 m, which
consists of forest in uphill and rangeland in downhill, was selected to
install the erosion pins (Fig. 1). Soil property is one of the main factors
of the soil erosion process. In the chosen hillslopes, three classes of soil,
namely Entisols, Inceptisols, and Mollisols, were identified based on soil
characteristics and using the USDA’s keys to taxonomy (USDA, 2010)
and world reference base for soil resources WRB, 2014. Entisols were
observed in the steep slopes of the upper hill, and Entisols and Mollisols
were observed in the areas of gentle slopes in downhills. Soil organic
matter in the study area was ranged between 1.5 and 3.6 % and 0.77 to
2.7% in the topsoil layer and the entire soil profile, respectively. Group
C is the predominant soil hydrologic group in the study area. However,
group D can also be observed in the top hills. The group C (soil with
relatively heavy texture and a low infiltration) and group D (soil with
heavy texture and a very low infiltration) have a high runoff generation
potential. The study area has a Udic soil moisture regime. The observed
gravel was less than five percent in the topsoil layer.
2.2. Annual soil erosion measurement using erosion pins
In the present study, we used erosion pins with a length of twenty
centimeters and a diameter of eight millimeters to measure the annual
rate of soil erosion. A hillslope with a length of 1400 m was selected in
the study area to install the erosion pins. The selected hillslope was
heterogeneous in terms of the intensity of erosion, slope, vegetation
cover, and soil properties. Additionally, we selected eleven locations
with a high erosion rate in surrounding hillslopes and installed erosion
pins for performance assessments.
In order to measure soil erosion, pins with a similar length of 20 cm
were used. The depth of erosion pins in the soil (13 cm) was accurately
measured, and the pins were colored. We had two types of erosion pins,
pins with metal caps and pins without the caps (Fig. 1). The pins with
cap were paired with the ones without caps and installed to a depth of
13 cm in the soil with minimal disturbance of the soil conditions. The
erosion pins were tested before installation on the hillslope. We tested
pins with different sizes and angles of installation through simulation of
rainfalls using a watering can. The optimum height (7 cm) was the
minimum height from the earth's surface that could protect the soil
from raindrops (According to the dimensions of the caps). If we had
increased the heights of the pins, the metal caps should have been
larger. A significant difference in erosion rate was observed between
two types of pins (pins with caps and pins without caps) which shows
the effectiveness of the caps in protecting the soil beneath them. Also,
the direction of rainfall is an important criterion in the installation of
the pins. The slope of the study area was gentle; therefore, the pins were
installed almost in a vertical position.
In total, 109 pairs (218 pins) with an average distance of 10 m
V. Gholami, et al.
Fig. 1. (A) Location of the study area. (B, C) Location of the erosion pins on the hillslopes. (C) A view of the erosion pins in the study area.
between pins were installed in the study area in April 2018. The in-
tervals were ranging from 2 to 12 m, considering the changes in land
cover, soil erosion intensity, and topography. The majority of pins,
however, were installed with 10 m intervals. The distance between the
two pins in each pair was 30 cm. Further, the distance between pins is
determined based on the time intervals of recording and the purpose of
the study (Boardman & Favis-Mortlock, 2016). We recorded the soil loss
3
Catena 196 (2021) 104902
after one year (April 2019) by measuring the soil surface level from the
erosion pins. We evaluated surface and splash erosions, but stream
erosion was not considered in our study. Pins with no caps show the
total soil erosion (sum of splash erosion and surface runoff erosion), and
pins with caps indicate the surface (runoff) erosion. The difference
between total erosion (from pins with no caps) and surface runoff
erosion (from pins with caps) determines the rate of the splash erosion
V. Gholami, et al.
because the caps protected the soil below from splash erosion. More-
over, the soil texture was mapped by determining soil units and drilling
soil profiles. Soil units were determined through field studies by drilling
ten soil profiles and coupling geomorphologic and geologic maps. Soil
texture (clay, silt, and sand), as well as soil specific weight, were de-
termined in a soil laboratory, and the mean soil specific weight was
estimated to be 1.4 ton.m3. After determining the rate of splash erosion,
surface runoff erosion, and total erosion, the annual soil erosion rate (in
kg.m2) was estimated by applying the specific weight in a 1 m2 of the
surface area.
2.3. Annual soil erosion modeling using ANN
We applied and evaluated several ANNs to find the optimal model
for estimation of soil erosion in the areas with missing data (area
without erosion pins). The output (or target variable) in our ANN
models was the annual soil erosion rate. The independent variables (or
the predictors) were the slope gradient, slope length, curvature (shape
of the slope), soil properties (clay percentage, silt percentage, and sand
percentage), and vegetation cover.
As we explained earlier, the soil erosion (output) was determined
through field studies by establishing the erosion pins. For the location
of each pin, the slope gradient, the shape of slopes (curvature), and
length of slopes were estimated from a digital elevation model (DEM)
with a 10-meter spatial resolution in the ArcGIS.
The percentage of clay, silt, and sand were derived from the soil
texture map in the GIS environment. We had ten soil profiles on the
selected hillslope and twenty profiles on the rest of the study area.
Vegetation cover was ranging from woodlands in the upper hill and a
combination of woodlands and rangelands in the middle to rangeland
(grasslands) in the downhill. The spatial distribution of 109 pair pins
regarding the types of land use included 10 pins in forest lands, 40 pins
in wooden rangelands, 12 pins in rich rangelands, and 47 in poor
rangelands. In order to provide the vegetation canopy percentage,
homogeneous vegetation units were identified by field studies in the
study area. Then, 10 random field-sampling plots with dimensions of
1 × 1 m (for grass species) and 5 × 5 m (for tree species) were used to
determine the vegetation canopy percentage for each unit. To measure
the percentage of canopy, the ratio of the vegetated area to the non-
vegetated area in each plot was calculated. Finally, the canopy per-
centage for each unit was estimated based on the mean canopy per-
centage of ten used plots.
Different ANNs including multilayer perceptron (MLP), generalized
feed forward (GFF), jordan and elman network (JE), radial basis func-
tion (RFB), modular feed forward (MFF), principal component analysis
(PCA) and time lagged recurrent (TLRN) were used for estimating an-
nual soil erosion. MLP network is a layered feed forward network ty-
pically trained with the backpropagation algorithm. These networks
have found their way into numerous applications requiring static pat-
tern classification. The major drawbacks of those networks are that they
are trained slowly and require lots of training data (Gholami et al.,
2018). The GFF network is a generalization of the MLP such that con-
nections can jump over one or more layers. In theory, an MLP can re-
solve any problem that a GFF network does. In practice, however, GFF
often solves the problems much more efficiently (Beghdad, 2008). The
JE network extends the MLP with context units, which are processing
elements (PEs) that remember earlier activity. Context units provide the
network with the ability to derive temporal information from the data
(Mohamed and Atta, 2010). The RBF network is a nonlinear hybrid
network typically comprising a single hidden layer of the processing
elements (PEs). The learning process in the RBF is much faster com-
pared to MLP. The inputs in the MFF network are processed using
several parallel MLPs and then merge the results. This tends to build
some structure within the topology, which develops specialization of
function in each sub-module (Beghdad, 2008). The PCA network
combines unsupervised and supervised learnings in the same topology.
4
Catena 196 (2021) 104902
The PCA is an unsupervised linear method that finds a set of un-
correlated features, from the inputs (Beghdad, 2008). The TLRN net-
work is an MLP based algorithm with short term memory structures.
The TLRNs are advanced in nonlinear time series forecasting, system
identification, and temporal pattern classification (Sattari et al., 2011).
In the modeling process, the data were first normalized and then
divided into three subsets of training (65% of the data), cross-validation
(10% of the data), and testing (25% of the data). A trial-and-error ap-
proach was used to define the optimal structure of the network (the
optimum inputs, learning algorithm, and the number of neurons) and
the number of the training epochs in the training stage (Isik et al.,
2013). The optimal structure of the selected networks was determined
using the trial–error approach and evaluating the error. In the tria-
l–error approach, each time, one of the network components is changed
while others are fixed. The optimal network parameters are the ones
with the minimum error values. The input variables were analyzed
using the correlation coefficient (SPSS software). The optimal inputs are
vegetation canopy, slope shape (curvature), slope gradient, slope
length, and soil properties (percentage of clay and sand). Rainfall is
another important factor that can trigger soil erosion. However, the
amount and the intensity of rainfall is the same throughout the study
area, and therefore, it could not be incorporated in our modeling pro-
cess. The models were evaluated by comparing the observed and the
simulated values using the mean squared error (MSE) and the coeffi-
cient of determination (R-squared). Finally, the tested models were
used to estimate the annual soil erosion in the rest of the study areas
with no erosion pins.
2.4. Mapping annual soil erosion rate in GIS
After the modeling process (training, cross-validation, and test), the
ANN and GIS were coupled to simulate and map annual soil erosion
rates. The GFF network was selected as the optimum network for soil
erosion modeling. One of the objectives of our study was to couple the
ANN to GIS in order to map the annual soil erosion rates and to extract
the longitudinal profile of soil erosion on the hillslopes. For this pur-
pose, the numerical values were extracted from inputs in raster formats,
and the soil erosion rates were simulated using the input variables and
the validated GFF network for the entire study area. Next, the simulated
erosion rates were transferred back to GIS to convert the numerical
values to the raster format to map the annual soil erosion rate. In order
to assess the accuracy of mapping, the soil erosion rates of the eleven
validation pins were compared with the corresponding simulated va-
lues on the final map. Finally, the longitudinal profiles of the studied
hillslope and annual soil erosion were extracted from DEM and the final
map (raster layer of soil erosion) in GIS, respectively. The workflow of
the ANN-based soil erosion modeling was given in Fig. 2.
3. Results
3.1. Measurement of the annual soil erosion using erosion pins
As we mentioned earlier, we used erosion pins to measure annual
soil erosion on the hillslope. We recorded the measurements one year
after we established the pins in the study area. The values for surface
erosion, splash erosion, and total erosion, as well as their corresponding
input values for some arbitrary points, were presented in Table 1. Ac-
cording to the measurements, annual soil erosion in the study area was
ranged from 0 to 33.6 kg.m−2 (average: 9.4 kg.m−2). The annual sur-
face runoff erosion was ranged between 0 and 14 kg.m−2, and the
splash erosion was ranged from 0 to 19.6 kg.m−2. According to the
results, the erosion caused by the raindrops was more pronounced (62
percent of the total mean soil erosion) compared to erosion caused by
runoff (38 percent of the total mean soil erosion). We also used corre-
lation analysis to investigate the role of the independent variables in
soil erosion rates, and the results were given in Table 2. In general, the
V. Gholami, et al.
Fig. 2. The workflows of soil erosion modeling using erosion pins and ANNs.
correlation between independent variables and soil erosions are similar
for each type of erosion (soil erosion, surface erosion, splash erosion).
Spatial distribution of the percentage of vegetation canopy and the
shape of slopes (curvature index) in the study hillslopes are given in
Fig. 3. The results showed that the most important factors in soil ero-
sion were vegetation cover (correlation coefficient: −0.75 to 0.85) and
curvature or shape of slope (correlation coefficient: 0.56 to 0.65). The
results also indicated that splash erosion contributed more to soil ero-
sion compared to surface runoff erosion. It is noteworthy to mention
that rainfall is the predominant type of precipitation in the study area
and rainstorm with high intensity and short duration is very common.
Further investigations revealed that the sediments are trapped in the
area with concave slopes, and the convex slopes are the area of higher
erosion (Di Stefano et al., 2000).
3.2. Annual soil erosion rate modeling using ANN
As we mentioned earlier, we applied and tested different ANN
models through a trial–error approach, and results were evaluated to
select the optimum procedure. Evaluation of the adopted methods in
training and cross-validation was given in Table 3. The final decision on
selecting the optimum model should be based on the performance of the
model on the test subset (Samani et al., 2007; Gholami et al., 2018).
The evaluation of the networks on the test subset was presented in
Table 4. The performance assessment on the test subset showed that the
GFF network performed better given to the higher R-squared, and lower
NMSE (R-squared: 0.9, and NMSE: 0.12) values compared to other ANN
networks. The comparison between the observed values and simulated
5
Catena 196 (2021) 104902
values using the GFF network was presented in Fig. 4.
3.3. Coupling ANN and GIS
The optimal inputs of soil erosion modeling are vegetation canopy,
slope shape (curvature), slope gradient, slope length, and soil properties
(percentage of clay and sand). The percentage of silt was removed from
the sets of input variables given its insignificance and low correlation.
Using the optimum network (the GFF), optimum inputs and optimum
structure (transfer function, learning technique, neuron number), we
estimated the soil erosion for the entire study area, and the results were
imported to GIS for mapping and analysis. Fig. 5 shows the annual soil
erosion rate map for the study area. The verification pins were overlaid
on the final map and a QuickBird satellite image to evaluate the map
accuracy. We added the satellite image to show the estimation rate
associated with different land-use and land-cover (Fig. 6). Results
showed that the areas without erosion (zero value for soil erosion rate)
on the map are associated with the area of densely vegetated area and
low slope gradient. On the other hand, the high erosion rates were
observed in the areas with minimum vegetation cover and a high slope
gradient. The results are consistent with our correlation analysis that
was presented in Table 2. Therefore, adopted methodology in this study
can be used for soil erosion mapping and analysis in the area with
missing soil erosion data. And finally, using a DEM and the generated
soil erosion map (both with a spatial resolution of 10 m × 10 m), we
generated the longitudinal profiles of the slope and erosion rate for one
of the studied hillslopes (Fig. 7).
V. Gholami, et al. Catena 196 (2021) 104902

Table 1
Erosion rates and ANN inputs for a few arbitrarily selected pins.
Erosion height (mm) Surface erosion Splash erosion height (mm) Slope° Curvature Slope length (m) Clay Silt Canopy Sand
height (mm) Slope shape° (%) (%) (%) (%)

0.5 0.2 0.3 8 0.19 400 35.4 44.9 50 19.7

0.1 0 0.1 15.1 −0.47 1331 38.4 41.2 90 20.4
0.7 0.3 0.4 8 0.31 431 35.4 44.9 30 19.7
0.3 0.1 0.2 5.8 −0.05 1397 38.4 40.4 80 21.2
0.7 0.3 0.4 7.9 −0.11 467 35.4 44.9 32 19.7
0.6 0.2 0.4 8.2 0.28 481 35.4 44.9 40 19.7
0.5 0.3 0.2 8.5 0.309 495 35.4 44.9 42 19.7
1 0.3 0.7 11.6 0.55 645 35.4 44.9 20 19.7
0.3 0 0.3 10.75 −0.44 1346 38.4 40.4 90 21.2
0.9 0.4 0.5 18.7 0.72 540 35.4 44.9 25 19.7
1 0.5 0.5 21.5 0.85 552 37.9 39.4 20 22.7
1.2 0.5 0.7 27.3 0.67 653 37.9 39.4 15 22.7
1.1 0.5 0.6 24.6 0.19 600 37.9 39.4 15 22.7
1 0.4 0.6 20.4 0.03 622 37.9 39.4 25 22.7
0.7 0.3 0.4 17.7 −0.108 645 37.9 39.4 30 22.7
0.8 0.4 0.4 18.6 0.27 657 37.9 39.4 33 22.7
0.9 0.4 0.5 20.4 0.28 668 37.9 39.4 25 22.7
0.7 0.3 0.4 19.65 −0.08 688 37.9 39.4 30 22.7
0.6 0.2 0.4 14.88 −0.13 702 37.9 39.4 37 22.7
0.65 0.3 0.35 23.6 0.508 1247 33.41 43.06 35 23.53
1.1 0.5 0.6 25.5 0.76 1252 33.41 43.06 25 23.53
0.7 0.3 0.4 9 0.02 766 37.9 39.4 42 22.7
0.6 0.2 0.4 7.48 0.04 775 37.9 39.4 40 22.7
0.9 0.4 0.5 9.5 0.11 793 37.9 39.4 35 22.7
0.2 0 0.2 12.1 −0.46 1339 37.4 40.2 90 22.4
0.7 0.3 0.4 8 0.32 819 37.9 39.4 45 22.7
0.6 0.2 0.4 8.2 0.49 829 37.9 39.4 50 22.7
0.55 0.25 0.3 8.6 0.49 838 37.9 39.4 55 22.7
0.7 0.3 0.4 8 0.75 849 37.9 39.4 40 22.7
0.3 0.1 0.2 15.9 −0.13 1258 33.4 44.4 45 22.2
1.2 0.5 0.7 14.2 0.87 878 37.41 41.53 22 21.06
1.1 0.5 0.6 16.1 0.78 883 37.41 41.53 20 21.06
1 0.4 0.6 15.3 0.81 882 37.41 41.53 23 21.06
0.9 0.3 0.6 14.79 0.8 888 37.41 41.53 25 21.06
0.4 0.1 0.3 7 −0.36 1413 37.4 44.2 50 18.4
0.9 0.3 0.6 18.1 0.54 907 37.41 41.53 25 21.06
0.8 0.3 0.5 18.7 0.39 919 37.41 41.53 32 21.06
1.1 0.4 0.7 19.3 0.4 930 37.41 41.53 20 21.06
0.6 0.2 0.4 21.6 0.62 942 37.41 41.53 30 21.06
0.55 0.35 0.2 21.6 0.233 950 37.41 41.53 60 21.06
0 0 0 3.85 −0.33 1392 38.4 41.2 100 20.4
0.8 0.3 0.5 22.7 0.84 970 37.41 41.53 25 21.06
0.7 0.2 0.5 24 0.83 978 37.41 41.53 30 21.06
0 0 0 3.85 −0.33 1392 38.4 41.2 100 20.4
1 0.4 0.6 25.7 0.7 1018 37.41 41.53 20 21.06
0.9 0.3 0.6 24.8 0.79 1028 37.41 41.53 24 21.06

4. Discussion
In this study, the annual erosion rates were presented as splash
erosion, surface runoff erosion, and total soil erosion. According to our
correlation analysis, the most significant variables in soil erosion are
vegetation canopy percentage, curvature (shape of the slope), slope
length, slope gradient, and soil texture (Clay and sand percent), re-
spectively. Among those variables, curvature, slope gradient, slope
length, and sand value have a positive correlation (direct relationship)
with soil erosion. Vegetation, silt, and clay percentage have a negative
correlation (inverse relationship) with soil erosion rate. According to
the past studies, vegetation, clay, and silt have a positive relationship
with soil erosion (Masson, 1971; Yair and Lavee, 1974; Bohm and
Gerold,1995; Foster, 2001) and slope, curvature, slope length, and sand
percent have a negative relationship with soil erosion (Descroix and
Poulenard 1995; Kirkby et al., 2005). The shape of the slope (curvature)
is another crucial parameter affecting soil erosion. Di Stefano et al.
(2000) mentioned that shape of the slope could be a determinative

Table 2
Correlation coefficients between the input variables and different types of soil erosion.
Pearson correlation with surface erosion Pearson correlation with splash erosion Pearson correlation with soil erosion Parameter

0.2 0.36 0.30 Slope gradient

0. 43 0.32 0.40 Slope length
0.56 0.64 0.65 Curvature (slope shape)
−0.75 −0.83 −0.85 Vegetation canopy
−0.20 −0.22 -0.22 Clay %
−0.04 * −0.03 * −0.04* Silt %
0.25 0.23 0.25 Sand %
* Not Significant

6
V. Gholami, et al.
Fig. 3. (A) The slope shapes (curvature index) in the study area. (B) Spatial distribution of percent canopy in the study area.
factor in runoff velocity and soil erosion process. Measurements showed
that soil erosion is relatively lower in the area with concave slopes
compared to the surfaces with convex slopes (Gray, 2016). Also, the
effect of curvature on the amount of soil erosion from surface runoff is
more significant than the erosion caused by splashing. In general,
spatial variation of soil erosion, the spatial distribution of rainfall and
changes in soil properties (clay, silt, and sand values) have significant
effects on soil erosion (Yair and Lavee, 1974; Wischmeier and Smith,
1978; Bohm and Gerold, 1995; Keim et al., 2006).
As we mentioned earlier, we used paired erosion pins in which one
7
Catena 196 (2021) 104902
of the pins in each pair had a metal cap (Fig. 1) to conserve the soil from
the impact of raindrops. Therefore, the amount of recorded erosion for
those pins was only related to surface erosion. Recording the paired
erosion pins revealed that splash erosion is the dominant type of ero-
sion in the study area compared to the erosion caused by surface runoff.
Therefore, rangeland vegetation can play an essential role in soil ero-
sion control, especially splash erosion (Chen et al., 2019).
In our study, factors affecting soil erosion were used as inputs, and
annual erosion rates were simulated as the neural network outputs.
Modeling results showed that high performance of the adopted
V. Gholami, et al. Catena 196 (2021) 104902

Table 3
Performance evaluation of the different ANNs at the training and cross-validation stages for modeling the annual soil erosion.
R-squared Training Standard Deviation Final MSE The mean MSE Modeling ANN
stage

0.97 0.0004 0.005 0.005 Training Generalized feed forward (GFF)

0.0003 0.001 0.001 Cross-validation
0.97 0.0004 0.005 0.005 Training Multilayer perceptron
0.0003 0.002 0.001 Cross-validation (MLP)
0.92 0.0001 0.007 0.007 Training Jordan and Elman networks (JEN)
0.0004 0.01 0.02 Cross-validation

0.9 0.003 0.004 0.004 Training Radial basis function

0.005 0.002 0.001 Cross-validation (RFB)
0.9 0.0009 0.007 0.007 Training Modular feed forward (MFF)
0.003 0.003 0.002 Cross-validation
0.93 0.001 0.007 0.007 Training Principal component analysis (PCA)
0.002 0.007 0.002 Cross-validation

0.93 0.009 0.008 0.008 Training Time lagged recurrent (TLRN)

0.001 0.05 0.08 Cross-validation

Table 4 other relevant datasets (DEM and satellite imagery) revealed that the
Performance evaluation of the different ANNs at the testing stage for modeling area of low erosion rates are associated with the areas with low slope
the annual soil erosion. gradient and densely vegetated areas, and the area with high slope
R-squared Max Abs Error Min Abs Error MAE NMSE MSE ANN gradient and low vegetation cover have relatively higher erosion rates
(Sun et al., 2016).
0.9 2.9 0.04 1.39 0.12 2.71 GFF Converting the simulated values to the raster format in the GIS and
0.77 6.4 0.21 1.8 0.21 5.1 MLP
evaluating the longitudinal profiles of land slope and longitudinal
0.81 4.6 0.1 1.71 0.19 4.2 EN
0.68 8.9 0.07 2.08 0.33 7.2 RFB profiles of soil erosion is an important applied result in the present
0.77 6.76 0.21 1.7 0.21 4.6 MFF studies. Monitoring changes in erosion rate along the slopes is an es-
0.81 4.4 0.18 2 0.24 5.2 PCA sential factor for planning soil conservation practices such as biological
0.8 5.6 0.33 1.65 0.19 4.19 TLRN treatments (Zhang et al., 2020). As shown in Fig. 5, soil erosion in-
creases as the length of slope and, consequently, the volume and ve-
locity of runoff increases. However, this amount of soil erosion de-
methodology in the estimation of soil erosion rates in a short time with
creases in the foot slope due to the change in the gradient of the slope.
minimal costs. This methodology can be used in other parts of the
(Las Heras et al., 2010). Therefore, it is crucial to identify the con-
world, especially developing countries with a high rate of soil erosion
trolling factors in the process of soil erosion to plan for soil conservation
and financial limitations (Samani et al., 2007; Licznar and Nearingb,
operations. Finally, monitoring of soil erosion changes along the slopes
2003; Zhao et al., 2009).
is a useful practice for identifying locations with higher soil erosion rate
Evaluation of the ANN performance in soil erosion modeling was
to prioritize the biological treatments or the other protective methods.
presented in Figs. 2 through 4. The evaluation was conducted in two
Compared to past studies, the adopted methodology and the obtained
steps of validation of the model and verification. In the test or valida-
results have several advantages, including estimation in a short time,
tion step, the simulated values were compared to the observed values in
high accuracy, adaptability of the methodology for similar settings
the test subset (25 percent of the data) using statistical coefficients
elsewhere, and providing practical results for mapping soil erosion rate
(MSE, NRMSE, R-squared). In the second step, the estimated soil ero-
for planning soil conservation projects.
sion rate throughout the study area was verified using the eleven ver-
ification pins that were randomly distributed on the surrounding hill-
5. Conclusion
slopes. The estimated rates from the soil erosion map are consistent
with the recorded values from the verification pins (R-squared = 0.9).
ANN-based models can be a powerful tool for estimating hydro-
In other words, the performance of the adopted methodology was
logical or soil erosion parameters. Nevertheless, what is essential in this
evaluated in two stages of testing and verification. In the majority of the
regard is choosing a suitable method or algorithm. In the first step of
ANN-based soil erosion modeling, the performances of the models were
estimating soil erosion, it is necessary to select the erosion measure-
only evaluated in the testing stage.
ment method according to the objectives of the study and the type of
Moreover, analysis of the spatial distribution of the soil erosion with
erosion that needs to be investigated. Both erosion pins and erosion

Fig. 4. Comparison between the predicted annual soil erosion (using the GFF network) and the observed values in the test subset (R-squared = 0.9).

8
V. Gholami, et al. Catena 196 (2021) 104902

Fig. 5. Map of annual soil erosion rate (kg/m2) for the study area.

plots are types of field-based measurements that have proven to be very
effective for measuring annual erosion. However, on the areas with
steep slopes, it is more beneficial to use erosion pins due to the cost of
operations and performance ease, drastic topographic and vegetation
changes (Kirkby and Kirkby, 1974; Las Heras et al., 2010; Shi et al.,
2013; Boardman et al., 2015).
Combining an ANN-based model, soil erosion pins, and GIS-based
outputs was a reliable, inexpensive, and easy to use approach for ac-
curate modeling of the annual soil erosion across the study area. The
present methodology has some advantages in estimating soil erosion. In
terms of measurements, the ease of use, the speed of the process, and
the low cost of operation can be noted. GIS as a pre-processor and post-
processor is also a powerful tool for analyzing the results. Another
advantage is the ability to integrate the neural network inputs and
outputs with GIS for spatial analysis or soil erosion mapping. In
artificial intelligence-based models, such as neural networks, precise
and fast modeling is an advantageous feature. The study provides a
feasible conventional technique to assess the erosion rate and identify
the critical areas for prioritizing the conservation plans such as biolo-
gical treatments using the generated erosion map and longitudinal soil
profile. Additionally, identifying the main factors of erosion and the
dominant form of erosion is crucial in managing and controlling soil
erosion. If the erosion is mainly caused by raindrops (splash erosion),
we should focus on rangeland vegetation across the hillslope, and if the
erosion is due to surface runoff flow, priority should be given to the foot
slopes due to the maximum velocity and volume of runoff (Descroix and
Poulenard, 1995; Kirkby et al., 2005; Gholami et al., 2018). Moreover,
the results showed that land use changes and vegetation degradation
are the most important factors of soil erosion increase (Khaleghi, 2017;
Naghdi et al., 2017). The maximum increase in soil erosion was in the

Fig. 6. The map of annual soil erosion rate (kg/m2) overlaid with satellite image and validation erosion pins (the observed erosion values) for evaluating the results.

9
V. Gholami, et al.
Fig. 7. Longitudinal profiles of slope and erosion for one of the hillslopes in the study area. High soil erosion rates on the profile (length 500–900 m) are associated
with the areas with a steep slope and poor vegetation cover (lower half of the study slopes). Minimum soil erosions in the sites are associated with the area of dense
vegetation cover and minimum slope gradient, or concaved surfaces.
areas of deforestation or the areas that rangelands changed to farming
lands. For future studies, we suggest using a combination of erosion
pins and erosion plots and artificial intelligence-based models in com-
plex hillslopes to model and map other types of soil erosion (e.g., gully
erosion, stream erosion, and riverbank erosion).
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declared that there is no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the Natural Resources Organization and
Watershed Management of Mazandaran for providing the topographic
data.
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