BAI Yucai, CUI Baojun, KOU Yingwei, LI Xiaodong, QIU Yanhua, ZHENG Zhihua, YU Shuai, HE Jinping
Journal of Shanghai Ship and Shipping Research Institute. 2025, 48(2): 56-62.
Drawbacks of traditional soil and water conservation monitoring methods, such as low efficiency, terrain limitations, and incomplete data integrity is overcome by introduction of UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) in the comprehensive soil erosion control project in Qingshan Small Watershed. By processing UAV imagery to generate high-precision DOM (Digital Orthophoto Maps) and DSM ( Digital Surface Models), geographic information such as bare land area, vegetation coverage, slope length, slope width, and slope gradient were automatically extracted. Using the acquired slope length and gradient data, the RUSLE (Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation) was applied to simulate soil loss. A comparison between simulated and field-measured data from six monitoring sample areas was conducted. The experimental results demonstrated minor discrepancies between simulated and measured values, with relative errors ranging from 3.13% to 11.80%, indicating that the simulation model effectively reflects soil loss dynamics. This project has confirmed that UAV technology combined with modeling can provide robust support for soil and water conservation monitoring.