Page 158 - Çevre Şehir ve İklim Dergisi İngilizce - Özel Sayı

Determination of Erosion Statistics by Land Use Type at National Scale With the
Dynamic Erosion Model and Monitoring System (Demms)

country. It is seen that the main cause of soil losses occurring in agricultural
and pasture areas is the topographic structure. Among the reasons of erosion
occurring in pasture areas, destruction due to intense grazing and agricultural
practices as well as the degradation of the land surface are included in
addition to topography. When the factors which cause and increase erosion
in the agricultural areas, are assessed, malpractices in agriculture, agricultural
practices in areas with high slope, wrong land cultivation and irrigation
techniques come to the forefront. However, it was also found in various studies
conducted with DEMMS at different scales, the factor affecting erosion varies
based on the regional climate and ecological conditions.
When the adverse effects of climate change is also taken into account, soil
losses occurring in agricultural and pasture areas are an important indicator
for the severe land degradation and destruction which have occurred in these
areas. For this reason, DEMMS has a high potential as a supportive prediction
tool because it provides analytical prediction methods, and it can be used as
one of the main tools in the preparation of strategic action plans to control
soil losses at the micro-basin scale, and it can be also used as a supportive
system in the studies on climate change, land degradation, biodiversity and
ecosystem services.
With its analytic prediction methods, DEMMS will provide novel and
dynamic opportunities for decision-makers and politicians not only to minimize
soil erosion, which is aimed within the scope of Sustainable Soil Management
but also to ensure sustainability of land resources by hierarchically preventing,
minimizing and reverting land degradation. When DEMMS software’s dynamic
structure is closely examined, the validation works of new model results, update
and development of the system with machine learning methods, improvement
or renewal of current management practices will be achieved with the added
new data. Moreover, the system dynamically continues its operations with new
data because of the integration efforts between institutions.
While Türkiye is combating the effects of soil erosion, systems like DEMMS
not only provides valuable information but also serves as basic tools in defining
soil protection policies on both micro and macro levels in the future.

145
Special Issue / 2024