Qualitative and Quantitative Evaluation of Soil Erosion using Combined Analysis of SAR and Optical Remote Sensing
Ebrahimzadeh, Somayeh¹; Motagh, Mahdi²; Haghshenas, Mahmud¹; Sharifi, Mohammadali^1
1university of tehran, IRAN, ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF; ²GFZ, GERMANY

Soil erosion is one of the most serious environmental problems causing large damages and costs all over the world. The monitoring of the erosion by remote sensing techniques could be performed with both optic and SAR imagery. There are many studies for application of optical images in erosion. However, the use of InSAR technique is problematic for monitoring of rapidly eroded regions due to the phase decorrelation.
In this study we use both optical and SAR imagery for qualitative and quantitative assessment of soil erosion in Nozhian region in Lorestan province of central Iran. Nozhian is known as one of the most extreme cases of soil erosion in Iran due to a combination of high intensity rain, steep topography and landslide. We use 23 SAR images acquired by the Envisat during 2003-2007, and 9 ALOS images acquired between 2007-2009 and analyze them using repeat-pass interferometry technique to detect areas of erosion. The results are compared with erosion intensity maps obtained by the analysis of Landsat ETM images.