Soil Erosion Factors in the European Russia Macroregion: Modeling, Geoinformation Mapping, and Spatial Analysis

A new quantitative assessment of the factors and intensity of soil erosion caused by rainfall and snowmelt runoff in 2018–2019 has been carried out for most of European Russia. The assessment is based on the universal soil loss equation USLE/RUSLE with a spatial resolution of 250 m. The results have been generalized and cartographically presented for the small river basins. A new approach has been developed for modeling rainfall erosivity (R-factor) using intraday precipitation data. A generalized additive model of rainfall erosivity, which accounts for 87% of the data variability, has been produced. A new methodology has been developed for detecting the cover management factor (C-factor) based on Earth remote sensing datasets. New C-factor results have been obtained based on multitemporal satellite data on vegetation density, spectral vegetation indices, and phenological metrics. Copernicus Snow Water Equivalent datasets have been used as actual data on water reserves in snow to determine the intensity of soil erosion from the meltwater runoff. The annual intensity of soil erosion (from rainfall and snowmelt runoff) across the entire territory is insignificant: it is 0.6 t/ha per year on average, with the median of 0.02 t/ha per year. For plowed lands, these values are higher: 2.4 t/ha per year and 1.6 t/ha per year, respectively.