Gully Erosion susceptibility mapping of Ali Al-Gharbi District

Al-Ali, Ali Khalid AbbasProf. Dr. Ali Khaled Abbas Al-Ali, born in 1977, Basra, Iraq. He holds a bachelor's degree in geology, a master's degree and a doctorate at the University of Basrah in Remote sensing and GIS. He has knowledge and international local literature. He has participated in local conferences, seminars and workshops serving the public interest.'

This work aims to evaluate the predictive capability of three bivariate statistical models, namely information value, frequency ratio, and evidential belief functions, in gully erosion susceptibility mapping in northeastern Maysan Governorate (Ali AlGharbi District) in southern Iraq. The gully inventory map, consisting of 21 gullies of different sizes, was prepared based on the interpretation of remotely sensed data supported by field survey. The gully inventory data (polygon format) were randomly partitioned into two sets: 14 gullies for build and training the bivariate model, and the remaining 7 gullies for validating purposes. Twelve gully influential factors were selected based on data availability and the literature review. The selected factors were related to lithology, geomorphology, soil, land cover, and topography (primary and secondary) settings. Analysis of factor importance using information gain ratio proved that out of 12 gully influential factors, eight were of more importance in developing gullies (the average merit was greater than zero).