EROSION ASSESSMENT IN THE BRAZILIAN CERRADOS USING MULTI-TEMPORAL SAR IMAGERY

Anton Vrieling(1), Silvio C. Rodrigues(2)

(1)

Wageningen University, Erosion and Soil & Water Conservation Group, Nieuwe Kanaal 11, 6709 PA Wageningen, The Netherlands, Email: anton.vrieling@wur.nl (2) Universidade Federal de Uberlndia, Instituto de Geografa, Av. Joo Naves de vila, 2160, Bloco 1H, Campus Santa Mnica, CEP 38.408-100, Uberlndia MG, Brazil, Email: silgel@ufu.br however not limited to fluvial processes only, but are greatly influenced by sub-surface flow, tunneling and side-wall failures [5]. Factors controlling erosion include rainfall amount and intensity, soil properties, topography, and vegetation cover. Integration of detailed data on these factors within spatial erosion models or qualitative probabilistic approaches allows the mapping of erosion. Nevertheless, the mapping approach to choose, and thus also the factors to consider, depends greatly on the regional context [6, 7]. The ability of SAR imagery to detect erosion features, depends on the nature and spatial size of the occurring erosion forms. Erosion controlling factors that can be analyzed with SAR include topography (through interferometric DEM construction), soil surface properties (especially roughness and moisture), and vegetation cover. This paper presents preliminary results on the use of multi-temporal ENVISAT ASAR and ERS SAR imagery for erosion assessment in a 10*10 km study site in Central Brazil. Opportunities for erosion detection that were examined are (1) random surface change detection by ERS SAR interferometry, and (2) visual interpretation of large gullies. The study of erosioncontrolling factors focussed on the spatial and temporal characteristics of land use and management. 2. STUDY SITE The 10*10 km study site is located near the city of Uberlndia, in the State of Minas Gerais, Brazil (Fig.1). It forms part of the Cerrados region, which covers about 25% of Brazils territory. The Cerrados is a natural savanna ecosystem of which the original vegetation types include grassland, shrubland, and woodland [8]. During the past 30 years this ecosystem increasingly suffered from the expansion of agriculture, cattle raising and forestry, not in the last place due to active government policies. Approximately 40% of the Cerrado area has been converted to anthropic land uses [9]. Soil erosion is among the negative environmental impacts of these land conversions [10].

ABSTRACT Regional assessment of soil erosion is an important step in the conservation of natural resources. A general problem is the availability of accurate regional data, especially in tropical regions. SAR imagery can play a role through direct detection of erosion features and the assessment of factors controlling erosion. This study presents preliminary results on the application of multitemporal ENVISAT ASAR and ERS SAR imagery for erosion assessment in a 10*10 km grassland area in the Brazilian Cerrados. Large gullies could be identified on individual SAR images. Colour composites revealed spatial patterns of land use and management, being an important erosion-controlling factor. For accurate erosion risk mapping, integration with other spatial data, like a DEM, is required.

1. INTRODUCTION World-wide, soil erosion by water is the most important land degradation problem [1]. It causes strong environmental impacts and high economic costs by its effect on agricultural production, infrastructures and water quality [2, 3]. To control erosion, bio-physical measures need to be implemented at the field, hillslope or watershed scale. However, allocation of scarce conservation resources and development of policies and regulations requires erosion assessment at the regional scale. An important limitation for this task is data availability and quality [4]. ENVISAT ASAR and ERS SAR data may provide inputs to regional erosion assessments. Possibilities for this include the detection of erosion features, and the derivation of information on erosion-controlling factors. Soil erosion processes by water can be divided into: splash erosion, which occurs when soil particles are detached and transported as a result of the impact of falling raindrops; sheet erosion, which removes soil in layers and is caused by the combined effects of splash erosion and surface runoff; rill erosion, which is the disappearance of soil particles caused by concentrations of flowing water; and gully erosion, that occurs when the flow concentration becomes large and the incision deeper and wider than with rills. Gully dynamics are
_____________________________________________________ Proc. of the 2004 Envisat & ERS Symposium, Salzburg, Austria 6-10 September 2004 (ESA SP-572, April 2005)

The transition of pasture to shrubland and woodland is a gradual one, with several intermediate vegetation composition forms. Along the main drainage paths gallery forest is present. Fig.2 shows an aerial view of several vegetation forms near a major erosion gully. The most dramatic erosion forms at the site are huge gullies of up to 25 m deep and more than 100 m wide (Fig.2). These gullies probably initiated due to increased drainage by road construction, parceling of properties by didges, and land conversions. From a comparative study of aerial photographs of 1979 and a QuickBird image, it could be concluded that the larger gullies existed already 25 years ago, but that several have showed significant increase in size (not published). Smaller gullies are of more recent origin. Less apparent erosion forms in the area are sheet and rill erosion. When the soil is unprotected by vegetation, rainfall impact causes the formation of a crust, which limits infiltration and increases runoff. Sediments are entrained with this runoff water. This process is somewhat controlled by constructed earthen contourbunds of about 0.50 to 1.00 m high, causing sedimentation of soil particles behind the bund, and thus within the field. Nevertheless, bad maintenance and poor construction often worsens the situation, due to concentration of water and subsequent ruptures in the bunds. This can even trigger gully formation or gully advance in some cases.

Fig. 1. Location of study site within Brazil The study site has a humid tropical climate with a clear dry season and an average annual rainfall of 1,500 mm/year. Rain falls between October and April, with highest amount and intensities in the months DecemberFebruary. Topography is slightly undulating with slopes between 0 and 15 %, and heights ranging from 700 to 900 m amsl. Most soils in the area consist of loamy sand, and are generally deep, with soil depths of up to 25 m. The vegetation cover in the 10*10 km area is dominated by pastures. Many pastures are degraded, meaning a high fraction of weeds and shrubs, and a relatively low ground cover. Scattered trees and shrubs occur to different extents within pastures. At some moment degraded pastures are renovated, which implies cutting and burning of present weeds, shrubs, and trees, resulting in a bare soil for several months.

3. EROSION DETECTION The appropriateness of a specific approach for detecting erosion using SAR imagery, depends on the erosion type which is being considered. Here, we examined the potential use of interferometric decorrelation for detecting sheet and rill erosion, whereas visual interpretation of the SAR imagery was used to locate gullies. 3.1 Interferometric decorrelation The interferometric coherence between two SAR images separated by a certain time lag, can be used as a measure to detect random changes in the land surface. Coherence is high when no change has occurred, and low when spatial or temporal decorrelation takes place. Spatial decorrelation can be minimized by selecting imagery with a short spatial (perpendicular) baseline. Temporal decorrelation may indicate the occurrence of sheet or rill erosion between the image dates, as these processes transform the soil surface in a non-uniform way. This way, erosion has been successfully detected in semi-arid regions [11]. However, erosion is not the only process causing temporal decorrelation, but especially changes in

Fig. 2. Aerial picture of a major gully within study site. On the foreground degraded pasture is present. The tree vegetation on the left is gallery forest, and on the right degraded woodland (look direction is SSW).

vegetation and soil moisture are of importance as well. Because the study site has a humid tropical climate and thus ample vegetation, the environment is not optimal for erosion detection by interferometric decorrelation. Nevertheless, during the dry season vegetation cover is minimal, and consecutive dry seasons may thus be compared to examine erosion occurred during that year. Interferometric processing of ERS SAR imagery was done using the Repeat Orbit Interferometry (ROI) software developed at the Radar Interferometry Group of Stanford University. Two image pairs were processed; 1-2 and 2-3 (see Table 1). No good image pairs were available of different years for the same moment in the dry season. Table 1. Imagery used for interferometric processing
# 1 2 3 Satellite ERS-1 ERS-2 ERS-2 Mission Date 5 Oct 1997 6 Oct 1997 19 Apr 1999 Perpendicular baseline (m) -322 27 0 Time lag (days) -561 -560 0

showed that it had been dry in the beginning of October. It is concluded that temporal decorrelation by vegetation is too high even in the dry season, and thus interferometric correlation cannot be used in these environments for erosion detection. 3.2 Visual interpretation of gullies Visual interpretation of remote sensing imagery is an old and common method for feature extraction. Generally the development of automated feature extraction procedures is preceded by visual examination of scene characteristics. To assist visual interpretation, several pre-processing steps were executed. The SAR imagery was first calibrated to obtain 0 in dB. A Gamma MAP filter was applied on a 3*3 window to remove speckle. A 3*3 window was chosen, because larger window sizes caused a blurring of image features (Fig.4a-c). Subsequently images were warped with a first-order polynomial function to obtain a good relative overlay. Comparison and combination with other image types (especially Terra ASTER) required another warp to an orthorectified QuickBird image that was geo-corrected with GPS ground data. A good overlay could only be obtained with Delaunay triangulation. Nearest neighbour resampling was applied in all cases. Because several gullies in the study area have large spatial sizes, they can be detected from individual SAR images (with a ground resolution of about 30 m and a pixel size of 12.5 m). The main scene characteristic which allows the detection is the presence of steep gully walls causing high backscatter due to double bounce, as

Results for both image pairs were very similar: coherence was maintained within the city of Uberlndia (outside 10*10 km area), but total loss of coherence in the rural areas outside the city occurred (Fig.3). For the tandem pair (1-2) with a temporal baseline of 1 day and an acceptable perpendicular baseline of 349 m, this decorrelation could not be explained by rainfall in between the recordings, because rainfall gauging data
.

Fig. 3. Amplitude image of 6 Oct 1997 (a) with the interferometric phase from the 2-3 pair for the same area (b). Coherence is only maintained in the city, top right, as shown by the presence of fringes.

Fig. 4. Gully from Fig.2: Calibrated ENVISAT ASAR image with HH polarisation of 7 July 2003 (a), and with Gamma MAP filter applied for 3*3 window (b) and 5*5 window (c). Composite of ENVISAT HH Gamma MAP filtered (3*3 window) of July, April, and January 2003 (d). The QuickBird image (e) and Terra ASTER false colour composite (f) are both acquired in August 2003.

well as low backscatter due to radar shadows. Fig.4 presents different images of the gully shown in Fig.2. From the different colours in Fig.4d it becomes clear that only a few gully walls are stable scatterers, and that the particular gully is imaged very distinct at different times. Although the ENVISAT ASAR imagery allows the detection of the gully presence, Terra ASTER imagery (Fig.4f) provides better options for the delineation of gully extent. ASTER looks close to nadir and detects gullies due to its sensitivity to the spectral characteristics of bare soil and shade.

All analysed ASAR imagery was acquired in swath 2 mode with an incidence angle of about 23. A less steep incidence angle may be more effective in gully detection due to increases in radar shadow behind gully walls. Swath 7 imagery (about 43) has been imaged for the study site during August 2004 and will be analyzed at a later stage.

4. VEGETATION DYNAMICS The presence of a soil-protective vegetation cover has a strong mitigating impact on soil erosion. This is partly due to the interception of rainfall and a decrease of its kinetic energy. Furthermore vegetation exerts a positive influence on soil attributes, such as soil organic matter and structure. This results in increased infiltration implying a decrease of runoff, and reduced soil erodibility and thus less soil detachment. 4.1 Seasonal dynamics The strong seasonal variation of rainfall in Central Brazil has a clear impact on the vegetation cover. This variation is important, because heavy rains at the beginning of the rainy season may cause serious erosion when the soil protection is minimal due to limited vegetation cover. Fig.6 shows the seasonal variation of rainfall compared to backscatter values ( 0 in dB) and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) for selected forest and stable pasture areas. The NDVI was calculated from ASTER imagery using Eq. 1 where (red) and (NIR) are respectively the red and the near infrared reflectance (ASTER band 2 and 3N).

Fig. 5. Part of study area with many large gully systems displayed as ENVISAT ASAR composite and ASTER image (same characteristics as Fig. 4). Fig.5 compares an ASAR composite and an ASTER false colour image for a part of the study site with many large gullies. The location of different gully systems are numbered on Fig.5b. Radar shadows are responsible for the low backscatter which allows visualisation of the gullies on the ENVISAT composite. Especially northsouth features are apparent for gully system 2, 4, and 5. This can be explained by the radar look direction, which is approximately from right to left. Although spatial sizes of system 1 and 3 are considerable, visual interpretation of the ENVISAT imagery does not (1) or with difficulty (3) allow their detection. Possibly automated extraction of very high and low backscatter areas would allow for a better detection of gullies. Nevertheless this would create confusion with other features causing similar effects of double bounce and radar shadow, like houses and depressions, especially for the smaller gullies. From the presented figures it becomes clear that ASTER imagery is more effective in detecting and delineating gullies than ASAR, as long as the spatial size of the gullies is sufficient. ERS SAR showed very similar results as ENVISAT ASAR. Several small gullies that were encountered during the fieldwork could not be detected nor from ASAR nor from ASTER, but only with high-resolution QuickBird imagery.

Fig. 6. Seasonal variation during 2002-2003 of average backscatter from ERS SAR and ENVISAT ASAR, compared to ASTER NDVI-values, and rainfall data.

NDVI =

( NIR) (red ) ( NIR) + (red )

(1)

Fig.6 clearly indicates the strong relation between the rainfall pattern, radar backscatter, and NDVI. Especially pasture shows a high increase in both backscatter and NDVI values during the rainy season, whereas forest is more stable. The August values for 2002 and 2003 are approximately equal, which is caused by the similar conditions in terms of vegetation abundance at the end of the dry season. The high backscatter values of December and January for pasture can partly be explained by the increase of pasture abundance and height, creating a rougher surface. On the other hand moisture in the soil and vegetation during this period increases the dielectric constant, causing a high signal return. Moreover, on the acquisition day and the preceding days rainfall had occurred for these acquisitions. An increased number of satellite observations would improve the assessment of vegetation development. In the case of optical data, acquisitions during December and January are hard to obtain however, due to frequent cloud cover. Nevertheless, it can be concluded from Fig.6 that between October and December there is a high erosion risk, because the soil is badly covered, whereas high-intensity rainstorms do occur. ENVISAT ASAR HH data seems to indicate that in December a good vegetation cover has developed, which slightly improves during the subsequent month. The varying response of different vegetation types and management practices becomes clear from Fig.7. It .

shows a composite of three ASAR HH images. To enhance the separability of vegetation types, a different scaling was applied to the January image, which has a much higher average backscatter. Without a differential scaling, the composite would have a very blue appearance. In Fig.7, yellow areas indicate forest, whereas dark red areas are dense shrublands, with presence of trees up to about 8 m in height. Blue and green areas are mostly pastures. Colour differences between pasture areas relate to different types of management. Although clear patterns can be observed in the multitemporal composite allowing the identification of major vegetation types, accurate image classification to a detailed level is cumbersome. This is due to the high level of mixing of the vegetation types. First of all, pastures are composed of different grass species with varying height, depending on the level of degradation. Moreover, inclusions of shrubs and trees are very common and occur at varying degrees. Therefore, for accurate classification, discrete classes need to be defined from the continuum of vegetation types, and related to backscatter characteristics, and possibly optical reflectances. This activity is foreseen using collected ground-truth information. 4.2 Inter-annual variation Between years differences in vegetation cover occur. To compare the vegetation of different years using satellite imagery, the image timing is important. In the study area it makes most sense to use imagery of the end of the dry season for inter-annual comparison. At that moment the vegetation cover is much less influenced by the rainfall variability than during the rainy season. Long time series may allow identification of a degradation in the vegetation state. For now, only changes between two consecutive years are described, which can be contributed to land management. Fig.8a shows a composite of two August ERS SAR images. The cyan and red colours indicate a high backscatter during 2002 and 2003 respectively. In both cases this can be explained by land management practices in the different years. Land was ploughed and new contourbunds were constructed with the aim of renovating pasture, or planting soybeans (cyan area on the right hand side). Therefore the rough surface generates the high radar returns. The very high backscatter in December in these cyan areas must therefore be contributed to the combined effect of a wet and rough surface (Fig.8b).

Fig. 7. Composite of ASAR HH imagery (July, April, January 2003) of the complete study area. The red, cyan, and green boxes indicate the locations of Fig. 4, 5, and 8 respectively.

The ASTER NDVI composite (Fig.8c) shows an opposite effect compared to backscatter. Low NDVI values indicate little vegetation in the year of ploughing, whereas in the subsequent year vegetation cover seems

Fig. 9. Gerlach trough 2A in very degraded pasture Gerlach trough measurements were done at 9 locations with different vegetation cover (Table 2). Three transects were included (1A-1C, 2A-2C and 3A-3B) to study the influence of the position on the slope on runoff. The figures for total runoff and sediments should be interpreted with care, as they give merely an indication of the differences between the different locations. Several times, the capacity of some barrels was insufficient to store all runoff water, and runoff values were thus set at the barrel capacity (30, 50, and 100 l). In spite of limitations with the measurements, it becomes clear from Table 2 that especially the very degraded pasture shows high soil loss. This is due to the low vegetation cover, and the bad maintenance of the contourbunds. Dense woodland shows low sediment losses as expected. However, the open woodland shows more runoff than the degraded pasture and similar sediment losses. This can be explained by the steeper slope of the open woodland, the absence of a nearby contourbund, and the fact that grazing occurred in the open woodland during the study period, but not on the degraded pasture. The effect of the position on the slope . Table 2. Summary of field results obtained with Gerlach trough measurements at 12 moments during December 2003-February 2004. For Gerlach ID suffix A indicates upslope, and C downslope.
Total runoff (l) 18 166 62 310 279 671 294 300 27 ground cover % (December) Vegetation type Total sediments (g) 132 200 53 561 867 1664 344 129 66 Gerlach ID

Fig. 8. A: composite of August imagery from ERS SAR (2003, 2002). B: ERS SAR from December 2002. C: ASTER NDVI composite of August 2003 and September 2002. A 5x5 median filter was applied to the ERS SAR images. to be better or at least more has photosynthetic activity than vegetation at other locations (red colours). 4.3 Relation between vegetation and erosion Although vegetation characteristics can be derived from satellite data, the relation of vegetation cover to erosion is not straightforward. To better understand the effect of vegetation on runoff and sediment losses by sheet erosion, field measurements were executed during the rainy period of 2003-2004. Part of the field measurements consisted of the installation and monitoring of Gerlach troughs (Fig.9). These troughs consist of a small metal box that is placed in the soil, making sure there is contact between the soil surface and the inlet. The inlet is oriented perpendicular to the slope. Runoff is trapped in the box, and through a plastic tube the water is drained to a barrel downstream. After each rainstorm, the runoff amount is measured, and the sediment concentration is determined by filtering a small sample of the (well-mixed) water.

1A 1B 1C 2A 2B 2C 3A 3B 4

degraded pasture degraded pasture degraded pasture very degraded pasture very degraded pasture very degraded pasture open woodland open woodland dense woodland

60 50 90 40 30 40 70 90 100

slope (%) 5 6 5 5 8 8 7 10 2

depends much on vegetation cover. Low on the slope profile, little soil loss is found when there is a high cover (1C and 3B), but when the cover is low, high sediment losses occur (2C). The above stresses that there is a complex relation between vegetation and erosion. The different vegetation types at the Gerlach trough locations can be reasonably well discerned with multitemporal ASAR data (Fig.10). Very degraded pasture areas show a relative low backscatter (2A-2C), whereas the dense woodland is most stable (4). It is interesting to see that the curve for 3A (having high sediment losses) is nearer to the curves for degraded pasture (1A-1C). However, it is hard to make conclusive remarks about the separability of these vegetation types based on this small sample.
2002Dec09 -4 2003Jan13 2003Apr28 2003Jul07 2003Sep15

mapping requires additional input data to account for other factors. As soils do not show a high spatial variability at the study site, especially topography characteristics like slope steepness and position need to be assessed (see also Table 2). This can be done using a digital elevation model (DEM) from e.g. the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission. 5. CONCLUSIONS Results on erosion detection indicate that the environmental conditions of the Brazilian Cerrados do not allow the application of SAR interferometry due to rapid decorrelation caused by vegetation. Gully identification is possible with ENVISAT ASAR imagery for several large gullies, but optical Terra ASTER provides better gully delineation. The combination of ASAR and ASTER NDVI imagery with rainfall data shows that between October and December highest erosion risk is expected due to limited soil cover. The differential seasonal dynamics of vegetation allows for the identification of major vegetation types with multi-temporal ASAR imagery. Land management practices such as ploughing and pasture renovation can be perceived from overlays of dry season SAR images from different years. Field measurements indicate a complex relation between vegetation characteristics and erosion. Dense woodland offers good protection and very degraded pastures experience high soil losses. However, there is a continuous range of vegetation types in between that show a complex response to soil loss and moreover are difficult to classify with ASAR imagery. Collected field survey data are expected to provide a solution to this problem. Additional spatial data, e.g. on topography, will eventually be required for accurate mapping of erosion risk.

-6

-8

gamma (dB) average 5*5

-10

-12

-14 1A -16 2A 3A -18 1B 2B 3B 1C 2C 4

Fig. 10. Average backscatter values of 5*5 window around the Gerlach trough locations from ENVISAT ASAR HH imagery To assess the spatial distribution of erosion risk within the complete study area, and eventually larger areas, vegetation classification is essential. Such classification is ideally done on the basis of a similar response to erosion. This is not without difficulty as Table 2 shows, because e.g. the same vegetation type may show a differential ground cover from one location to the next. Apart from the Gerlach measurements, surveys were made during the same period. For many locations, important erosion-controlling factors like vegetation type, ground cover, slope, and soil attributes were recorded, together with an on the spot estimation of the erosion risk. Analysis of these data in combination with multi-temporal image characteristics should clarify relationships between backscatter, vegetation, and erosion. Nevertheless, as vegetation is only one of the factors controlling erosion, accurate erosion risk

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ERS SAR and ENVISAT ASAR products were provided by ESA (EO-1223 project). ASTER data were provided for ARO on ASTER data use (AP-234). The ASTER data rights belong to Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan. The authors thank Ramon Hanssen (Delft University of Technology) for the interferometric processing, and Arjen Vrielink (SarVision) for his help with image calibration. Thiago Campos Nogueira (UFU) is acknowledged for his assistance during the fieldwork.

REFERENCES 1. Eswaran H., et al. Land degradation: an overview. In: Response to land degradation, E.M. Bridges, et al., (Eds.). Science Publishers Inc., Enfield, NH, USA, 2001 2. Lal R., Soil erosion impact on agronomic productivity and environment quality, Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences, Vol. 17, 319-464, 1998 3. Pimentel D., et al. Environmental and economic costs of soil erosion and conservation benefits, Science, Vol. 267, 1117-1123, 1995 4. van Rompaey A. J. J. and Govers G., Data quality and model complexity for regional scale soil erosion prediction, Geomorphology, Vol. 16, 663-680, 2002 5. Bocco G., Gully erosion: processes and models, Progress in Physical Geography, Vol. 15, 392-406, 1991 6. Warren A., Land degradation is contextual, Land Degradation and Development, Vol. 13, 449-459, 2002 7. Vrieling A., et al. Erosion risk mapping: a methodological case study in the Colombian Eastern Plains, Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, Vol. 57, 158-163, 2002 8. Furley P. A., The nature and diversity of neotropical savanna vegetation with particular reference to the Brazilian cerrados, Global Ecology and Biogeography, Vol. 8, 223241, 1999 9. Ferreira L. G. and Huete A. R., Assessing the seasonal dynamics of the Brazilian Cerrado vegetation through the use of spectral vegetation indices, International Journal of Remote Sensing, Vol. 25, 18371860, 2004 10. Rodrigues S. C., Impacts of human activity on landscapes in Central Brazil: a case study in the Araguari watershed, Australian Geographical Studies, Vol. 40, 167-178, 2002 11. Liu J. G., et al. Erosion and landuse change detection using ERS SAR interferometric coherence imagery (ESA ERS AO3-113). In: Proceedings of FRINGE'99. Lige, Belgium, 10-12 November, 1999.