Abstract
Spatial assessing of the soil loss drivers provides information to prioritize the soil conservation areas. In this study, the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) and Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) were combined to estimate the spatial variation of the relative importance of soil loss drivers, in the Nazas-Rodeo watershed of northern Mexico. Also, the improvements in the GWR model compared to the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) were evaluated. The results indicated that 61.58% of the watershed surface it has a potential for soil loss greater than the tolerance value (T value). Besides, there is a significant amount of surface classified between the categories of considerable to extreme erosion (36,435.89 ha). Regarding the regression analysis, the GWR model showed improvements in the explanation of the variation and the reduction of the error compared to the OLS model. An F-test also indicated that the reduction of the residual sum of squares between the OLS and GWR was significant (p < 0.05). The GWR coefficients showed spatial non-stationarity (i.e. they varied across space) and indicated that the K-factor is the one with the greatest relative importance, followed by the C-factor, the LS-factor, and the R-factor. These results will allow the development of strategies focused on reducing and managing the drivers of soil loss of greater relative importance, facilitating the understanding of the causes and mechanisms of soil loss across space.
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We recognize the National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT) for the support of the Doctorate studies of the first and fourth authors. Also, we are grateful to the editor and anonymous reviewers for their useful comments and suggestions.
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Cabral-Alemán, C., López-Santos, A., Padilla-Martínez, J.R. et al. Spatial variation of the relative importance of the soil loss drivers in a watershed of northern Mexico: a geographically weighted regression approach. Earth Sci Inform 15, 833–843 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12145-022-00768-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12145-022-00768-w