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April 25, 2026Soil Systems0 citationsOpen Access

Assessing Soil Vulnerability to Water Erosion Under Dam Releases Using a Multi-Criteria Approach: Case of the Sidi Aich Basin, Southwestern Tunisia

FKFatma KaraouliUniversity of Carthage MZMongi Ben ZaiedInstitut des Régions Arides NKNadia KhelifUniversity of Sfax

Key Points

The study aims to assess soil erosion susceptibility in the Sidi Aich watershed using a combined RUSLE and AHP approach.
Utilized the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) for soil erosion modeling.
Applied the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) for hierarchical weighting of factors.
Conducted model validation to test predictive performance with Area Under the Curve (AUC) analysis.
26.12% of the area falls into the very high susceptibility category, with 25.45% high, 23.91% moderate, and 24.51% low susceptibility.
AUC values of 0.85 for AHP and 0.78 for RUSLE indicate satisfactory model predictive performance.
The findings emphasize the role of dam-controlled releases in increasing soil vulnerability.

Abstract

Soil erosion is a significant environmental concern in arid regions, particularly in dam-regulated watersheds, where intermittent flows from sprinkler irrigation can exacerbate land degradation. This study assesses soil erosion susceptibility in the Sidi Aich watershed using a combined approach of the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), enabling the integration of both regional characteristics and expert-driven weighting. The RUSLE model accounts for natural and human-induced factors, whereas AHP provides a hierarchical weighting system that highlights rainfall erosivity and the local impacts of dam-regulated discharges. Results show that 26.12% of the area falls into the very high susceptibility category, 25.45% into high, 23.91% into moderate, and 24.51% into low susceptibility. Model validation demonstrates satisfactory predictive performance, with Area Under the Curve (AUC) values of 0.85 for AHP and 0.78 for RUSLE. Overall, the findings emphasize the critical role of dam-controlled releases in increasing soil vulnerability, a factor that may not be fully captured when using RUSLE alone. By combining RUSLE and AHP, this research provides a more realistic and regionally tailored assessment of erosion risk, offering valuable guidance for watershed management and erosion mitigation strategies in arid environments.

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