Determining the land degradation and temporalchanges of Bursa by using the CORINE erosion model

Many factors such as misuse of lands, industrialization, rapidly population growth, soil erosion, pollution are among the factors that threaten our natural resources in our country and in the world. Preventing or reducing the negative effects of these threats primarily depends on determining and observing the quality and quantity of our natural resources. In recent years, remote sensing and geographic information systems have become accurate, fast, economical and widely used tools in data production and observation of natural resources with the contribution of developments in computer, imaging and software technologies. In this study, it is aimed to evaluate the erosion risk in Bursa province lands by using CORINE land cover data (1990-2018), to identify and map the risky areas in a GIS environment, and to present the precautions to be taken. In addition, the negative effects of land use/cover changes that occurred between 1990-2018 on the natural resources of Bursa Province and to areas with high erosion risk were also determined and the results were discussed. According to the results, 78% of Bursa Province lands (837080.4 ha) has medium and high potential erosion risk due to soil, topography and climatic conditions. On the other hand, 15.2% (163320 ha) of the lands has low potential erosion risk. When the potential erosion risk classes and vegetation cover are examined on the actual erosion risk maps created for 1990 and 2018, there was a decrease of 2.5% in the low erosion risk class and 7.9% in the medium erosion risk class, and an increase of 10.4% in the high erosion risk class due to degradation of forests and semi-natural vegetation areas. Through the studied years (1990-2018), it was determined that there was an increase of 23.547 ha in artificial areas, and a significant decrease of 9.027 ha in agricultural lands, and 16.124 ha in forest and semi-natural areas.