Gully erosion

Soil erosion is an important form of land degradation and is among South Africa's most critical environmental issues. Gully erosion (in addition to sheet and rill erosion) has been identified as being a major source of sediment entering waterways in many catchments in South Africa (SA). The main purpose of creating this data was to establish the spatial extent of gully erosion per Province in South Africa. The aim was achieved by accurately mapping gully erosion features using SPOT 5 satellite imagery at a scale of 1:10 000. This data was created by means of visual interpretation and vectorization of SPOT 5 imagery (panchromatic sharpened images (2.5 m resolution) merged with multispectral bands (10 m resolution) to produce a 5 m resolution images) from various acquisition dates in 2006 to 2008. The outer boundary of gullies were delineated from SPOT 5 satellite images in ArcMap. Gullies were identified by their tone, shape, drainage pattern and association. The data provide useful information for conservation of natural resources projects of the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.