Determination of cover management factor (C-Factor) in agricultural lands and its relationship with NDVI

Cover and management factor (C-factor), in USLE (Universal Soil Loss Equation) and RUSLE (Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation) technologies, states protective effect against soil losses by water erosion. In terms of managing land and soil, Sustainable Land and Soil Management should take place in agricultural lands. Hence, C-factor expresses the effect of the plant and the soil cover, showing a relationship between soil losses and bare soils and diverse soil surface conditions including vegetation cover during plant development period. This condition presents how mitigation measures affect soil losses annually and how soil losses affect crop rotation and other management plans, reciprocally. The aim of this research is to examine the relationships between C-factor and NDVI and investigate the spatial and temporal practicality of the NDVI as a remote sensing tool over large areas. Sub-factors of the C factor –prior land use, soil roughness, soil moisture, canopy cover and surface cover- were determined directly from sample points designed systematically and randomly in the sugar beet planted-study area and average C-factor was 0,060 (±0,070). NDVI values were obtained by using portable spectro-radiometer for in-situ measurements and calculated from the satellite data (Pleiades) and average NDVI values were 0.6212 (±0.042) and 0.6209 (±0.0258), respectively. With the interactive regression analysis among methods, the spatial and temporal changes on the land cover patterns and their effects on soil loss were rapidly determined in the semi-arid watershed of Eskisehir