3. Slope length and Slope steepness (LS)
The slope length and slope steepness can be used in a single index, which expresses the ratio of
soil loss as defined by (Wischmeier and Smith 1978)
LS = (X/22.1) m (0.065 + 0.045 S + 0.0065 S
2
)
Where X = slope length (m) and S = slope gradient (%)
The values of X and S were derived from DEM. To calculate the X value, Flow Accumulation
was derived from the DEM after conducting FILL and Flow Direction processes in ArcGIS 9.
X = (Flow accumulation * Cell value)
By substituting X value, LS equation will be:
LS = (Flow accumulation * Cell value /22.1) m (0.065 + 0.045 s + 0.0065 s2
)
Moreover slope (%) also directly derived from the DEM using the same software. The value of
m varies from 0.2 –0.5 depending of the slope as shown in table 3 (Wischmeier and Smith
1978). The result of the analysis is shown in figure 5.