2.2. Data used
In this study, freely available geospatial datasets were utilized for
the nationwide annual soil erosion estimation and mapping for 2005 and
2015 in Pakistan at 1 km spatial resolution. Mean monthly
rainfall/precipitation (mm) data at 1 km spatial resolution was obtained
from the Chelsa-climate web portal (http://chelsa-climate.org) for
2005 and 2015 (Karger et al. , 2016). The twelve months raster
rainfall/precipitation layers were averaged to calculate the mean annual
rainfall/precipitation (mm) for the 2005 and 2015. The global scale 1 km
soil map was downloaded from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
harmonized World Soil Database v 1.2 website
(http://www.fao.org/land-water/databases-and-software/hwsd/en/)
(Fischer et al. , 2008). One arc second (~30 m
spatial resolution) Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) Digital
Elevation Model (DEM) (Farr et al. , 2007) was downloaded from the
United States Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Explorer web portal
(https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/). The 30 m spatial resolution DEM
was resampled at 1 km grid size, and then further processed to generate
slope dataset. Annual Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
(MODIS) LCLU datasets (500 m spatial resolution) of 2005 and 2015 were
downloaded from the USGS Earth Explorer data web portal
(https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/), which were further resampled at
1 km spatial resolution. For data processing, visualization, and area
estimations we used World Geodetic System 1984, Lambert Conformal Conic
(LCC) projection system. All the geospatial datasets were truncated at
the extent of Pakistan.