Transition from manual (visual) interpretation to fully automated gully detection is an important task for quantitative assessment of modern gully erosion, especially when it comes to large mapping areas. Existing approaches to semi-automated gully detection are based on either object-oriented selection based on multispectral images or gully selection based on a probabilistic model obtained using digital elevation models (DEMs). These approaches cannot be used for the assessment of gully erosion on the territory of the European part of Russia most affected by gully erosion due to the lack of national large-scale DEM and limited resolution of open source multispectral satellite images. An approach based on the use of convolutional neural networks for automated gully detection on the RGB-synthesis of ultra-high resolution satellite images publicly available for the test region of the east of the Russian Plain with intensive basin erosion has been proposed and developed. The Keras library and U-Net architecture of convolutional neural networks were used for training. Preliminary results of application of the trained gully erosion convolutional neural network (GECNN) allow asserting that the algorithm performs well in detecting active gullies, well differentiates gullies from other linear forms of slope erosion — rills and balkas, but so far has errors in detecting complex gully systems. Also, GECNN does not identify a gully in 10% of cases and in another 10% of cases it identifies not a gully. To solve these problems, it is necessary to additionally train the neural network on the enlarged training data set.

https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/12/11/1743/pdf

Automatic Gully Detection: Neural Networks and Computer Vision

This paper describes a project undertaken by Moscow University geographers to evaluate and map the natural gully erosion hazard for plains areas of European Russia. Compilation of a series of maps on specific natural characteristics with a bearing on gully formation serves as the basis for the creation of a map depicting the natural susceptibility of areas to gully erosion used in forecasting the potential maximum density of the gully network. Translated by Anna Luchanskaya, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI 49008 from: Geomorfologiya, 1992, No. 3, pp. 25–31.

I. G. Katash

Papers

New maps of gully erosion