Modeling the Soil Erosion Regulation Ecosystem Services of the Landscape in Polish Catchments

In this study, the soil erosion regulation ecosystem services of the CORINE land use/ land cover types along with soil intrinsic features and geomorphological factors were examined by using the soil erosion data of 327 catchments in Poland, with a mean area of 510 ± 330 km2, applying a multivariate regression modeling approach. The results showed that soil erosion is accelerated by the discontinuous urban fabric (r = 0.224, p ≤ 0.01), by construction sites (r = 0.141, p ≤ 0.05), non-irrigated arable land (r = 0.237, p ≤ 0.01), and is mitigated by coniferous forest (r = −0.322, p ≤ 0.01), the clay ratio (r = −0.652, p ≤ 0.01), and the organic content of the soil (r = −0.622, p ≤ 0.01). The models also indicated that there is a strong relationship between soil erosion and the percentage of land use/land cover types (r2 = [0.62, 0.82, 0.83, 0.74]), i.e., mixed forest, non-irrigated arable land, fruit trees and berry plantations, broad-leaf forest, sport and leisure facilities, construction sites, and mineral extraction sites. The findings show that the soil erosion regulation ecosystem service is sensitive to broadleaf forests, rainfed agriculture, soil water content, terrain slope, drainage network density, annual precipitation, the clay ratio, the soil carbon content, and the degree of sensitivity increases from the broadleaf forest to the soil carbon content.