Alternation of the Vegetation Type for Reducing of Potential Contaminated Overland Sediment from the Upstream Area of the Mae Tao Basin Thailand

Abstract

—The Mae Tao basin, reported as the largest zinc deposition area of Thailand, has been considered to be a remote cadmium (Cd) - contaminated area since 2002. According to the reports from both government and private sectors, the agricultural area in the upstream of the basin were discovered to be one of potential cadmium sources. In this study, the integrated spatial technology between remote sensing, digital mapping, GIS, and RUSLE were applied to conduct the simulation of vegetation’s alternation to reduce the potential erosion of the area in the upstream of the basin. According to the study’s results the complex vegetation shows better capability in reducing the potential erosion. Additionally, overlapped cropping with straw mulch cover is the practice that contains the highest erosion reduction efficiency at 92.05% while vetiver, supported by many researches can reduce 62.07% of the erosion at the earlier state.