sustainability Article A Multivariate Geomorphometric Approach to Prioritize Erosion-Prone Watersheds Jesús A. Prieto-Amparán 1, Alfredo Pinedo-Alvarez 1 , Griselda Vázquez-Quintero 2, María C. Valles-Aragón 2 , Argelia E. Rascón-Ramos 1, Martin Martinez-Salvador 1 and Federico Villarreal-Guerrero 1,* 1 Facultad de Zootecnia y Ecología, Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua, Chihuahua 31453, Mexico;
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[email protected] (M.M.-S.) 2 Facultad de Ciencias Agrotecnológicas, Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua, Chihuahua 31350, Mexico;
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[email protected] (M.C.V.-A.) * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +52-(614)-434-1448 Received: 15 August 2019; Accepted: 15 September 2019; Published: 19 September 2019 Abstract: Soil erosion is considered one of the main degradation processes in ecosystems located in developing countries. In northern Mexico, one of the most important hydrological regions is the Conchos River Basin (CRB) due to its utilization as a runoff source. However, the CRB is subjected to significant erosion processes due to natural and anthropogenic causes. Thus, classifying the CRB’s watersheds based on their erosion susceptibility is of great importance. This study classified and then prioritized the 31 watersheds composing the CRB. For that, multivariate techniques such as principal component analysis (PCA), group analysis (GA), and the ranking methodology known as compound parameter (Cp) were used. After a correlation analysis, the values of 26 from 33 geomorphometric parameters estimated from each watershed served for the evaluation. The PCA defined linear-type parameters as the main source of variability among the watersheds.