A GIS-based ICONA framework for assessing soil erosion susceptibility in Geben Valley National Park (Türkiye): Implications for risk management

Soil erosion represents a growing threat to ecosystem integrity in mountainous protected areas. However, erosion susceptibility assessments remain comparatively scarce in newly designated national parks, where proactive management is particularly needed. This study aims to develop a soil erosion susceptibility map for Geben Valley National Park (GVNP), a recently designated national park in Türkiye, by applying the Institute for the Conservation of Nature (ICONA) model within a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) framework, and to evaluate its potential as a practical tool for proactive conservation planning in newly designated protected areas. The analysis integrated topographic, lithological, vegetation, and land-use data to identify erosion-prone areas. The results revealed that 48.88% of the park falls within the very high susceptibility class and 29.17% within the high class, indicating that 93.70% of the park is characterized by moderate to very high erosion susceptibility. Extremely steep slopes (>35%) cover 55.28% of the study area, while 63.48% of the park exhibits vegetation cover below 25%. Despite the predominance of erosion-resistant lithological formations and largely natural land-cover conditions, steep slopes and sparse vegetation cover emerged as the primary factors controlling erosion susceptibility. Model performance was evaluated using Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis based on 50 validation points interpreted from high-resolution Google Earth imagery. The Area Under the Curve (AUC) was 0.79, indicating good predictive performance. Overall, the study highlights the potential of the ICONA framework as a practical decision-support tool for guiding risk-informed management decisions and prioritizing conservation actions before severe land degradation occurs in newly designated protected areas.