Agricultural Land Use Changes as a Driving Force of Soil Erosion in the Velika Morava River Basin, Serbia

The erosion potential model was applied to estimate the soil erosion status of rural settlements during the years 1971 and 2011. We used univariate and bivariate local Moran’s I indices to detect and visualize the spatial clustering of settlements with respect to changes in erosion intensity and agricultural land use, as well as their mutual spatial correlation. The study area was differentiated into four statistically significant clusters using the calculated bivariate local Moran’s I indices. The statistical analysis examined the two largest clusters, i.e., the high–high and low–low clusters, and the results of the research indicate that the first four principal components explained 70.50% and 73.47% of the total variance, respectively. In the high–high cluster, the low rates of erosion reduction (average Index Z = 98) in the most significant types of rural settlements were determined according to demographic indicators (i.e., the higher population vitality and population density, the smaller share of the old population and the lower average age of the population) and the large proportion of arable land and Neogene sediments. In the low–low cluster, high erosion reduction rates were detected (average index Z = 64). In this cluster, the more statistically significant influence of natural conditions in combination with demographic–agrarian processes (i.e., the larger share of the old population, the higher average age of the population, the lower vitality index and deagrarization) were decisive factors in changing erosion intensity.