Spatiotemporal Characteristics of Soil Erosion on the Chinese Loess Plateau and Strategies for Vegetation Management

• DOI: 10.1007/s42729-024-01846-2
• Publication Date: 2024-06-14T14:02:39Z
• Authors: Wanghai Tao; Shiyao Liu; Quanjiu Wang; Lijun Su; Yan Sun
• Keywords: Loess plateau; Shrubland; Dryland salinity; Erosion Control

The Chinese Loess Plateau is an ecologically fragile area in China and globally, which plays a crucial role in soil and water conservation and ecological restoration. To address the problem of soil erosion in this region, China has implemented the Grain for Green project since 2000. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the Grain for Green project by analyzing the temporal and spatial changes in soil erosion on the Loess Plateau from 2000 to 2021. The results indicated that the average erosion intensities of water and wind erosion from 2000 to 2021 were 16.66 and 10.73 t·ha-1·yr-1, respectively. A downward trend was observed during the study period, with change rates of -0.45 and -0.32 t·ha-1·yr-1, respectively. The Gully region showed the highest intensity of water erosion, with a decrease rate of -0.80 t·ha-1·yr-1. On the other hand, the Sandy region experienced the highest intensity of wind erosion, with a decrease rate of -1.62 t·ha-1·yr-1. When analyzing erosion intensity in different land use types, it was found that bare land has the highest average erosion intensity (water erosion: 68.74 t·ha-1·yr-1, wind erosion: 183.29 t·ha-1·yr-1), while forest land has the lowest (almost no water erosion, wind erosion less than 0.5 t·ha-1·yr-1). Regarding different landforms, water erosion generally increases with slope, while wind erosion mainly occurs in flat areas with less than 5°. Enhancing vegetation coverage in each subregion is recommended to control soil erosion. Specifically, suggested increments were 4.51% for the Gully region, 3.65% for the Hilly-gully region, 2.89% for the Valley Plain region, 2.74% for the Earth-rock Mountain region, 1.49% for the Irrigation region, and 0.87% for the Sandy region.