Relationship between land use and soil erosion in a typical area in the
tableland and gully region of the Loess Plateau, China
Abstract
Soil erosion is an important environmental problem that threatens human
ecological security and socioeconomic development. Unreasonable land use
is one of the main causes of soil erosion. By collecting the topography,
climate, soil, vegetation and satellite image data of Dongzhiyuan (DZY)
in the tableland and gully region (TGR) of the Loess Plateau (LP), the
Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) and the Chinese Soil Loss
Equation (CSLE) models were used to simulate the soil erosion intensity
in different periods (1987, 1997, 2007 and 2017). We found that under
high rainfall erosivity factor (R), the soil erosion usually be
overestimated in the RUSLE model. However, the result has been changed
when we use the annual average R.Besides, the model of CSLE based on the
RUSLE takes engineering measure factor (E) into account, making the
results more reliable. Also, land use change will affect soil erosion.
The conversion of urban to farmland and grassland will increase soil
erosion, and vice versa. The mutual transfer between farmland and
grassland, forest and grassland will cause soil erosion to change in
different directions, and the greater of land use change, the more
serious soil erosion will be. Nevertheless, we shouldn’t increase the
urban land by mountain excavation and gully filling blindly. Otherwise,
geological disasters such as landslides and surface subsidence may occur
in the near future. This work may enhance our understanding of soil
erosion mechanisms in DZY, and provide references for land use planning
and soil and water conservation in China’s Loess Plateau.