Assessment And Analysis Of Soil Erosion In Loess Plateau (1980-2010),China

The loess plateau area is one of the serious soil erosion areas in China, even all over the world. The soil erosion there has showed obvious change since the implementation of Grain for Green Project. In this study, the regional soil erosion research was integrated with remote sensing and GIS technology, to complete spatial-temporal assessment of landuse, vegetation as well as soil erosion since 1975. The analysis mainly includes three parts:factors and soil conservation measures (biology, cultivation, measures), and gully erosion factor; analysis on spatial and temporal variations of land use and vegetation coverage; spatial-temporal assessment and analysis of soil erosion in entire Loess plateau and sampling sites. The results show that:around 1997, various conservation measures factor increasing, gully erosion factor decreases continually; From 1980 to 2010, the loess plateau of total cropland area keeps loss constantly, forest increase and grassland decrease; in the sites, vegetation coverage has been increasing from northwest to southeast, low coverage becomes less, high coverage increased to 65% of the total area of the loess plateau in 2010; soil erosion intensity of the loess plateau is becoming less since 1975, the intensity in loess hills (e.g. Ansai) decrease from 9,978t/km2.a in 1980 to 2200t/km2.a in 2010, average intensity in 4 sites of hilly area and plateau area changed from 5747 t/km2.a in 1980 to 1586t/km2.a in 2010. Soil erosion in steep cropland is still severer, so need to be controled.