2015/12/07 by Chengguang Lai, Zhaoli Wang, Xiaohong Chen +6
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Environmental Science · #Hydrology and Sediment Transport Processes #Hydrology and Watershed Management Studies #Soil erosion and sediment transport
paper · pdf · doi:10.2166/nh.2015.094
crossref issued 2015/12/07 · crossref published 2015/12/07 · crossref published-online 2015/12/07 · openalex publication_date 2015/12/07 · crossref created 2015/12/08 · crossref published-print 2016/10/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref deposited 2026/06/02 · crossref indexed 2026/07/31 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
Accelerated soil erosion is an undesirable process that adversely affects the conservation of water and soil. This paper used a procedure linking the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) and geographic information system (GIS) to map the soil erosion level from 1990 to 2010 caused by land-cover change in the Dongjiang River basin, China. Results indicate that the significant land-cover change greatly impacted soil erosion. The overall soil erosion level of the basin belonged to Level II (mild erosion) but the erosion amount shown an uptrend. Erosion areas of Levels I and II occupied more than 90% and other levels (Levels III–VI) occupied less than 10% of the total area. Approximately 90.85% of the area maintained the original levels, 5.84% converted from lower levels to higher levels, and 3.32% converted from higher levels to lower levels. The erosion in the downstream regions was more serious than that in the central and upstream regions. Although soil erosion was mild as a whole in the study region, some local areas underwent intense erosion. The study demonstrated that linking RUSLE with GIS tools is an efficient procedure for mapping soil erosion levels at basin scale. The gradual deterioration condition caused by land-cover changes at present or in the future requires further study.