Estimating the Soil Erosion Response to Land-Use Land-Cover Change Using GIS-Based RUSLE and Remote Sensing: A Case Study of Miyun Reservoir, North China

Abstract

Soil erosion by water is a major cause of land degradation. Agricultural practices and many other ecological environmental problems contribute to land degradation worldwide, especially in arid and semi-arid areas. Miyun County, which is located in a mountainous region of North China, is an important natural ecological zone and surface source of drinking water for Beijing and is very vulnerable to soil erosion due to its thin soil layer and human activities. Landsat images from 2003 and 2013 were used to analyze the land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) over this period. The revised universal soil loss equation (RUSLE) model integrated with Geographic Information System (GIS) was used to quantify soil loss and to map erosion risk. In addition, the response of soil erosion to LULCC was evaluated. The results showed that the areas under cropland, forest, and water bodies increased over the study period by 66.03, 243.44, and 9.01 km2, respectively. The increase in forested land indicated that the improved ground vegetation cover was due to the implementation of active ecological measures. Between 2003 and 2013, light soil erosion increased by 587.46 km2, and extremely severe soil erosion increased by 9.57 km2. The extents of slight, moderate, severe, and very severe soil erosion, however, decreased by 8.02, 445.21, 142.69, and 1.11 km2, respectively. A total of 57.5% of land with moderate soil erosion has been converted to light soil erosion, which could be highly beneficial for the improvement of vegetation control of soil and water losses. In terms of area, forestland exhibited the greatest increase, while moderate soil erosion exhibited the greatest decrease over the study period. Land-use change led to an alteration in the intensity of soil erosion due to changes or loss of vegetation. The conversion from high intensity soil erosion to low intensity was attributed to the implementation of ecological environmental protection. The results generated from this study may be useful for planners and land-use managers to make appropriate decisions for soil conservation.

Spatial modeling of soil loss as a response to land use-land cover change in Didessa sub-basin, the agricultural watershed of Ethiopia

“…Over the last two-three decades, human activities have often been inclined to intensify soil erosion, thereby creating serious environmental impacts by negatively affecting agricultural productivity, particularly in the last two decades. In recent years, many researchers have highlighted soil erosion due to the effects of human disturbance, which continues to pose severe threats to human sustenance [ [9] , [10] , [11] , [12] , [13] , [14] ]. On a global scale, more than 10 million ha of global cropland are lost annually [ 15 ], though the rate at which it affects soil resources varies with human activities throughout the regions.…”

Land-use function evolution and eco-environmental effects in the tarim river basin from the perspective of production–living–ecological space

“…Land-use change affects nearly one-third of the global land area (Winkler et al, 2021), and changes in land area will inevitably have different impacts on different ecological and environmental indicators. In particular, land-use change may negatively affect carbon pools (Padbhushan et al, 2022) and soil erosion (Gong et al, 2022), and it can also cooperate with climate change to promote net primary productivity (Xiao et al, 2019). It is worth mentioning that surface runoff (Daneshi et al, 2020), the spatial pattern of water quality , and landscape complexity (Galpern and Gavin, 2020) have all been shown to be strongly correlated with land-use change.…”

Canopy Interception of Different Rainfall Patterns in the Rocky Mountain Areas of Northern China: An Application of the Revised Gash Model

“…This study was conducted in the Miyun Reservoir (40 1), which is located to the northeast of Beijing (the capital of China), at an elevation of 205 to 700 m. It is the largest reservoir in Northern China [30], and the local vegetation is representative of the rocky mountain areas of Northern China.…”