Gully Erosion Control Practices in Northeast China: A Review

Abstract

Gully erosion is the destructive and dramatic form of land degradation in Northeast China. The region is the grain production and ecological security base of China where the fertile and productive Mollisols are distributed. Though the region was agriculturally developed relatively recently, it went through high intensity cultivation and fast succession processes within short-time scales. Coupled with irrational farming practice choice and land use, hillslope erosion and gully erosion are seriously threatening agricultural production and environmental stability in the region. The awareness of gully erosion by the local governments started in the 1970s, and conservation measures were thus implemented. In this paper, based on our survey, communications with local farmers and stakeholders as well as investigation for gully erosion for the past three years, we summarize the practical and efficient practices to manage gully erosion developed by researchers and farmers in Northeast China during the past 50 years. These practices include various drop structures, soil check dams, masonry check dams, gabion check dams, wicker check dams, continuous live wicker, a shrub plant enclosure, and an arbor plant enclosure. We specifically expound how a gully erosion practice is set up and identify the site conditions for which they are well-suited. The application of these practices depends on topography, gully size, and local economy. Bioengineering techniques in Northeast China, such as continuous live wicker, a shrub plant enclosure, and an arbor plant enclosure, are highly effective in controlling gully erosion. Problems and challenges are also presented.

The effectiveness of selected vegetation communities in regulating runoff and soil loss from regraded gully banks in the Mollisol region of Northeast China

“…The gully banks are 12–23 m in length, and its slope steepness was regraded below 35°. The detailed work can be seen in the publication of Liu, Li, et al (2019). The earth bund was constructed along the gully shoulder line to prevent the slope flow from entering the gully and destroying the newly planted vegetation (Figure 1c).…”

“…More than 88.7% of these gullies stay active (Bai & Hui, 2015), and 60.2% of the gullies develop in farmland. As a grain production base, 20% of the production is supplied from this region and feeds most of the population of China (Xie et al, 2019); however, the annual reduction of grain production due to gully erosion is as high as 36.2 × 10 5 tons (Liu, Li, Zhang, Cruse, & Zhang, 2019). Despite these worrying values, much less attention has been paid to gully protection than to gully erosion monitoring and erosion prediction, and there is a dire lack of research on gully bank protection (Bai & Hui, 2015; Li, Cruse, Liu, & Zhang, 2016; Yang et al, 2017).…”

“…The sediments from the gully bank are much more abundant than the sediments generated from the process of gully incision formation and are thus expected to be the main sediment source of gully erosion (Morgan, 2005). Several control measures, such as drop structures at headcuts, check‐dams in gully channels, and soil and water conservation barriers along gully banks, have been implemented to control gully erosion, but there have been fewer effective measures found to control gully bank erosion (Liu, Li, et al, 2019). More seriously, these control measures are well accepted only by environmentally conscious farmers; this is mainly attributed to the lack of profit provided by check‐dams or the low profit provided by the revegetation technology with continuous live wickers, shrub plant enclosures, and arbor plant enclosures (Liu, Li, et al, 2019).…”

The Potential of Gully Erosion on the Yamal Peninsula, West Siberia

“…Gully erosion has been and remains one of the most dangerous processes of land damage [1,2]. Although it mainly occurs on agricultural lands [3], in recent years more and more gullies are formed in urbanized and industrial areas [4,5]. A typical example is the territory of the Yamal Peninsula where lands previously used for pastures only by local residents [6] are actively used at present in the development of gas and oil fields.…”

“…According to this statement, a measure of the potential risk that the natural environment or structure (if it exists) will be damaged by gullies can be taken proportional to the combination of the values and frequencies of all erosion events that exceed a certain geomorphic threshold above which this form of relief becomes unstable [3]. This combination is the amount of cumulative erosion during various events, or the quantity of sediment transported.…”