Recognition of suitable small watersheds for check dam construction on the Loess Plateau

Abstract

Check dams are used for soil and water conservation worldwide, especially on the Chinese Loess Plateau, which has suffered from severe soil and water loss. To promote ecological conservation and high‐quality development in the Yellow River basin, considerable effort should be devoted to building check dams in the small watersheds where the conditions permit on the Loess Plateau. Therefore, suitable small watersheds must be identified for constructing new check dams. In this study, the weighted overlay method (WOM) of the multi‐criteria decision‐making analysis method, the random forest (RF), and the support vector machine (SVM) of machine learning methods were first applied to simulate the suitability of small watersheds for check dam construction in the Ganguyi upstream area of the Yanhe River basin on the Loess Plateau. Accuracy assessment showed that the accuracy of the three models was almost perfect and RF had the highest accuracy of 0.95, followed by SVM (0.87), and WOM (0.83). Meanwhile, the impacts of topographic factors and soil erodibility were found to be generally higher than those of the other factors, and 56% of small watersheds had high and very high suitability for check dam construction, 67% of these small watersheds have already been built as check dams. Finally, a total of 108 small watersheds were found to be suitable in the study area when considering their environmental characteristics. The methodology developed in the study can be used as a preliminary planning step for check dam construction and as a foundation for detailed field investigations in the future, which help to realize the sustainable use of soil and water resources.

Ecological Restoration in the Loess Plateau, China Necessitates Targeted Management Strategy: Evidence from the Beiluo River Basin

“…Using an economicsbased method to calculate the ESV can help human beings to realize the development, utilization, protection, and restoration of ecosystems more scientifically, and finally allow us to achieve the goal of sustainable development. The most common methods used to calculate the ESV are the energy evaluation method and the benefit transfer method [16]. However, regardless of which method is used, the subjective differences in the selection of parameters lead to differences in the calculation results.…”

“…After 2000, environmental governance focused on the projects of "Grain for Green" [14,15]. After years of environmental restoration, the overall vegetation cover area has increased, the sediment entering the Yellow River has reduced, and the land-use structure has also changed dramatically [13,[16][17][18][19]. However, owing to the interaction between the ecological environment and the socio-economic relationship, the sustainability of ER can be affected by managers, land-lost farmers, and other stakeholders.…”

“…Spatial distribution of LUT features after classification in the Beiluo River Basin. Note: This figure is grouped according to the LUT features in four stages in the Beiluo River Basin, in which "Re-forestation" includes (21, 31, 31, 41, 51, 52, 61, 62, 71, 72, 73); "De-forestation" includes(14, 17); "Degradation" includes(12,13,16,23,26,27,36,37,46, 47,57,63,67); "Urbanisation" includes(15,25,35,45,65, 75); "Land rehabilitation" includes(24,34,54,64,74); and "Land abandonment" includes(42,43,53).…”

Exploring Factors Shaping Farmer Behavior in Wastewater Utilization for Agricultural Practices: A Rapid Review

“…Indeed, investing in new infrastructure to augment water supplies is becoming increasingly unsustainable from both economic and environmental perspectives [10]. The costs associated with developing and maintaining large-scale infrastructure projects such as dams and reservoirs are often exorbitant [11], and these projects can have detrimental ecological impacts, disrupting local ecosystems and biodiversity [12].…”