Response of Erosive Precipitation to Vegetation Restoration and Its Effect on Soil and Water Conservation Over China's Loess Plateau

Abstract

Vegetation restoration is commonly recognized as one of the most effective measures for soil and water conservation (Feng et al., 2016;Teo et al., 2022;Wang et al., 2016). From a water conservation point of view, vegetation restoration can enhance rainfall infiltration as the presence of root/plant residue and increased surface roughness can reduce the amount and velocity of surface runoff (Dunne et al., 1991;Wang et al., 2012Wang et al., , 2013. Vegetation restoration also increases soil water holding capacity and can hold more soil water in place by physically binding soil particles together (Ran et al., 2013;Yang et al., 2016). From a soil conservation point of view, vegetation restoration can intercept rainfall and reduce its energy to prevent splash erosion. It also slows down and reduces surface runoff to mitigate flood and sheet erosion (Guo et al., 2019). Moreover, vegetation restoration can anchor and reinforce soil particles with its spreading root systems (Legates et al., 2011) and stabilize hillslopes through axial root reinforcement to weaken gravitational erosion (Burylo et al., 2011). While these soil and water conservation benefits from vegetation restoration have been investigated from the land-atmosphere coupling perspective (Forzieri et al., 2017;Li et al., 2018;Zhang et al., 2021Zhang et al., , 2022, these studies generally focus on total precipitation (P) changes without further understanding the feedbacks between vegetation restoration and erosive P through revegetation-induced redistributions of water and energy budgets. Moreover, it is still not clear how the erosive proportion of total P responds to large-scale revegetation and to what extent it affects soil conservation (Li et al., 2018;Trenberth, 1999). Improved understanding of land-atmosphere interactions with explicit representation of vegetation dynamics is, therefore, key toward a more comprehensive assessment of the

Effect of Plastic Membrane and Geotextile Cloth Mulching on Soil Moisture and Spring Maize Growth in the Loess–Hilly Region of Yan’an, China

“…Soil wetting and drying have obvious seasonality because the distribution of the rainfall season is uneven, mostly distributed in late summer and early autumn, and there is less rainfall in spring in the Loess Plateau hilly region [23]. Figure 7 shows the soil water content at 5, 15, and 30 cm below the furrow surface between the ridges in different treatments.…”

Spatial and Temporal Evolutionary Characteristics of Vegetation in Different Geomorphic Zones of Loess Plateau and Its Driving Factor Analysis

“…In the past, the LP suffered from severe soil erosion due to factors such as undulating terrain, loose soil texture and human activities. However, large-scale projects such as returning farmland to forests and grasslands, as well as soil and water conservation initiatives, contributed to increased vegetation coverage, improved soil structure and reduced risks of soil and water loss in recent years [35]. This positive change reflects the success of these ecological restoration efforts in enhancing vegetation on the LP.…”

Potential for Improved Hydrological Functioning and Stream Baseflows through Forest Landscape Restoration in the Tropics

“…If most of the rain falls at relatively low intensities, much may then be intercepted, evaporated, and/or used by the vegetation during transpiration instead of contributing to groundwater recharge and baseflow [96,98,139]. In the case of the Loess Plateau of China, total precipitation resulting from regional atmospheric moisture convergence increased in some areas following large-scale vegetation restoration, but the amounts of 'intense' precipitation (defined locally as >12 mm d -1 ) decreased between 2000 and 2015 [192].…”