Soil erosion fluxes on the central Chinese Loess Plateau during CE 1811 to 1996 and the roles of monsoon storms and human activities

Asynchronized erosion effects due to climate and human activities on the central Chinese Loess Plateau during the Anthropocene and its implications for future soil and water management

“…These differences displayed directly that soil erosion on the southcentral and northcentral CLP was not synchronized with the interdecadal East Asian monsoon fluctuations (11‐year moving average), implying a possible existing driver of shorter time‐resolution (interannual) climate variation. Previous studies had verified that the ENSO events were the primary interannual climate driver on the CLP (Chen et al, 2015b; Sun et al, 2018; Wang et al, 2021). Therefore, the ENSO influence on the central CLP was evaluated to understand the precipitation and soil erosion patterns of the two study regions.…”

“…The chronologies of the JB and HS sequences were built by a multi‐proxy combination of 137 Cs activities, records of recent rainfall and historical flood grade indexes, annual freeze–thaw layers that were identified by high concentrations and correlations of Ca and Fe (Wang et al, 2016b). Details of the methods used for sampling, couplets division, and dating for the JB and HS sequences were reported by Wang et al (2019, 2021). As a result, the JB sequence consisted of 126 couplets in 78 individual years over A.D. 1855–2014, which indicated that the JB sequence was deposited by 126 hydrological events at 78 individual years during this period.…”

“…(Quinn et al, 1987), and from A.D. 1867 to 1998 that were acquired by the sea surface temperature in the Niño 3 and 4 regions and two Southern Oscillation Index series (Wang & Gong, 1999). Further details of these data were also provided in Wang et al (2019, 2021). Subsequently, statistical determinations of CSSY, ASSY, precipitation, and ENSO were made along the distributions of the years 1850–2000 using OriginPro 2018 software.…”

“…On the southcentral CLP, the HS landslide‐dammed reservoir is in the loess plateau–gully region, specifically in the northwestern gully in the middle reaches of the Malian River (Figure 1b). The HS reservoir was formed by a natural landslide on the right slope of the valley in 1811, with a total drainage area of 1.98 km 2 (Wang et al, 2021). The HS catchment is within the forest region of the Ziwu Mountain at the 600 mm equipluve (i.e.…”

“…Despite the usefulness of such studies, these have mainly focused on measured data over the past 60 years and on specific small watersheds in different regions of the CLP (Tang et al, 2018;Yang et al, 2018). In addition, only a few studies have reported soil erosion fluxes and human-environment interactions before the 1960s due to a lack of high-resolution sedimentary data for the CLP (Wang et al, 2021;Zhang et al, 2009).…”