Effects of climate, land use and land cover changes on soil loss in the Three Gorges Reservoir area, China

Abstract

Climate, land use and land cover (LULC) changes are among the primary driving forces of soil loss. Decoupling their effects can help in understanding the magnitude and trend of soil loss in response to human activities and ecosystem management. Here, the RUSLE model was applied to estimate the spatial-temporal variations of soil loss rate in the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR) area during 2001-2015, followed by a scenario design to decouple the effects of climate and LULC changes. The results showed that increasing rainfall generated as much as 2.90 × 10⁷ t soil loss in the TGR area. However, such effect was offset by changes in LULC particularly afforestation, which retained about 1.10 × 10⁷ t soil annually. Other human activities such as dam development and urbanization aggravated soil loss by as much as 1.40 × 10⁶ t annually. Because of land use policies that favor economic development, distinct spatial variances of soil loss were observed in TGR area. Soil loss in some counties located downstream of the TGR area (i.e., close to the dam) was more influenced by dam development, but soil loss in the other counties was more influenced by urbanization. As climate change (i.e., increasing rainfall) did not affect plant performance in TGR area, our findings suggested that ecological restoration was more beneficial to curb the amount of soil loss caused by urbanization and dam construction.

Keywords

Water erosion / Ecosystem service / Relative contribution / Scenario design / Spatial heterogeneity

Declaration of Competing Interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Acknowledgments

This study was sponsored by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2017YFC0505603) and the Special Fund for Basic Scientific Research of Central Colleges, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan.

Supplementary materials

Supplementary material associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at doi: 10.1016/j.geosus.2020.08.001.

References

[1] Berendse, F., van Ruijven, J., Jongejans, E., Keesstra, S., 2015. Loss of plant species diversity reduces soil erosion resistance. Ecosystems 18 (5), 881-888.

[2] Borrelli, P., Robinson, D., Fleischer, L., Lugato, E., Ballabio, C., Alewell, C., Meusburger, K., Modugno, S., Schütt, B., Ferro, V., Bagarello, V., Van Oost, K., Montanarella, L., Panagos, P., 2017. An assessment of the global impact of 21st century land use change on soil erosion. Nat. Commun. 8 (1), 1-13.

[3] Breure, A., Lijzen, J., Maring, L., 2018. Soil and land management in a circular economy. Sci. Total Environ. 624, 1125-1130.

[4] Cai, C., Ding, S., Shi, Z., Huang, L., Zhang, G., 2000. Study of applying USLE and geographical information system IDRISI to predict soil erosion in small watershed. J. Soil Water Conserv. 14 (2), 19-24. (in Chinese)

[5] Chen, H., Zhang, X., Abla, M., Lü, D., Yan, R., Ren, Q., Ren, Z., Yang, Y., Zhao, W., Lin, P., Liu, B., Yang, X., 2018. Effects of vegetation and rainfall types on surface runoffand soil erosion on steep slopes on the Loess Plateau, China. Catena 170, 141-149.

[6] Deng, L., Shangguang, Z., Li, R., 2012. Effects of the grain-for-green programme on soil erosion in China. Int. J. Sediment Res. 27 (1), 120-127.

[7] Deng, L., Kim, D., Li, M., Huang, C., Liu, Q., Cheng, M., Shangguan, Z., Peng, C., 2019. Land-use changes driven by ‘Grain for Green’ program reduced carbon loss induced by soil erosion on the Loess Plateau of China. Global Planet. Change 177, 101-115.

[8] Fan, M., Shibata, H., 2015. Simulation of watershed hydrology and stream water quality under land use and climate change scenarios in Teshio River watershed, northern Japan. Ecol. Indic. 50, 79-89.

[9] Fu, B., Liu, Y., Lü, Y., He, C., Zeng, Y., Wu, B., 2011. Assessing the soil erosion control service of ecosystems change in the Loess Plateau of China. Ecol. Complex. 8 (4), 284-293.

[10] García-Ruiz, J., Beguería, S., Nadal-Romero, E., González-Hidalgo, J., Lana-Renault, N., Sanjuán, Y., 2015. A meta-analysis of soil erosion rates across the world. Geomorphology 239, 160-173.

[11] Guo, Y., Peng, C., Zhu, Q., Wang, M., Wang, H., Peng, S., He, H., 2019. Modelling the impacts of climate and land use changes on soil water erosion: Model applications, limitations and future challenges. J. Environ. Manage. 250, 109403.

[12] Hu, J., Lü, Y., Fu, B., Comber, A.J., Harris, P., 2017. Quantifying the effect of ecological restoration on runoffand sediment yields: A meta-analysis for the Loess Plateau of China. Prog. Phys. Geog. 41 (6), 753-774.

[13] Huang, C., Huang, X., Peng, C., Zhou, Z., Teng, M., Wang, P., 2019. Land use/cover change in the Three Gorges Reservoir area, China: Reconciling the land use conflicts between development and protection. Catena 175, 388-399.

[14] Huang, C., Teng, M., Zeng, L., Zhou, Z., Xiao, W., Zhu, J., Wang, P., 2018. Long-term changes of land use/cover in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area of the Yangtze River. Chin. J. Appl. Ecol. 29 (5), 1585-1596. (in Chinese)

[15] Issaka, S., Ashraf, M., 2017. Impact of soil erosion and degradation on water quality: A review. Geol. Ecol. Landsc. 1 (1), 1-11.

[16] Jiang, C., Zhang, H., Zhang, Z., Wang, D., 2019. Model-based assessment soil loss by wind and water erosion in China’s Loess Plateau: Dynamic change, conservation effectiveness, and strategies for sustainable restoration. Global Planet. Chang. 172, 396-413.

[17] Kaura, M., Arias, M., Benjamin, J., Oeurng, C., Cochrane, T., 2019. Benefits of forest conservation on riverine sediment and hydropower in the Tonle Sap Basin, Cambodia. Ecosyst. Serv. 39, 101003.

[18] Li, S., Bing, Z., Jin, G., 2019. Spatially explicit mapping of soil conservation service in monetary units due to land use/cover change for the Three Gorges Reservoir Area, China. Remote Sens. 11 (4), 468.

[19] Mohammad, A., Adam, M., 2010. The impact of vegetative cover type on runoffand soil erosion under different land uses. Catena 81 (2), 97-103.

[20] Panagos, P., Borrelli, P., Poesen, J., Ballabio, C., Lugato, E., Meusburger, K., Montanarellaa, L., Alewell, C., 2015. The new assessment of soil loss by water erosion in Europe. Environ. Sci. Policy 54, 438-447.

[21] Panagos, P., Imeson, A., Meusburger, K., Borrelli, P., Poesen, J., Alewell, C., 2016. Soil conservation in Europe: Wish or reality? Land Degrad. Dev. 27 (6), 1547-1551.

[22] Parras-Alcántara, L., Lozano-García, B., Keesstra, S., Cerdà, A., Brevik, E., 2016. Long-term effects of soil management on ecosystem services and soil loss estimation in olive grove top soils. Sci. Total Environ. 571, 498-506.

[23] Peng, L., Liu, S., Sun, L., 2016. Spatial-temporal changes of rurality driven by urbanization and industrialization: A case study of the Three Gorges Reservoir Area in Chongqing, China. Habitat Int. 51, 124-132.

[24] Rodriguez-Iturbe, I., Porporato, A., Laio, F., Ridolfi, L., 2001. Plants in water-controlled ecosystems: Active role in hydrologic processes and response to water stress: I. Scope and general outline. Adv. Water Resour. 24 (7), 695-705.

[25] Ryken, N., Vanden Nest, T., Al-Barri, B., Blake, W., Taylor, A., Bodé, S., Ruysschaert, G., Boeckx, P., Verdoodt, A., 2018. Soil erosion rates under different tillage practices in central belgium: New perspectives from a combined approach of rainfall simulations and 7be measurements. Soil Till. Res. 179, 29-37.

[26] Stumpf, F., Goebes, P., Schmidt, K., Schindewolf, M., Schönbrodt ‐Stitt, S., Wadoux, A., Xiang, W., Scholten, T., 2017. Sediment reallocations due to erosive rainfall events in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area, Central China. Land Degrad. Dev. 28 (4), 1212-1227.

[27] Tang, Q., Bao, Y., He, X., Fu, B., Collins, A., Zhang, X., 2016. Flow regulation manipulates contemporary seasonal sedimentary dynamics in the reservoir fluctuation zone of the Three Gorges Reservoir, China. Sci. Total Environ. 548, 410-420.

[28] Teng, M., Huang, C., Wang, P., Zeng, L., Zhou, Z., Xiao, W., Huang, Z., Liu, C., 2019. Impacts of forest restoration on soil erosion in the Three Gorges Reservoir area, China. Sci. Total Environ. 697, 134164.

[29] Vaezi, A., Zarrinabadi, E., Auerswald, K., 2017. Interaction of land use, slope gradient and rain sequence on runoffand soil loss from weakly aggregated semi-arid soils. Soil Till. Res. 172, 22-31.

[30] van Zelm, R., van der Velde, M., Balkovic, J., Cengic, M., Elshout, P., Koellner, T., Nunez, M., Obersteiner, M., Schmid, E., Huijbregts, M., 2018. Spatially explicit life cycle impact assessment for soil erosion from global crop production. Ecosyst. Serv. 30, 220-227.

[31] Wischmeier, W., Smith, D., 1978. Predicting Rainfall Erosion Losses: A Guide to Conservation Planning ( No. 537). Science and Education Administration, US Department of Agriculture.

[32] Xu, X., Tan, Y., Yang, G., Li, H., Su, W., 2011. Soil erosion in the Three Gorges Reservoir area. Soil Res. 49 (3), 212-222.

[33] Zare, M., Samani, A., Mohammady, M., Salmani, H., Bazrafshan, J., 2017. Investigating effects of land use change scenarios on soil erosion using CLUE-s and RUSLE models. Int. J. Environ. Sci. Technol. 14 (9), 1905-1918.

[34] Zhang, B., He, C., Burnham, M., Zhang, L., 2016. Evaluating the coupling effects of climate aridity and vegetation restoration on soil erosion over the Loess Plateau in China. Sci. Total Environ. 539, 436-449.

[35] Zhu, G., Tang, Z., Shangguan, Z., Peng, C., Deng, L., 2019. Factors affecting the spatial and temporal variations in soil erodibility of China. J. Geophys. Res. -Earth 124, 737-749.