On Study of Erosion Process in the Middle Reaches of the Yellow River Basin Based on Climate, Vegetation and Landforms Coupling
A research project led by Prof. XU Jiong-Xin, titled “Erosion Process in the Middle Reaches of the Yellow River Basin Based on Climate, Vegetation and Landforms Coupling” has been assessed successfully by an evaluation team formed by National Natural Science Fund.
The researchers have taken profound studies for many years on the interactions among climate, vegetation, landforms and erosion processes. The study results elucidated the slope-gully coupling in relation to erosion and sediment yield, and revealed the erosion and sediment-reduction mechanism for various soil and water conservation measures such as checkdam building and tree and grass-planting.On this basis, some optimal schemes for the spatial distributions of these measures have been proposed for erosion and sediment control in the coarse sediment producing areas in the middle Yellow River basin.
In the basic theoretical research, some progresses have been made with the climate-vegetation-erosion coupling, thresholds in sediment reduction by soil and water conservation, erosion and sediment yield in slope-gully coupling systems, scaling effect in sediment yield and erosion process driven by multiple geomorphologic agents.
In applied study, three approaches have been proposed, namely, the approach to assess the reasonable structure of vegetation for soil conservation, the approach to determine the threshold area of soil conservation measures and the approach to estimate the perpective of erosion control in the Loess Plateau region.
In modelling related study, a laboratory model has been established for simulating the interactions between vegetation and erosion. A micro-catchment model has been finished for simulating erosion process in relation to landform evolution of a catchment. And a mathimatical model has been established for optimalization of soil-water conservation measures based on landuse structure adjustment. Aditionlly, based on the relationship between specific sediment yield and drainage area, an approach for scale effect correction has been put forward, and the data after scale effect correction, a new map showing distribution of specific sediment yield on the Loess Plateau has been made. Totally, 101 papers and 1 monograph have been pubilshed, of which 19 are SCI papers, 11 are EI papers, and 66 are papers on “core journals”.
By Prof. Jiongxin XU
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