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| Characteristics of runoff and sediment in small watersheds under different vegetation cover in the Loess Plateau of Western Shanxi Province |
| Huang Ming, Zhang Jianjun, Ru Hao, Guo Baoni, Li Minyi, Wang Chunxiang, Wang Dandan, Liang Wei |
| College of Soil and Water Conservation, Beijing Forestry University, 100083, Beijing, China |
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Abstract To investigate process of runoff yield and sediment transport in small watersheds under different vegetation cover, three typical small watersheds were selected as study area, which belong to Caijiachuan Watershed in Ji County, Shanxi Province. Contrastive analysis was used for the study. The results show that both runoff and sediment yield increased with rainfall, but this was not a linear increase with a certain rate. The runoff and sediment yield also increased with rainfall intensity, and the increase rate of the sediment yield was greater than that of runoff. The rainstorm with short duration may cause serious soil erosion in the Loess Plateau. So more attention should be focus on this type of rainfall. The runoff and soil erosion were the least in small watershed with naturally recovered vegetation, and then followed by the small watershed with artificial vegetations, the runoff and soil erosion of level terrace were largest. The effect of naturally recovered vegetation on reducing runoff and soil erosion resulted form rainstorm was optimum, therefore, how to naturally recover vegetation in the Loess Plateau is the key to control water and soil erosion.
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Received: 03 April 2012
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