Assessing the effects of vegetation and precipitation on soil erosion in the Three-River Headwaters Region of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, China

Abstract

Soil erosion in the Three-River Headwaters Region (TRHR) of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in China has a significant impact on local economic development and ecological environment. Vegetation and precipitation are considered to be the main factors for the variation in soil erosion. However, it is a big challenge to analyze the impacts of precipitation and vegetation respectively as well as their combined effects on soil erosion from the pixel scale. To assess the influences of vegetation and precipitation on the variation of soil erosion from 2005 to 2015, we employed the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) model to evaluate soil erosion in the TRHR, and then developed a method using the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index model (LMDI) which can exponentially decompose the influencing factors, to calculate the contribution values of the vegetation cover factor (C factor) and the rainfall erosivity factor (R factor) to the variation of soil erosion from the pixel scale. In general, soil erosion in the TRHR was alleviated from 2005 to 2015, of which about 54.95% of the area where soil erosion decreased was caused by the combined effects of the C factor and the R factor, and 41.31% was caused by the change in the R factor. There were relatively few areas with increased soil erosion modulus, of which 64.10% of the area where soil erosion increased was caused by the change in the C factor, and 23.88% was caused by the combined effects of the C factor and the R factor. Therefore, the combined effects of the C factor and the R factor were regarded as the main driving force for the decrease of soil erosion, while the C factor was the dominant factor for the increase of soil erosion. The area with decreased soil erosion caused by the C factor (12.10×103 km2) was larger than the area with increased soil erosion caused by the C factor (8.30×103 km2), which indicated that vegetation had a positive effect on soil erosion. This study generally put forward a new method for quantitative assessment of the impacts of the influencing factors on soil erosion, and also provided a scientific basis for the regional control of soil erosion.