Characteristics of soil anti-scouribility in gully head wall of grass-covering on the gullied Loess Plateau, Northwest China

Abstract

Vegetation restoration in the Chinese Loess Plateau has significantly changed soil erosion process of gully head wall. In order to investigate the characteristics and controlling factors of soil anti-scour properties of gully head covered by grasses, we carried out indoor undamaged soil trench scouring tests. By using barren gully head as the control, the physical and chemical properties and anti-scouring characteristics of soil in different soil layers (0-10, 10-20, 20-40, 40-60, 60-80, 80-100 cm) of the vertical wall of gully with grass cover were analyzed. The results showed that water-stable aggregate content and cohesion in barren and grass-covering gully head decreased with soil depth. Soil organic matter content and soil anti-scouribility coefficient in barren gully head decreased with soil depth, while the two indicators for gully head covered by grass increased firstly and then decreased with soil depth, with the maximum value (24.30 g·kg-1 and 58.86 L·g-1) in 10-20 cm soil layer. Meanwhile, the soil anti-scouring coefficient in each soil layer of grass-covering gully head was 1.7-9.3 times of that in soil layer of barren gully head. Soil organic matter content, water-stable aggregate content, cohesion and root length density all presented significantly positive correlation with soil anti-scouribility, among which soil organic matter content had the highest coefficient (r=0.98). Results of this study might provide basic data for the study of headcut erosion mechanism in Loess Plateau gully region, and scientific basis for effective control of soil and water loss in this region.