Effects of soil and water conservation measures on sediment delivery processes in a hilly and gully watershed

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China has implemented a series of ambitious soil and water conservation (SWC) projects on the Chinese Loess Plateau, which have significantly changed the erosion, transport, and deposition of sediment. As a result, the sediment flux of the Yellow River, once the largest carrier of fluvial sediment worldwide, has been reduced by approximately 85 % in the past 60 years. However, the effects of SWC measures on erosion, transport, and deposition of sediment are still difficult to quantify, which greatly limits the further planning and adjustment of SWC measures. Here, we determined soil erosion, sediment deposition, and sediment yield at different historical stages in a 187 km2 hilly and gully watershed on the Chinese Loess Plateau using the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) photogrammetry technology combined with check dam surveying and hydrologic monitoring. The results show that the construction of check dams and vegetation restoration significantly reduced the soil erosion rate, from 21,144 t km−2 yr−1 at Stage-1 (1960–1969) to 13,819 ± 3,622 t km−2 yr−1 at Stage-2 (1970–1999) and further to 4,723 ± 1,278 t km−2 yr−1 at Stage-3 (2000–2018). The sediment deposition rate was estimated to be 5,989 and 2,582 ± 351 t km−2 yr−1 at Stage-2 and Stage-3, respectively. The variation in the erosion and deposition of sediment led to a significant change in the sediment delivery ratio, from 1 at Stage-1 to 0.57 at Stage-2 and 0.45 at Stage-3. Our research results provide an important reference for further SWC planning.