Abstract:
In order to explore the soil erosion situation and its spatial distribution in the Huaihe River Basin based on GIS technology and RUSLE model, we selected rainfall, soil type, DEM, remote sensing image and land use type as the parameters of the RUSLE model, to quantitatively analyze soil erosion intensities and its spatial distribution characteristics of 189 counties (cities, districts) in the Huaihe River Basin from 2000 to 2015. The results showed that the soil erosion areas in the Huaihe River Basin were mainly distributed in the hilly areas of the upper reaches in Henan and Hubei provinces. The area of soil erosion at very light and light grades accounted for 84.51% to 96.10% of the total area of soil erosion, which indicated that the soil erosion was relatively light from 2000 and 2015. The amount of soil erosion was decreased from 8647.00 × 10
4 t a
−1 in 2000 to 5045.14 × 10
4 t a
−1 in 2015, and soil erosion intensity was shifted from above the light level to the lower level from 2000 to 2015. The soil erosion situation in the watershed was significantly improved. The soil erosion in the watershed was below the extremely strong grade from 2000 to 2005, was weakened and was at or below a moderate level from 2005 to 2015. The area of soil erosion above the strong grade was decreased from 300.94 km
2 in 2000 to 27.60 km
2 in 2015, which indicated that the intensity of soil erosion was weakened year by year. The long-term control measures of soil erosion in the Huaihe River Basin were very effective. We should further focus on soil erosion in the areas with concentrated forest land and grassland, large slopes, high elevations, and north-slope directions. It is necessary to determine the development boundaries of key areas and strictly control over development in the future.