Moderate topsoil erosion rates constrain the magnitude of the
erosion-induced carbon sink and agricultural productivity  losses on the
Chinese Loess Plateau

Zhao, Jianlin; Van Oost, Kristof; Chen, Longqian; Govers, Gerard

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-4735-2016

Articles | Volume 13, issue 16

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-4735-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-4735-2016

© Author(s) 2016. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 13, issue 16

Research article

|

23 Aug 2016

Research article |

| 23 Aug 2016

Moderate topsoil erosion rates constrain the magnitude of the erosion-induced carbon sink and agricultural productivity losses on the Chinese Loess Plateau

Jianlin Zhao, Kristof Van Oost, Longqian Chen, and Gerard Govers

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-13-4735-2016-supplement

Data sets

China's land-use/cover Datasets National Science and Technology Infrastructure of China http://www.geodata.cn

China's SRTM DEM data Cold and Arid Regions Sciences Data Center http://westdc.westgis.ac.cn

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Short summary

We used a novel approach to reassess erosion rates on the CLP. We found that both current average topsoil erosion rates and the maximum magnitude of the erosion-induced carbon sink are overestimated on the CLP. Although average topsoil losses on the CLP are still high, a major increase in agricultural productivity occurred since 1980. Hence, erosion is currently not a direct threat to agricultural productivity on the CLP but the long-term effects of erosion on soil quality remain important.