Interrelationship among slope steepness, tillage practice and rainfall properties with surface runoff and soil loss on Mollisols in Northeast China

ABSTRACT

Soil erosion and rainfall-induced runoff are well studied yet remain somewhat unpredictable from one natural rainfall to the next, due to interactions between erosion parameters. This study quantified the relationship between annual (2011–2016) and individual (2016) rain events with overland flow (runoff) and soil loss in China’s northern ‘corn-belt’. Two tillage practices and slopes were evaluated (no-till and conventional till, 5° and 7° slopes). Results showed 54 rainfall events for a total of 394 mm precipitation ranging between May and October 2016. Runoff occurred 13 times in the conventional till with 7° slope, accounting for 25.9% of the precipitation volume and caused 15.6 t ha⁻¹ erosion. It occurred twice in the no-till with 5° slope plot and caused 0.2 t ha⁻¹ erosion., Thus the no-till with 5° slope treatment is the best tillage system to protect soil in Mollisols in Northeast China. Broad analysis coupled with a detail review of three rainfall events demonstrates that water either runs off plots quickly or rapidly infiltrates while sediment moves in a pulsing manner.

KEYWORDS:

• Runoff plot
• soil erosion
• rainfall intensity
• slope gradient
• conservation tillage

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the project of National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFC0504200) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (No: 41571264). The data was supported from 'Scientific Data Center of Northeast Black Soil, National Earth System Science Data Sharing Infrastructure, National Science & Technology Infrastructure of China' (http://northeast.geodata.cn). The authors acknowledge financial support from the program of China Scholarship Council.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China [2017YFC0504200], National Natural Science Foundation of China [41571264] and China Scholarship Council.