Human-altered soil loss contributes to nearly half of water erosion in China

Abstract

Abstract Although the cause-and-effect relationship between accelerated soil erosion and human activities has been confirmed by geological records, the magnitude and socio-economic drivers of the anthropogenic contribution remain largely unexplained at the country scale. Here, we present an integrated modelling framework that uses multi-source high spatial resolution datasets to assess human-altered soil erosion (HASE) by water and its drivers. We estimate China’s territorial HASE to be equal to 1.35 billion tonnes yr-1 (reference year 2017). This is the result of 2.74 billion tonnes yr-1 of HASE triggered by land-use change activities denoted as HASEluc (~1.75 times the estimated natural soil erosion, denoted as SEnat), and 1.39 billion tonnes yr-1 alleviated by soil conservation measures. Modelling activities further indicate that the mitigation due to terraces may have the largest effect on HASE (0.94 billion tonnes yr-1). Concerning socio-economic activities, such as consumption behaviours, we observe that they can indirectly perturb earth surface processes and have a relatively large HASE footprint. Household consumption, especially the final demand from Northeast China and associated industrial activities along the entire supply chain could be the major underlying factors driving HASE. Our findings highlight the intervention of soil erosion by humans and call for comprehensive soil erosion control measures from a social-ecological coupled perspective.