Evaluation of the EUROSEM on soil erosion simulation for loess plateau, northern China

Abstract

AbstractThe Loess Plateau region features fragmented landforms, sparse vegetation, and short but intense summer rainstorms that can easily cause severe soil erosion. To evaluate its applicability to a typical Loess Plateau in northern China, an indoor laboratory experimental study was conducted for events with different slope lengths (3, 4, and 5 m) and rainfall intensities (50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 110, and 120 mm/h). EUROSEM (European Soil Erosion Model) was used to simulate the soil erosion process and predict both total runoff and sediment yield. The EUROSEM modeling results were compared with the observed experimental values and analysed to determine the performance of EUROSEM. The results and analysis showed that EUROSEM could effectively simulate the runoff processes. It produced better predictions for the total runoff yield than for the sediment yield, with Nash–Sutcliffe efficiencies of 0.9003 and 0.1820, respectively. The qualified rates of the RE (relative error) between simulated and observed values of the total runoff and sediment yield were 87.5% and 37.5%, respectively. Compared to the sediment yield under rainfall intensities of 50–80 mm/h, those under 90–110 mm/h had lower RE and higher NSE, which increased from −3.9 to 0.5. However, the modeling results deviated more from the experimental data at a rainfall intensity of 120 mm/h. According to this study, EUROSEM is a good fit for simulating the runoff and partial sediment yield processes of the Loess Plateau region's slopes. However, the accurate prediction of sediment yield still requires more research to achieve complete effectiveness using EUROSEM for typical and wide scenarios in China.