Soil erosion characteristics under different vegetation coverage in the Loess Plateau

The relationship between vegetation coverage and soil erosion in the Loess Plateau was determined via spatial overlay analysis on Geographical Information System platform. Water erosion accounts for 100% of all erosion in vegetation coverage grade 1; 95.61% in vegetation coverage grade 2, and 74.90%, 66.68% and 58.19% in vegetation coverage grade 3, 4 and 5 respectively. Frozen erosion is mainly distributed in vegetation coverage grade 4 and 5. With increase in vegetation coverage grade, the proportion of water erosion gradually decreases while those of wind, water-wind, and frozen erosion gradually increase. The soil erosion indexes of water erosion, wind erosion and water-wind erosion for vegetation coverage grade 5 are 657.56, 796.68 and 596.79 respec-tively-much higher than those for the rest vegetation coverage grades. Soil erosion is most severe for vegetation coverage grade 5. Change in vegetation coverage has a significant impact on soil erosion in the Loess Plateau.