A new high-resolution global topographic factor dataset calculated based on SRTM.

Topography is an important factor affecting soil erosion and is measured as a combination of the slope length and slope steepness (LS-factor) in erosion models, like the Chinese Soil Loss Equation. However, global high-resolution LS-factor datasets have rarely been published. Challenges arise when attempting to extract the LS-factor on a global scale.

Effects of Content of Soil Rock Fragments on Soil Erodibility in China.

Soil erosion is serious in China-the soil in plateau and mountain areas contain a large of rock fragments, and their content and distribution have an important influence on soil erosion. However, there are still no complete results for calculating soil erodibility factor (K) that have corrected rock fragments in China. In this paper, the data available on rock fragments in the soil profile (RFP); rock fragments on the surface of the soil (RFS); and environmental factors such as elevation, terrain relief, slope, vegetation coverage (characterised by normalised difference vegetation index, NDVI), land use, precipitation, temperature, and soil type were used to explore the effects of content of soil rock fragments on calculating of K in China.

Analysis of the Spatial and Temporal Changes of NDVI and Its Driving Factors in the Wei and Jing River Basins.

This study aimed to explore the long-term vegetation cover change and its driving factors in the typical watershed of the Yellow River Basin. This research was based on the Google Earth Engine (GEE), a remote sensing cloud platform, and used the Landsat surface reflectance datasets and the Pearson correlation method to analyze the vegetation conditions in the areas above Xianyang on the Wei River and above Zhangjiashan on the Jing River. Random forest and decision tree models were used to analyze the effects of various climatic factors (precipitation, temperature, soil moisture, evapotranspiration, and drought index) on NDVI (normalized difference vegetation index).

The pattern, change and driven factors of vegetation cover in the Qin Mountains region.

The Qin Mountains region is one of the most important climatic boundaries that divide the North and South of China. This study investigates vegetation covers changes across the Qin Mountains region over the past three decades based on the Landsat-derived Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), which were extracted from the Google Earth Engine (GEE). Our results show that the NDVI across the Qin Mountains have increased from 0.

Hydrological Response to Precipitation and Human Activities-A Case Study in the Zuli River Basin, China.

Precipitation and human activities are two essential forcing dynamics that influence hydrological processes. Previous research has paid more attention to either climate and streamflow or vegetation cover and streamflow, but rarely do studies focus on the impact of climate and human activities on streamflow and sediment. To investigate those impacts, the Zuli River Basin (ZRB), a typical tributary basin of the Yellow River in China, was chosen to identify the impact of precipitation and human activities on runoff and sediment discharge.

Influence of resolution on elevation and slope at watershed scale in Loess Plateau.

This article studied the effects of resolution on elevation and slope using Statistical and Geostatistical methods. Xian' Nan watershed in Loess Plateau was taking as the study area. The base data was a 1:10000 topographic map and the resolutions studied in this paper included 5 m, 25 m and 50 m.

[Spatial and temporal distributions of rainfall erosivity in the Yanhe River Basin].

Rainfall erosivity (R) is a measure of effects of the rainfall factor on the potential capacity for soil water erosion. The characteristic of spatial and temporal of R value is the basis for soil erosion prediction. The spatial and temporal distributions of rainfall erosivity were analyzed using daily rainfall data collected between 1980 and 2003 from 22 rainfall stations located across the Yanhe River Basin.

[Land use/land cover change and their ecological effect in small watershed on gully region of the Loess Plateau].

Based on land use data of 1994 and 2004 in Wangdonggou watershed, through developing dynamic model of LUCC and indices of regional ecological environment, this paper quantified the characteristics of LUCC and its ecological effect. The results showed that from 1994 to 2004, farmland decreased while grassland and orchard increased greatly, forest and nonproductive land changed little. The speed of individual land use changes was in the order of grassland > orchard > nonproductive land > farmland > forest land.

[Dynamic monitoring on land cover in loess hilly and gully area by the methods of RS and GIS].

By the integration of RS and GIS, with the TM data obtained from Landsat 5 in 1990 and the ETMplus data from Landsat 7 in 2000, and after geometrical rectifying and amplifying and man-machine screen decoding data image, the map of eco-environment and land use/cover in Yanhe watershed and its vicinities in 1990 and 2000 was obtained respectively, and the results of statistic analyses showed that in comparing with 1990, the artificial land in 2000 increased by 31%, the area of agricultural land was stable and that of orchard was 2.82 times more, and the area of artificial forest increased remarkably and that of shrub was 6 times more. The coverage rate increased to 13.

Landscape dynamitic change in Mu Us Desert derived from Landsat TM data.

Landscape ecology emphasizes large areas and ecological effects of the spatial patterning of ecosystem. Recent developments in landscape ecology have emphasized the important relationship between spatial patterns and many ecological processes. Quantitative methods in landscape ecology link spatial patterns and ecological processes at broad spatial and temporal scales.