Functional Models for Soil Erosion Prevention on Typical Slope Land in Southern China

  Objective  Impact on soil erosion by rainfalls under different water and soil conservation programs applied on the slope lands in southern China was analyzed.

  Methods   Information on rainfall, runoff, sediment, and others relevant factors was collected at a slope runoff observation site in Jianan from 2018 to 2020 and analyzed.

  Results   The rainfall in the area concentrated from March to June in a year amounting to more than 1/3 of the annual precipitation. However, the peak precipitation and soil erosivity on the site did not always coincide in a same month. Some conservation strategies or land use models mitigated the erosion to varying extents. For instance, by planting Paspalum notatum on the horizontal terraces with ladder walls at tea plantations (T3), the soil loss was reduced to a rate of merely 2.47 t·hm⁻². And a similar practice at fruit orchards (T9) resulted in a minimum soil erosion of 2.07 t·hm⁻² under heavy rainfall.

  Conclusion  Planting P. notatum on terraces with ladder walls at a tea plantation or a fruit orchard could apparently effectively curtail erosion of soil by rainfall. It could be an applicable conservation measure for a land of similar geographic and climatic conditions.