Relative contributions of wind and water erosion to total soil loss and its effect on soil properties in sloping croplands of the Chinese Loess Plateau

Highlights: • This study quantified the contributions of wind and water erosion to total erosion. • The sites with most serious erosion and nutrient loss located in the upper positions on northwest-facing slopes. • Complex erosion by wind and water accelerated the degradation of the soil quality. • Control water erosion could more effectively reduce soil loss compared to the control wind erosion. Wind and water erosion are two dominant types of erosion that lead to soil and nutrient losses. Wind and water erosion may occur simultaneously to varying extents in semi-arid regions. The contributions of wind and water erosion to total erosion and their effects on soil quality, however, remains elusive. We used cesium-137 (¹³⁷Cs) inventories to estimate the total soil erosion and used the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) to quantify water erosion in sloping croplands. Wind erosion was estimated from the subtraction of the two. We also used ¹³⁷Cs inventories to calculate total soil erosion and validate the relationships of the soil quality and erosion at different slope aspects and positions. The results showed that wind erosion (1460 t km⁻² a⁻¹) on northwest-facing slope was responsible for approximately 39.7% of the total soil loss, and water erosion (2216 t km⁻² a⁻¹) accounted for approximately 60.3%. The erosion rates were 58.8% higher on northwest- than on southeast-facing slopes. Northwest-facing slopes had lower soil organic carbon, total nitrogen, clay, and silt contents than southeast-facing slopes, and thus, the ¹³⁷Cs inventories were lower, and the total soil erosions were higher on the northwest-facing slopes. The variations in soil physicochemical properties were related to total soil erosion. The lowest ¹³⁷Cs inventories and nutrient contents were recorded at the upper positions on the northwest-facing slopes due to the successive occurrence of more severe wind and water erosion at the same site. The results indicated that wind and water could accelerate the spatial variability of erosion rate and soil properties and cause serious decreases in the nutrient contents in sloping fields. Our research could help researchers develop soil strategies to reduce soil erosion according to the dominant erosion type when it occurs in a hilly agricultural area.