Temporal-spatial Dynamics of Vegetation Cover and Land Use on Water Erosion: A Case Study in Linyi City, Shandong Province, China

A serious region of water erosion in the Linyi city, Shandong province, china, was identified via a dynamic indagation (1986, 1995 and 2005) of soil erosion intensity. Then, this region was divided into 122 subbasins with GIS in which the Soil Erosion intensity Index (SET), Average Vegetation Fraction (AVF) and land use Structure characteristic Index (SI) were used to quantify the informations of water erosion and its controlling factors for each subbasin. Furthermore, frequency analysis was used to analyze the temporal-spatial dynamics of vegetation cover and land use on water erosion in the serious soil-eroded region of the study area. The results showed that a little decline of soil erosion intensity with a space variation, which the proportion of subbasins with a SET value of 3 to 4 had decreased 6.56%, was occurred between 1986 and 1995, due to the effect of revegetation on declining erosion was higher than the influence of change of land use structure tended to promoting erosion in this decade. From 1995 to 2005, a marked increase of vegetation cover and the change of land use structure tended to be favorable for controlling erosion had led to a obvious decline of soil erosion intensity in this region, and the number of subbasins with a SRI over 2 fell down from 49 in 1995 to 29 in 2005.