Retrospection of recent 30-year changes in the process of soil wind erosion in the Luanhe River Source Area of North China using Cesium-137.
The Luanhe River Source Area belongs to typical semi-arid, agro-pastoral ecotone of North China. It is very important for the prevention and treatment of soil erosion in North China to analyze and evaluate quantitatively the recent 30-year changes in the process of soil wind erosion in this area. Based on long field observations, soil samples from different depths in a representative wind-deposited soil profile in the Luanhe River Source Area were collected. Then the (137)Cs activity of soil samples from different depths in the soil profile was determined using a GEM series HPGe (high-purity germanium) coaxial detector system (ADCAM-100), and their soil properties, such as the soil particle fraction and so on, were analyzed. According to the detected (137)Cs activity of different depths, a continuous time sequence of the wind-deposited soil profile in the study area was established. Furthermore, through assumption on a soil relative wind erosion intensity index (SWEI), recent 30-year changes in the process of soil wind erosion in the Luanhe River Source Area were retrospected . The analysis results revealed that weaker soil wind erosion occurred in the study area from the 1970s to the early 1980s and from the late 1980s to the mid to late 1990s. Conversely, intense periods of soil wind erosion occurred in the mid-1980s and from the late 1990s to 2002.
Chen
Zhi-fan
ZF
State Key Laboratory of Water Environment Simulation, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China. chenzhf0604@163.com
Zhao
Ye
Y
Qiao
Jie-juan
JJ
Zhang
Qing
Q
Zhu
Yu-en
YE
Xu
Cui-hua
CH