Abstract

Water and soil loss affects the carbon and nitrogen cycle of terrestrial ecosystem, soil and water conservation vegetation products and services, and ultimately the quality of life, and Soil and water conservation is conducive to high-quality and sustainable economic and social development. China is the most serious soil erosion country in the world, especially the Loess Plateau. After years of efforts, the soil and water conservation in China has developed rapidly, the surface runoff and soil loss in soil and water loss areas have decreased rapidly, and people’s living standards have been gradually improved. However, with the improvement of people’s living standards, people put forward higher requirements for soil and water conservation. Because soil and water conservation work lack scientific theoretical guidance as well as the standard of the Soil and Water Conservation is lower and allocation is not rational of the Soil and Water Conservation, led to the lower effect of Soil and Water Conservation, which cannot meet the need of requirement of peoples need in the new year. In this paper, through comprehensive analysis of relevant literature, the new theory of soil and water conservation was put forward.

The results shows that soil and water loss refer to the process of transferring soil and water resources from one place to another; the consequences of soil and water loss can be divided into positive and negative effects. Soil and water conservation is to take some methods or measures to reduce soil erosion to soil allowable loss requirements, make efficient use of soil and water resources and minimize the loss of life and property caused by floods. The construction standard of house, road, bridge and dam, and soil and water conservation measures must be made based on the allowable amount of soil erosion and carry out spatial optimal allocation, and the work of soil and water conservation should ensure regional ecological security and realize the high-quality and sustainable development of soil and water conservation.

Keywords:Soil and water loss; Soil and water conservation; Food and ecological security; Soil and water conservation measure; new theory of soil and water conservation; High-quality and sustainable development

Introduction

Under the influence of many natural background factors, such as mountainous terrain and unstable monsoon precipitation formed by the intense neo-tectonic movement, as well as the long history of agricultural development and the large population, China has become one of the most serious soil erosion countries in the world, especially on the Loess Plateau [1].

Water and Soil Loss affects the carbon and anitrogen cycle of terrestrial ecosystem, vegetation ecosystem products and ser­vices, the ecological environment and economic development, and ultimately the quality of life and sustainable development of the public. Over the past hundred years, great progress has been made in the work of soil and water conservation in China with the unremitting efforts of the vast number of soil and water conserva­tion workers. For example, as evidenced by the establishment of the State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Agriculture in Yangling, China; the concept of cover degree and cover rate of water conservation forest has been distinguished [2,3]. The vege­tation coverage is the percentage of the total area covered by the vertical projection area of the canopy branches and leaves and the vegetation cover rate is the rate of high qualitied grassland or for­estland area to the total land area in a region or a country. The cover degree includes the effective cover degree, critical degree and Potential coverage [4,5]. The establishment of a large area of soil and water conservation vegetation in the area of soil erosion and the establishment of large-scale soil conservation projects such as water conservation forest (or vegetation), wind-proof and sand forest and water source conservation forest construction standards and their construction scale, the effective coverage rate of wind-proof sand forest, the effective coverage degree of water conservation forest and the effective coverage rate of water con­servation forest [2-10] the establishment of the theory of resourc­ es utilization limit plants and the vegetation bearing capacity [4] the establishment of a large area of soil conservation vegetation in the area of soil and water loss regions.

Sciences of soil and water conservation changes with time. However, due to the lag of theoretical research, the construction standards of soil and water conservation engineering measures and vegetation measures are low, the spatial allocation of soil and water conservation measures is unreasonable, the work of soil and water conservation attaches importance to quantity and de­spises quality, and the efficiency of soil and water conservation is low, which cannot meet the needs of high-quality development of soil and water conservation in the new era. Such incidents as drought, forest fires, extreme weather and precipitation, hurri­canes and flash floods will lead to widespread erosion of soil and water conservation vegetation, the railway and dams was de­stroyed by the flood, and other accidental incidents, resulting in serious soil erosion, destruction of farmland, villages, roads and vehicles, affecting transportation, food and ecological security, and causing great losses to the state and society.

In order to overcome these difficulties, promote the high-qual­ity development of soil and water conservation in the new era and meet the requirements of the public for soil and water conserva­tion in the new era, it is necessary to develop a new theory of soil and water conservation. through Comprehensive analysis of rele­vant literature, the new theory of soil and water conservation was put forward .In order to better understand the new theory of soil and water conservation. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the new theory of soil and water conservation from the following aspects.

Soil and Water Loss

The term Soil and Water Loss is a natural phenomenon, orig­inated in China as a technical term in the early 20th century [6]. The term was applied to the Northwestern Loess Plateau of China in early 20th century. The forces forming soil and water are called Soil and Water Loss external forces. Soil and Water Loss external forces include water, wind and temperature (freeze-thaw), etc. The term erosion has long been used in geology, mostly to express the formation of external force flattening, and soil erosion first appeared in the book written by Kozmunk in 1909. It was then widely used and was introduced into China in the 1930s. Soil ero­sion refers to the whole process of soil and its parent material, as well as the destruction, stripping, transport and deposition of surface components of the land under external forces such as hy­draulic, wind, freeze-thaw and gravity [11]. Water power is the force produced by the flow of water; a wind is the magnitude of the force the wind exerts on an object. Temperature is the sign of the average translational kinetic energy of the molecular mo­tion, and temperature is the collective expression of the molecular thermal motion.

At present, people’s understanding of water and soil loss is not uniform. It has been argued that soil erosion refers to “the de­struction and loss of soil and water resources and land productiv­ity under the action of external forces, including surface erosion and soil erosion; most believe that water and soil loss is equiv­alent to soil erosion, i.e. soil erosion by hydraulic erosion, wind erosion or gravity erosion, resulting in soil dispersion, transport and accumulation processes. Now, we enter a new period. In order to promote the high-quality development of soil and water con­servation in the new period, we should first unify the understand­ing of water and soil loss. The authors believe that water and soil loss is the process of soil and water resources transferring from one place to another, which includes generalized soil erosion and narrow sense soil erosion. Generalized water and soil loss refers to the process of carbon and nitrogen circle, land productivity and ecological environment change caused by the transfer of soil and water resources induced by external forces. Water and soil loss in narrow sense is equivalent to soil erosion.

Consequences of Soil and Water Loss

Water and soil loss has positive and negative effects on high-quality development as follows:

Water and soil loss leads to the decline or even loss of soil fertility and land productivity in water and soil loss regions.

The term soil fertility refers to the capability of soil to support plant production in agricultural contexts [12]. Serious Water and soil loss will affect carbon cycle and nitrogen cycle in agriculture ecological system and result in surface soil thinning of fertile soil in water and soil loss region, decrease of cultivated land area, de­crease of soil fertility and decrease of crop yield [13].

Soil and water loss influence people’s daily transpor­tation

Water and soil loss destroys roads, silts up rivers, lakes and reservoirs, which influence people’s daily transportation. Floods, landslides, mudslides and other serious soil erosion siltation channels, lakes, reservoirs.

Water and soil loss pollution water quality and affects ecological environment

Water and soil loss accelerates non-point source pollution. In the event of heavy rain, strong surface runoff will pile up the sur­face garbage into the river, seriously affecting the water quality of the river. A typical example is the fact that the water quality of the Yangtze River is being polluted of environment (Figure 1).

Typhoons, haze, dust and dust storms affect people’s health, travel and social activities

With the development of economy and society, people are more and more demanding on health, and travel and social activi­ties are becoming more and more frequent, while typhoons, haze, dust-raising weather and dust storms affect flights and road traf­fic and seriously affect people’s rapid travel and social activities.

Water and soil loss accelerates the formation of unique landforms and promotes the development of ecotour­ism

Soil and rock through hydraulic, wind and freeze-thaw and other external forces of joint action, forming several magic, won­derful natural landscapes, which accelerate the development of environmental tourisam and get rid of poverty and become better off. For example, Keshiketeng stone array scenic spots in the northeast of Keshiketeng county, Danxia natural scenic spots located in Yulin city and zhashui cave located in the Qinling Mountain and so on. zhashui cave is the result of long-term dis­solution of groundwater. Calcium carbonate in limestone forms micro-soluble calcium bicarbonate under the action of H2O and CO2. Because the limestone layer contains different lime quality and different erosion degree, it is gradually dissolved and divided into non-dependent, diverse, steep and beautiful peaks and cave with strange landscape, which promotes eco-tourism and local economic development. Hukou waterfall is still Hukou waterfall but now has become a tourist hot spot.

Water and soil loss forms silt plain and expands land area in estuary area

A large amount of sediment deposits in the estuary area, form­ing a silt plain and expanding the land area with increasing time, which increases nitrogen density in soil, soil fertility, land product and CO2 fixation. For example, the Chongming Island at the mouth of the Yangtze River basin and the Huanghe Delta at the mouth of Yellow River. At first, the Chongming Island was just a small sand dune, and as the sands hit and settled, the sand dunes grew larger and became an island where fishermen lived.

Soil and water conservation workers should broaden their horizons, make best use of the advantages of water and soil loss and bypass the disadvantages of water and soil loss to meet the requirements of rapid and high quality economic and social de­velopment, especially to strengthen the prediction, prediction and prevention of serious soil erosion phenomena caused by ty­phoons, haze caused by strong winds, dust-raising weather and sandstorms.

Soil and water conservation

Soil and water conservation is the cause of preventing soil erosion, protecting, improving and rationally utilizing soil and water resources, maintaining and improving land productivity, to give full play to the ecological, economic and social benefits of soil and water resources and establishing a good ecological environ­ment, which cannot meet the requirement of the high-quality de­velopment of soil and water conservation. The new time, soil and water conservation refers to the use of certain measures and tech­nologies to reduce the loss of soil and water to a certain goal, soil allowable loss, increasing land productivity and improving the en­vironment. It is also necessary to make efficient use of the soil and water resources in the process of water and soil loss to ensure the safety of the ecosystem and increase the ecological, economic and social benefits of the ecosystem, and provide high-quality prod­ucts and services for social development. Soil and water conserva­tion is to make rational use of soil and water resources to achieve sustainable development. For example, introduction of flood ir­rigation with high sediment concentration to form high-quality farmland, and using the water source of the river, Haizi (Lake) and reservoir in the sand area, draw water by gravity or by machinery, Wash Sand Dune by hydraulic power, and carry sand to the place and form high-quality farmland, or use runoff and topography to promote Eco-tourism, such as Shapotou and Hukou tourist attrac­tion in the China loess plateau.

Soil and water conservation measures can effectively conserve soil and water [14]. Soil and water conservation measures include soil and water conservation engineering measures, soil and water and water conservation. In the restoration of vegetation, natural forces can be used to restore vegetation in no man’s land; how­ever, in areas where there is a population, artificial interference should be used to restore vegetation to make the vegetation eco­system goods and services to meet the needs of human produc­tion and life.

Over the past hundred years, soil and water conservation workers in China has made great progress. A large area of soil and water conservation vegetation has been established in water and soil loss areas, and a large number of reservoirs have been built; some water and soil conservation measures such as water and soil conservation projects such as dams or levees have been set up along the rivers of the Yellow River and other soil erosion ar­eas, which have made great progress in controlling water and soil loss below the allowable amount of soil erosion and promoting regional economic development. However, due to the lag of theo­retical research on soil and water conservation, the construction standard of soil and water conservation measures is low and im­perfect, and the spatial allocation of soil and water conservation measures is unreasonable. For example, silt storage dam for farm­land building has played an important role in preventing floods, consolidating the return of farmland to forests (grass), safeguard­ing ecological security and food security, promoting the develop­ment of economy and social stability and so on. However, in the construction of silt storage dam, the problems of low quality of construction, serious disease-risk dam, poor management of re­construction and so on, especially the large number of small dams, have not been paid enough attention to [15].

Therefore, it is urgent to strengthen the study of soil allowable loss on different underlying surfaces, formulate high quality and strict standards for soil and water conservation engineering and vegetation construction, and carry out spatial optimal allocation to obtain maximum soil and water conservation efficiency. The space optimal configuration is expressed by the spatial optimal configuration coefficient. Spatial optimal allocation coefficient means that in a water and soil loss area or watershed, soil and wa­ter conservation funds or measures may have different allocation methods, and different allocation methods bring different soil and water conservation efficiency, which is different surface runoff and soil loss. The optimal allocation of space refers to the alloca­tion that bring maximum soil and water conservation efficiency.

High-Quality and Sustainable Management of Soil and Water Conservation

In 1972, Dennis L. Meadows published a study on the “limits of growth” that clarified the importance of resources and the re­lationship between resources and population. The limit of growth shows the consequences of unlimited growth on the resource-lim­ited planet, laying the foundation for sustainable development.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) put forward the concept of sustainable development in 1980. In 1987, the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development clearly defined sustainable development. Since then, sustainable development strategies have gradually been ac­cepted worldwide, and many countries have begun to implement sustainable development strategies. International Tropical Tim­ber Organization (ITTO) took the lead in developing guidelines for the sustainable operation of tropical forests in 1990. In 1992, the central issue of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, was sustainable development, which emphasized that sustainable forest develop­ment was an important component of sustainable economic de­velopment. In 1992, the Chinese government submitted its report on China’s environment and development to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, which laid out the basic position and views on China’s sustainable development. In 1994, the Chinese Government made it clear that it would imple­ment a strategy for high-quality and sustainable development of economic and social development.

In the field of soil and water conservation, it is necessary to implement the sustainable management of soil and water conser­vation measures in order to realize the high-quality and sustain­able management of soil and water conservation. The heavy rain caused floods and destroyed large number of agricultural produc­tion measures, grain fields, road, high way and bridge culverts, housing and public buildings. For example, The rain caused the landslide and destroy the base of high way and cause tens of cars was destroyed and 34 men dead in the May 1, 2024 in the Me-Da high way in Dapu, Guangdong, China (Figure 2).

The disaster caused widespread concern in the community. In the early morning of august 20th, 2019, due to heavy rainfall, a huge debris flow broke out in the yazigou valley, less than 300 meters from the dam of Wolonglongtan hydropower station in Si­chuan province, China. At that time, the staff on duty found that the dam water level rose, the water level difference before and after the barrier quickly increased, immediately stopped to avoid the peak, open the floodgate. When the opening of the three slices is less than 1 meter, the swift and violent debris flow will break down the power transmission line of the working power supply, resulting in the interruption of the power supply of the slice, the flood slice cannot continue to rise, resulting in the rapid rise of water level and the occurrence of flood dam events.

For the biological measures of soil and water conservation, according to the resources use limit by plants, mainly including spatial resources use limit by plants in soil water and soil nutrient rich regions, soil water resources use limit by plants in water lim­ited regions and soil nutrient resources use limit by plants in soil nutrient limited regions, and vegetation carrying capacity, mainly including spatial vegetation carrying capacity, soil water carrying capacity for vegetation and Soil nutrient carrying capacity for veg­etation, it is easy to adjust and control the plant resources rela­tionship in suitable time to realize the sustainable utilization of natural resources and the high-quality and sustainable develop­ment of soil and water conservation measures [16-18]. The ben­eficial result was taken in the regions where the high-quality and sustainable development of soil and water conservation measures was carry out lead by the new theory of soil and water conserva­tion such as Guyuan eco-experimental station, Guyuan, Ningxia, Gaoxi gully in Shaanxi, China and son on. Otherwise, serious result happened in USA, 11 countries of European in 2021 and Pakstan in 2022 after serious soil and water loss [19].

Conclusion

Now, Chinese economic and social development of our coun­try has entered a new period of high-quality development, and the social wealth has been improved unprecedentedly. In the new period, the public has put forward higher demands of soil and water conservation, which requires the protection of air quality, life, property and health, and ensures the safety of food, ecology and transportation, so the work of soil and water conservation has entered a new stage [20]. In order to ensure the safety of people’s lives and property and meet the needs of people’s happy life in the future, we are required to raise the level of understand­ing, dialectically and comprehensively view the consequences of soil erosion, take effective measures in time to deal with serious soil erosion caused by sudden events such as mountain torrents, hurricanes, sandstorms and other serious accidents that affect the safety of public life and property. To ensure the high-quali­ty and sustainable development of soil and water conservation, we must make high-quality and sustainable management of soil and water conservation measurements and high-quality agricul­tural production in soil erosion areas. Coordinate and promote comprehensive prevention and control of non-point source pol­lution, restoration of degraded ecosystems and improvement of living environment in soil erosion areas and realize the concept of co-construction and co-treatment to achieve green mountains and blue waters and achieve rural revitalization and build a beautiful China, to meet people’s yearning for a better life.

To meet the needs of increasing people’s living standards for soil and water conservation work in the new era, we must devel­op a new theory of soil and water conservation, that is to say, we have to unify understanding of water and soil loss, and fully recog­nizing the consequences of soil and water conservation, and then take advantage of water and soil loss, giving priority to the allow­able soil loss, and determine the high standards of house, road, bridge and dam in the soil and water loss regions and the soil and water conservation measures after taking into account air quali­ty and soil pollution according to local conditions and heavy rain record, such as Beiking in 2023, and make a rational distribution of soil and water conservation measures when carrying out to en­sure the sustainable utilization of natural resources in water and soil loss areas and the safety of ecosystems in order to realize the high-quality and sustainable management of soil and water con­servation projects and biological measures [16-19].

In the future, we have to strengthen basic research such as the relationship between different soil and water conservation projects and biological measures and soil erosion area soil allow­able loss and air quality and soil pollution degree, strengthen the early warning research on risks such as mountain flood, landslide and debris flow caused by natural disasters such as typhoons and tsunamis in soil erosion area, and formulate high standard House, Road, Bridges and Dams in the soil and water loss regions accord­ing to high water height and then establish high standard soil and water conservation measures. And spatial optimization of soil and water conservation measures was carried out to ensure the high-efficiency utilization of soil and water resources in soil ero­sion area, ensure the safety of ecosystem, realize the high-quality and sustainable development of soil and water conservation, de­ sign and high-quality development for the top-level of soil erosion area, achieve the improvement of soil and water conservation ef­ficiency, meet the needs of the public for food, ecological security, road unblocked and ecotourism, and provide theoretical basis and scientific and technological support for high-quality and sustain­able development [21-23].

Acknowledgment

This project was supported by the National key Research & Development plan (Project No: 2016YFC0501702) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project No: 41271539, 41071193 and 42077079) and Soil and Water Conservation Research Institute Innovation Special Project (Project No: A2180021002). We thank International Science Editing (http:// www.internationalscienceediting.com) for editing the English language in the manuscript.

References

1. Guo ZS (2014) Theory and practice of soil water carrying capacity for vegetation. Chinese Science Press 104: 216-241.
2. Guo ZS (1998) Difference and relationship between vegetation cover degree and cover Rate. J Soil Erosion & Soil and Water Conservation 4(5): 119-119.
3. Guo ZS, Den JM (2009) Review on effective coverage rate of soil and water conservation forests. Soil and Water Conservation in China 4: 29-31.
4. Guo ZS (2000) Three Cover degrees in Soil and Water Conservation Vegetation Construction: Potential Cover degree, Effective Cover degree and Critical Cover degree. Soil and Water Conservation in China 4: 30-31.
5. Guo ZS (2000) Three Cover degrees in Soil and Water Conservation Vegetation Construction: Potential Cover degree, Effective Cover degree and Critical Cover degree. Bulletin of Soil and Water Conservation 20(4): 30-31.
6. Guo ZS (1996) Research on the Effective Cover rate and Its Determination Method for Soil and Water Conservation Forest 2(3): 67-72.
7. Guo ZS (1997) Preliminary study on effective cover rate of soil and water conservation forest. J Northwestern Forestry College 12(1): 97-100.
8. Guo ZS (1998) Area consolidation and function conversion factors among different forest categories. Forestry Science and Technology Newslette (4): 21-22.
9. Guo ZS (1999) Three Major Problems in Forest and Grass Plantation Construction in Loess Plateau. Journal of Soil erosion and Water Conservation 5(5): 72-75.
10. Guo ZS (2000c) Target and quality Criterion of vegetation construction for soil and water conservation in Loess Plateau. Bulletin of Soil and Water Conservation 20(7): 53-58.
11. Guan JW (1996) Principles of soil and water conservation. Beijing China: China Forestry Press, China, p: 1-3.
12. Chen S, Lin B, Li Y, Zhou S (2020) Spatial and temporal changes of soil properties and soil fertility evaluation in a large grain-production area of subtropical plain, China. Geoderma 357(1): 113937.
13. Wolka K, Mulder J, Biazin B (2018) Effects of soil and water conservation techniques on crop yield, runoff and soil loss in Sub-Saharan Africa: A review. Agricultural Water Management 207: 67-79.
14. Zhao J, Yang Z, Gerard (2019) Soil and water conservation measures reduce soil and water losses in China but not down to background levels: Evidence from erosion plot data. Geoderma 337: 729-741.
15. Fu WT, Zhang XY (2019) Suggestions for dam construction and risk control in Loess Plateau were paid attention. China Science Newspaper, Science Net, China.
16. Guo ZS (2020) New Theory of Soil and Water Conservation. J Biomed Res Environ Sci 1(4): 64-69.
17. Guo ZS (2021) Soil water carrying capacity for vegetation. Land Degradation & Dev 32(14): 3801-3811.
18. Guo ZS (2021) Soil hydrology process and Sustainable Use of Soil Water Resources in Desert Regions. Water 13(17:)
19. Guo ZS (2020) Estimating Method of Maximum Infiltration Depth and Soil Water Supply. Scientif Rep 10: 9726.
20. Li M, Zhang CY, Wang HY (2019) Study on Soil and Water Conservation Stage in Loess Platea. Study on Soil and Water Conservation Stage in Loess Plateau SWCC 2: 1-4.
21. Guo ZS (2022) New Theory of Soil and Water Conservation. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 10(2): 13-20.
22. Guo ZS (2022) High-Quality and Sustainable Management of Water and Soil Conservation Project. J Business & Econom Manage 10: 57-63.
23. Cao BS, Zhu CX, Gao JX, (2019) Ecological security assessment method and its application. J Ecol Rural Environ 35(8): 953-963.