Quantifying anthropogenic soil erosion at a regional scale – The case of Jiangxi Province, China

Soil erosion is a severe global eco-environmental problem threatening human survival and development. It is the combined result of natural factors and human activities. Human activities have played a key role in soil erosion by both promoting and inhibiting it. Only by effectively quantifying anthropogenic soil erosion and analyzing its contribution to actual soil erosion can we alleviate and solve the problem of soil erosion in a targeted manner. In view of this and taking Jiangxi Province as an example, we propose a quantitative assessment model (QAM) based on the Chinese Soil Loss Equation (CSLE) model to quantify anthropogenic soil erosion and construct a contribution rate (CR) to explain the impact degree of human activities on soil erosion. The results were as follows: 1) the annual average anthropogenic soil erosion in 2000, 2010, and 2018 was 309.96, 287.07, and 240.32 t/(km2·a), respectively, with a decrease of 69.63 t/(km2·a) (22.47 %) throughout 2000–2018, indicating that human activities aggravate soil erosion, although this aggravating effect tends to weaken over time; 2) human activities represent the dominant factor inducing soil erosion, and the annual average CR values of human activities were all above 55 % in 2000, 2010, and 2018, larger than the annual average CR values of natural factors in each year. The QAM can provide a methodological reference for the quantification of anthropogenic soil erosion at the regional scale, and the CR can be used to analyze the degree of anthropogenic impact on soil erosion.