Abstract:
Background Soil depth with rich organic matter provides nutrients for grain production in the black soil region of northeastern China. However, at present, the thickness of the black soil layer in the black soil region of northeastern China is thinner or even lost. A large number of ephemeral gullies and permanent gullies have directly affected the sustainable use of black soil resources and national food security. Classification Standard for Potential Hazard of Soil Erosion (SL718—2015) issued by the Ministry of Water Resources (MWR) focusing on vegetation recovery may not be suitable for assessing slope farmland soil erosion risk.
Methods Total 196 soil profile samples from slope farmland were collected in Songnen black soil region with area of 200 000 km2, and top soil depth for each sample was identified using quantitative index of mollic epipedon and isohumo features in Chinese soil taxonomy. According to the standard SL718—2015, the erosion risk was assessed for 196 samples using single index of anti-erodibility duration and combined index of vegetation recovery duration and slope degree respectively. Furthermore, they were assessed again by using modified values of anti-erodibility duration for each class based the rate of black soil formation.
Results The anti-erodibility duration index could be used for assessing the potential hazard of soil depth decreasing caused by soil erosion. However, to maintain the crop growth and farmland productivity, it was better to change the value of threshold soil depth for estimating anti-erodibility duration from 10 cm to 20 cm. According to the standard SL718—2015, only 13.8% of the total 196 samples demonstrated potential hazard by using the index of anti-erodibility duration, and all the samples were classified as light, medium, and heavy potential hazard by using combined index of vegetation recovery duration and slope degree, of which 84.7% was light. The potential hazard degree was underestimated and the standard was not suitable for assessing the soil erosion potential hazard for the slope farmland.
Conclusions To maintain the sustainable productivity of the black soil, the soil erosion rate should be less than or equal to soil formation rate, which could be used as the critical value for identifying soil erosion risk. The modified threshold values of the anti-erodibility duration for each potential hazard class were suggested as 2 000 years for not potential hazard, >500-2 000 years for light, >100-500 years for medium, >50-100 years for heavy, and ≤50 years for extreme potential hazard. Of total 196 samples, 36.7%, 36.2%, 5.1%, and 14.3% were light, medium, heavy, and extreme potential hazard under modified index class threshold values, i.e., the percentage over light potential hazard was 92.3%.