Artificially cultivated grasslands decrease the activation of soil detachment and soil erodibility on the alpine degraded hillslopes

Abstract

Artificial restoring degraded grasslands has shown positive effects on topsoil conservation, leading to reduced soil erodibility and the activation of soil detachment. However, only a few studies have quantified the expected changes in both processes resulting from artificial restoration. In this study, we aim to survey the effects of grassland restoration on soil erodibility and soil loss in alpine degraded hillsides by changing vegetation and soil properties using artificially cultivated. We assessed soil erodibility K-factor (K), mean weight diameter of soil aggregates (MWD), soil saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ks) soil cohesion (Coh) using a structural equation modeling. Our results demonstrated that artificially cultivated grassland restoration effectively reduced soil erodibility on severely degraded hillslopes. The soil erodibility index Coh, MDW and Ks increased by 161.3, 53.4 and 8.6 %, respectively, while K decreased by 5.1 %. Additionally, the artificial grassland proved to be effective in reducing soil loss, with increasing age of artificial restoration. Over the study period from 2019 to 2022, sediment concentration and soil erosion rate decreased by −188.3–41.9 % and from −239.4–20.4 %, respectively. We concluded that artificially cultivated grassland is an efficient approach for reducing soil degradation activation on alpine degraded hillslopes. The findings suggest that this approach could be applicable worldwide under various parent material and climate conditions, providing a promising solution for addressing soil erosion in degraded areas.