Investigation into the impacts of land-use change on sediment yield characteristics in the upper Huaihe River basin, China

The processes of sediment generation in the upper Huaihe River basin have been altered by the intensified human activities over the past decades, particularly land-use change. To investigate the impacts of land-use change on the sediment yield characteristics in the upper Huaihe River, the catchment above the Xixian hydrological controlling station was selected as the case study site. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model was used to simulate land-use change effects on sediment yield by the use of three-phase (1980s, 1990s and 2000s) land-use maps, soil type map (1:200,000) and 1987–2008 daily time series of rainfall from the upper Huaihe River basin. On the basis of the simulated time series of daily sediment concentration, land-use change effects on spatio-temporal change patterns of soil erosion modulus, rainfall–sediment yield relationship, and the sensitivity of rainfall–sediment yield relationship to rainfall for different types of land use were explored. The results revealed that under the same condition of soil texture and terrain slope the advantage for sediment yield and the sensitivity of rainfall–sediment yield relationship to rainfall descended by woodland, paddy field and farmland. The outputs of the paper could provide references for soil and water conservation and river health protection in the upper stream of Huaihe River.