Effects of windbreak on soil conservation: Serving as a potential reference for quantifying soil erosion

Windbreak plays an important role in soil conservation in arid and semiarid areas. Owing to its protective effects on soil, windbreak could potentially serve as a reference of no erosion to identify the soil erosion rates in the nearby croplands. To testify the applicability, a case study was implemented in a wind and water eroded agro-pastoral transition zone in North China. A Real Time Kinematic Global Positioning System (RTK GPS) was applied for a series of croplands to quantify the total soil erosion induced by both wind and water over a period of 44 years. By comparing the elevation of the eroded croplands and the windbreaks without erosion, the total soil erosion modulus and its spatial variation were determined. Results showed that the erosion moduli of the six croplands ranged from 1.09 to 45.34 Mg ha⁻¹ y⁻¹ with an average modulus of 17.02 Mg ha⁻¹ y⁻¹. The croplands in the west suffered from more intense wind erosion compared to the middle and eastern areas, which was a result of the effects of the windbreaks. The reliability and uncertainty of this approach were discussed in terms of the equipment precision, results accuracy, and possible deposition in the windbreaks. This study confirms that windbreak can be a feasible reference for quantifying soil erosion. Furthermore, such quantification is a direct measurement of total soil erosion, which is essential for assessing the contributions of wind erosion and water erosion as well as the interaction between them.