Addressing the response of erosion to different land use types is important for soil and water conservation, land use structure adjustment and vegetation restoration (Bakker et al., 2005; Bini et al., 2006; Fu et al., 2011).
A wide variety of research has found that soil erosion is significantly related to land use (Mutua et al., 2006; Sharma et al., 2011).
Soil erosion was lower for forest, shrub, and dense grassland than for woods and moderate and sparse grass (Table 3).
This pattern was related to the amount of cover provided by these different vegetation categories. Forests provided more canopy cover (greater than 30%) than woods (10 to 30% cover), and the highest coverage of surface land averaged 75.5% among these land uses. Dense grassland that provided more that 50% ground cover had less soil loss than grasslands with lower cover. Additionally, forests and dense grassland had relatively smaller variations compared with woods and grasslands with lower cover.
The interception of raindrops by denser vegetation decreased the velocity of raindrops and prevented them from directly impacting the soil surface particles (Mohammad and Adam, 2010; Wei et al., 2010).
Furthermore, denser vegetation slows overland water flow, and the root systems of trees and shrubs play an important role in decreasing runoff by improving soil characteristics.
For example, brown soil and cinnamon soil were developed for trees and shrubs on the surface of
the Loess Plateau (Table 3), which improved the soil porosity and organic matter content, thus increasing the infiltration rate and decreasing erosion and runoff.
Grassland with moderate and sparse cover, cropland and bare soil increase the susceptibility of soil to erosion, as their low vegetation cover results in exposure of the soil particles to the direct impact of rain drops, resulting in their detachment.
Al-Seikh (2006) reported that the amount of soil loss was higher in cultivated land compared with natural vegetation due to the loss of vegetative cover and the detachment of soil particles