Articles | Volume 18, issue 5
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-18-3303-2026
© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-18-3303-2026
© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
25-year, quarterly land change maps of China's Loess Plateau reveal long-term and substantial water-induced soil erosion mitigation
Mofan Cheng
State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, PR China
State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, PR China
Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, 27708, USA
Linxin Li
State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, PR China
State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, PR China
Liangpei Zhang
State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, PR China
State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, PR China
School of Computer Science, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, 430074, PR China
Related authors
No articles found.
Man Liu, Wei He, and Hongyan Zhang
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 18, 465–491, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-18-465-2026, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-18-465-2026, 2026
Short summary
Short summary
This study provides a 10 m resolution wheat distribution dataset that maps both spring and winter wheat across 15 provinces in China from 2018 to 2024. It was developed using large-scale wheat sample generation combined with region-specific feature selection strategies. The dataset demonstrates high accuracy (overall accuracy > 0.91) and offers detailed spatial information to support agricultural monitoring and food security efforts in China.
Die Hu, Yuan Wang, Han Jing, Linwei Yue, Qiang Zhang, Lei Fan, Qiangqiang Yuan, Huanfeng Shen, and Liangpei Zhang
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 17, 2849–2872, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-2849-2025, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-17-2849-2025, 2025
Short summary
Short summary
Existing L-band vegetation optical depth (L-VOD) products suffer from data gaps and coarse resolution of historical data. Therefore, it is necessary to integrate multi-temporal and multisource L-VOD products. Our study begins with the reconstruction of missing data and then develops a spatiotemporal fusion model to generate global daily seamless 9 km L-VOD products from 2010 to 2021, which are crucial for understanding the global carbon cycle.
Zhuohong Li, Wei He, Mofan Cheng, Jingxin Hu, Guangyi Yang, and Hongyan Zhang
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 15, 4749–4780, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-4749-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-4749-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
Nowadays, a very-high-resolution land-cover (LC) map with national coverage is still unavailable in China, hindering efficient resource allocation. To fill this gap, the first 1 m resolution LC map of China, SinoLC-1, was built. The results showed that SinoLC-1 had an overall accuracy of 73.61 % and conformed to the official survey reports. Comparison with other datasets suggests that SinoLC-1 can be a better support for downstream applications and provide more accurate LC information to users.
Yuan Wang, Qiangqiang Yuan, Tongwen Li, Yuanjian Yang, Siqin Zhou, and Liangpei Zhang
Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 15, 3597–3622, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-3597-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-3597-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
We propose a novel spatiotemporally self-supervised fusion method to establish long-term daily seamless global XCO2 and XCH4 products. Results show that the proposed method achieves a satisfactory accuracy that distinctly exceeds that of CAMS-EGG4 and is superior or close to those of GOSAT and OCO-2. In particular, our fusion method can effectively correct the large biases in CAMS-EGG4 due to the issues from assimilation data, such as the unadjusted anthropogenic emission for COVID-19.
Caiyi Jin, Qiangqiang Yuan, Tongwen Li, Yuan Wang, and Liangpei Zhang
Geosci. Model Dev., 16, 4137–4154, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-4137-2023, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-16-4137-2023, 2023
Short summary
Short summary
The semi-empirical physical approach derives PM2.5 with strong physical significance. However, due to the complex optical characteristic, the physical parameters are difficult to express accurately. Thus, combining the atmospheric physical mechanism and machine learning, we propose an optimized model. It creatively embeds the random forest model into the physical PM2.5 remote sensing approach to simulate a physical parameter. Our method shows great optimized performance in the validations.
Xiaobin Guan, Huanfeng Shen, Yuchen Wang, Dong Chu, Xinghua Li, Linwei Yue, Xinxin Liu, and Liangpei Zhang
Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2021-156, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-2021-156, 2021
Preprint withdrawn
Short summary
Short summary
This study generated the first global 1-km continuous NDVI product (STFLNDVI) for 4-decades by fusing multi-source satellite products. Simulated and real-data assessments confirmed the satisfactory and stable accuracy of STFLNDVI regarding spatial details and temporal variations. STFLNDVI is an ideal solution to the trade-off between spatial resolution and time coverage in current NDVI products, which of great significance for long-term regional and global vegetation and climate change studies.
Cited articles
Amin, G., Nazeer, M., and Sing Wong, M.: Land cover simulation and analysis for the Greater Bay Area of China in the context of the 2035 development plan, Geo-Spatial Information Science, 1–18, https://doi.org/10.1080/10095020.2025.2548360, 2025. a
Amundson, R., Berhe, A. A., Hopmans, J. W., Olson, C., Sztein, A. E., and Sparks, D. L.: Soil and human security in the 21st century, Science, 348, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1261071, 2015. a
Balhas, K., Karimi, M., and Pilehforooshha, P.: A new multi-level neighborhood parcel-based cellular automata model for urban land use allocation, Geo-Spatial Information Science, 1–18, https://doi.org/10.1080/10095020.2025.2544959, 2025. a
Bohn, T. J. and Vivoni, E. R.: MOD-LSP, MODIS-based parameters for hydrologic modeling of North American land cover change, Scientific Data, 6, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-019-0150-2, 2019. a
Borrelli, P., Robinson, D. A., Fleischer, L. R., Lugato, E., Ballabio, C., Alewell, C., Meusburger, K., Modugno, S., Schütt, B., Ferro, V., Bagarello, V., Oost, K. V., Montanarella, L., and Panagos, P.: An assessment of the global impact of 21st century land use change on soil erosion, Nat. Commun., 8, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-02142-7, 2017. a
Breiman, L.: Random Forests, Mach. Learn., 45, 5–32, https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1010933404324, 2001. a
Carlson, T. N. and Ripley, D. A.: On the relation between NDVI, fractional vegetation cover, and leaf area index, Remote Sens. Environ., 62, 241–252, https://doi.org/10.1016/s0034-4257(97)00104-1, 1997. a
Chakraborty, T., Venter, Z. S., Demuzere, M., Zhan, W., Gao, J., Zhao, L., and Qian, Y.: Large disagreements in estimates of urban land across scales and their implications, Nat. Commun., 15, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-52241-5, 2024. a
Chander, G., Markham, B. L., and Helder, D. L.: Summary of current radiometric calibration coefficients for Landsat MSS, TM, ETM+, and EO-1 ALI sensors, Remote Sens. Environ., 113, 893–903, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2009.01.007, 2009. a
Chen, B., Wu, S., Song, Y., Webster, C., Xu, B., and Gong, P.: Contrasting inequality in human exposure to greenspace between cities of Global North and Global South, Nat. Commun., 13, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-32258-4, 2022. a
Chen, J., Dun, C., and Kyrillidis, A.: Fast FixMatch: Faster Semi-Supervised Learning with Curriculum Batch Size, in: 2024 IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT), IEEE, 1836–1841, https://doi.org/10.1109/isit57864.2024.10619518, 2024. a
Cheng, M., He, W., Li, Z., Yang, G., and Zhang, H.: Harmony in diversity: Content cleansing change detection framework for very-high-resolution remote-sensing images, ISPRS J. Photogramm., 218, 1–19, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isprsjprs.2024.09.002, 2024. a
Cheng, M., Li, Z., Li, L., He, W., Zhang, L., and Zhang, H.: LP-QLC10: 25-year quarterly land change mapping in China’s Loess Plateau reveals long-term and substantial soil erosion mitigation, Science Data Bank [data set], https://doi.org/10.57760/sciencedb.33656, 2026. a, b, c
Di, B., Zeng, H., Zhang, M., Ustin, S. L., Tang, Y., Wang, Z., Chen, N., and Zhang, B.: Quantifying the spatial distribution of soil mass wasting processes after the 2008 earthquake in Wenchuan, China, Remote Sens. Environ., 114, 761–771, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2009.11.011, 2010. a
Drusch, M., Del Bello, U., Carlier, S., Colin, O., Fernandez, V., Gascon, F., Hoersch, B., Isola, C., Laberinti, P., Martimort, P., Meygret, A., Spoto, F., Sy, O., Marchese, F., and Bargellini, P.: Sentinel-2: ESA’s Optical High-Resolution Mission for GMES Operational Services, Remote Sens. Environ., 120, 25–36, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2011.11.026, 2012. a
Feng, X., Fu, B., Lu, N., Zeng, Y., and Wu, B.: How ecological restoration alters ecosystem services: an analysis of carbon sequestration in China’s Loess Plateau, Sci. Rep., 3, https://doi.org/10.1038/srep02846, 2013. a
Friedl, M. A., Sulla-Menashe, D., Tan, B., Schneider, A., Ramankutty, N., Sibley, A., and Huang, X.: MODIS Collection 5 global land cover: Algorithm refinements and characterization of new datasets, Remote Sens. Environ., 114, 168–182, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2009.08.016, 2010. a
Fritz, S., See, L., Perger, C., McCallum, I., Schill, C., Schepaschenko, D., Duerauer, M., Karner, M., Dresel, C., Laso-Bayas, J.-C., Lesiv, M., Moorthy, I., Salk, C. F., Danylo, O., Sturn, T., Albrecht, F., You, L., Kraxner, F., and Obersteiner, M.: A global dataset of crowdsourced land cover and land use reference data, Scientific Data, 4, https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2017.75, 2017. a, b
Funk, C., Peterson, P., Landsfeld, M., Pedreros, D., Verdin, J., Shukla, S., Husak, G., Rowland, J., Harrison, L., Hoell, A., and Michaelsen, J.: The climate hazards infrared precipitation with stations – a new environmental record for monitoring extremes, Scientific Data, 2, https://doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2015.66, 2015. a
Gao, H., Li, Z., Jia, L., Li, P., Xu, G., Ren, Z., Pang, G., and Zhao, B.: Capacity of soil loss control in the Loess Plateau based on soil erosion control degree, J. Geogr. Sci., 26, 457–472, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11442-016-1279-y, 2016. a
Ge, J., Pitman, A. J., Guo, W., Zan, B., and Fu, C.: Impact of revegetation of the Loess Plateau of China on the regional growing season water balance, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 24, 515–533, https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-515-2020, 2020. a
Gong, P., Liu, H., Zhang, M., Li, C., Wang, J., Huang, H., Clinton, N., Ji, L., Li, W., Bai, Y., Chen, B., Xu, B., Zhu, Z., Yuan, C., Ping Suen, H., Guo, J., Xu, N., Li, W., Zhao, Y., Yang, J., Yu, C., Wang, X., Fu, H., Yu, L., Dronova, I., Hui, F., Cheng, X., Shi, X., Xiao, F., Liu, Q., and Song, L.: Stable classification with limited sample: transferring a 30-m resolution sample set collected in 2015 to mapping 10-m resolution global land cover in 2017, Sci. Bull., 64, 370–373, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scib.2019.03.002, 2019. a
Gorelick, N., Hancher, M., Dixon, M., Ilyushchenko, S., Thau, D., and Moore, R.: Google Earth Engine: Planetary-scale geospatial analysis for everyone, Remote Sens. Environ., 202, 18–27, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2017.06.031, 2017. a
Hamed, K. H. and Ramachandra Rao, A.: A modified Mann-Kendall trend test for autocorrelated data, J. Hydrol., 204, 182–196, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-1694(97)00125-X, 1998. a
He, K., Fan, H., Wu, Y., Xie, S., and Girshick, R.: Momentum Contrast for Unsupervised Visual Representation Learning, in: 2020 IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), IEEE, 9726–9735, https://doi.org/10.1109/cvpr42600.2020.00975, 2020. a
Hengl, T.: Soil texture classes (USDA system) for 6 soil depths (0, 10, 30, 60, 100 and 200 cm) at 250 m (Version v0.2), Zenodo [data set], https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2525817, 2018. a
Hengl, T. and Wheeler, I.: Soil organic carbon content in x 5 g/kg at 6 standard depths (0, 10, 30, 60, 100 and 200 cm) at 250 m resolution, Zenodo [data set], https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2525553, 2018. a
Hermosilla, T., Wulder, M. A., White, J. C., and Coops, N. C.: Land cover classification in an era of big and open data: Optimizing localized implementation and training data selection to improve mapping outcomes, Remote Sens. Environ., 268, 112780, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2021.112780, 2022. a
Horn, B.: Hill shading and the reflectance map, P. IEEE, 69, 14–47, https://doi.org/10.1109/proc.1981.11918, 1981. a
Hua, W., Liang, D., Li, J., Liu, X., Zou, Z., Ye, X., and Bai, X.: SOOD: Towards Semi-Supervised Oriented Object Detection, in: 2023 IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), IEEE, 15558–15567, https://doi.org/10.1109/cvpr52729.2023.01493, 2023. a
Huang, Z., Du, H., Mao, F., Li, X., Zhou, G., Sun, J., Xu, Y., Xuan, J., Lu, Y., Huang, L., and Song, M.: Assessing the impact of land use and cover change on above-ground carbon storage in subtropical forests: a case study of Zhejiang Province, China, Geo-Spatial Information Science, 28, 2781–2807, https://doi.org/10.1080/10095020.2024.2440615, 2025. a
IPCC: Climate Change and Land: An IPCC Special Report on Climate Change, Desertification, Land Degradation, Sustainable Land Management, Food Security, and Greenhouse Gas Fluxes in Terrestrial Ecosystems, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Geneva, Switzerland, https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/ (last access: 9 May 2026), 2019. a
Jiang, C., Zhang, H., Wang, X., Feng, Y., and Labzovskii, L.: Challenging the land degradation in China’s Loess Plateau: Benefits, limitations, sustainability, and adaptive strategies of soil and water conservation, Ecol. Eng., 127, 135–150, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoleng.2018.11.018, 2019. a
Kang, L., Han, X., Zhang, Z., and Sun, O. J.: Grassland ecosystems in China: review of current knowledge and research advancement, Philos. T. R. Soc. B, 362, 997–1008, https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2007.2029, 2007. a
Karra, K., Kontgis, C., Statman-Weil, Z., Mazzariello, J. C., Mathis, M., and Brumby, S. P.: Global land use/land cover with Sentinel 2 and deep learning, in: 2021 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium IGARSS, IEEE, 4704–4707, https://doi.org/10.1109/igarss47720.2021.9553499, 2021. a
Kodl, G., Streeter, R., Cutler, N., and Bolch, T.: Arctic tundra shrubification can obscure increasing levels of soil erosion in NDVI assessments of land cover derived from satellite imagery, Remote Sens. Environ., 301, 113935, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2023.113935, 2024. a
Kraamwinkel, C., Beaulieu, A., Dias, T., and Howison, R.: Planetary limits to soil degradation, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-4970, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-4970, 2022. a
Li, Z., He, W., Cheng, M., Hu, J., Yang, G., and Zhang, H.: SinoLC-1: the first 1 m resolution national-scale land-cover map of China created with a deep learning framework and open-access data, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 15, 4749–4780, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-4749-2023, 2023. a, b, c
Li, Z., He, W., Li, J., Lu, F., and Zhang, H.: Learning without Exact Guidance: Updating Large-Scale High-Resolution Land Cover Maps from Low-Resolution Historical Labels, in: 2024 IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), IEEE, 27717–27727, https://doi.org/10.1109/cvpr52733.2024.02618, 2024. a, b
Li, Z., Li, L., Hu, T., Cheng, M., He, W., Qiu, T., Zhang, L., and Zhang, H.: Satellite mapping of every building’s function in urban China reveals deep built environment disparities, Nat. Commun., 17, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69589-5, 2026. a
Lin, M., Yang, G., and Zhang, H.: Transition Is a Process: Pair-to-Video Change Detection Networks for Very High Resolution Remote Sensing Images, IEEE T. Image Process., 32, 57–71, https://doi.org/10.1109/tip.2022.3226418, 2023. a
Liu, J., Li, S., Ouyang, Z., Tam, C., and Chen, X.: Ecological and socioeconomic effects of China’s policies for ecosystem services, P. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 105, 9477–9482, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0706436105, 2008. a
Liu, L., Zhang, H., Li, F., and Chen, X.: Research progress and prospect of soil and water conservation measures in the Loess Plateau, in: Fifth International Conference on Traffic Engineering and Transportation System (ICTETS 2021), edited by: Xing, Y., SPIE, p. 51, https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2619650, 2021. a
Liu, Q., Wang, Y., Zhang, J., and Chen, Y.: Filling Gullies to Create Farmland on the Loess Plateau, Environ. Sci. Technol., 47, 7589–7590, https://doi.org/10.1021/es402460r, 2013. a
Liu, Y., Liu, R., Chen, J., Wei, X., Qi, L., and Zhao, L.: A global annual fractional tree cover dataset during 2000–2021 generated from realigned MODIS seasonal data, Scientific Data, 11, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-024-03671-9, 2024. a
Liu, Z., Shao, M., and Wang, Y.: Effect of environmental factors on regional soil organic carbon stocks across the Loess Plateau region, China, Agr. Ecosyst. Environ., 142, 184–194, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agee.2011.05.002, 2011. a
MEE China: Technical Specification for Investigation and Assessment of National Ecological Status – Ecosystem Services Assessment, Tech. Rep. HJ 1173–2021, Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People's Republic of China, Beijing, https://www.mee.gov.cn/ywgz/fgbz/bz/bzwb/stzl/202106/W020210910457959297347.pdf (last access: 9 May 2026), 2021a (in Chinese). a, b, c, d
MEE China: Technical specification for investigation and assessment of national ecological status – Ecosystem problems assessment, Tech. Rep. HJ 1174–2021, Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the People's Republic of China, Beijing, https://www.mee.gov.cn/ywgz/fgbz/bz/bzwb/stzl/202106/W020210910459257234201.pdf (last access: 9 May 2026) 2021b (in Chinese). a
Miyato, T., Maeda, S.-I., Koyama, M., and Ishii, S.: Virtual Adversarial Training: A Regularization Method for Supervised and Semi-Supervised Learning, IEEE T. Pattern Anal., 41, 1979–1993, https://doi.org/10.1109/tpami.2018.2858821, 2019. a
Moltchanova, E., Lesiv, M., See, L., Mugford, J., and Fritz, S.: Optimizing Crowdsourced Land Use and Land Cover Data Collection: A Two-Stage Approach, Land, 11, 958, https://doi.org/10.3390/land11070958, 2022. a
Nut, N., Mihara, M., Jeong, J., Ngo, B., Sigua, G., Prasad, P. V., and Reyes, M. R.: Land Use and Land Cover Changes and Its Impact on Soil Erosion in Stung Sangkae Catchment of Cambodia, Sustainability, 13, 9276, https://doi.org/10.3390/su13169276, 2021. a
Peili, S., Ning, W., and Rawat, G. S.: The Distribution Patterns of Timberline and Its Response to Climate Change in the Himalayas, Journal of Resources and Ecology, 11, 342, https://doi.org/10.5814/j.issn.1674-764x.2020.04.002, 2020. a
Pettorelli, N., Laurance, W. F., O’Brien, T. G., Wegmann, M., Nagendra, H., and Turner, W.: Satellite remote sensing for applied ecologists: opportunities and challenges, J. Appl. Ecol., 51, 839–848, https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.12261, 2014. a
Qiang-Guo, C.: Soil erosion and management on the Loess Plateau, J. Geogr. Sci., 11, 53–70, https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02837376, 2001. a
Rafiei-Sardooi, E., Mirchooli, F., Azareh, A., and Clague, J. J.: Impact of soil erosion on agricultural sustainability based on crop water productivity in semi-arid Iran, Sci. Rep., 15, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-24353-5, 2025. a
Renard, K. G., Foster, G. R., Weesies, G. A., and Porter, J. P.: RUSLE: Revised universal soil loss equation, J. Soil Water Conserv., 46, 30–33, https://doi.org/10.1080/00224561.1991.12456571, 1991. a
Rossiter, D. G.: A theoretical framework for land evaluation, Geoderma, 72, 165–190, https://doi.org/10.1016/0016-7061(96)00031-6, 1996. a
Roy, D., Wulder, M., Loveland, T., C.E., W., Allen, R., Anderson, M., Helder, D., Irons, J., Johnson, D., Kennedy, R., Scambos, T., Schaaf, C., Schott, J., Sheng, Y., Vermote, E., Belward, A., Bindschadler, R., Cohen, W., Gao, F., Hipple, J., Hostert, P., Huntington, J., Justice, C., Kilic, A., Kovalskyy, V., Lee, Z., Lymburner, L., Masek, J., McCorkel, J., Shuai, Y., Trezza, R., Vogelmann, J., Wynne, R., and Zhu, Z.: Landsat-8: Science and product vision for terrestrial global change research, Remote Sens. Environ., 145, 154–172, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2014.02.001, 2014. a
Sala, O. E., Stuart Chapin, F., III, Armesto, J. J., Berlow, E., Bloomfield, J., Dirzo, R., Huber-Sanwald, E., Huenneke, L. F., Jackson, R. B., Kinzig, A., Leemans, R., Lodge, D. M., Mooney, H. A., Oesterheld, M., Poff, N. L., Sykes, M. T., Walker, B. H., Walker, M., and Wall, D. H.: Global Biodiversity Scenarios for the Year 2100, Science, 287, 1770–1774, https://doi.org/10.1126/science.287.5459.1770, 2000. a
Sen, P. K.: Estimates of the Regression Coefficient Based on Kendall’s Tau, J. Am. Stat. Assoc., 63, 1379–1389, https://doi.org/10.1080/01621459.1968.10480934, 1968. a
Sharma, H. and Ehlers, T. A.: Effects of seasonal variations in vegetation and precipitation on catchment erosion rates along a climate and ecological gradient: insights from numerical modeling, Earth Surf. Dynam., 11, 1161–1181, https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-11-1161-2023, 2023. a
Singh, D., Singh, N., Singh, H., Kumawat, A., Jeet, P., Yadav, D., Gupta, A. K., and Kumar, G.: Biological and mechanical measures for runoff and soil erosion control in India and beyond, Discover Applied Sciences, 7, https://doi.org/10.1007/s42452-025-07287-5, 2025. a
Tang, Q., Jiang, W., Li, Z., Wang, J., and Lan, G.: Potential analysis of the comprehensive land consolidation for entire karst region based on improved random forest method: a case study in the Lijiang River Basin, Geo-Spatial Information Science, 1–18, https://doi.org/10.1080/10095020.2025.2583814, 2025. a
Tucker, C. J.: Red and photographic infrared linear combinations for monitoring vegetation, Remote Sens. Environ., 8, 127–150, https://doi.org/10.1016/0034-4257(79)90013-0, 1979. a
UNCCD: Global Land Outlook, Second Edition, United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, Bonn, Germany, https://www.unccd.int/resources/global-land-outlook (last access: 9 May 2026), 2022. a
U.S. Geological Survey: Landsat Collection 2 Level-2 Science Product Guide, Tech. rep., Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, https://www.usgs.gov/landsat-missions/landsat-collection-2-level-2-science-products (last access: 31 August 2025), 2020. a
Wang, S., Fu, B., Piao, S., Lü, Y., Ciais, P., Feng, X., and Wang, Y.: Reduced sediment transport in the Yellow River due to anthropogenic changes, Nat. Geosci., 9, 38–41, https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2602, 2015. a
Wang, Y., Yu, P., Feger, K., Wei, X., Sun, G., Bonell, M., Xiong, W., Zhang, S., and Xu, L.: Annual runoff and evapotranspiration of forestlands and non‐forestlands in selected basins of the Loess Plateau of China, Ecohydrology, 4, 277–287, https://doi.org/10.1002/eco.215, 2011. a
Wang, Z., Shi, X., Dou, S., Cheng, M., and Miao, L.: The 30 m land cover dataset for capturing land cover changes induced by ecological restoration from 1990 to 2022 on the Chinese Loess Plateau, Scientific Data, 12, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-04575-y, 2025. a
Wen, X. and Zhen, L.: Soil erosion control practices in the Chinese Loess Plateau: A systematic review, Environmental Development, 34, 100493, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envdev.2019.100493, 2020. a, b
Williams, J. R.: The erosion-productivity impact calculator (EPIC) model: a case history, Philos. T. R. Soc. B, 329, 421–428, https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.1990.0184, 1990. a
Wuyun, D., Sun, L., Chen, Z., Li, Y., Han, M., Shi, Z., Ren, T., and Zhao, H.: A 10-meter resolution dataset of abandoned and reclaimed cropland from 2016 to 2023 in Inner Mongolia, China, Scientific Data, 12, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-04614-8, 2025. a
Xie, B., Jia, X., Qin, Z., Shen, J., and Chang, Q.: Vegetation dynamics and climate change on the Loess Plateau, China: 1982–2011, Reg. Environ. Change, 16, 1583–1594, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-015-0881-3, 2015. a
Yan, J., Wang, S., Feng, J., He, H., Wang, L., Sun, Z., and Zheng, C.: New 30-m resolution dataset reveals declining soil erosion with regional increases across Chinese mainland (1990–2022), Remote Sens. Environ., 323, 114681, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2025.114681, 2025. a, b
Yang, J. and Huang, X.: The 30 m annual land cover dataset and its dynamics in China from 1990 to 2019, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 13, 3907–3925, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-3907-2021, 2021. a
Yang, L., Qi, L., Feng, L., Zhang, W., and Shi, Y.: Revisiting Weak-to-Strong Consistency in Semi-Supervised Semantic Segmentation, in: 2023 IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), IEEE, 7236–7246, https://doi.org/10.1109/cvpr52729.2023.00699, 2023. a
Yang, L., Shi, L., Li, J., and Kong, H.: Spatio-temporal pattern change of LULC and its response to climate in the Loess Plateau, China, Sci. Rep., 14, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-73945-0, 2024. a
Yang, S., Guan, Y., Zhao, C., Zhang, C., Bai, J., and Chen, K.: Determining the influence of catchment area on intensity of gully erosion using high-resolution aerial imagery: A 40-year case study from the Loess Plateau, northern China, Geoderma, 347, 90–102, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoderma.2019.03.042, 2019. a
Yu, Z., Di, L., Yang, R., Tang, J., Lin, L., Zhang, C., Rahman, M. S., Zhao, H., Gaigalas, J., Yu, E. G., and Sun, Z.: Selection of Landsat 8 OLI Band Combinations for Land Use and Land Cover Classification, in: 2019 8th International Conference on Agro-Geoinformatics (Agro-Geoinformatics), IEEE, 5 pp., https://doi.org/10.1109/agro-geoinformatics.2019.8820595, 2019. a
Zanaga, D., Van De Kerchove, R., Daems, D., De Keersmaecker, W., Brockmann, C., Kirches, G., Wevers, J., Cartus, O., Santoro, M., Fritz, S., Lesiv, M., Herold, M., Tsendbazar, N.-E., Xu, P., Ramoino, F., and Arino, O.: ESA WorldCover 10 m 2021 v200, Zenodo [data set], https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7254221, 2022. a, b, c, d, e
Zeng, Z., Estes, L., Ziegler, A. D., Chen, A., Searchinger, T., Hua, F., Guan, K., Jintrawet, A., and Wood, E. F.: Highland cropland expansion and forest loss in Southeast Asia in the twenty-first century, Nat. Geosci., 11, 556–562, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-018-0166-9, 2018. a
Zhang, C., Dong, J., and Ge, Q.: Mapping 20 years of irrigated croplands in China using MODIS and statistics and existing irrigation products, Scientific Data, 9, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-022-01522-z, 2022. a
Zhang, K., Shu, A., Xu, X., Yang, Q., and Yu, B.: Soil erodibility and its estimation for agricultural soils in China, J. Arid Environ., 72, 1002–1011, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaridenv.2007.11.018, 2008. a, b
Zhang, X., Liu, L., Chen, X., Gao, Y., Xie, S., and Mi, J.: GLC_FCS30: global land-cover product with fine classification system at 30 m using time-series Landsat imagery, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 13, 2753–2776, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-13-2753-2021, 2021. a
Zhang, X., Zhao, T., Xu, H., Liu, W., Wang, J., Chen, X., and Liu, L.: GLC_FCS30D: the first global 30 m land-cover dynamics monitoring product with a fine classification system for the period from 1985 to 2022 generated using dense-time-series Landsat imagery and the continuous change-detection method, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 16, 1353–1381, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-16-1353-2024, 2024. a
Zhao, J., Wang, X., and Zhou, Y.: A 30-meter resolution LS-factor dataset for the China Region, China Scientific Data, 10, 1–12, https://doi.org/10.11922/11-6035.csd.2024.0026.zh, 2025. a, b
Zhu, X. X., Tuia, D., Mou, L., Xia, G.-S., Zhang, L., Xu, F., and Fraundorfer, F.: Deep Learning in Remote Sensing: A Comprehensive Review and List of Resources, IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Magazine, 5, 8–36, https://doi.org/10.1109/mgrs.2017.2762307, 2017. a
Zhu, Y., Li, W., Wang, D., Wu, Z., and Shang, P.: Spatial Pattern of Soil Erosion in Relation to Land Use Change in a Rolling Hilly Region of Northeast China, Land, 11, 1253, https://doi.org/10.3390/land11081253, 2022. a
Zweifel, L., Meusburger, K., and Alewell, C.: Spatio-temporal pattern of soil degradation in a Swiss Alpine grassland catchment, Remote Sens. Environ., 235, 111441, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2019.111441, 2019. a
Short summary
This study presents a quarterly land-cover and soil erosion dataset for the Loess Plateau from 2000 to 2024 with 100 time steps, achieving an overall accuracy of 81.44 % based on 40 000 annotated samples and a mean absolute error of 4.50 % relative to government survey data. The maps show forest expansion, cropland expansion, and bare land reduction, together with a 30 % decline in mean soil erosion.
This study presents a quarterly land-cover and soil erosion dataset for the Loess Plateau from...
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint