Promoting "Digital Soil and Water Conservation" Project to Accelerate the Harnessing of Soil Erosion in the Loess Plateau

"Digital soil and water conservation" is a strategic and creative project based on the need to enhance the practices of soil and water conservation in the Loess Plateau and develop the advanced technology of the subject. The core of the project is to establish the sod and water conservation monitoring system of die Yellow River Basin. This system is based on the monitoring stations distributed in the Yellow River Basin, coupling with RS, GIS, GPS technologies, to monitor and collect data of soil erosion and conservation in the Loess Plateau; to transfer, store and share data through information and communication technology; to develop professional models and application system to facilitate planning, design, property management, monitoring and supervision, and decision making of soil and water conservation projects. The system consists of six parts namely monitoring stations, data collection and transmission, data storage, information set-vice platform and application system. Upon monitoring system, the total amount of soil erosion and its source, and the trend front various scales can be monitored, analyzed and forecasted precisely in sequence; the status of soil and water conservation projects and man - induced soil erosion can be supervised and managed; harnessing benefits can be evaluated properly; soil and water conservation information can be announced timely. Up to now, the first stage of the project has been completed with Soil and Water Conservation Monitoring Management Center of YRCC (in Zhengzhou) and Yellow River Soil and Water Conservation Monitoring Central Station(in Xi'an), and a series of application system that provide an important approach to intrinsic law research and control measures of soil erosion. Focusing on sand - laden and coarse sand zone in the middle reaches of Yellow River and check dam construction, the next step is to perfect the functions of application system, input data continuously, accelerate model development to facilitate information utilization and promote the technological level of soil and water conservation projects.