Soil conservation service on the Tibetan Plateau, 1984-2013

Soil erosion can pose a serious problem to environmental quality and sustainable development. On the Tibetan Plateau, soil erosion is one of the main challenges to regional ecological security. Our analysis investigates soil erosion and evaluates its economic value in alpine steppe, alpine meadow, alpine desert steppe and forest ecosystems on the Tibetan Plateau. Analysis was carried out from 1984 to 2013. The results show that the annual average potential soil erosion, practical soil erosion and soil conservation calculated by the Revised University Soil Loss Equation model were 2.19x10(9)ta(-1), 2.16x10(9)ta(-1) and 2.72x10(7)ta(-1), respectively. The economic value of retaining soil nutrients, reducing the formation of wasteland and the economic benefit of reducing sediment deposition were 1.98x10(8)RMBa(-1), 2.55x10(12)RMBa(-1) and 7.44x10(4)RMBa(-1), respectively. From comparing different ecosystems, we found that the forest ecosystem had the greatest soil retention and economic values. We also found that the potential and actual soil erosion values were extremely high on the Tibetan Plateau. The study highlights that state and local policymakers must give greater emphasis to ecological protection in the future.