Study of ephemeral gully erosion in a small upland catchment on the Inner-Mongolian Plateau

Ephemeral gully erosion is an important soil erosion process on the Inner-Mongolia Plateau in North China, and although its damage is very intense, little research on the area has been published. In this paper, a global positioning system (GPS) is used to measure the morphology of ephemeral gullies in a small catchment, the Inner-Mongolia Autonomous Region. First, this paper presents the characteristics of ephemeral gullies and soil loss due to ephemeral gully erosion. The network of ephemeral gullies takes on the shapes of tree branches, and there are 16 hole-ephemeral gullies in the middle of the ephemeral gullies. An average gully length of about 19.6 m ha−1 and an average soil loss of 8.8 m3 ha−1 due to ephemeral gully erosion were measured. Second, soil erosion influences crop production in cropland and combinations of vegetation in fallow. The difference between vegetation in the middle of ephemeral gullies and in other places is very obvious. Third, this paper discusses hole-ephemeral gullies that are holes locating in the middle of ephemeral gullies whose widths and depths are more than 0.5 m (Fig. 6) for the first time. The relationship between local hill slope gradient S (m m−1) and upslope contributing area A (ha) can be expressed as S = 0.064A−0.375 and may be a key indicator for determining the position of existing hole-ephemeral gully heads and for predicting where hole-ephemeral gullies could form in the small watershed on the Inner-Mongolian Plateau.