Spatiotemporal Distribution of Rainfall Erosivity in the Bailong River Basin, Gansu Province

Rainfall erosivity is one of the key parameters that determine soil erosion, sediment yield, and water quality, thus its importance has grown in modeling of the environmental effects of climate change. The spatial and temporal distribution of rainfall erosivity in the Bailong River Basin in China's Gansu Province were analyzed. We derived a rainfall erosivity map based on data from 18 meteorological stations in and around the basin using the inverse distance weighting interpolation approach. The annual mean rainfall erosivity within the Bailong River Basin was 798.8 MJ mm ha-1 h-1 yr-1. The mean annual amount of erosive rainfall accounts for 36.0 to 47.1% of annual precipitation, depending on the station. Rainfall erosivity was greatest from June to September, and rainfall during this period accounts for 77.7% to 84.8% of the total annual rainfall erosivity.