A Chinese soil conservation dataset preventing soil water erosion from 1992 to 2019

Abstract

Abstract Soil conservation service (SC) is defined as the ability of terrestrial ecosystems to control soil erosion and protect soil function. A long-term and high-resolution estimation of SC is urgent for ecological assessment and land management on a large scale. Here, a 300-m resolution Chinese soil conservation dataset (CSCD) from 1992 to 2019, for the first time, is established based on the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) model. The RUSLE modelling was conducted based on five key parameters, including the rainfall erosivity (interpolation of daily rainfall), land cover management (provincial data), conservation practices (weighted by terrain and crop types), topography (30 m), and soil properties (250 m). The dataset agrees with previous measurements in all basins (R2 > 0.5) and other regional simulations. Compared with current studies, the dataset has long-term, large-scale, and relatively high-resolution characteristics. This dataset will serve as a base to open out the mechanism of SC variations in China and could help assess the ecological effects of land management policies.