Exploring soil erosion trajectories and their divergent responses to driving factors: a model-based contrasting study in highly eroded mountain areas

Spatial heterogeneity and attribution analysis of gravel particle size in northern Tibet Plateau

It is of great significance to study the spatial differentiation of surface gravel in northern Tibet Plateau for regional ecological environment restoration. In this paper, the particle size and spatial position of the surface gravel are studied. On the basis of the impact factors of topography, vegetation, land use, meteorology, soil, social economy, etc., the quantitative attribution of the gravel particle size is studied in the geomorphological type areas of the northern Tibetan Plateau by using geographic detector and regression analysis. The experimental conclusions are as follows: Firstly, the explanatory power of each impact factor to gravel particle size and the coupling degree between factors are different in different geomorphological types. Among the impact factors, NDVI and land use types are the dominant factors that determine the spatial heterogeneity of gravel particle size. However, in extremely high mountain areas, the explanatory power of altitude factor gradually increases with the increase of topographic relief. Secondly, two-factor interaction is helpful to enhance the explanatory power of spatial heterogeneity of gravel particle size. Except for the interaction of altitude factor in the high relief but extremely high-altitude mountains, the interaction of NDVI and other important factors is mostly found in other regions. Among them, the interaction between NDVI and land use type is the most significant. Thirdly, the areas with high gravel particle size identified by the risk detector are mainly areas with high vegetation coverage and weak external erosion, such as shrubbery, wooded land, and high-coverage grassland. Therefore, the specific conditions of different regions should be fully considered in the study of the spatial heterogeneity of gravel size in the northern Tibetan Plateau.