Using REE Tracers to Measure Sheet Erosion Changing to Rill Erosion

Rare earth element(REE) tracer method was used to study sheet erosion changing to rill erosion on slope land. By placing different REE on different soil depth across a slope in an indoor plot, two simulated rainfalls were applied to study the change of erosion type and the rill erosion process. The results indicate that the main erosion type is sheet erosion at the beginning of the rainfalls, and serious erosion happens after rill erosion appears. Accumulated sheet and rill erosion amount increases with the rainfalls time. The percentage of sheet erosion amount decreases and rill erosion percentage increases with time. At the end of the rainfalls, the total rill erosion amounts are 4.3 and 5 times more than sheet erosion. In this paper, a new REE tracer method was used to quantitatively distinguish sheet and rill erosion amount. The new REE tracer method should be useful to future studying of erosion processes on slope lands.