Prediction of slope erosion in quaternary red soil region of northern Jiangxi province under future climate change scenarios

Predictions of slope erosion from 2012-2099 were made in typical case of quaternary red soil region using the downscaled future precipitation from 17 global climate models (GCMs) under SRES B1, A1B and A2 emission scenarios in the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ( IPCC AR4) and the physically based model WEPP. The model was calibrated and validated with the satisfied results by the observed data. The ensemble method was applied in the erosion prediction, and the probabilities of changes of rainfall amount, surface runoff and erosion in different of scenarios and GCMs were tested and analyzed. The prediction results from different GCMs were remarkable divergence. Compared with the current situation, the virtually certain increasing precipitation will very likely increase surface runoff and will likely increase erosion in the future. Furthermore, three time series of annual rainfall amount, runoff and erosion modulus have the rise tendency until the end of this century. The averages of soil erosion modulus of the predictive period under all three scenarios are obviously higher than that of the present. And SRES A2 scenario which represents the highest concentrations of greenhouse gases has a biggest increment among the three scenarios. Slope erosion in quaternary red soil region of Northern Jiangxi province will reach the peak in the late period of this century with a continuous increasing tendency.