Drivers of soil erosion and subsurface loss by soil leakage during karst rocky desertification in SW China

As an extreme manifestation of environmental degradation, karst rock desertification is caused by soil loss and rock exposure. In some areas with serious rocky desertification, there is no soil to be eroded or leaked. The soil loss in these areas superimposes soil erosion and unique subsurface loss by soil leakage through fissures, pipelines, sinkholes, etc., which directly reduce soil resources and accelerate rocky desertification. However, the factors driving soil erosion and subsurface loss by soil leakage are still unclear. Rainfall experiments were conducted on simulated slopes with surface-exposed bedrock and subsurface fissures based on field investigations in a karst rocky desertification area of Guizhou Province, China. Four factors, including rainfall intensity, slope gradient, bedrock exposure rate and subsurface fissure degree, were considered in the experiment. We found that the amount of soil surface erosion and subsurface leakage loss is driven not only by the runoff volume but also by other influential factors. Rainfall intensity is the driving factor determining the amount of surface erosion and subsurface leakage loss of soil and water and the relationship between them. The slope gradient plays a leading role only in subsurface fissure flow leakage loss. The bedrock exposure rate drives the surface soil erosion rate, shows a critical value (30%), and dominates the fissure flow leakage loss rate. Subsurface fissure density plays an important role in the surface loss of soil and water; however, an increase in the subsurface fissure density does not obviously accelerate the subsurface leakage loss of soil and water. Although this result, obtained from laboratory simulations, may differ at the field scale or larger, it could provide a foundation for systematic studies on soil erosion/leakage and insights into the relations between rocky desertification and soil erosion/leakage and their driving factors in karst rocky desertification.