Variation in RUSLE-estimated soil erosion responses to land use/land cover change across major climate zone

The coupled effects of climate change and Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) change increasingly influence soil erosion. While numerous prior studies have examined these factors in isolation or within single regions, a thorough understanding of how erosion responses to LULC change vary across diverse climatic contexts is still lacking. This study addresses this gap by employing a globally comparative framework that combines the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) with six complementary statistical approaches, including fixed-effects panel regression, distributed lag analysis, class-specific dynamic models and Granger causality testing. Six major climatic zones throughout five countries (Brazil, China, the USA, India, and Australia) were examined from 2004 to 2023. The results revealed considerable variability in RUSLE-estimated erosion rates across different climate-region contexts. The relationships between LULC change and erosion differ substantially among climate zones, with agricultural expansion showing stronger positive associations in humid climates and weaker associations in arid regions. Forests exhibit variable protective effects depending on climatic conditions, with lagged associations persisting for up to eight years in some regions. Causality analysis further indicated that changes in forest cover can predict erosion dynamics in specific climate contexts, though this should be interpreted as predictive association rather than physical causation. Overall, our findings demonstrate that identical LULC transitions can produce markedly different erosion outcomes depending on climatic context, highlighting the need for climate-specific soil conservation strategies and the importance of integrating climate-land interactions into global land management frameworks.