Articles | Volume 12, issue 1
https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-12-163-2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-12-163-2024
© Author(s) 2024. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Research article
| 
18 Jan 2024
Research article |
| 18 Jan 2024
| 18 Jan 2024
Past anthropogenic land use change caused a regime shift of the fluvial response to Holocene climate change in the Chinese Loess Plateau
Hao Chen
Frontiers Science Center for Critical Earth Material Cycling, School of Geography and Ocean Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
Department of Earth Sciences, VU University Amsterdam, 1081 HV Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Xianyan Wang
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Frontiers Science Center for Critical Earth Material Cycling, School of Geography and Ocean Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
Yanyan Yu
Key Laboratory of Cenozoic Geology and Environment, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China
Huayu Lu
Frontiers Science Center for Critical Earth Material Cycling, School of Geography and Ocean Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
Ronald Van Balen
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR
Department of Earth Sciences, VU University Amsterdam, 1081 HV Amsterdam, the Netherlands
TNO – Geological Survey of the Netherlands, 3584 CB Utrecht, the Netherlands
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Marzieh Mokarram, Mohammad Jafar Mokarram, and Huayu Lu
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-2271, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2026-2271, 2026
This preprint is open for discussion and under review for Geoscientific Model Development (GMD).
Short summary
Short summary
This study tests whether changing land conditions and the effects of earlier dry periods help explain monthly dust levels over North Africa. We found that including land-surface information and earlier surface conditions improves model performance, but severe dust outbreaks are still hard to capture. The study provides a reproducible pilot framework for future dust-model evaluation within the Desert Model Intercomparison Project.
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Short summary
The Wei River catchment, one of the centers of the agricultural revolution in China, has experienced intense land use changes since 6000 BCE. This makes it an ideal place to study the response of river systems to anthropogenic land use change. Modeling results show the sensitivity of discharge and sediment yield to climate change increased abruptly when the agricultural land area exceeded a threshold at around 1000 BCE. This regime shift in the fluvial catchment led to a large sediment pulse.
The Wei River catchment, one of the centers of the agricultural revolution in China, has...
