A Study on Soil Erosion Rates of the Purple Slope Cultivated Land Using Caesium-137 Technique in the Upper of the Yangtze River

The upper Yangtze River is one of the most severely eroded areas in China. The purple Cultivated slope land is one of the important sources for river sediment in the mountain regions. The paper reports the results of a preliminary investigation of the potential of using ()~(137)Cs measurements on a purple sloping cultivated land in the upper Yangtze River.Soil samples were mainly collected from the purple cultivated slope land , and the ()~(137)Cs reference samples collected from a plain grassland or terraced land where no disturbance sine 1953. The references inventory of ()~(137)Cs in sampling region are between 919.8Bq/m~2 and The effective references inventory of ()~(137)Cs in sampling region are between 643.9Bq/m~2 and 1425.1Bq/m~2.The soil erosion rates of the purple cultivated slope land of sampling sites are from 758 t/km~2·a~(-1) to 9854 t/km~2·a~(-1).