Journal of Geo-information Science, Volume. 22, Issue 4, 816(2020)
Loess gully should be the most dynamic and changeable landform unit among the loess landforms in the Loess Plateau of China. In this plateau, the surface morphology presents thousands of gullies with a severe soil erosion pattern. This specific environment makes the area to a research focus both in the studies of geomorphology and soil erosion, especially the frontier questions of the formation and evolution of the gully landform. In the recent years, methods of geochronological dating, geomorphological feature expression, and monitoring simulation have been used by many scholars for better understanding of loess gully formation from the perspective of "past", "now", and "future". These advances have enriched our knowledge of loess gully formation and evolutionary processes. In this research, we systematically analyzed the research status quo and progresses of related studies on loess gully evolution in the Loess Plateau. These related studies include the landform evolution in the Loess Plateau, the loess gully formation, and the gully information extraction and expression using the DEM data. We argued that existing studies of loess gully formation and evolution should be further improved, with especially the help of theories and methods of the modern geographical information science. To this end, we proposed the concept of loess gully profile combination, trying to understand loess gully formation and evolutionary processes from a new perspective. The profile of gully transfers matter energy and accumulates terrain power during loess gully evolution. In addition, with the connection of runoff nodes, different gully profiles are connected and combined with each other, forming a specific pattern of gully profile combination. This combination should be a comprehensive information integration which integrates features and processes of loess gully landform. The three-dimensional spatial structure of the gully profile combination is an abstraction and mapping of loess gully landform evolution. The quantitative expression model of gully profile combination is expected to build, which should be oriented to loess gully landform evolution. This gully profile combination will help to achieve a new understanding of the loess gully formation mechanism during loess gully evolutionary processes, and to refine the gully evolution rules and patterns in the Loess Plateau. The gully profile combination is expected to further enrich digital terrain analysis methods.
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Liyang XIONG, Guoan TANG.
Received: Sep. 13, 2019
Accepted: --
Published Online: Nov. 12, 2020
The Author Email: TANG Guoan (tangguoan@njnu.edu.cn)