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ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Temporal and Spatial Distribution of Gully Water
and its Replenishment Pathways in Loess Plateau
1
Technology Innovation Center for Land Engineering and Human Settlements, Shaanxi Land Engineering
Construction Group Co., Ltd, School of Human Settlements and Civil Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University,
Xi’an, Shaanxi, China
2
Shaanxi Provincial Land Engineering Construction Group Co., Ltd, Xi’an, Shaanxi, China
3
Institute of Land Engineering and Technology, Shaanxi Provincial Land Engineering Construction
Group Co., Ltd.,Xi’an, Shaanxi, China
Submission date: 2024-03-24
Final revision date: 2024-04-18
Acceptance date: 2024-04-27
Online publication date: 2024-09-18
Publication date: 2025-01-28
Corresponding author
Lei Shi
Institute of Land Engineering and Technology,, Shaanxi Provincial Land Engineering Construction Group Co., China
Institute of Land Engineering and Technology,, Shaanxi Provincial Land Engineering Construction Group Co., China
Liangyan Yang
Shaanxi Provincial Land Engineering Construction Group Co., Ltd, Xi’an, Shaanxi, China
Shaanxi Provincial Land Engineering Construction Group Co., Ltd, Xi’an, Shaanxi, China
Pol. J. Environ. Stud. 2025;34(3):2835-2845
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
The gully region of the Loess Plateau is a landform with an extremely uneven distribution of water
resources. In the dry season, water shortages seriously affect the property and lives of residents. During the
rainy season, excessive rainfall leads to a series of geological disasters such as landslides and collapses,
mudslides, and soil erosion. The subsurface flow in the gully of the Loess Plateau provides a new way to solve
this problem. The premise of redistributing water resources by using subsurface flow effectively is to find
out the temporal and spatial distribution of water in gullies and its replenishment methods. However, there
have been no related reports about it in recent years. In this study, a typical gully (Jiulongquan Gully, Yan’an,
Shaanxi Province, China) was studied by long-term positioning monitoring and isotope tracing. The direction
and proportion of hydrological cycle transformation in each water body were quantitatively analyzed using a
multi-terminal mixed model. The gully water transformation relationship and the contribution rate of water
resource types to gully water were identified. The result shows that the subsurface flow in slope soil was mainly
concentrated in the upper soil from 0-100 cm, while the subsurface flow in the gully was mainly generated in
the upper soil from 0-120 cm. For deep soil-water, there was no significant difference in the water sources at
different locations of gullies. The main recharge ratios of precipitation, surface water, and groundwater to the
deep soil-water were 55.39%-60.10%, 10.48%-21.85%, and 22.76%-29.42%, respectively. For shallow soil,
the difference was more obvious. Compared with the upstream of the gully, the proportion of precipitation
supply for the subsurface flow in the midstream of the gully increased from 38.82% to 56.42%, and the
proportion in the downstream of the gully increased from 2.54% to 17.89%. Upstream of the gully, the
main recharge ratios of precipitation, surface water, and groundwater to the subsurface flow were 38.82%,
58.64%, and 2.54%, respectively. For the midstream of the gully, the main recharge ratios of precipitation,
surface water, and groundwater to the subsurface flow were 56.42%, 41.34%, and 2.24%, respectively. For
the downstream of the gully, the main recharge ratios of precipitation, surface water, and groundwater to the
subsurface flow were 8.56%, 48.51%, and 42.93%, respectively. By installing the intercepts on the slope (100
cm) and in the gully (120 cm) and the reservoirs upstream and downstream of the gully, it is expected that
the subsurface flow can be used to effectively trap soil-water and regulate water distribution in the gully.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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| eISSN: | 2083-5906 |
| ISSN: | 1230-1485 |
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