TY - JOUR T1 - Rainfall and Vegetation Coupling Index for soil erosion risk mapping JF - Journal of Soil and Water Conservation SP - 213 LP - 220 DO - 10.2489/jswc.69.3.213 VL - 69 IS - 3 AU - X. Li AU - X. Zhang AU - L. Zhang AU - B. Wu Y1 - 2014/05/01 UR - http://www.jswconline.org/content/69/3/213.abstract N2 - Information about vegetation cover based on remote sensing data is widely used for soil erosion risk mapping, but no clear guidelines exist to select the most appropriate temporal satellite data. Soil erosion risk varies with rainfall and vegetation cover dynamics during a year, and the month with the highest erosion risk varies too. This paper proposes the use of a Rainfall and Vegetation Coupling Index (RVCI) to quickly identify the month with the highest soil erosion risk by using easily available rainfall and vegetation cover data. The appropriateness of the RVCI is validated against field measured sediment yield data in the upper watershed of Miyun Reservoir (UWMR) for different years. Based on the above, the soil erosion risk in the UWMR for 2005 was mapped and analyzed. Our results show that RVCI has the ability to cut through the rainfall-Normalized Difference Vegetation Index complexity and provides a more intuitive means for inferring the relative soil erosion risk. The soil erosion risk in the UWMR for 2005 shows that severe soil loss or worse tends to occur on dry lands or grasslands on steep slopes, which will require attention for soil and water conservation in the future. ER -