Rainfall erosivity mapping over mainland China based on high-density hourly rainfall records

Abstract. Rainfall erosivity quantifies the effect of rainfall and runoff on rate soil loss. Maps are needed for erosion assessment using Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) its successors. To improve maps that currently available, hourly daily data from 2381 stations period 1951–2018 were used to generate new R-factor 1-in-10-year event EI30 mainland China (available at https://doi.org/10.12275/bnu.clicia.rainfallerosivity.CN.001; Yue et al., 2020b). One-minute 62 stations, which 18 had a record length > 29 years, compute “true” against assessed quantify improvement over existing through cross-validation. The results showed (1) underestimated most south-eastern part overestimated western region; (2) map generated in this study median absolute relative error 16 % region, compared 162 map, rest China. 14 central eastern regions China, 21 (map accuracy was not evaluated region where 1 min limited); (3) improved mainly because an increase number 87 150 temporal resolution hourly; (4) benefit increased station density mapping is limited once reached about per 10 000 km2.