Talukdar, Isita NandanaKowal, Virginia AnneHuang, BinbinWeil, Charlotte2022-09-122022-09-122022-09-122022-08-0110.3390/land11081204https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/190698WOS:000845541000001Soil loss prevention is an important ecosystem service for protecting human and environmental health. Using spatiotemporal climate and environmental data of the Eastern Gobi Steppe, a region missing from previous studies of Mongolian wind-based soil erosion, we implemented the Revised Wind Erosion Equation (RWEQ) model to estimate soil loss. A replicable pipeline was developed to perform these computations, and made available openly. Soil loss was estimated on a monthly basis to analyze seasonal variations. The results show that the annual total soil loss was 61 x 10(10) kg over an area of 69.3 x 10(3) km(2), which is about 90 tonnes per hectare. Increasing fractional vegetation coverage to a uniform 50% coverage (doubling current vegetation coverage in every 1 km(2)) could reduce soil loss by 60%, highlighting the importance of protecting and increasing vegetation coverage in ecosystem service preservation.Environmental StudiesEnvironmental Sciences & Ecologywind erosionsoil lossecosystem servicesrevised wind erosion equationgobi steppeinner-mongoliasoilplateauchinatext::journal::journal article::research article