Yingna Liu

1 Introduction Soil erosion is the leading cause for land degradation worldwide (FAO and ITPS 2015). It, on one hand, removes fertile topsoil and deteriorates soil quality, resulting in severe declines of crop and other agricultural food production. According to a recent survey, soil erosion by water annually reduces agri-food production by 33.7 million tonnes and causes a global GDP loss of approximately eight billion US dollars (Sartori et al. 2019).

Soil erosion is a crucial process leading to lateral redistributions of surface soil organic carbon (SOC) and total nitrogen (TN). However, its role in the profile distributions of SOC, TN, and their stoichiometry remains unclear. The objective was to evaluate the impact of soil erosion on both the horizontal and vertical distributions of SOC, TN, and the C/N ratio along a cultivated hillslope.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT The authors declare no competing interests. REFERENCES , , , , , & (2020). Global phosphorus shortage will be aggravated by soil erosion. Nature Communications, 11, 4546. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18326-7 , , , & (2011). Flow-driven soil erosion processes and the size selectivity of sediment. Journal of Hydrology, 406, 73–81. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2011.06.010 (1992).