Review on the snowmelt erosion

Snowmelt erosion has occurred in our country and in many parts of the world. Its role in the destruction of topsoil is increasingly being recognized. On the basis of summarizing the research results, this paper analyzed the impacts of snow accumulation and snowmelt.The impacts include climate, elevation, topography, and land use and other factors. This paper pointed out that snowmelt runoff, surface soil thaw depth and weak soil erodibility in early spring are the special influence factors induced snowmelt erosion. Meanwhile, the article points out that snowmelt erosion research should be strengthened in three areas. First, freezing-thawing on soil moisture migration should be taken into account in snowmelt erosion prediction model. Second, not completely thawed layer on the surface soil moisture effects should have a deeper understanding. The third area, snowmelt process research on slope should be focused on solving the problem in the future snowmelt erosion study.