Abstract: The erosion mechanism of loess hillside and its landform variation characteristics during erosion need further research.Therefore,based on the ninephase DEM data of erosion and evolution of a loess hillside obtained from indoor artificial rainfall experiments at Yangling District,Shaanxi Province,China,the slope,aspect and channel networks of the loess hillside in different evolution periods have been calculated.We used the slope histogram,the rose diagram of aspect and the channel networks to study the variation characteristics of erosion process of the loess hillside,and preliminarily analyzed the relationship between the variation characteristics and the erosion and evolution process of the loess hillside.The results show that the slope dispersion degree of the loess hillside is basically stable after gradually increasing during the erosion process;The dominant aspects of the loess hillside show a gradual orderly change and gradually evolve from a plurality of dominant aspects to a dominant aspect that is basically consistent with the overall orientation of the main channel of the loess hillside.The channel network gradually develops into a typical tree network,and remains basically stable and forms a complete and strict channel hierarchy.The abovementioned variation characteristics of the loess hillside reflect that the hillside is eroded strongly during its prophase but weakened during its activity stage.This study is a preliminary exploration of the variation characteristics of loess erosion hillside,and it has important theoretical significance for further revealing the erosion mechanism and evolution law of loess hillside.

Key words: loess erosion, geomorphological evolution, digital elevation model, artificial rainfall, slope erosion