Fig 1.
Location of the study area (a) and designed micro-plots (b).
Fig 2.
The designed micro-patterns of surface BSCs.
Note: (a) fully-covered moss, (b) fully-covered lichen, (c) fully-covered physical crust, (d) non-crusted bare soil, (e) upper half mosses and lower half bare soil, (f) upper half bare soil and lower half moss, (g)scattered mosses with 50% coverage, (h) rainfall simulator, (i) upper half lichen and lower half non-crust soil, (j) upper half non-crust soil and lower half lichen, (k) scattered lichens with 50% coverage, and (l) runoff and sediment collector.
Fig 3.
Infiltration simulation (a) and soil anti-scourability test (b).
Table 1.
Soil hydrologic characteristics under different surface soil crusts.
Fig 4.
Infiltration process under different BSCs and non-BSCs soil types.
Fig 5.
Runoff process under different types of fully-covered surface crust.
Fig 6.
Soil loss process under various BSCs types.
Fig 7.
Runoff losses under different micro-patterns of BSCs.
(Note: FUCC pattern, Scattered pattern, UCLN pattern and UNLC pattern refers to fully-covered BSCs pattern, scattered BSCs pattern with 50% BSC coverage, upper half BSCs with lower half non-crusted bare soil pattern, and upper half non-crusted bare soil with lower half BSCs pattern, respectively.)
Fig 8.
Soil losses under different BSC micro-patterns.
(Note: FUCC pattern, Scattered pattern, UCLN pattern and UNLC pattern refers to fully-covered BSCs pattern, scattered BSCs pattern with 50% BSC coverage, upper half BSCs with lower half non-crusted bare soil pattern, and upper half non-crusted bare soil with lower half BSCs pattern, respectively.)
Fig 9.
Soil anti-scourability under BSCs and non-BSCs conditions.
Table 2.
Mean soil anti-scourability under the same washing-flow rate (2 L/min).