Whether channel erosion or topsoil erosion constitutes the dominant erosion process throughout in the hilly region of the Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP),which suffers perhaps themost severe soil erosion in theworld, had been controversial for a long time. The present article attempts to use the mid-infrared (MIR) spectroscopy fingerprinting
method to trace sediment sources within nine small catchments in the hilly region of the CLP. Two major categories of sediment sources are identified: channel sediment and topsoil. Sediments trapped by check dams are used as the final sediment transferred by soil erosion. Discriminant analysis shows thatMIR spectroscopy can differentiate between the two kinds of source sediments very well. The contributions of channel sediment and topsoil to the total final sediment are quantified using partial least squares regression (PLSR) analyses of MIR spectra to compare the trapped sediment samples with experimental models. The results of the root mean square error of calibration, root mean square error of validation and coefficient of determination for 18 models all show that the MIR-PLSR models boast very high prediction abilities in the nine catchments. A comparison between the geochemical fingerprinting method and the MIR spectroscopy method in one catchment reveals
that although the two methods agree well on the channel sediment contributions, the two methods produce a significant difference (R²=0.4). Overall, theMIR-PLSR results showthat channel sediments contribute
19% to 66% of the total sediment with an average of 33± 16% in the nine small catchments. Our results indicate that although channel bank sediment is important, topsoil erosion is the predominant process in small damcontrolled catchments on the CLP. Furthermore, the MIR spectroscopy fingerprinting method can provide a useful, non-destructive, rapid and inexpensive tool for tracing sediment sources from different kinds of loess.