Abstract: The objective of this study was to explore the mechanism of soil erosion micro-habitat underlying vegetation settlement at the slope surface of weathered waste dumps. We examined the characteristics and relationship of soil surface temperature, humidity, substrate temperature, and moisture in typical waste dump bare slopes, rills, shallow gullies and deposit bodies. The results showed that the diurnal variation of soil surface temperature in shallow gully erosion microhabitat was the greatest. The diurnal variations of temperature in vertical profile differed among different soil erosion micro-habitats, in that the surface temperature gradually increased from surface to bottom in the morning, decreased from surface to bottom at noon for bare slopes, rills and deposit bodies, but decreased first and then increased with increasing soil depth for shallow gullies. Furthermore, surface humidity of deposit bodies was the highest. The substrate moisture and capillary water holding capacity decreased in the order of deposit bodies > bare slopes > shallow gullies > rills. There were correlations between temperature, humidity and matrix moisture in hydrothermal characteristics. Thereinto, the substrate moisture and surface humidity for bare slopes were negatively correlated (P≤0.01). The unique water and heat distribution characteristics of shallow gullies might account for the difficulty in vegetation settlement. Therefore, our result that the variation of water and heat in different types of soil erosion micro-habitats is of practical significance to carry out effective vegetation restoration on weathered dry waste dumps.

Key words: mining wasteland, micro-habitat, rill, shallow gully, western Liaoning.