Abstract: The slopes of arid and semiarid grassland in eastern Inner Mongolia have a fragile ecological environment, weak vegetation restoration capacity, and suffer from soil loss. In order to explore the conservation effects of different herbaceous plant distribution patterns on soil water erosion of reclamation slope, we examined the characteristics of plant clusters in natural grassland. With natural grassland in Xilinhot City, Inner Mongolia as an example, we designed four schemes of natureimitating plant layout, including “circular arc”, “inverse circular arc”, “Vshape” and “inverse Vshape”. Combined with the CLiDE evolution model, we simulated and evaluated the water erosion resistance of the reclaimed slope for 10 years under different layout methods. The results showed that the coverage of the plant clusters of the natural grassland slope samples in the study area was 5.36%, the center point density of plant clusters was 52 points·m^-2, and the potential deflection angle of runoff converged to 50° as the slope increased. The cluster center point was the key factor determining the obstruction and redirection of potential runoff. The 10year soil water erosion simulation results of natureimitating layout samples showed that the antiwater erosion effect followed an order of “circular arc” > “Vshape” > “inverse circle arc” >nature > “inverse Vshape”. Compared to the average soil water erosion of natural experimental samples, the “circular arc” layout can reduce soil water erosion amount by 68.82% from the slope with length, width and height of 10 m×5 m×1 m, showing good soil protection capabilities on slope.

Key words: grassland, plant distribution, slope maintenance, soil water erosion, imitating natural restoration.