High‐latitude areas are experiencing rapid change: we therefore need a better understanding of the processes controlling soil erosion in these environments. We used a spatiotemporal approach to investigate soil erosion in Svalbarðstunga, Iceland (66°N, 15°W), a degraded rangeland. We used three complementary datasets: (a) high‐resolution unmanned‐aerial vehicle imagery collected from 12 sites (total area ~0.75 km²); (b) historical imagery of the same sites; and (c) a simple, spatially‐explicit cellular automata model. Sites were located along a gradient of increasing altitude and distance from the sea, and varied in erosion severity (5–47% eroded). We found that there was no simple relationship between location along the environmental gradient and the spatial characteristics of erosion. Patch‐size frequency distributions lacked a characteristic scale of variation, but followed a power‐law distribution on five of the 12 sites. Present total eroded area is poorly related to current, site‐scale levels of environmental stress, but the number of small erosion patches did reflect site‐level stress. Small (<25 m²) erosion patches clustered near large patches. The model results suggested that the large‐scale patterns observed likely arise from strong, local interactions, which mean that erosion spreads from degraded areas. Our findings suggest that contemporary erosion patterns reflect historical stresses, as well as current environmental conditions. The importance of abiotic processes to the growth of large erosion patches and their relative insensitivity to current environmental conditions makes it likely that the total eroded area will continue to increase, despite a warming climate and reducing levels of grazing pressure.

中文翻译：

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评估高纬草地的土壤侵蚀空间格局

高纬度地区正在经历快速变化：因此，我们需要对这些环境中土壤侵蚀的控制过程有一个更好的了解。我们采用时空方法研究了退化的牧场冰岛冰岛斯瓦尔巴斯通加（66°N，15°W）的土壤侵蚀。我们使用了三个互补的数据集：（a）从12个地点（总面积〜0.75 km ²）; （b）同一地点的历史图像；（c）一个简单的，空间明确的细胞自动机模型。地点位于海拔高度和距海距离不断增加的坡度上，并且侵蚀严重程度各不相同（5-47％受侵蚀）。我们发现沿环境梯度的位置与侵蚀的空间特征之间没有简单的关系。斑块大小的频率分布缺乏特征性的变化范围，但在12个站点中的五个站点上遵循幂律分布。当前的总侵蚀面积与当前场地规模的环境压力水平关系不大，但是小面积的侵蚀确实反映了场地水平的压力。小（<25 m ²）侵蚀斑块聚集在大斑块附近。模型结果表明，观察到的大规模模式可能是由于强烈的局部相互作用而引起的，这意味着侵蚀从退化的地区扩散开来。我们的发现表明，当代侵蚀模式反映了历史压力以及当前的环境条件。非生物过程对于大型侵蚀斑块的生长及其对当前环境条件的相对不敏感性的重要性，使得尽管气候变暖和放牧压力降低，总侵蚀面积仍可能继续增加。