Concentrated flow erosion poses a serious threat to agriculture across the world as it scours soils into linear features that can be wide and large, which dramatically decreases land productivity and accessibility, and causes serious downslope and downstream impacts. Despite the widespread occurrence of concentrated flow erosion features across the globe, variations in their sizes have received limited attention. Their morphometric characteristics inform on the amount of fertile soil material eroded and transported to lower parts of landscapes and to river networks. The main objective of this study was to elucidate the impacts of climate (tropical, sub-tropical and temperate), soil texture (clayey, loamy, silty and sandy) and land use (cropland, forest, grassland and urban) on the morphology (length: L, width: W, depth: D, W:D ratio) of linear erosion features (rills and gullies). A total of 769 linear features from 53 published studies across the world were used in the current analysis. The average length was 458.2 m for gullies and 114.7 m for rills. Width averaged 9.5 m for gullies and 1.0 m for rills and W:D was respectively 4.0 and 6.7, which corresponded in all cases to significant difference at P < 0.05. Oceania exhibited the longest (1201 m on average) but shallowest (0.88 m) gullies. Asia had the widest (21.9 m) and Africa the deepest (6.3 m) gullies. In contrast, Europe exhibited shorter gullies (304 m) and rills (56 m) and of low width (5.0 and 0.6 m respectively). Besides, there was a trend for rills to decrease in L, W and D with the increase in mean annual precipitation and for rills’ W to increase with increasing mean annual temperature (r = 0.32). The length of the features also increased from forest to settlement through grassland and cropland, and with increasing altitude above sea level (r = 0.47 for gullies and r = 0.26 for rills). As soil clay content increased, the depth of rills increased (r = 0.19) and their W:D decreased (r = −0.14). These quantitative results may contribute to erosion modelling and to the spatial assessment of land susceptibility to concentrated flow erosion, which is a prerequisite for the protection and rehabilitation of ecosystems.

集中的水流侵蚀对世界各地的农业构成严重威胁，因为它将土壤冲刷成宽而大的线性特征，这大大降低了土地生产力和可及性，并导致严重的下坡和下游影响。尽管在全球范围内普遍出现了集中流动侵蚀特征，但是其尺寸变化受到的关注有限。它们的形态特征决定了被侵蚀并运到景观下部和河网的肥沃土壤物质的数量。这项研究的主要目的是阐明气候（热带，亚热带和温带），土壤质地（黏土，壤土，粉质和沙质）和土地利用（耕地，森林，草原和城市地区）对形态的影响（长度：L，宽度：W，深度：D，W：D比率）的线性侵蚀特征（小溪和沟壑）。当前的分析使用了来自全球53个已发表研究的769个线性特征。沟渠的平均长度为458.2 m，小溪的平均长度为114.7 m。沟渠的平均宽度为9.5 m，小溪和W：D的平均宽度分别为4.0和6.7，在所有情况下均对应于P <0.05的显着差异。大洋洲表现出最长的（平均1201 m）但最浅的（0.88 m）沟壑。亚洲的沟壑最宽（21.9 m），非洲的沟壑最深（6.3 m）。相反，欧洲的沟壑较短（304 m）和小溪（56 m），宽度较窄（分别为5.0和0.6 m）。此外，随着年平均降水量的增加，小溪的L，W和D呈下降趋势，而随着年平均温度的升高，小河的W呈上升趋势（r = 0.32）。从森林到通过草地和农田的定居点，特征的长度也增加了，并且海拔高度也增加了（沟壑，r = 0.47，小溪，r = 0.26）。随着土壤黏土含量的增加，小溪的深度增加（r = 0.19），W：D减小（r = -0.14）。这些定量结果可能有助于进行侵蚀建模，并有助于对土地集中流蚀的敏感性进行空间评估，这是保护和恢复生态系统的先决条件。