Spatial pattern of grain-size distribution in surface sediments as a result of variations in the aeolian environment in China’s Shapotou railway protective system

China’s Shapotou railway protective system provides effective protection against the region’s mobile sands, but little quantitative evidence is available about how it affects the aeolian environment surrounding the railway. In the present study, we analyzed the grain-size distribution in surface sediments as a result of variations in the aeolian environment at different spatial scales: the scale of a cross-section of the protective system along the prevailing wind direction (from the northwest to southeast), of individual stabilized sand dunes in the area protected by straw checkerboards and unirrigated vegetation, of the area around individual plants in the protective system, and of individual straw checkerboards. Surface sediments were sampled to define the spatial pattern of the grain-size distribution at these four scales. Along the transect from the area of mobile dunes through the protective system, sediment particles became finer (silt and clay contents increased) and sorting decreased. This indicated that the protective system is a deposition-dominated aeolian environment, with sediment characteristics stabilizing with increasing distance inside the protected area. In such an environment, dune topographic relief also played an important role in determining the deposition pattern; the dune top is particularly fragile and subject to wind erosion if the straw checkerboards or planted vegetation are destroyed. The influences of the straw checkerboards and the plant canopies on the grain size of the surface sediments within a single checkerboard or near a single plant were limited. However, the combination of straw checkerboards and planted vegetation has synergistically produced a deposition-dominated aeolian environment.