The regionalized ecological, economic and social benefit of China's sloping cropland erosion control during the 12th five-year plan (2011–2015).

With Kriging interpolation, analytic hierarchy process and grey relational analysis, this paper evaluates the regionalized benefit of China's sloping cropland erosion control (SCEC) during 2011–2015, including the ecological, economic, social benefit and the comprehensive benefit. The results show that, in the ecological benefits, the distribution of soil erosion control degree presents patchy characteristics. The reduction of runoff modulus gradually decreases from southeast to northwest. The reduction of soil erosion modulus is the largest in the Northwest Loess Plateau and the smallest in the Northeast Black Soil Zone. In the economic benefits, the increase in the annual output value per unit land area is characterized by "high in the south and low in the north", but there are patchy high-value areas in central Loess Plateau and the Northern Earthy-Rocky Mountain Zone. The increase in the agricultural population's per capita income is higher in the western area than that in the eastern area. In the social benefits, the per capita grain increase in most of the northern China is larger than that in the south, while the characteristic agricultural development in the south is more advantageous than that in the north. The comprehensive benefit is "high in the south and low in the north; highest in the southwest and lowest in the northeast". The spatial heterogeneity implies the necessity to specify the influencing factors for the SCEC benefit in different areas and take pointed measures to improve the benefit. • The regionalized benefit of China's sloping cropland erosion control during 2011–2015 is evaluated. • The project-level benefits with nine indicators are expanded to regional level with Kriging interpolation. • The ecological and social benefits have stronger spatial autocorrelation than economic benefits. • The comprehensive benefit is "high in the south and low in the north; highest in the southwest and lowest in the northeast". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]