The construction of check dams is an important measure to prevent soil erosion on the Loess Plateau and reduce the amount of sediment entering the Yellow River. Based on an analysis of the current situation of soil and water conservation on the Loess Plateau and the three major problems faced by the traditional homogeneous soil check dam construction, the study of anti-scouring materials, hydrological calculation methods, dam design and construction technology and soil and water conservation monitoring are carried out in this paper. The results showed that the current soil and water conservation measures on the Loess Plateau have achieved remarkable outcomes. The new design and application concept of check dams with anti-burst and multi-sand interceptions is innovatively proposed in this paper. The new materials of solidified loess have good durability and anti-scouring characteristics and could meet the overflow and anti-scouring requirements of the new check dam. The small watershed high sand content of hydrological calculation can establish the upper limit of the flood sediment boundary for the anti-scouring protection layer of the check dam. The new technology of dam design and construction can achieve no collapse or slow collapse when encountering floods exceeding the standard. Intelligent monitoring systems can realize real-time dynamic monitoring for soil and water conservation on the Loess Plateau. The results will eventually contribute to the national strategy of the Ecological Protection and High Quality Development in the Yellow River basin.

Earth-rock dams have important flood control, silt reduction, water supply, and ecological benefits, but extreme rainstorms seriously threatens the safe operation of earth-rock dams. Therefore, based on the self-developed soil stabilizer, the laboratory tests and field evaluation tests for the anti-scouring performance for solidified soil were carried out to achieve the requirements of non-collapse or slow-collapse for the earth-rock dams. Firstly, the basic performance indexes of solidified soil using soil stabilizer and 42.5# P.O Portland cement were compared. Then, clear water scouring and muddy water scouring tests were carried out based on the self-developed anti-scouring test system. Furthermore, an earth-rock dam test dam was built by using the solidified soil as the material, and a field scouring test was carried out to analyze the corresponding hydraulic elements. Finally, a safety inspection of the dam structure was carried out. The results demonstrate that when compared to the results of solidified soil using 42.5# P.O Portland cement under the same contents, the strength and durability of soil stabilizer solidified soil rose by more than 5% and 10%, respectively. The performance of soil stabilizer is better than that of 42.5# P.O Portland cement. After 10 hours of approximately 15 m/s water flow scouring through the experiment test, the performance of the solidified soil under the higher content of soil stabilizer can meet the design requirements of anti-scouring performance. The field test results show that the maximum scouring depth is less than 2 cm, and the average scouring depth is less than 0.8 cm. The monitoring results show that the displacements are less than 5 mm, and the dam structure is safe and stable. It is recommended that the content of soil stabilizer should be higher than 20% to meet the overflow safety requirements of small and medium earth-rock dams.