Abstract:Soil erosion has been the most serious eco-environmental problem in Three Gorges Reservoir area of Chongqing. The study area, Three Gorges Reservoir area, is the ecological barrier of the Yangtze River basin and one of the seventeen key regions globally for protecting biodiversity. Eco-environment problems in the study area influence not only the security of Three Gorges Reservoir and steady of migrant but also the ecological security and the socio-economy sustainable development of the Yangtze River basin. So many scholars paid much attention to the soil erosion problems in the study area. Their research results improve our understanding about the water and soil loss problems. However, these researches still have some shortcomings. Based on the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE), four natural factors affecting soil erosion were chosen as assessment indices, which are precipitation, soil texture, topography and vegetation cover. We classified the influences of the four factors into five degrees based on GIS analysis. Then, assessment map of each factor was produced. An integrated sensitivity assessment map of soil erosion was created by overlapping function with ArcGIS. Furthermore, distribution characteristics and spatial difference of sensitivity of soil erosion in study area were analyzed. The results showed that strong, moderate and intense sensitivities are the main types of soil sensitivities and the area proportions with slight or non-sensitivity are small. The northeast of study area is the most sensitive area and the west is not sensitive. The proposed soil erosion sensitivities were found to be consistent with real soil erosion. The natural factors such as precipitation, topography, soil texture and vegetation are dominant factors for soil erosion while human activities are the inducement of soil erosion. Vegetation is mostly affected by human activities. So conservation and renewal of vegetation are key measurements to prevent soil erosion.