Due to long-term indiscriminate cultivation, deforestation and grazing, the sloping farmland has changed from a gentle slope of 3 ~ 5 to a steep slope of more than 25, resulting in serious soil erosion. The average annual erosion of soil 1cm, the loss of nutrients far exceeds the annual fertilizer input, it is difficult to increase the accumulation of organic matter in soil and improve land productivity. The sloping farmland in the Loess Plateau accounts for 83.38% of the total cultivated area (excluding Henan and Qinghai provinces), which is the main source of soil erosion, and its serious soil erosion has become the main factor limiting the grain production of sloping farmland in the Loess Plateau. Therefore, it is an urgent problem related to the sustainable development of agriculture to protect the sloping farmland from or less soil erosion in the Loess Plateau, and the management of sloping farmland should be an important part of soil erosion control in the Loess Plateau.
The control measures of sloping farmland in the Loess Plateau can be divided into four aspects: horizontal terraces, sloping terraces, catchment measures and tillage measures. Horizontal terraces change the slope and runoff coefficient of the ground, shorten the slope length, and have a strong role in soil and water conservation, which is the fundamental measure for the management of sloping farmland in the Loess Plateau. However, in practice, it is difficult to achieve 100% water and sediment reduction benefits due to the quality problems of horizontal terraces, such as the flatness of fields, the height of ridges, and the firmness. As one of the important forms of farmland in the Loess Plateau, it is of great significance to analyze the influence of the quality of horizontal terraced fields on soil and water conservation for the construction of soil and water conservation ecological agriculture (terrace agriculture).