Abstract: This study includes five county-based hinterland locations located within Three Gorges Reservoir Area (TGRA). Based on the Remote Sensing Imagines in the years of 1988, 2000, 2010 and 2015, the GIS and RS techniques were applied for data extraction of the soil erosion integrated index to analyze temporal variations of hinterland soil erosion at the regional and local scales within the TGRA. The two results were found as follows: (1) at the regional scale (i.e. Entire study area), the hinterland soil erosion fluctuated dramatically to be worsened until the year of 2000, and then improved gradually to be in stable; (2) at the local scale, the hinterland soil erosion evolved in temporal trend with four different types (i.e. Continuously-improved, Continuously-worsen, Fluctuating-improved, and Fluctuating-worsen). Temporal trend of soil erosion was found with the same type among most of local areas in this study, except for the Yunyang County and areas which are located nearly by the reservoir; (3) the priority of governance and management should be emphasized on the 12 towns which were identified as the continuously-worsen type, and followed by other 24 towns which were classified as the fluctuating-worsen type. All aspects of the study findings will have important implications specified to the governance and management of TGRA.
Key words：hinterland soil erosion; integrated index; multi-scale analysis; Three Gorges Reservoir Area