Background Rural settlements are the main places for residents to live and engage in agricultural production, meanwhile it is the important component of the natural environment. The landscape of rural settlement is generally formed by natural elements and human activities. In recent years, along with enhancement of people's awareness on ecological and environmental problems, soil and water loss in rural settlements has raised attention to human in China. The environment of rural settlement is generally formed by natural elements and human labor.

Methods Through reviewing literatures published in the past and recent years, this study discussed the changes of erosion environment in rural settlements and analyzing the characteristics of soil and water loss.

Results Soil erosion environment refers to the special landscape and ecosystem formed by soil erosion and, in turn, those landscapes will affect soil erosion. In rural settlements, soil erosion environment includes natural environments (i. e., landforms, water systems, soils, vegetation and others) and human environments (i. e., rural unpaved road, compounds, footpaths, places and others uncovered places). It can be seen that the erosion environment in rural settlements is not only affected by certain natural factors such as water source, slope and rainfall, but also greatly influenced by human factors such as building houses, road construction within villages, farming activities, and so on. All those factors may lead to heavy soil loss in rural settlements. At present, with the development of rural economy, the function of rural settlements has gradually evolved from the original inhabitation-agricultural production type into the multi-dimensional types:Residence, agricultural production, tourism rest and ecological conservation. At the same time, the impact of human factors on the erosion environment in rural settlements became more and more great and hence accelerates soil and water loss. The change of rural function is a direct cause of environmental change and soil erosion increase in rural settlements. Compared to previous conditions, erosion environment in rural settlements is becoming complex and heterogeneous in human disturbance. Finally, these characteristics of erosion environment would cause that the types and amount of soil and water loss are various.

Conclusions The change of erosion environment and soil and water loss in rural settlements cannot be ignored. However, the research on that is still in the exploratory stage at present, and their characteristics and mechanism are not very clear. Therefore, in order to promote soil and water conservation and ecological environment management in rural settlements, it is urgent to strengthen the research on soil erosion mechanism and prevention technology of different land types in rural settlements. This result will provide a theoretical basis and scientific support for the rural revitalization and the construction of beautiful China in the new era.