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Differences among regions in the meteorological, surface, and vegetation cover characteristics lead to differences in sediment transport. In this paper, field data were measured above five surface types in the arid zone of northern China to analyze the vertical distribution of sediments in the near-surface transport layer (0-50 cm) and total sediment transport. We were able to express the sediment flux in this zone as an exponential function for all surface types. Sediment transport differed among the surfaces, with the greatest transport above mobile dunes, followed by cultivated land, semi-fixed dunes, fixed dunes, and a shrub community. Vegetation coverage is important for reducing wind erosion and increasing the proportion of the creep sediment transport. With increasing vegetation cover, the soil erosion decreased; the amount for the mobile dunes was 659 times that of the shrub community, and 8 times for fixed dunes. The proportion of sediment transported by creeping differed among the five surface types, with a minimum of 33% for the mobile dunes, and maximum of 44% for the shrub community. Crown Copyright (C) 2014 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.