China is one of the countries facing the most serious water erosion in the world. One key issue is to accurately map the distribution of existing researches about water erosion. The paper used the China Academic Journal Network Publishing Database as the data source and applied the natural language processing method to carry out place-name information extraction and research hotness modeling for mapping Chinese soil erosion and water conservation research hot regions during 1980-2017. The RUSLE (Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation) model was then applied for mapping Chinese water erosion intensity. Finally, the spatial relationship between the research hot regions and the distribution of water erosion intensity is compared and discussed. The results show that since 1980, the hot regions of water erosion research in China have mainly been distributed in the Loess Plateau and Guizhou Plateau, involving Shaanxi, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Guizhou, and Heilongjiang provinces. There are 171 counties (districts or cities), accounting for 5.33% of the total land area, where the level of research hotness was judged to be moderate, or above moderate. The RUSLE model simulation indicated that severe water erosion is mainly distributed in the Loess Plateau and Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, involving Shaanxi, Ningxia, Gansu, Shanxi, Guizhou, Yunnan, and Sichuan provinces. There are 251 counties (districts or cities), accounting for 7.04% of the total land area, with erosion rates greater than 20 t hm^-2 a^-1. There existing abvious spatial differences between the map of the research hot regions and the model simulation map of water erosion intensity. Analysis of the above spatial coupling model is helpful to assess the rationality of the allocation of scientific research resources.