The destructive impact of soil wind erosion and water erosion on surface erosion is particularly prominent. The sandy coarse sand area in the middle reaches of the Yellow River, as a typical global wind-water composite erosion zone, directly threatens watershed soil and water security and the stability of the river's course and flood control in the downstream Yellow River. This study addresses the issue of erosion mechanism differentiation caused by differences in soil surface properties in this region. By focusing on erosion energy as the central link and combining wind tunnel experiments and hydrometeorological data, an energy-based wind-water composite watershed erosion and sediment transport model is constructed. The results show that the wind erosion energy-based sediment transport prediction models constructed for the sand-covered bedrock, sand-covered loess and loess erosion areas exhibit high fitting degree and reliability, with R-2 values reaching 0.944, 0.979 and 0.978, and RSR values being 0.305, 0.188 and 0.194, respectively. Wind erosion and water erosion energy show significant spatiotemporal differentiation, with wind erosion concentrated in the spring and water erosion concentrated in the summer. The average annual energy values are sand-covered loess area > sand-covered bedrock area > loess area. The compound erosion sediment yield model shows good adaptability in all three types of soil areas, with R-2 values no less than 0.75 and RSR values all below 0.5 during both the calibration and validation periods. Among them, the model achieves the highest accuracy in the sand-covered bedrock area, with a high R-2 of 0.989 and a low RSR of 0.104. The study confirms that the energy-based model can accurately simulate composite erosion sediment yield and provide scientific support for precise soil and water conservation management in the region.