Accurately predicting soil erosion rate on covered slopes can help formulate reasonable vegetation restoration schemes to prevent soil erosion. To study the impacts of vegetation and litter cover on slope soil erosion, this study conducted indoor artificial rainfall experiments under 15 degrees and five rainfall intensities (RI = 1.00, 1.25, 1.50, 1.75, and 2.00 mm min(-1)). Three different treatments were studied: shrub coverage (CS) changing grassshrub community slope (GS); Grass coverage (C-G) changing grass-shrub community slope (SG); And littercovered grass-shrub community slope (GSL). The variation of soil erosion on different treatments under rainfall conditions and the mechanism of each influencing factor were analyzed. The results showed that (1) vegetation and litter cover reduced the erosion rate (ER) for different experimental slopes. Compared with BS, the ER of GS, SG, and GSL decreased by 2.57-28.53 %, 5.54-68.33 %, and 23.85-69.63 %, respectively. In addition, with the increase of RI, ER increased, and the erosion reduction effect of grass, shrubs, and litter decreased. (2) With the increase of C-G, C-S, and litter biomass (W-L), the contribution of grass, shrub and litter to the erosion reduction rate increased. The critical coverage ratio was determined when the erosion reduction contribution rate of each cover is dominant. C-S/C-V = 0.6 and W-L/C-V = 50 are the critical ratio for determining which is dominant, grass or shrub, and vegetation or litter. In addition, with the increase of RI, the contribution of erosion reduction rate of higher coverage vegetation and litter increased. (3) Under grass, shrubs, and litter cover, critical shear stress (tau(0)) of slope soil increased and soil erodibility coefficient (K-r) decreased, leading to the enhancement of soil erosion resistance. Compared with BS, the tau(0) increased by 12.85-44.07 %, 18.70-81.97 %, and 44.07-123.87 %, respectively, the Kr decreased by 7.78-23.48 %, 16.73-58.91 %, and 39.47-73.07 %, respectively. (4) A prediction model of ER of covered slope under rainfall condition was established, which considered hydrodynamic characteristics and quantified the influence of surface cover. This model has good prediction accuracy and can provide useful insights for the erosion process of the Loess Plateau.