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Pak. J. Bot., 44: 19-22, Special Issue May 2012.

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ENDANGERED ECOSYSTEM CONSERVATION: A 30-YEAR LESSON FROM THE EVOLUTION OF SALINE-ALKALI SOIL MANAGEMENT IN MANASI RIVER WATERSHED, CHINA

SHAO-MING WANG^1,2, HUI-MING LIU³, ZHENG ZHENG², JIAN-YONG WANG², JIAN ZHANG², GUANG-QIANG FU², XU-ZHE ZHAO², ZHEN-HUA ZHANG⁴ AND YOU-CAI XIONG^1,2*

Abstract: Previous studies on saline-alkali soil management mostly followed an instrumental “prediction and control” approach dominated by technical end-of-pipe solutions. However, those “integrated” instrumental solutions frequently perished due to the growing social & economic uncertainties in financial support, legal insurance, expertise service and other factors. This investigation summarizes the 30-year period of saline-alkali soil management – the social and economic and ecological (SEE) management innovation – its adoption, diffusion, adaptation and transformation in Manasi River watershed of northern Xinjiang. This area was experiencing three distinct SEE management stages from pure instrumental desalination techniques to integrated desalination technique system following the SEE supporting system. The results of GIS analysis (Fragatats 3.3) and historical documents provide data evidence for above three transition stages. The total area of saline and alkali land was increased by 32.7%, 47.6% during the first two decades but decreased by 11.9% in the recent decade. The numbers of saline land patches were 116, 129 and 121 in 1989, 2000 and 2007 respectively, a similar trend to the changes of total area. However, both perimeter-area fractal dimension (PAFD) and splitting index (SI) continued to increase, with values of 1.265, 1.272 and 1.279 for PAFD and 259.29, 269.68, 272.92 for SI in 1989, 2000 and 2007, respectively. It suggests that saline and alkaline land distribution had been fragmented, and sequestrated into salt micro-catchments within whole oasis ecosystems. This case is largely associated with effective adoption of integrated engineering and biological desalination programs as a result of local SEE saline-alkali soil management innovation.

¹ School of Life Sciences, Shihezi University, Shihezi 832003, China

² State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-ecosystems, School of Life Sciences,

Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China

³Satellite Environment Centre, Ministry of Environmental Protection, Haidian District, Beijing 100094, China

⁴School of Earth and Environment (M087), The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway,

Crawley, Western Australia 6009 Australia

*Corresponding author E-mail: xiongyc@lzu.edu.cn ; Tel / Fax: +86-931-8914500

Shao-Ming Wang and Huiming Liu are the common first authors