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Pak. J. Bot., 44: 77-83, Special Issue May 2012.

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INTEGRATED CONSERVATION SOLUTIONS FOR THE ENDANGERED LOESS PLATEAU OF NORTHWEST CHINA

XU-ZHE ZHAO¹, FENG-MIN LI¹, FEI MO¹, DONG-XIA YUE², HENG-JIA ZHANG³, NEIL C. TURNER⁴, HONG ZHOU^{1, 3}, RAN WANG¹, SHAN WU^{1, 3} AND YOU-CAI XIONG^*1

Abstract: Since Sørensen first proposed the definition of ecotope in 1936, the stratified feature and distinct management of ecosystems has received extensive consideration worldwide. We chose the Loess Plateau of China as a case study to quantitatively establish a potential model system entitled the Stratified Strategies for Ecosystem Management (SSEM). The Loess Plateau is geographically dominated by hilly and gully topography. Intense rainfall during summer erodes the bare topsoil from the hill tops to the valleys, which leads to serious soil and water loss, land degradation and social poverty. Since the 1980s, four big national programs have been initiated and implemented to reduce the erosion and improve livelihoods, including the Grain for Green Program (GFGP), the Natural Forest Conservation Program (NFCP), the Terraced Field Construction Program (TFCP), and the Integrated Rain-harvesting Agriculture (IRHA). Our statistical analysis shows that these strategies have played positive roles in harmonizing ecosystem conservation with human development. Vegetation cover has been increased by 27.0% and total farmland area has been reduced by 23.6% at four typical sites. Soil organic carbon has increased by 1.59 g/kg, while annual topsoil loss has been reduced by 650 Kt. In addition, terracing has significantly improved soil water storage, sediment trapping and soil quality on the Loess Plateau. On the other hand, the IRHA system in the valley areas has brought about a significant increase in the productivity of summer crops. Based on the IRHA model, the grass-crop rotation system has led to considerable improvement in agricultural cropping patterns, and promoted modern agricultural and animal husbandry systems. The population of farmers growing crops has been reduced 20% but the regional GDP has increased 800%. Human productive activities have tended to transfer from the tops of the hills to the side of the hills and valleys. We therefore propose an integrated model of SSEM, which provides a novel strategy to conserve endangered ecosystems in semiarid and arid areas.

¹State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agro-ecosystems, Institute of Arid Agroecology, School of Life Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000 China  

²MOE Key Laboratory of Western China's Environmental Systems, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China

³College of Engineering Sciences, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou 730070, China

⁴ The UWA Institute of Agriculture and Center for Legumes in Mediterranean Agriculture, M080 , University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia

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

Xu-Zhe Zhao and Feng-Min Li are the common first authors