Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T13:18:14.291Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Soil conservation on the Loess Plateau and the regional effect: impact of the ‘Grain for Green' Project

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2018

Xiaofeng WANG ,
Feiyan XIAO ,
Xiaoming FENG ,
Bojie FU ,
Zixiang ZHOU  and
Chang CHAN
Xiaofeng WANG
Affiliation:
School of Earth Science and Resources, Chang'an University, Xi'an, 710054, China. Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Land Consolidation, Xi'an, 710054, China.
Feiyan XIAO
Affiliation:
School of Earth Science and Resources, Chang'an University, Xi'an, 710054, China.
Xiaoming FENG*
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco–Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100085, China. Email: fengxm@rcees.ac.cn
Bojie FU
Affiliation:
State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco–Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100085, China. Email: fengxm@rcees.ac.cn
Zixiang ZHOU
Affiliation:
College of Geomatics, Xi'an University of Science and Technology, Xi'an, 710054, China.
Chang CHAN
Affiliation:
Satellite Environment Center, Ministry of Environmental Protection, Beijing, 100094, China.
*
*Corresponding authors
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Soil conservation on the Loess Plateau is important not only for local residents but also for reducing sediment downstream in the Yellow River. In this paper, we report a decrease in soil erosion from 2000 to 2010 as a result of the ‘Grain for Green' (GFG) Project. By using the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation and data on land cover, climate and sediment yield, we found that soil erosion decreased from 6579.55tkm–2yr–1 in 2000 to 1986.66tkm–2yr–1 in 2010. During this period, there was a major land cover change from farmland to grassland in response to the GFG. The area of low vegetation coverage with severe erosion decreased dramatically, whereas the area of high vegetation coverage with slight erosion increased. Our study demonstrates that the reduction in soil erosion on the Loess Plateau contributed to the decrease in the sediment concentration in the Yellow River.

Keywords

GFGRUSLEsoil conservationsoil erosionYellow River
Type
Articles
Information
Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh , Volume 109 , Issue 3-4: Earth surface processes and environmental sustainability in China , September 2018 , pp. 461 - 471
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Society of Edinburgh 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

5. References

Cai, C. F. & Ding, S. W. 2000. Study of applying USLE and geographical information system IDRISI to predict soil erosion in small watershed. Soil Water Conservation 14, 19–24.Google Scholar
Costanza, R. 2008. Ecosystem services: multiple classification systems are needed. Biological Conservation 141, 350–352.Google Scholar
de Asis, A. M. & Omasa, K. 2007. Estimation of vegetation parameter for modeling soil erosion using linear spectral mixture analysis of Landsat ETM data. ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing 62, 309–324.Google Scholar
Feng, X. M., Wang, Y. F., Chen, L. D., Fu, B. J. & Bai, G. S. 2010. Modeling soil erosion and its response to land-use change in hilly catchments of the Chinese loess plateau. Geomorphology 118, 239–248.Google Scholar
Feng, X. M., Fu, B. J., Piao, S. L., Wang, S., Ciais, P., Zeng, Z. Z., Lü, Y. H., Zeng, Y., Li, Y., Jiang, X. H. & Wu, B. F. 2016. Revegetation in China's loess plateau is approaching sustainable water resource limits. Natural Climate Change 6, 1019–1022.Google Scholar
Fisher, B., Turner, R. K. & Morling, P. 2009. Defining and classifying ecosystem services for decision making. Ecological Economics 68, 643–653.Google Scholar
Foley, J. A., Defries, R., Asner, G. P., Barford, C., Bonan, G., Carpenter, S. R., Chapin, F. S., Coe, M. T., Daily, G. C., Gibbs, H. K., Helkowski, J. H., Holloway, T., Howard, E. A., Kucharik, C. J., Monfreda, C., Patz, J. A., Prentice, I. C., Ramankutty, N. & Snyder, P. K. 2005. Global consequences of land use. Science 309, 570–574.Google Scholar
Fu, B. J., Li, S. G., Yu, X. B., Yang, P., Yu, G. R., Feng, R. G. & Zhuang, X. L. 2010. Chinese ecosystem research network: progress and perspectives. Ecological Complexity 7, 225–233.Google Scholar
Fu, B. J., Liu, Y., Lü, Y. H., He, C. S., Zeng, Y. & Wu, B. F. 2011. Assessing the soil erosion control service of ecosystems change in the loess plateau of China. Ecological Complexity 8, 284–293.Google Scholar
Fu, Q., Li, B., Yang, L. L., Wu, Z. L. & Zhang, X. S. 2015. Ecosystem services evaluation and its spatial characteristics in central Asia's arid regions: a case study in Altay Prefecture, China. Sustainability 7, 8335–8353.Google Scholar
Gao, H. D., Li, Z. B., Li, P., Jia, L. L., Xu, G. C., Ren, Z. P., Pang, G. W. & Zhao, B. H. 2015. The capacity of soil loss control in the Loess Plateau based on soil erosion control degree. Acta Geographica Sinica 9, 1503–1515.Google Scholar
Grunwald, M., Dellwig, O., Liebezeit, G., Schnetger, B., Reuter, R. & Brumsack, H. J. 2007. A novel time-series station in the Wadden Sea (NW Germany): first results on continuous nutrient and methane measurements. Marine Chemistry 107, 411–421.Google Scholar
Grunwald, M., Dellwig, O., Kohlmeier, C., Kowalski, N., Beck, M., Badewien, T. H., Kotzur, S., Liebezeit, G. & Brumsack, H. J. 2010. Nutrient dynamics in a back barrier tidal basin of the southern north sea: time-series, model simulations, and budget estimates. Journal of Sea Research 64, 199–212.Google Scholar
Han, Y., Tuo, X., Gao, J. & Gao, X. 2010. Ecosystem services radiation of signification eco-function area in the lower reaches of Heihe River. Acta Ecologica Sinica 30, 5185–5193.Google Scholar
Jiang, Z. S., Zheng, F. L. & Wu, M. 2005. Prediction model of water erosion on hillslopes. Journal of Sediment Research 4, 1–6.Google Scholar
Laflen, J. M., Lane, L. J. & Foster, G. R. 1991. WEPP: a new generation of erosion prediction technology. Journal of soil and Water Conservation 46, 34–38.Google Scholar
Laflen, J. M., Elliot, W. J., Flanagan, D. C., Meye, C. R. & Nearing, M. A. 1997. WEPP-predicting water erosion using a process-based model. Journal of soil and Water Conservation 52, 96–102.Google Scholar
Li, S. C. 2014. The geography of ecosystem services. Beijing: Science Press.Google Scholar
Li, T. H. & Zheng, L. N. 2012. Soil erosion changes in the Yanhe watershed from 2001 to 2010 based on RUSLE model. Journal of Natural Resources 27, 1164–1175.Google Scholar
Liu, B. Y., Zhang, K. L. & Xie, Y. 2002. An empirical soil loss equation. Proceedings of 12th International Soil Conservation Organization Conference 2, 15.Google Scholar
Lu, C. X., Zhao, T. Y., Shi, X. L. & Cao, S. X. 2016. Ecological restoration by afforestation may increase groundwater depth and create potentially large ecological and water opportunity costs in arid and semiarid China. Journal of Cleaner Production 176, 1213–1222.Google Scholar
Ministry of Water Resources (MWR). 2001. Gazette of river sediment in China: 2000. Beijing: China Water Power Press.Google Scholar
Mu, X., Chille, B. S., Zhang, L., Gao, P., Wang, F. & Zhang, X. P. 2007. Impact of soil conservation measures on runoff and sediment in Hekou-Longmen region of the Yellow River. Journal of Sediment research 41, 36–41.Google Scholar
Ouyang, Z. Y., Zheng, H., Xiao, Y., Polasky, S., Liu, J. G., Xu, W. H., Wang, Q., Zhang, L., Xiao, Y., Rao, E., Jiang, L., Lu, F., Wang, X., Yang, G., Gong, S., Wu, B., Zeng, Y., Yang, W. & Daily, G. C. 2016. Improvements in ecosystem services from investments in natural capital. Science 352, 1455–1459.Google Scholar
Pimentel, D. & Kounang, N. 1998. Ecology of soil erosion in ecosystems. Ecosystems 1, 416–426.Google Scholar
Prasannakumar, V., Vijith, H., Abinod, S. & Geetha, N. 2012. Estimation of soil erosion risk within a small mountainous sub-watershed in Kerala, India, using revised universal soil loss equation (RUSLE) and geo-information technology. Geoscience Frontiers 3, 209–215.Google Scholar
Renard, K. G., Foster, G. R., Weesies, G. A. & Porter, J. P. 1991. RUSLE: revised universal soil loss equation. Journal of soil and Water Conservation 46, 30–33.Google Scholar
Syrbe, R. U. & Walz, U. 2012. Spatial indicators for the assessment of ecosystem services: providing, benefiting and connecting areas and landscape metrics. Ecological Indicators 21, 80–88.Google Scholar
Van Remortel, R. D., Maichle, R. W. & Hickey, R. J. 2004. Computing the LS factor for the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation through array-based slope processing of digital elevation data using a C++ executable. Computers & Geosciences 30, 1043–1053.Google Scholar
Wang, X., Yin, L. & Zhang, Y. 2016. Discussion on some issues of ecological barrier. Ecology & Environmental Sciences 25, 2035–2040.Google Scholar
Williams, J. R., Dyke, P. T. & Jones, C. A. 1983. EPIC-A model for assessing the effects of erosion on soil productivity. Developments in Environmental Modelling 5, 553–572.Google Scholar
Wischmeier, W. H. & Smith, D. D. 1960. A universal soil-loss equation to guide conservation farm planning. Transactions of the 7th International Congress of Soil Science 1, 418–425.Google Scholar
Wischmeier, W. H. & Smith, D. D. 1965. Predicting rainfall-erosion losses from cropland east of the Rocky Mountains: guide for selection of practices for soil and water conservation. Washington, DC: US Department of Agriculture.Google Scholar
Wischmeier, W. H. & Smith, D. D. 1978. Predicting rainfall erosion loess. USDA Agricultural Handbook, 537. Washington, DC: USDA.Google Scholar
Xia, L. Z., Bu, Z. H., Zhang, Z. X., Yang, L. Z., Yang, X. Y. & Jiang, X. S. 2007. Application of integrated method to assessment of soil and nutrient losses in Miyun Reservoir basin. Advances in Earth Science 22, 241–248.Google Scholar
Xu, L. F., Xu, X. G. & Meng, X. W. 2013. Risk assessment of soil erosion in different rainfall scenarios by RUSLE model coupled with information diffusion model: a case study of Bohai Rim, China. Catena 100, 74–82.Google Scholar
Yao, W. Y., Ran, D. C. & Chen, J. N. 2013. Recent changes in runoff and sediment regimes and future projections in the Yellow River basin. Advances in Water Science 24, 607–616.Google Scholar