Strategies to combat desertification for the twenty-first century in China |
| |
| Authors: | Jingzhu Zhao Gang Wu Yingmin Zhao Guofan Shao Hongmei Kong Qi Lu |
| |
| Institution: | 1. Department of Systems Ecology , Research Centre for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing, China;2. Chinese State Bureau of Environmental Protection , Beijing, China;3. Department of Forestry and Natural Resources , Purdue University , West Lafayette, USA;4. National Research Centre on Combating Desertification, Chinese Academy of Forestry , Beijing, China |
| |
| Abstract: | SUMMARY During the past half century, China has experienced increasingly severe land degradation, soil erosion, and desert expansion. Desertification is affecting one third of China's total territory and the annual accelerating rate of desertification spread is as high as 2460 km2 in China. In 1996, China developed a National Action Programme to Combat Desertification (NAP), which is aimed to apply new legal measures and technical approaches to slow down desertification processes and achieve a long-term goal — control desertification and alleviate poverty through continuous efforts to fight against desertification, stabilize mobile dunes, revegetate degraded rangeland and control soil erosion in arid, semi-arid, and dry sub-humid areas. The long-term and integrated strategies of China's NAP result in encouragement of social participation, legal institutional guarantees, policy making, and establishment of demonstrations/pilot projects to combat desertification at both national and provincial level. |
| |
| Keywords: | China desertification erosion rangelands aridity |
|
|
