US-China collaboration on conservation

Xunchang (John) Zhang; W.-Z. Liu; Ronald Bingner; Yongping Yuan; R. Scott Van Pelt; Ted M. Zobeck

doi:10.2489/jswc.63.1.22A

Excerpt

The Loess Plateau, situated in the middle reaches of the Yellow River, is infamous for its severe soil erosion caused by highly erodible fine aeolian deposits, steep slopes, heavy storms, and sparse vegetation cover stemming from intensive cultivation and improper land use (Chen et al. 1988). Potential levee breaches and flooding poses a grave threat to people's lives and properties in the highly developed and populous Northern China Plain situated along the lower reaches of the Yellow River. This threat is very likely to increase under projected climate change, which is anticipated to produce more and heavier storms and therefore more severe soil erosion in the Loess Plateau. Thus, it is of great importance to evaluate the potential impacts of projected climate change on sediment generation in the Loess Plateau as well as sediment dynamics and transport in the lower reaches of the Yellow River.

A cooperative research project between the Grazinglands Research Laboratory, USDA Agricultural Research Service, and the Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, was initiated in 2005. The main goals of the project are to (1) develop an innovative spatial and temporal downscaling method that can be used to evaluate farm-specific impacts of …

Footnotes

Xunchang (John) Zhang is a hydrologist at the Grazinglands Research Laboratory, USDA Agricultural Research Service, El Reno, Oklahoma. W.-Z. Liu is the principal investigator from the Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yangling, Shaanxi, China.
Ronald Bingner is an agricultural engineers at the National Sedimentation Laboratory, USDA ARS, Oxford Mississippi. Yongping Yuan is a research associate at the University of Mississippi, Oxford, Mississippi.
R. Scott Van Pelt and Ted M. Zobeck are soil scientists for the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Big Spring and Lubbock, Texas, respectively.
© 2008 by the Soil and Water Conservation Society

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