Soil erosion control practices in Northeast China: A mini-review
Highlights
► Soil erosion is the hindrance of agricultural development in Northeast China. ► The main type of soil erosion in the region is water erosion. ► Basin, contour, rat tunnel, and conservation tillage could control erosion. ► Terraces and strip cultivation, fertilizer/manure application improve productivity. ► Governmental policies with economic investment are needed to implement practices.
Introduction
Environmental protection is among the 10 top concerns of Chinese people, according to online polls conducted by the Xinhua News Agency on 21 February 2011 (www.people.com.cn), and soil erosion is the most important environmental issue. Soil erosion has been a serious hindrance in sustainable development of China (Li et al., 2009, Liu and Yan, 2009). Though the recognition of the detrimental influence of accelerated soil erosion on agricultural societies dates back to Plato and Aristotle (Montgomery, 2007), the awareness of soil erosion as an environmental concern in China can be traced back to 3000 years (Morgan, 2005, Li et al., 2009). Soil and water loss was the very early term equivalent of soil erosion, which was recorded B.C. in China and its antonym at that time was soil and water conservation. It is hard to examine exactly when and how the term soil erosion appeared; however, as a discipline soil erosion has developed since the 1920s, and was initially influenced by American and former Russian scholars (Tang, 2004). In the 1920s, faculty in the Forestry Department from former Jinling University (currently Nanjing University) carried out a soil and water loss survey in certain regions of Shan-xi, Shan-dong, and He-nan Province. They also conducted runoff observations, and thus developed a course addressing soil erosion and control practices for undergraduate students. In 1935, reforestation, grass establishment and vegetation improvement, as well as terrace construction, were strongly recommended to control soil, sand and sediments in the lower reach of the Yellow River. In the 1940s, several research stations focusing on soil and water conservation were established successively in Tianshui, Gan-su Province in 1941, Xi-an of Shaan-xi Province, Lan-zhou of Gan-su Province in 1942, Xi-jiang in Hu-nan Province in 1943, and Nan-jing in 1945, which marked the beginning of long-term observations on soil and water conservation in China. The representative research work in this period was done by Huang et al., who addressed distribution and soil properties in relation to soil erosion in the Loess region (Zheng et al., 2008). Major progress was achieved following 1950s, including characterization of soil and water losses, identification of soil erosion mechanisms, simulation and modeling of soil erosion, dynamic observation and control practice evaluation, establishment of integrated management of small watersheds, erosion classification and regional differentiation, environmental evolution of soil erosion and methodology development for soil erosion research, as well as establishment of a large numbers of research teams. All of these achievements are playing critical roles in discipline definition, policy development and outreach related to soil and water conservation practices (Li et al., 2009). Prof. Bing-wei Huang, Physical Geographer, Prof. Xian-mo Zhu, Soil Scientist and Prof. Ke-li Tang all from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, are pioneer researchers who made substantial contributions to this discipline. Prof. Bao-yuan Liu from Beijing Normal University and Prof. Fen-li Zheng from the Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Chinese Academy of Sciences are representatives who are actively working in this field.
The area of unacceptable soil and water loss in China is 3.56 million km2. The environmental deterioration, particularly associated with soil erosion, has not been effectively controlled in some regions; in fact one could argue that it is ignored as exemplified by the construction of large scale basic facilities for industrialization, urbanization, and regional development without requiring implementation of practices for controlling soil and water losses conservation. Thus, the demand for soil and water conservation technology is more urgent than ever.
Northeast China, the grain production base of China, or the bread basket of China, includes three provinces (Hei-long-jiang, Ji-lin, and Liao-ning) and the eastern part of the Inner Mongolian autonomous region (Liu et al., 2003). In 2009, 17.1% the China's total grain production came from this region, which included 33.5%, 55.7% and 9.6% of corn, soybean, and rice, respectively. Approximately 118 million people live in this region. Grain produced per capita is over 1000 kg annually, and nearly 60% of the grain produced is used to feed about 216 million urban residents annually (Liu et al., 2010). The fertile and productive Mollisols (also called Black soils) in China are distributed primarily in an intergraded area from mountains to plains (Xing et al., 2004), where most of the farmland slopes are less than 7° but slope lengths mainly range from 200 to 1000 m. Nearly 70% of the Mollisols in China are in Hei-long-jiang Province. Because these long slopes in most catchments have been managed for at least 100 years under lower infiltration rates, the combination of high rainfall intensity, freezing and thawing processes, and intensive cultivation has lead to substantial water runoff, soil erosion, and gully formation (Tang, 2004, Yan and Tang, 2005). Thus, soil erosion, water erosion in particular, and associated yield suppression has been a serious problem threatening agriculture sustainability in the region for decades (Liu, 2004, Lu, 2001, Yang et al., 2003, Zhang et al., 2007, Wang et al., 2009). Soil erosion is a complex process that depends on soil type, ground slope, vegetation, and rainfall amount and intensity (Cui et al., 2007, Yan et al., 2008). Though soil erosion cannot be completely prevented, and it can be reduced to an acceptable level or soil loss tolerance (Morgan, 2005). Soil erosion prevention relies on selecting appropriate strategies for soil conservation. From the technical aspect, best approaches will adopt conservation tillage systems, install terraces, practice strip cultivation, apply fertilizers appropriately, use crop rotations and develop appropriate administrative policies.
This paper summarizes the agronomic, biologic and engineering practices for soil erosion control in this critical region and proposed strategies are discussed in the context of agricultural sustainability for Northeast China and similar regions.
Section snippets
Soil erosion control practices
Virtually all crop production in the Mollisols region is conducted using ridge cultivation up and down long slopes. This practice is historical and is the common practice on sloping farmland. Reductions or elimination of tillage is almost non-existent among local farmers. The existing practice leads to degradation of the granular particle structure, soil compaction, low water storage and reduced surface hydraulic conductivity (Niu et al., 2004). Additionally, increased use of small tractors
Administrative policies in controlling soil erosion
Although appropriate approaches could be adopted by land users to control soil erosion and thus increase crop productivity, adapting most conservation practices are limited by local conditions and more economic incentives are needed. In areas of rural depopulation or increased availability of alternative sources of income relative to agriculture, the labor needed is often not available to undertake the necessary repair of erosion damaged land. Thus, appropriate government programs and policies
Acknowledgements
Part of the paper is sponsored by the National Natural Scienec Foundation of China (41171229), the National Key Technology R&D Program (2009BADB3B04), and 2010 Outstanding Young Scientist Program of Harbin Bureau of Science and Technology (2010RFXYN044).
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