No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Increased human water use combined with climate change have aggravated water scarcity from the regional to global scales. However, the lack of spatially detailed datasets limits our understanding of the historical water use trend and its key drivers. Here, we present a survey-based reconstruction of China’s sectoral water use in 341 prefectures during 1965 to 2013. The data indicate that water use has doubled during the entire study period, yet with a widespread slowdown of the growth rates from 10.66 km3⋅y−2before 1975 to 6.23 km3⋅y−2in 1975 to 1992, and further down to 3.59 km3⋅y−2afterward. These decelerations were attributed to reduced water use intensities of irrigation and industry, which partly offset the increase driven by pronounced socioeconomic development (i.e., economic growth, population growth, and structural transitions) by 55% in 1975 to 1992 and 83% after 1992. Adoptions for highly efficient irrigation and industrial water recycling technologies explained most of the observed reduction of water use intensities across China. These findings challenge conventional views about an acceleration in water use in China and highlight the opposing roles of different drivers for water use projections.

No abstract

No abstract

Better understanding of how the loess soils respond to topography and land use under catchment-scale vegetation restoration is needed to enable science-based land management interventions for the policy-driven "Grain-for-Green" eco-restoration program in the Loess Plateau of China. The objective of this study was to characterize the relationships of four selected soil quality indicators to land use under vegetation restoration and topography for a small catchment (0Á58 km 2 ) in the Loess Plateau. The major land uses established in the catchment are cropland, fallow (i.e., natural revegetation), grassland, and jujube orchard. The four soil quality indicators were soil organic carbon (SOC), soil total nitrogen (STN), soil total phosphorus (STP), and mean root zone soil water content during the wet season (MRZSWwet). SOC, STN, and MRZSWwet were significantly different (p < 0Á05) for different land uses. Grassland showed the highest values for these three properties, whereas cropland had relatively low values for SOC and STN. Land use had no effect on STP, although the lowest value was observed in grassland. Spatial analysis showed that various relations between soil quality indicators and topography (slope and elevation) were observed. These relations were generally weak for most of them, and they varied with land uses. Further analyses indicated that land uses, slope, and elevation had significant effects on the relations between different soil quality indicators. The results here should provide useful information for the further development of "Grain-for-Green" program.