A Policy-Driven Large Scale Ecological Restoration: Quantifying Ecosystem Services Changes in the Loess Plateau of China

Abstract

As one of the key tools for regulating human-ecosystem relations, environmental conservation policies can promote ecological rehabilitation across a variety of spatiotemporal scales. However, quantifying the ecological effects of such policies at the regional level is difficult. A case study was conducted at the regional level in the ecologically vulnerable region of the Loess Plateau, China, through the use of several methods including the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE), hydrological modeling and multivariate analysis. An assessment of the changes over the period of 2000–2008 in four key ecosystem services was undertaken to determine the effects of the Chinese government's ecological rehabilitation initiatives implemented in 1999. These ecosystem services included water regulation, soil conservation, carbon sequestration and grain production. Significant conversions of farmland to woodland and grassland were found to have resulted in enhanced soil conservation and carbon sequestration, but decreased regional water yield under a warming and drying climate trend. The total grain production increased in spite of a significant decline in farmland acreage. These trends have been attributed to the strong socioeconomic incentives embedded in the ecological rehabilitation policy. Although some positive policy results have been achieved over the last decade, large uncertainty remains regarding long-term policy effects on the sustainability of ecological rehabilitation performance and ecosystem service enhancement. To reduce such uncertainty, this study calls for an adaptive management approach to regional ecological rehabilitation policy to be adopted, with a focus on the dynamic interactions between people and their environments in a changing world.

Determining the hydrological responses to climate variability and land use/cover change in the Loess Plateau with the Budyko framework

“…Between 2000 and 2008, there were 4.9% and 6.6% increases in the areas of woodland and grassland, respectively, whereas the area of farmland decreased by 10.8% in the Loess Plateau (Lü et al, 2012). The increases in woodland and grassland were mostly converted from farmland.…”

Nature-based solutions to address global societal challenges

“…Two examples of FLR applications include the restoration of the forests of Shinyanga, Tanzania (Barrow, 2014) and the Loess Plateau, China (Lü et al, 2012). Implementation can involve different degrees of human intervention, ranging from planting trees to allowing natural processes of forest succession to occur.…”

Spatial heterogeneous response of land use and landscape functions to ecological restoration: the case of the Chinese loess hilly region

“…The Baota District is composed of 576 villages according to the second national land survey of China. This area has experienced long-term soil and water conservation and was selected as one of the pioneer and demonstration areas for the largescale ecological restoration project that was known as Grain to Green in China (Chen et al 2007;Lü et al 2011Lü et al , 2012.…”

“…The Chinese government has increasingly monitored this serious problem, and several ecological restoration projects that are aimed at soil and water conservation have been implemented since the 1980s (Zhang et al 2004b;Yin and Yin 2009). In 1999, a national-scale reforestation project, which is known as the Grain to Green Project (GTGP), was launched, and the loess hilly area was the pioneer and demonstration area of this large project (Wang et al 2007;Lü et al 2012;Liu et al 2008). The main practice of this reforestation project was converting cropland on steep slopes (C25°) or cropland with low yield into forests, which induced significant land-use changes along with reducing soil erosion.…”