Target areas for harmonizing the Grain for Green Programme in China's Loess Plateau

Abstract

Widespread land degradation has stimulated the implementation of a large‐scale ecological restoration programme in China's Loess Plateau—the Grain‐for‐Green Programme (GFGP). This programme has substantially increased vegetation cover and served to control soil erosion, but threatened regional food supply due to widespread cropland conversion. Consequently, a strategy balancing green and grain land uses is required. Here, we establish a dominance index of ecosystem services by quantifying the economic value of four key ecosystem services (net primary productivity, soil conservation, water yield, and food production), by combining spatially explicit datasets and census data. Using the dominance index, we identify the optimal areas to target for GFGP in the Loess Plateau. The identified areas (target areas) were the transition zone from low to high value of ecosystem services (ESV). These areas exhibited low grain productivity in addition to having the highest potential for soil conservation. Compared with other regions of the Loess Plateau, the loss of grain production due to cropland conversion in these target areas could decrease by 42%, whereas ESV could increase by 33%. Therefore, despite the fact that over the past 15 years (2000–2014) in these target areas more cropland was converted into ecological use (i.e. forest/grassland), there is still a need to strengthen ecological restoration in this region in the future. This study proposed a strategy for balancing green and grain from a spatial perspective, which could potentially solve land degradation issues and the tradeoff between ecosystem services in a more beneficial and targeted way.

Spatial and temporal characteristics of soil conservation service in the area of the upper and middle of the Yellow River, China

“…ESs are complex and diverse, and the relationship between ESs may evolve over time (Rodríguez et al., 2006; Zheng et al., 2014). The tradeoffs and synergies of ESs are a key point of the relationship between multiple ESs (Feng et al., 2017; Geng et al., 2019), and they have obvious and complex scale effects (Xu et al., 2017; Feng et al., 2017). And that the main emphases of ESs research have shifted from ESs assessment (Costanza et al., 1997; Sheng et al., 2010; Fu et al., 2011; Guerra et al., 2016) to analyzing the relationship between multiple ESs (Hu et al., 2019; Wu and Li, 2019) in recent years.…”

Quantifying responses of net primary productivity to agricultural expansion in drylands

“…One reason agricultural expansion slowed down is humans paying more attention to the protection of the natural environment. Corresponding policies, such as revegetation and the “Grain for Green” Programme, have been implemented in many regions successfully (Geng, Ren, Yan, et al, 2019; McVicar et al, 2007). In addition, increased agricultural NPP caused by technological development and climatic change has protected land.…”

The long‐term effects of underground mining on the growth of tree, shrub, and herb communities in arid and semiarid areas in China

“…In the mining area, intensive subsidence and other human activities, such as deforestation, reforestation, and agricultural work, will all result in short‐term change in the plant communities (Sonter et al, 2017; Yang et al, 2018). For example, several major reforestation had been implemented in Nanjiao mining area, such as the Grain for Green Project, Three‐North Shelter Forest Program and Beijing–Tianjin Sandstorm Source Control Project, to control severe soil erosion in this region, which could alter original plant communities in short term by the cultivation of introduced vegetation (Geng et al, 2020; Wang, Zhang, Hasi, & Dong, 2010; Yang et al, 2015). As for those plant communities that maintained the same type, the long‐term effects they suffer from have the following four characteristics.…”