The Question of Communist Land Degradation: New Evidence from Local Erosion and Basin-Wide Sediment Yield in Southwest China and Southeast Tibet

Schmidt, Amanda H.; Montgomery, David R.; Huntington, Katharine W.; Liang, Chuan

doi:10.1080/00045608.2011.560059

Cited by 20 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…The greater spatial variance in SSY for smaller watersheds was also documented in the Appalachian Great Smoky Mountains (Matmon et al ., ) and in Southwest China and Southeast Tibet (see Figure A in Schmidt et al . ()).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Scale Independence and Spatial Uniformity of Specific Sediment Yield in Loess Areas of the Wuding River Basin, Northwest China

Zheng

2016

Land Degrad Dev

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Most of the sediment loads of the Chinese Yellow River originate from the 113,000 km2 Hekou–Longmen Section. This study investigated the spatial pattern of specific sediment yield in the Wuding River basin, a tributary of the section. Data collected in 36 instrumented watersheds were used. Stratifying the watersheds in terms of surface regolith reveals a scale uncorrelated and a roughly constant SSY (mean annual specific sediment yield) of 18,720 Mg km−2 yr−1 in the loess areas of the basin, with basin areas varying between 0.107 and 9,355 km2. A zero‐variable model (i.e. SSY = 18,720) thus performs well with a mean error of approximately 15%. The spatial uniformity even holds at the annual time scale; a spatially invariable SSYa (specific sediment yield for a single year) remains applicable with a mean error of the order of 40%. The spatial uniformity in SSY and SSYa allows a direct scale extrapolation. Moreover, the established zero‐variable models and the scale extrapolation are even applicable to the Hekou–Longmen Section. The spatially uniform SSY accords with the spatial invariability of many sediment‐yield related factors, such as basin slope and rainfall in the loess areas of the Wuding basin. Given the fact that sediment delivery ratio is close to 1 in the Loess Plateau, a spatially uniform SSY is equivalent to a uniform erosion rate among watersheds. This finding, contrasting with current consensus that erosion and sediment yield vary greatly in space, is greatly helpful in predicting erosion and sediment yield in the Loess Plateau. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Scale Independence and Spatial Uniformity of Specific Sediment Yield in Loess Areas of the Wuding River Basin, Northwest China

Zheng

2016

Land Degrad Dev

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“…The regime attributed the floods to increases in sediment due to erosion caused by decades of deforestation and forest degradation (Chen, 2000; Yi, 2003; Yin and Li, 2001). Although there is no evidence for increased sediment yield to the Yangtze (Lu and Higgitt, 1998, 1999; Higgitt and Lu, 1999; Lu et al, 2003a, 2003b), Salween, Mekong, Red, or Tsangpo (Schmidt et al, 2011) as a result of changing upstream land use, including deforestation, the floods constituted a wakeup call about the state of China’s environment in general. The State Council instituted a logging ban along the upper reaches of the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, and adopted a set of six major environmental programs prioritizing forest protection and expansion, including two of the largest environmental programs in China: the Returning Farmland to Forest Program, described here; and the Natural Forest Protection Program ( tianranlin baohu gongcheng | ), designed to protect remaining areas of ecological concern and restore degraded lands.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Environmental Reviews and Case Studies: Is the Returning Farmland to Forest Program a Success? Three Case Studies from Sichuan

Trac

Schmidt

Harrell

et al. 2013

Environmental Practice

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China’s tuigeng huanlin or “Returning Farmland to Forest” (RFFP) program has been widely praised as the world’s largest and most successful payment for ecosystem services program, as well as a major contributor to China’s dramatic increase in forest cover from perhaps as low as 8% in 1960 to about 21% today. By compensating rural households for the conversion of marginal farmland to forestland and financing the afforestation of barren mountainsides, the program, in addition to expanding forestland, aims to reduce soil erosion and alleviate poverty. This paper presents qualitative and quantitative studies conducted on the local implementation of RFFP in three diverse townships in Sichuan. We find the actual results to be more mixed than the official figures would indicate. Though there have been some positive results, we identify problems with site and species selection, compensation for land taken out of cultivation, shift of labor to off-farm activities, and monitoring of replanted sites, which challenge the ecological and economic impacts of these programs and reveal much of the effort of the program has been misdirected. We suggest that efforts are misplaced because of the top-down, panacea nature of the program, which in turn is a feature of Chinese bureaucratic management.

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“…As pointed out earlier, soil erosion in the PRC has been overstated and is regionally specific, which means that vast areas may be little if at all affected by soil erosion to the extent often portrayed (e.g., Ho 2003;Schmidt et al 2011). Moreover, relating food production to soil degradation is fraught with difficulties in controlling for the effects of political economic processes (e.g., input prices, government subsidy), interspecific relations (e.g., pathogenic outbreaks), and weather variability (e.g., short-term droughts) (see also Stocking 2003).…”

Section: Soils As All Of a Piecementioning

confidence: 96%

“…To achieve such heights and transcendence, the typical maneuver is to subsume all socialist history and movements under the USSR (are Greens unknowing parrots of the Third International?) so as to declare them all as environmentally devastating or potentially so, just like big business (cf., Armstrong 2008;Schmidt et al 2011).…”

Section: Unexceptional Exceptions and Prospects For Internal Dissentmentioning

confidence: 98%

Ecology, Soils, and the Left

Mauro¹

2014

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The Question of Communist Land Degradation: New Evidence from Local Erosion and Basin-Wide Sediment Yield in Southwest China and Southeast Tibet

Abstract: To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/00045608.2011.56005

Cited by 20 publications

References 32 publications

Scale Independence and Spatial Uniformity of Specific Sediment Yield in Loess Areas of the Wuding River Basin, Northwest China

Scale Independence and Spatial Uniformity of Specific Sediment Yield in Loess Areas of the Wuding River Basin, Northwest China

Environmental Reviews and Case Studies: Is the Returning Farmland to Forest Program a Success? Three Case Studies from Sichuan

Ecology, Soils, and the Left

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