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Quantifying the Effect of Ecological Restoration on Soil Erosion in China’s Loess Plateau Region: An Application of the MMF Approach

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Abstract

Land degradation due to erosion is one of the most serious environmental problems in China. To reduce land degradation, the government has taken a number of conservation and restoration measures, including the Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP), which was launched in 1999. A logical question is whether these measures have reduced soil erosion at the regional level. The objective of this article is to answer this question by assessing soil erosion dynamics in the Zuli River basin in the Loess Plateau of China from 1999 to 2006. The MMF (Morgan, Morgan and Finney) model was used to simulate changes in runoff and soil erosion over the period of time during which ecological restoration projects were implemented. Some model variables were derived from remotely sensed images to provide improved land surface representation. With an overall accuracy rate of 0.67, our simulations show that increased ground vegetation cover, especially in forestlands and grasslands, has reduced soil erosion by 38.8% on average from 1999 to 2006. During the same time period, however, the change in rainfall pattern has caused a 13.1% ± 4.3% increase in soil erosion, resulting in a net 25.7% ± 8.5% reduction in soil erosion. This suggests that China’s various ecological restoration efforts have been effective in reducing soil loss.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the China NSF Innovation Team Project (40721061), an “Ecosystem Services and Human Activity” grant from the Chinese Academy of Science to the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research (IGSNRR), a grant from the LCLUC program of NASA (NNG05GD49G), United States NSF grants (0507948 and 0624018), and the China NSF Project (40801021). The authors are grateful to Erin Shi and Victoria Hoelzer-Maddox for their assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Western China’s Environmental Systems (MOE), Lanzhou University, 222 South Tianshui Road, Lanzhou, Gansu, 730000, China

    Changbin Li, Jiaguo Qi & Zhaodong Feng

  2. Center for Global Change and Earth Observations, Michigan State University, 204 Manly Miles Building, 1405 South Harrison Road, East Lansing, MI, 48823, USA

    Changbin Li, Jiaguo Qi, Runsheng Yin & Feng Zhang

  3. Department of Geology, Baylor University, Waco, TX, 76798, USA

    Zhaodong Feng

  4. Department of Forestry, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA

    Runsheng Yin & Biyun Guo

  5. College of Environment and Resources, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi, 712100, China

    Biyun Guo

  6. Laboratory of Arid and Grassland Agro-Ecology (MOE), Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, Gansu, 730000, China

    Feng Zhang

  7. Chinese Academy of Sciences, Cold and Arid Regions Environment and Engineering Research Institute, Lanzhou, Gansu, 730000, China

    Songbing Zou

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  1. Changbin Li
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  2. Jiaguo Qi
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Correspondence to Changbin Li.

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Li, C., Qi, J., Feng, Z. et al. Quantifying the Effect of Ecological Restoration on Soil Erosion in China’s Loess Plateau Region: An Application of the MMF Approach. Environmental Management 45, 476–487 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-009-9369-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-009-9369-6

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