These areas (commonly called drylands) cover about half the globe and are frequently susceptible to change and vulnerability due to water restrictions and extreme temporal variation in rain. Drylands are where you will find more than three-quarters of the globe’s population.
China has been able to successfully implement a variety of Afforestation programs throughout the year to help dry land become economically viable and will continue to do so until 2050. However, although planting more trees will reduce the amount of water discharged, it could increase the severity of China’s water shortage worse since more trees require more water in order to grow.
China provides food to a fifth of humanity with just 7 percent of the arable land in the world, and 65 percent of the communities are located in the dryland regions of northwestern and northern China. In the northwestern part of China, the Loess Plateau is a part of the dryland region that is roughly the dimensions of France. Loess is a sediment that was blown by the wind and was transported by the wind into the Gobi desert for millennia.
It is believed that the Loess Plateau is the cradle of Chinese civilization due to the soils that form on Loess are extremely fertile and easy to cultivate. However, Loess soils are particularly susceptible to erosion due to the wind and water. Years of poor management resulted in soil degradation and huge accumulations of sediment that flowed into the Yellow River. It’s estimated that over two-thirds of the Loess Plateau Region is affected by soil erosion. Three Gigatonnes each year of soil load was seen within the Yellow River in the late 1950s.
The map of the Yellow River, whose watershed covers the vast majority of the northern part of China and runs into the Yellow Sea, 2010. Shannon/Wikimedia
Control soil erosion
To stop this erosion of soil and to prevent it from happening, a variety of soil conservation programs comprising terracing, the building of check dams, and regeneration of the vegetation, particularly the afforestation process, were enacted by the Chinese government during the 50s.
The forests were not only established to reduce soil erosion due to water but also to fight the degradation of land in northern China, which greatly reduces the amount of land that is used for farming and can hinder sustainable development in the region.
Severe soil erosion on the slopes of Zhifanggou drainage Pingliang Gansu province of China. Author, Author supplied
The Three North Shelterbelt Project which is more commonly referred to by the name the China’s Great Green Wall – was founded in 1978 in order to increase the coverage of forests within the Three North Region (an area of 1.48 million square kilometers) by up to 15 percent until 2050. While the erosion of soil and the burden of sediment on the Yellow River has decreased, the flow of water flowing through the river, which is the third-largest in Asia, has decreased significantly.
Drying Yellow river
This could affect China’s food security since agriculture is the biggest water user within the Yellow River Basin, accounting for 80% of the total withdrawal. From 2000 to 2010, the mean annual discharge was less than 60% of the averages between 1950 and 1999.
The forest has also been a major factor.
The area of forest cover on the Loess Plateau was 6 percent in 1949. It is increased to 26% by the year 2010. This has contributed to the loss of the water resources of the northern part of China since forests lose much faster than other land cover. In addition, the woods that are newly established tend to grow more slowly because of water shortages, are more susceptible to disease, and exhibit low stability of the vegetation.
As flooding and droughts become predicted to become increasingly frequent and severe and the increased demands for water within a booming society, it will also threaten food and water security, which will increase the vulnerability of the population and instability in China’s drylands.
Improved water management
To stop further loss of the availability of water sources, China needs to establish an integrated approach to managing the land, water, and forests. The measures implemented should be adapted to the local environment. As an example for instance, there shouldn’t be any afforestation in areas that receive less than 450mm of rainfall annually.
For these zones that are susceptible to drought, grassland could be a better solution since it helps stabilize the soil while also ensuring the replenishment of depleted water resources. Incorporating native tree species that require less water or the establishment of Savannah-like forests, which contain fewer trees, could help ease drought-related conditions.