Yan River Basin, China

Contact the Yan River Basin study site team

2010-11-25T12:17:20Z

Institute Description

Institute full name:	Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ministry of Water Resources
Institute acronym:	ISWC
Institute profile:	ISWC is a national multi-disciplinary research institute in China. It was established by Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 1956. Its major mission is to develop knowledge and technology in soil erosion and its integrated controlling, land use and cover change and its environmental, social and economic impacts in the soil erosion region. The on-going research projects cover many themes, such as prediction of soil loss, the ways to prevent and control soil erosion, evaluation of regional natural resources and ecological environment rehabilitation. ISWC is in charge of several national or regional databases on soil and soil loss, land use, agricultural economic and soil and water conservation. It has been the research center and base of knowledge innovation on soil and water conservation of China.
Website	www.iswc.ac.cn
Address	Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ministry of Water Resources 26, Xinong Road, Yangling 712100 Shaanxi, China Fax: +86 29 8701 2210
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Involved personnel

Name	Contact details	Key qualifications	Photo
Prof. Li rui	Tel: +86 29 8701 2061 E-mail: lirui@ms.iswc.ac.cn	Scientist for regional soil and water conservation using RS and GIS. He has organized several research projects on regional eco-system rehabilitation and impacts on environment.
Dr. Wang Fei	Tel: +86 29 8701 2482 E-mail: wafe@ms.iswc.ac.cn	Specialist on geography and soil and water conservation with special interest in the assessment and integrated impacts of land degradation, soil erosion and soil and water conservation.
Prof. Yang Qin-ke	Tel: +86 29 8701 9577 E-mail: qkyang@ms.iswc.ac.cn	Land use and management specialist with special interest in the survey, evaluation of land use change with GIS and RS and land use planning.
Prof. Jiao Ju-ying	Tel: +86 29 8701 2642（H） +86 13319223030 E-mail: jyjiao@ms.iswc.ac.cn jiaojuying@yahoo.com.cn	Expert in impacts evaluation of soil erosion and soil-water conservation, soil loss modeling, and with special interest in vegetation restoration in soil erosion environments
Dr. Wen Zhong-ming	Tel: +86 29 8701 2482 E-mail: zmwen@ms.iswc.ac.cn	Expert in forestry and ecology with special interest in vegetation succession and its impact on soil erosion and land degradation.
Dr. Jiao feng	Tel: +86 29 8701 2482 E-mail: jiaof11@126.com	Expert in data management and application of GIS and RS for survey and mapping of land degradation and soil and water conservation.

Study site location & description

2008-01-15T13:26:45Z

The Yan River Basin study site is located north-east of the city of Yan'an in Shaanxi province, China.

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The Loess Plateau region is well known for its deep loess deposits and serious soil erosion. The average soil loss is 3720 tons/km²/year. According long-term data, the Yellow river sediment load is 1.6 billion tons/year, about 90% of which comes from the Loess Plateau region. The Loess Plateau soil erosion area is 430,000 km², accounting for 81.1 % of total area. Every year about 0.01 to 2 cm topsoil is washed away. One of the reasons for the high erosion rates is the semi-arid climate of the region.

DESIRE can contribute to give a sound scientific data basis for regional resources management, to define suitable indicators and methods of qualitative and quantitative evaluation of land degradation, and to promote a scientific plan for combating soil erosion.

More details ... read the full study site description and an overview of all sites
	Read the full study site description
»Comparative overview of all study sites

Stakeholders and their sustainability goals

2011-11-08T14:07:53Z

The area and people
The majority of farmers are small farmers, but farmers are increasingly also involved in off-farm activities.

Added value of DESIRE for stakeholders
Stakeholders think that the DESIRE approach is effective in identifying the causes and effects of land degradation, and can help to make a reasonable strategy of sustainable land management. The evaluation of measures of local and external stakeholders gives a clear understanding of importance and benefit of different technologies.

Study site stakeholder workshops
Land users and government officials.

Limitations of spontaneous implementation of soil and water conservation practices
Since the 1950s, soil and water conservation has been carried out in this region and some progress has been made. The vegetation cover increased and many silt-collection dams have been built. Yet this achievement can not cover the fact that soil erosion is still very serious and land degradation is still a big problem in this region. The main reason for this is that many constraining factors for soil and water conservation still exist. These factors include lack of financial and technical support, and insufficient involvement of local land users in the decision-making process and the low economic return of soil and water conservation practices.

Stakeholder groups

Government/project staff

The Office for Soil and Water Conservation in the Yanhe River Basin, and its branches in Ansai and Baota County
Environment Monitoring Center for Soil and Water Conservation of Yellow River Basin
Institute of Sand-Control of Shaanxi

Public administration

agriculture
forestry
land
water
livestock
environment

Research Centres and Universities

Institute of soil and water conservation, CAS
Northwest A&F University

Schools

Some primary and middle school for environment protection education

Land users

Local farmers

Sustainability goals

Soil erosion and water shortage are the main limiting factors on the Loess Plateau even after long time of implementation of integrated measures. The sustainable development of agriculture systems and the rural economy without more ecological cost in the Loess Plateau is the main objective of research and projects including of DESIRE.

Goal 1	Reduction of soil erosion and runoff losses;
Goal 2	Improvement of the water use efficiency of precipitation;
Goal 3	Maintenance of function and production of soil and vegetation;
Goal 4	Conservation of bio-diversity;
Goal 5	Maintenance of the loess landscape;
Goal 6	Improvement of local socio-economic condition;
Goal 7	Reduction of sediment load of the Yellow River;
Goal 8	Mitigation of flood risk of the lower reaches of the Yellow River and Its branches.

Source: expert estimate by study site coordinator

More details ...

»Stakeholders & their sustainability goals - overview

Drivers, policies and laws

2011-11-08T14:14:36Z

To help understand this complex picture it can be helpful to think in terms the dominant socio-economic and environmental forces that are driving the process of land degradation. These place pressures on the land which have particular impacts. Human society may have already made responses to those impacts, or may have knowledge about how they could respond. Decisions about which responses to make may also be governed by a range of international, national or local policy regulations and agreements.

In the Yan River Basin study site, the same stakeholder workshop and questionnaires that were used to identify existing and potential response strategies (»Identifying strategies: Stakeholder workshop 1) also discussed and identified these driving forces; pressures; impacts; and the policy and regulation environment. This information was then used to inform the choice of »Field experiments, the scenarios used in »Simulated biophysical impact of remediation strategies and their financial viability, and context for the study site-specific »Policy brief recommendations.

Select main driver

Socio-economic drivers
Environmental drivers
Pressures
Impacts
Responses
Policies

More details ...

»Drivers and policy context for all study sites

Gender-related issues

2011-03-03T13:25:27Z

More details ... download the poster
	Gender-related issues: Yan River Basin [58 kB]

Land degradation and conservation maps

2009-06-08T13:00:39Z

The WOCAT tool for mapping land degradation and sustainable land management has been used in the Yan River Basin study site. Using the tool, an interdisciplinary team of specialists has recorded observations of land degradation, sustainable land management and recommendations for further prevention or mitigation on a land use base map.

Select map type

Comments

Map version: 4Oct11

More details ...

»Assessment and mapping methodology; summary results from all study sites

Desertification risk assessment maps

2011-11-08T14:15:14Z

Source: extracted from Karavitis, C., Kosmas, C. et al. (submitted article) An expert system towards assessing desertification risk using indicators. Environmental Management

The main desertification process in the Yan River Basin study site is tillage practice, which results in significant downslope movement of soil and also increases water erosion. For this process, the Desertification Risk Assessment Tool needed data to calculate 190 indicators in 19 map units. Using data from the WOCAT QM database, the required indicators were estimated and imported to the Assessment Tool.

The procedure was applied to all the map units in the study site and the DRI values calculated are shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Desertification risk calculation per map unit

The DRI values were mapped for each of the 19 polygons (Map 1)


Map 1: Desertification risk index (DRI)	Map 2: Degree of land degradation (as assessed using the WOCAT mapping method)

The DRI map was compared with the WOCAT QM of the same area (Map 2). It can be seen that the rate of degradation and the measures' effectiveness seen in the WOCAT map correspond closely to the DRI values, with the highest rate of degradation and the lowest measures effectiveness matching up to the highest values of DRI.

More details ... about the use of the Desertification Risk Assessment Tool to calculate the Desertification Risk Index (DRI)

»Using the Desertification Risk Assessment Tool

Evaluating the desertification risk assessment tool with local experimental results

2013-09-30T12:13:38Z

Author: Victor Jetten

Introduction
On the Loess plateau area in the Yan River Basin in China, severe soil erosion is common. This results in deep gully and badland formation on the steeper slopes. To rehabilitate gullies, check dams have been constructed. These limit runoff and sediment delivery downstream and increase water availability for maize. The slopes can be stabilized with terrace constructions. Because of annual rainfall fluctuates between 400 and 1100 mm (average 560 mm), water can be a limiting factor in this region. Soil water conditions are monitored and compared to crops on the slopes, as well as runoff and erosion under different land uses. The erosion is especially important downstream while the conservation measures are tought to be important on site (because of soil moisture increase).

Desertification indices
The main desertification process is water erosion and secondary is water stress, because of erosive soils (loess) and occasional heavy rainfall. Erosion risk is classified as moderate (2.72) in spite of the very steep slope and bare soil and absence of conservation measures. Water stress is classified as low (1.67) probably because of the absence of a direct link between amount of rainfall and water stress in the desertification risk assessment tool.

Applying a terraced situation results in a slight lowering of the water erosion risk which is starnge because apart from choosing terraces as conservation the slope is set to < 2%. The water stress is correctly lowered to “no risk” (1.32).

Bare area on steep slopes with loess soils

Conclusion
The water erosion react counter intuitively to a lowering of the slope from >35% to < 2% with hardly and change, while the water stress is correctly reduced considerably.

More details ... general conclusions and results from other study sites

»Evaluating the Desertification Risk Assessment Tool with experimental results

Landuse, elevation, soil and climate maps

2008-06-18T13:45:44Z

The following maps are available for the Yan River Basin.

No.	Files	Format	Name	Description	Projection	Compiled by
1	Land use, 1990	ARCGIS(coverage)		Extracted from TM 1990	Albers	Li Rui, Yang Qinke, and Zhang Xiaoping
2	Land use, 2000	ARCGIS(coverage)		Extracted from TM 2000	Albers	Yang Qinke and Li Rui
3	s12-yhbnd	ARCGIS(coverage)		Extracted from DEM (s12-yhdem25)	Albers	Liang Wei and Yang Qinke
4	DEM	ARCGIS(grid)		Scale: 1:50000 (resolution: 25m)	Albers	Yang Qinke, Li Rui and Wen Zhongming
5	County boundaries	ARCGIS(coverage)			Albers	Liang Wei and Yang Qinke
6	Land use type, 1997	ARCGIS(grid)		Extracted from TM 1997	Albers	Yang Qinke, Li Rui and Liang Wei
7	Land use type, 2000	ARCGIS(grid)		Extracted from TM M+ 2000	Albers	Yang Qinke, Li Rui and Liang Wei
8	Evaporation	ARCGIS(grid)		ANU spline interpolation	Albers	Liang Wei and Yang Qinke
9	Annual rainfall	ARCGIS(grid)		ANU spline interpolation	Albers	Liang Wei and Yang Qinke
10	Annual temperature	ARCGIS(grid)		ANU spline interpolation	Albers	Liang Wei and Yang Qinke
11	Soil	ARCGIS(coverage)			Albers	Yang Qin Ke and Liang Wei

Identifying strategies: Stakeholder Workshop 1

2008-11-03T14:12:46Z

First Workshop

A report on the results of the workshop "Land degradation and desertification - existing and potential prevention and conservation strategies" held in Ansai county, Shanxi province, China, 15 to 23 March 2008

Authors and moderators: Wen Zhongming, Wang Fei, Jiao Juying, Jiao Feng

Second Workshop

A report on the results of the workshop "Land degradation and desertification - existing and potential prevention and conservation strategies" held in Ansai county, Yan'an City, Shaanxi province, China, 9 to 11 December 2008

Authors and moderators: Wang Fei, Li Jinpeng, Zhang Jinxin, Wang Qunxing, Song Xiaoyan

A second workshop was held later the same year. This time the local and external stakeholders were not separated, thereby allowing mutual learning by both groups. This was a perceived shortcoming of the first workshop.

Workshop objectives:
1. Mutual learning
2. Identification of relevant land degradation problems in the Yanghe River Basin
3. Identification of existing and new soil conservation strategies
4. Selection of 3-5 promising solutions for land degradation for further evaluation and study after the workshop

Background

The main land use types in the area are cropland, orchards, woodland, wild grassland, vegetable growing and fallow land. Much of the sloping area was converted into forest land or grass land due to the "Conversion of Sloping Farmland into Grass and Forest Program". Orchard areas are close to the villages and provided fruits mainly for self-consumption. Forests are generally found on the steeper and moderately steep parts of the landscape. The main types of land degradation include soil erosion, decrease of fertility and fragmentation of land due to erosion.

Since the 1950s, soil and water conservation has been carried out in this region and some progress has been made. The vegetation cover increased and many silt-collection dams have been built. Yet this achievement can not cover the fact that soil erosion is still very serious and land degradation is still a big problem in this region. The main reason for this is that many constraining factors for soil and water conservation still exist. These factors include lack of financial and technical support, and no involvement of local land users in the decision-making process.

Main causes and effects of land degradation identified in the workshop

Disturbances identified in the water cycle	Disturbances identified in the biomass cycle
Low / irregular rainfall Increased runoff Low water infiltration rate of soil Increase of evaporation	Low survival rate of seedlings Poor and low vegetation growth Destruction of vegetation Early withering of trees Removal of biomass

Solutions already applied at the local level

building dams (to reduce the transportation of sediments into rivers and collect silt from runoff, producing fertile farmland);
constructing terraces;
planting trees and grasses in gullies and steep slopes;
increase the planting of green manure vegetation to produce more organic matter for soil improvement;
planting hedgerows;
rotate grass with crops to prevent soil degradation;
planting cash trees and grass to increase economic income.

Strategies to be evaluated

1. Planting trees

2. Building dam
3. Building terraced field
4. Closure against grazing
5. Interplanting

Draft outline of strategy for sustainable land management in this region

1) Convert steep slope farmland to forest and grass: this is fundamental to control soil and water loss and improve the quality of land.
2) Construct terraces in gentle slopes: terraces can increase the land productivity, thus reduce the requirement of total land area for food production. Meanwhile terraces can change the hydrological process of slope land and reduce the runoff.
3) Plant cash trees in gentle and south facing slopes
4) Strengthen the construction of irrigation works and improve their management in order to ensure stable yields despite drought.
5) Implement scientific farming practices, including the application of optimum amounts of fertilizer and the use of crop rotation methods.
6) Transform mono-crop systems into a mixed system of crops and grass.

More details ... download the full reports and see results and general conclusions from other study sites
	WP3.1 Stakeholder Workshop 1: China (1st report) 473.42 kB
	WP3.1 Stakeholder Workshop 1: China (2nd report) 580.91 kB
»Identifying strategies: Stakeholder Workshop 1 methodology and summary results from all study sites