How ecological restoration alters ecosystem services: an analysis of carbon sequestration in China's Loess Plateau

Abstract

Restoring disturbed and over-exploited ecosystems is important to mitigate human pressures on natural ecosystems. China has launched an ambitious national ecosystem restoration program called Grain to Green Program (GTGP) over the last decade. By using remote sensing techniques and ecosystem modelling, we quantitatively evaluated the changes in ecosystem carbon sequestration since China's GTGP program during period of 2000–2008. It was found the NPP and NEP in this region had steadily increased after the initiative of the GTGP program, and a total of 96.1 Tg of additional carbon had been sequestered during that period. Changes in soil carbon storage were lagged behind and thus insignificant over the period, but was expected to follow in the coming decades. As a result, the Loess Plateau ecosystem had shifted from a net carbon source in 2000 to a net carbon sink in 2008. The carbon sequestration efficiency was constrained by precipitation, and appropriate choices of restoration types (trees, shrubs, and grasses) in accordance to local climate are critical for achieving the best benefit/cost efficiency.

The role of climatic and anthropogenic stresses on long-term runoff reduction from the Loess Plateau, China

“…The construction of sedimenttrapping dams and terraces will improve water-rich land and hence improve the ES of food production in the CM (Lü et al, 2012). Revegetation will not only reduce soil erosion from hill slopes (Feng et al, 2010), but will also enhance carbon sequestration (Feng et al, 2013). According to Lü et al (2012), water yield decreased across the entire Loess Plateau at an average rate of 10.3 mm year −1 during 2000-2008; however this was accompanied by a 3.4 billion tonne increase in annual average soil retention, 12.2 Tg increase in carbon sequestration and a 1.3 times increase in grain production.…”

Erosion-induced massive organic carbon burial and carbon emission in the Yellow River basin, China

“…An enrichment ratio of 1.1 was used to estimate the eroded OC from the topsoils. Furthermore, given that the sediments from gully erosion represent ∼ 50 % of the total (Xu, 1999;Zhao, 1996;Jing et al, 1998) and the lower SOC content of the subsoils relative to the topsoils (Wang et al, 2008;Feng et al, 2013), the enrichment ratio for half of the eroded soils from the subsoils was estimated at 0.8. The total eroded SOC was estimated at 1.07 ± 0.15 Gt during the period 1950-2010.…”

“…Feng et al (2013) investigated the Loess Plateau's ecosystem carbon storage dynamics and discovered its ecosystem had been a C source until 2000 when national vegetation restoration programs were launched. They found that the annual net ecosystem productivity was −0.011 Gt in 2000 and it had increased only in recent years.…”

Vegetation changes in recent large-scale ecological restoration projects and subsequent impact on water resources in China's Loess Plateau

“…In order to address the serious environmental and ecological issues, a series of large-scale ecological restoration projects were carried out throughout the world (Allana et al, 2013), and China has also taken efforts in such actions since the 1950s (Huang et al, 2009). Recently, two large-scale ecological restoration projects, i.e., the Natural Forest Conservation (NFC) project and the Grain for Green (GFG) project, have been launched to improve vegetation coverage in the Loess Plateau of North China (Feng et al, 2013;Liu et al, 2008). Undoubtedly, changes in vegetation directly or indirectly modify biosphere-atmosphere interactions, including the hydrological cycle and energy budgets Chapin et al, 2005).…”