Livestock grazing significantly accelerates soil erosion more than climate change in Qinghai-Tibet Plateau: Evidenced from 137Cs and 210Pbex measurements

Li, Yong; Li, Junjie; Are, Kayode Steven; Huang, Zhigang; Yu, Han‐Qing; Zhang, Qingwen

doi:10.1016/j.agee.2019.106643

Cited by 60 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Overgrazing by livestock has been recorded to degrade grasslands by accelerating soil erosions [69]. It also serves as a critical factor that influences productivity, vegetation structure, and grassland nutrition [70]; stimulates landscape fragmentation [71]; deteriorates grassland vegetation [22,57]; and induces grassland degradation [34]. The design of effective management strategies for livestock grazing may require an in-depth understanding of the impact of grazing across the QTP [33].…”

Section: Degradation Due To Intensive Overgrazingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…3. GrazingAltered the surface of the grassland physical environment, changed the belowground biomass, accelerated soil erosion and the loss of soil nutrients, increased landscape fragmentation, altered the plant life form as well as the plant population, decreased the plant species abundance, altered the composition and structure of plant communities, decreased soil moisture, and negatively influenced grassland vegetation [2,22,[69][70][71][102][103][104][105]. Burrowing activities of rodents; pikas (Ochotona curzoniae) and zoko (Eospalax fontanierii)…”

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confidence: 99%

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Status and Challenges of Qinghai–Tibet Plateau’s Grasslands: An Analysis of Causes, Mitigation Measures, and Way Forward

et al. 2020

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Grassland ecosystems on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau (QTP) provide numerous ecosystem services and functions to both local communities and the populations living downstream through the provision of water, habitat, food, herbal medicines, and shelter. This review examined the current ecological status, degradation causes, and impacts of the various grassland degradation mitigation measures employed and their effects on grassland health and growth in the QTP. Our findings revealed that QTP grasslands are continually being degraded as a result of complex biotic and abiotic drivers and processes. The biotic and abiotic actions have resulted in soil erosion, plant biomass loss, soil organic carbon loss, a reduction in grazing and carrying capacity, the emergence of pioneer plant species, loss of soil nutrients, and an increase in soil pH. A combination of factors such as overgrazing, land-use changes, invasive species encroachment, mining activities, rodent burrowing activities, road and dam constructions, tourism, migration, urbanization, and climate change have caused the degradation of grasslands on the QTP. A conceptual framework on the way forward in tackling grassland degradation on the QTP is presented together with other appropriate measures needed to amicably combat grassland degradation on the QTP. It is recommended that a comprehensive and detailed survey be carried out across the QTP to determine the percentage of degraded grasslands and hence, support a sound policy intervention.

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Section: Degradation Due To Intensive Overgrazingmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Status and Challenges of Qinghai–Tibet Plateau’s Grasslands: An Analysis of Causes, Mitigation Measures, and Way Forward

et al. 2020

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“…The interaction effects between grazing activities and slope were the main interaction. This conclusion was related to the study of Li L. et al (2019) and Yang C. et al (2021), in the southeastern part of the QTP, the vegetation was relatively lush and mostly forest (Li et al, 2019b;Yang C. et al, 2021). The forest ecosystem was the dominant ecosystem in the above regions.…”

Section: Response Of Habitat Quality To Grazing Activitiesmentioning

confidence: 78%

“…In general, grazing activities is one of the most important activities, although the extent of grazing activities shows large spatial differences on the QTP. The grazing activities is weak in the southern part of the QTP, and strong in the central and southern part of Qinghai province and the northeast part of the QTP (Li et al, 2019b). There are many precious animals on the QTP, such as the golden monkey, Tibetan antelope, wild yak, Tibetan wild donkey, argali sheep, snow leopard and so on (Huang et al, 2020).…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Responses of Habitat Quality and Animal Biodiversity to Grazing Activities on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Liu

Wang

et al. 2021

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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Grazing activities perhaps lead to habitat quality degradation and animal biodiversity loss while the effects on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) is still relatively poorly studied. Based on the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs model, geographical detector model and generalized linear mixed model, the responses of habitat quality and animal biodiversity to grazing activities at 5 km grid scale were analyzed. Results showed that the overall habitat quality on the QTP was high with 76.43% of the total area, and poor level accounted for 19.56%. High level habitat was mainly distributed in the southern part, while the poor level in the northern part. The mean grazing activity explanatory ability to habitat quality, bird species richness and mammal richness were 0.346, 0.430, and 0.354. The interaction effects between slope and grazing activities on habitat quality, bird species richness and mammal richness were the most important interaction effects, and the area affected by the interaction was 73.82, 46.00, and 46.17% of habitat quality, bird species richness and mammal richness, respectively. The interaction effects on habitat quality, bird species richness and mammal richness all showed “low in the northwest and high in the southeast”. Grazing activities and habitat quality had a positive correlation while bird species richness, and mammal richness negative correlations. The spatial relationship of grazing activities of habitat quality was “higher in the middle and lower around the periphery”, while the spatial distribution of grazing activities of bird species richness and mammal richness was “higher in the east and lower in the west”. This study explicitly revealed the responses of habitat quality and animal biodiversity to grazing activities, thus providing references for biodiversity conservation on the QTP.

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“…Research shows that grasslands have a high potential to sequester more carbon in the soil [6]. However, they face problems of shrinkage and degradation [7,8] owing to overgrazing and poor management practices. To overcome these problems, it is necessary to devise more advanced methods to enhance grassland productivity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soil and Grassland Effects on Grassland Net Photosynthesis in Gannan, China, from 2000 to 2018

Nazieh¹,

Zhang²

2021

Preprint

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What is the ideal soil-grass combination for maximum photosynthesis? In this study, we investigated how soil and grassland types affect photosynthesis in the grasslands of Gannan, China. We divided the grasslands of Gannan into 166 study sites, each with a unique soil-grass combination by intersecting the soil and ecoregion maps using ArcGIS. We obtained 19 years of data on the Net Photosynthesis (PsnNet) of grasslands in the area from 2000 to 2018 and then divided them into “growing season” (June to September) and “non-growing season” (October top May). Between 2000 and 2018, PsnNet of grasslands showed a gradually increasing trend. The effect of soil type on PsnNet was not significant during the growing season. However, it was highly significant during the non-growing season. Among the soil types, grasses that grew in Mollic, Gelic, and Haplic soils had the highest rate of photosynthesis. The difference in PsnNet among the various grass types was highly significant during both seasons. However, Tropical and Subtropical succulent evergreen broad-leaf shrubs and Temperate meadows had the highest rate of photosynthesis. Additionally, there was a highly significant difference in PsnNet among the various soil-grass interactions. In the growing season, TStEgBLS growing Eutric soils had the highest PsnNet. However, SaDBLS growing in Gelic soils had the the highest.

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Livestock grazing significantly accelerates soil erosion more than climate change in Qinghai-Tibet Plateau: Evidenced from 137Cs and 210Pbex measurements

Cited by 60 publications

References 30 publications

Status and Challenges of Qinghai–Tibet Plateau’s Grasslands: An Analysis of Causes, Mitigation Measures, and Way Forward

Status and Challenges of Qinghai–Tibet Plateau’s Grasslands: An Analysis of Causes, Mitigation Measures, and Way Forward

Responses of Habitat Quality and Animal Biodiversity to Grazing Activities on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Soil and Grassland Effects on Grassland Net Photosynthesis in Gannan, China, from 2000 to 2018

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