Participants’ livelihoods compatible with conservation programs: evidence from China’s grain-for-green program in northern Shaanxi Province

Dang, Xiaohu; Zhang, Miao; Xia, Zidun; Fan, Liangxin; Liu, Guobin; Zhao, Gaochang; Tao, Rui; Wei, Xuexiao

doi:10.1007/s10708-020-10147-x

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…On the other hand, rapid urbanization and decreased AFHF employees mean that more and more rural populations migrated to cities and fewer people were engaged in agricultural activities which may decrease human disturbance (such as animal husbandry and forage collection), thereby reducing the stress of the countryside areas within the Loess Plateau and promoting the vegetation growth (Figures 13a–13d and 14a–14d). Meanwhile, stimulated by a series of ecological conservation programs (Figure 15), Grain for Green program, in particular, farmers have switched livelihood activities dominated by subsistence farming into off‐farm activities such as migrant labor and rural business or high market‐oriented horticulture/orchard farming (Dang et al, 2020) and few people were intent on destroying vegetation that has been restored (Yin et al, 2014). Furthermore, economic development and industrialization may also play important role in enhancing farm household income and reducing the pressure on the land‐system to provide livelihoods (Figures 15c and 15d).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rapid Urbanization and Agricultural Intensification Increase Regional Evaporative Water Consumption of the Loess Plateau

Liang

Zhang²,

Jing-bo

et al. 2020

JGR Atmospheres

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Changing evapotranspiration (ET) will impact freshwater availability, knowledge of which is a critical prerequisite for policy development related to water resources management in an evolving climate, especially for water-limited regions. However, the socioeconomic effects are not considered due to the lack of detailed information about this. Here we used a well-validated remote sensing model and multiple socioeconomic factors to investigate the driving factors of ET changes over the Loess Plateau during 1982-2012. Results showed that the modeled annual ET significantly increased by~2 mm yr −2 during this period (p < 0.001), caused by increased transpiration (2.16 mm yr −2) and interception (0.27 mm yr −2), which was partly offset by decreased soil evaporation (−0.47 mm yr −2). Meanwhile, although the average ET of the forest was larger (480.4 ± 14.8 mm yr −1), it was found that the change in total ET of the region was dominated by that in grassland and cropland (1.1 km 3 yr −2 , 90% altogether). Factorial simulations indicated that the intensifying ET over 79.4% and 9.1% of the study area can be explained by vegetation greening and climate change, respectively. Further analysis suggested that the vegetation greening and the increased ET were primarily associated with the rapid urbanization and agricultural intensification. Our findings highlight the potential unfavorable effects of socioeconomic activities on water resources management on this coupled natural-human system that is already facing water scarcity issues. 1. Introduction Water is especially valuable for food production and ecosystem functioning (Immerzeel et al., 2020; Oki & Kanae, 2006). Global trends of population growth, rising living standards, and rapidly increasing urbanization are increasing the demand for water resources (Florke et al., 2013; Steffen et al., 2015; Wada et al., 2014). Added to this is the growing threat of climate change which will have enormous effects on water availability, and thus challenge global sustainable development (Qin et al., 2020). It has been reported that water scarcity affects more than 40% of the global population and is projected to rise. Over 1.7 billion people are currently living in river basins where water use exceeds recharge (https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/ water-and-sanitation/). The contradiction between the supply and demand of water resources is particularly strong in arid and semi-arid regions where these competing uses can be found upstream, downstream, and sometimes across borders (

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rapid Urbanization and Agricultural Intensification Increase Regional Evaporative Water Consumption of the Loess Plateau

Liang

Zhang²,

Jing-bo

et al. 2020

JGR Atmospheres

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“…So, the improvement of farming yield depends largely on the input of agricultural production materials such as chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and mulch. For example, the excessive and irrational use of fertilizers, pesticides and mulch can cause agricultural surface pollution and exacerbate the problem of declining arable land quality, thus creating a vicious cycle of increased reliance on fertilizers, pesticides and mulch for agricultural production inputs [31,32]. In addition, irrational irrigation methods, such as heavy irrigation the imbalance focus on the use of land rather than the maintenance of land are also important causes of increased arable land degradation [33].…”

Section: Theoretical Mechanismsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why Have China’s Poverty Eradication Policy Resulted in the Decline of Arable Land in Poverty-Stricken Areas?

Ran,

Hua,

et al. 2023

Land

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Arable land resources are the basic livelihood security for people in poverty-stricken areas, and poor people are prone to uncontrolled expansion of arable land and exogenous ecological damage to secure their livelihoods. To avoid this vicious cycle, China’s poverty eradication policy requires greater management and restoration of arable land in poverty-stricken areas, but it is unknown what impacts it may bring. Therefore, this study examines the impact of policy implementation on arable land by the Difference-in-Differences (DID) model and uses the mediating and moderating models to test the policy’s mechanism on arable land. The results reveal that the policy significantly reduces the arable land, and the results remain robust, controlling for potential endogeneity variables and robustness tests. What’s more, the results of the mediating and moderating effect models indicate that the reduction of arable land is mainly due to the increase of unit yield, guiding the local people to abandon degraded land and to carry out ecological restoration, thus reducing the arable land area and achieving sustainable development. Finally, recommendations are proposed from the perspective of human-land coordination.

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Social-ecological system management in drylands: experiences from Chinese Ecosystem Research Network

Zhao

2021

Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability

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Participants’ livelihoods compatible with conservation programs: evidence from China’s grain-for-green program in northern Shaanxi Province

Cited by 6 publications

References 44 publications

Rapid Urbanization and Agricultural Intensification Increase Regional Evaporative Water Consumption of the Loess Plateau

Rapid Urbanization and Agricultural Intensification Increase Regional Evaporative Water Consumption of the Loess Plateau

Why Have China’s Poverty Eradication Policy Resulted in the Decline of Arable Land in Poverty-Stricken Areas?

Social-ecological system management in drylands: experiences from Chinese Ecosystem Research Network

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