The Sloping Land Conversion Program in China: Effect on the Livelihood Diversification of Rural Households

Liu, Zhen; Lan, Jing

doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2015.01.004

Cited by 97 publications

(63 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…In practice, the definition of "livelihood" differs among countries based on differences in their economic levels, social relationships and environmental conditions [7,8]. In China, there is no standard definition, but for rural residents, the term generally refers to income-generating activities both on and off their farm [9]. The concept of livelihood has gained wide acceptance as a valuable means to analyze the factors that influence human living, well-being and impacts on the ecosystems that sustain them, particularly in the most impoverished and ecologically fragile areas in the developing world [10], such as Inner Mongolia, in northern China.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Government Grassland Conservation Policy on Household Livelihoods and Dependence on Local Grasslands: Evidence from Inner Mongolia, China

Zhen

Yan

et al. 2016

Sustainability

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Abstract:Grassland degradation intensifies human-environment conflicts and adversely affects local residents' livelihoods. To reduce grassland degradation in Inner Mongolia, China, the government has enforced (since 1998) a series of grassland conservation and management policies that restrict the use of grasslands. To ease the impact on the residents' livelihoods, the national and regional governments have offered a series of top-down arrangements to stimulate sustainable use of the grasslands. Simultaneously, local households spontaneously developed bottom-up countermeasures. To determine the effects of these processes, we interviewed members of 135 households using a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods. We analyzed the effects on household dependence on local grasslands and on perceptions of the future of grassland use. Our findings show that the implementation of the grassland conservation policies significantly affected household livelihoods, which in turn affected household use of natural assets (primarily the land), their agricultural assets (farming and grazing activities) and their financial assets (income and consumption), resulting in fundamental transformation of their lifestyles. The households developed adaptation measures to account for the dependence of their livelihood on local ecosystems by initializing strategies, such as seeking off-farm work, leasing pasture land, increasing purchases of fodder for stall-fed animals and altering their diet and fuel consumption to compensate for their changing livelihoods.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of Government Grassland Conservation Policy on Household Livelihoods and Dependence on Local Grasslands: Evidence from Inner Mongolia, China

Zhen

Yan

et al. 2016

Sustainability

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“…As mentioned in Section 3, the elevation, ground slope, aspects, and soil type were used as the classification layers for the construction of similar habitats in this study. Because vegetation restoration is usually considered only in the area where the slope is above 15° in China's Sloping Land Conversion Program [Grain for Green (GFG); Liu & Lan, ] and it is almost impossible to perform GFG in area less than 6°, the area below 6° in this study was masked from the study area. As a result, the terrain slope map was finally divided into a four‐class layer, that is, 6–15° ( V 1 = 1), 15–20° ( V 1 = 2), 20–25° ( V 1 = 3), and 25° and above ( V 1 = 4); the variable of the slope aspect was divided into an eight‐category layer, that is, the east ( V 2 = 1), the southeast ( V 2 = 2), the south ( V 2 = 3), the southwest ( V 2 = 4), the west ( V 2 = 5), the northwest ( V 2 = 6), the north ( V 2 = 7), and the northeast ( V 2 = 8); there are 72 types of soils involved in the study area, which means that the soil type variable takes 72 distinct values; in addition, we classified the elevations by equal interval method, and the study area was divided into 180 types of elevation intervals.…”

Section: Results and Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A novel similar habitat potential model based on sliding‐window technique for vegetation restoration potential mapping

Zhang

Yao

et al. 2019

Land Degrad Dev

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Vegetation restoration potential mapping (VRPM) is of great importance for regional ecosystem restoration planning after long‐term land degradation or short‐term disasters. However, there are some problems to be solved in the current models for evaluating the potential of vegetation restoration. First, the models for VRPM are mostly established based on a knowledge‐driven index system. Although this kind of model is logically rigorous, it relies too much on expert knowledge and is relatively inefficient, especially for large‐area vegetation restoration assessments. Second, because of the spatial heterogeneity, as well as the absence of important indicators, the traditional global‐based evaluation models are difficult to adapt to the entire study area. In this study, an improved data‐driven approach, that is, a sliding‐window based similar habitat potential model, is developed for VRPM. The advantages of the new model include: (a) it is more efficient in determining the importance of each influencing factor without resorting to expert knowledge; (b) it is more locally adaptive than the global model because it performs sample training, rule building, and vegetation restoration potential calculation in each current local window. We provide a case‐study to show the modeling process and result interpretation of the new model.

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“…In the first step, we identified goals of the CRVDP and converted them into quantitative indicators known as an evaluation index, as suggested by many previous studies [33,[35][36][37][38][39][40]. If the policy objectives are too comprehensive to extract explicit indicators explaining the goal, it is recommended that additional work be performed to create a simple and objective index.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of the Comprehensive Rural Village Development Program on Rural Sustainability in Korea

2018

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An imperative challenge emerges from the demand to apply the scientific method in the assessment of recent agricultural and rural policies throughout the world. The objective of the present study was to conduct an ex-post quantitative evaluation of the Comprehensive Rural Village Development Program (CRVDP), a representative rural development policy operated by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, a central government agency in South Korea. The primary purpose of this program is to ensure sustainable rural society. This study found a moderate but significant positive impact of the policy in enhancing the standard of living in rural areas. The present paper concludes with suggesting some policy implications, limitations and future directions of policy evaluation studies.

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The Sloping Land Conversion Program in China: Effect on the Livelihood Diversification of Rural Households

Cited by 97 publications

References 35 publications

Effects of Government Grassland Conservation Policy on Household Livelihoods and Dependence on Local Grasslands: Evidence from Inner Mongolia, China

Effects of Government Grassland Conservation Policy on Household Livelihoods and Dependence on Local Grasslands: Evidence from Inner Mongolia, China

A novel similar habitat potential model based on sliding‐window technique for vegetation restoration potential mapping

The Impact of the Comprehensive Rural Village Development Program on Rural Sustainability in Korea

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