Relation between some variations of soil and surface vegetation and desertization in agriculture-pasture interlacing zone – An example from Kangbao County, North Hebei, China

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Sheng, Xue-bing | Liu, Yun-xia | Sun, Jian-zhong

Affiliations: Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China

Abstract: The studied agriculture-pasture interlacing zone has its specific natural conditions, at which the natural systems areunstable, their self-regulation capability is low and the equilibrium is easily broken, and hence the habitat is fairly vulnerable. During last 20 years the increasing population and livestock, over-reclamation, over-pasturing, over-deforesting, andother intensified negative human activities in the zone resulted in coarsening of surface soil, decrease of organic mater content insoil, reduction of vegetation coverage, variation and degradation of flora structure, and hence in desertization of the land, although average of gales and sandstorms some decreased and the climate tended to be better in the region. However, the frequent sandstorms occurring in the springs of last and present years has attracted much attention. Investigations confirmed that the main cause for the phenomena is the unreasonable human activities rather than the natural factors.

Keywords: agriculture-pasture interlacing zone, soil, sandstorm, desertization

Journal: Journal of Environmental Sciences, vol. 15, no. 1, pp. 112-115, 2003