Land degradation and management of red beds in China: Two case studies

Red beds cover approximately 9.5% of China, and are home to approximately 144 million people. In total, 83% of these lands are distributed in humid regions making it an important part of research on red bed soil erosion in China in these areas. This paper presents the main types of land degradation...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of mountain science 2019-11, Vol.16 (11), p.2591-2604
Main Authors: Yan, Luo-bin, Kasanin-Grubin, Milica
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural land
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Ecology
Economic development
Economic growth
Economics
Environment
Environmental degradation
Environmental effects
Environmental protection
Forests
Geography
Land degradation
Mitigation
Mountain regions
Mountainous areas
Mountains
Regional development
Regions
Soil erosion
Support systems
Tourism
Tourism development
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Summary:Red beds cover approximately 9.5% of China, and are home to approximately 144 million people. In total, 83% of these lands are distributed in humid regions making it an important part of research on red bed soil erosion in China in these areas. This paper presents the main types of land degradation in red bed landscapes and the status of current soil erosion in a typical red bed basin, the Nanxiong Basin located in the north of Guangdong Province, China, and establishes the connection between management strategies and regional economic development in humid red bed regions of China. The soil erosive modulus was calculated in the Nanxiong Basin by using RUSLE (The Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation). The results of overlapping analyses demonstrated that appropriate measures, such as the Return Farmland to Forests initiative, should be taken at the junction of central red bed areas and mountainous areas in order to mitigate current soil erosion. Two examples are presented to demonstrate this: the tourism development in Mt. Danxiashan, a noted scenic mountainous area near Nanxiong Basin, and the land degradation mitigation in the Nanxiong Basin. Both examples promote local economic growth while simultaneously protecting the environment. A ‘stakeholder’ strategy is pursued at Mt. Danxiashan, which can help residents to understand their positive effects on the environment as well as increase their income. The second example, in Nanxiong City, showcases how local farmers became stakeholders by implementing contract responsibility and self-support systems for economic forests and terraced land in the 1980s.
ISSN:1672-6316
1993-0321
1008-2786
DOI:10.1007/s11629-019-5560-2