Re-orienting ecological restoration in degraded drylands for a more sustainable soil-water relationship: Non-linear boundary of limited water resources in combating soil loss

Jiang, Chong1,2,3; Wang, Xinchi4; Zhang, Haiyan5; Labzovskii, Lev6; Wang, Jun1,2; Liu, Tong7

2019-08

10.1016/j.jaridenv.2019.05.002

JOURNAL OF ARID ENVIRONMENTS   影响因子和分区

0140-1963

1095-922X

Ecological restoration efforts to combat soil loss often fail to deliver the expected benefits despite enormous investments. Better understanding the close relationships between climate, vegetation, and non-linear ecosystem dynamics can help restoration activities meet their intended goals. The severely eroded Loess Plateau (LP) was selected for a case study to investigate the underlying drivers of soil retention change and their non-linear constraint impacts. The soil retention function was substantially enhanced during 2000-2015, while the water yield function was weakened. Both the favourable changes in climate conditions (i.e., increasing precipitation and declining evapotranspiration) and governmental policies for soil and water conservation and ecological restoration promoted vegetation restoration and expansion, thereby strengthening the soil retention function. Consequently, water and sediment yields declined significantly. The relationship between water yield and soil retention is non-linear and shows that the two ecosystem functions can be either in synergy or in trade-off according to the level of vegetation cover. We observed that the vegetation cover had an upper threshold (i.e., 50%) for controlling the soil erosion because of the limited water condition (rainfall), which implies that the effect of vegetation on reducing the water erosion reached its maximum capacity when the plant cover was 50%. Considering the limited water conditions in drylands, to minimize the trade-off between the water yield and soil retention and to maximize the effectiveness of ecological restoration programs, it is recommended that the overall vegetation cover in the LP be controlled at approximately 30-40%, i.e., without exceeding 50%. Currently, the non-linear constraint effects of the water condition and vegetation cover on the soil retention are yet to be thoroughly understood. Moreover, practical policy recommendations require further field-based observations and experimental studies.

Soil retention Water yield Non-linearity Constraint effect Ecological restoration

SCI ; SSCI

英语

其他

Guangzhou Science and Technology Project[201804010126] ; Guangzhou Science and Technology Project[201803030025]

Environmental Sciences & Ecology

Ecology ; Environmental Sciences

WOS:000471082000011

ACADEMIC PRESS LTD- ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD

ENVIRONMENT/ECOLOGY

Web of Science

1.Guangzhou Inst Geog, Guangdong Open Lab Geospatial Informat Technol &, Guangzhou 510070, Guangdong, Peoples R China
2.Key Lab Guangdong Utilizat Remote Sensing & Geog, Guangzhou 510070, Guangdong, Peoples R China
3.Beijing Normal Univ, Coll Global Change & Earth Syst Sci, Beijing 100875, Peoples R China
4.Southern Univ Sci & Technol, Sch Environm Sci & Engn, Shenzhen 518055, Peoples R China
5.Chinese Acad Sci, Inst Geog Sci & Nat Resources Res, Beijing 100101, Peoples R China
6.Natl Inst Meteorol Sci, Div Climate Res, Jeju Do 63568, South Korea
7.Guangdong Inst Ecoenviron Sci & Technol, Guangdong Key Lab Integrated Agroenvironm Pollut, Guangzhou 510650, Guangdong, Peoples R China

Jiang, Chong,Wang, Xinchi,Zhang, Haiyan,et al. Re-orienting ecological restoration in degraded drylands for a more sustainable soil-water relationship: Non-linear boundary of limited water resources in combating soil loss[J]. JOURNAL OF ARID ENVIRONMENTS,2019,167:87-100.

Jiang, Chong,Wang, Xinchi,Zhang, Haiyan,Labzovskii, Lev,Wang, Jun,&Liu, Tong.(2019).Re-orienting ecological restoration in degraded drylands for a more sustainable soil-water relationship: Non-linear boundary of limited water resources in combating soil loss.JOURNAL OF ARID ENVIRONMENTS,167,87-100.

Jiang, Chong,et al."Re-orienting ecological restoration in degraded drylands for a more sustainable soil-water relationship: Non-linear boundary of limited water resources in combating soil loss".JOURNAL OF ARID ENVIRONMENTS 167(2019):87-100.