the unccd has been ratified by over 190 countries. it is the attempt by nations, both rich and poor to control the scourge of desertification. the definition of which is “land degradation in arid, semiarid, and dry subhumid areas resulting from various factors, including climatic variations and human activities. it is now widely accepted that desertification is not the relentless advance of des...

Afforestation of agricultural lands has been one of the major land use changes in China in recent decades. To better understand the effect of such land use change on soil quality, we investigated selected soil physical, chemical and microbial properties (0-15 cm depth) in marginal agricultural land and a chronosequence of poplar (Populus euramericana cv. 'N3016') plantations (5-, 10-, 15- and 2...

Caragana microphylla (Leguminosae) is a dominant climax semishrub species in northern China. We evaluated genetic variation within and among populations sampled from three different environmental gradients in Horqin Sandy Land in northern China using intersimple sequence repeats markers and investigated the possible existence of relationships between genetic diversity and environmental factors....

Organic carbon (OC) sequestration in degraded semi-arid environments by improved soil management is assumed to contribute substantially to climate change mitigation. However, information about the soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration potential in steppe soils and their current saturation status remains unknown. In this study, we estimated the OC storage capacity of semi-arid grassland soils ...

Inappropriate land use has caused a series of environmental disasters such as floods and sand storms, and some of them involved unused land changes with highly localized distributions in arid and semi-arid regions with fragile ecosystems. As the third-rank category of first-level land use/cover in China, unused land (UL) is now playing an increasingly important role in protection of the natural...

there are more than 750 counties in 13 provinces and autonomous regionsconstituting 30% of china lands which are facing serious problem of desertification. theseareas are mainly distributed in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas in the western part ofnortheast china, north central china and most of northwest china. biological methods are theultimate way for drift sand stabilization and a fu...

this study aims to quantify the impacts of land use changes on ecosystem service value during large scale land development, and to provide key information for both economic development and policy makers for eco-environmental protection. the study area locates in manas river watershed which is a typical land development region in northwest china. landsat mss/tm/etm+ images in 1976, 1989, 1999 a...