Description
Book SynopsisThe extreme climate variability that characterizes China's arid rangelands can cause drought and degradation, resulting in dust storms, floods, animal losses, financial hardship and a decline in food availability. Addressing the issues of even greater climate extremes in the future, this book discusses both new approaches and past successes and failures in order to provide the necessary insight to develop sustainable rangeland management strategies, drawing on regional case studies and lessons learned from Australia, Canada and the USA.
Table of ContentsA: Part 1. Introduction 1: The context for the study of rangeland degradation and recovery in China’s pastoral lands 2: Historical degradation episodes in China: socio-economic forces and their interaction with rangeland grazing systems since the 1950s B: Part 2. Mechanisms of rangeland degradation and recovery 3: An analysis of the effects of climate variability in northern China over the past five decades on people livestock and plants in the focus areas 4: Mechanisms of degradation in grazed rangelands 5: The mechanisms of soil erosion processes by wind and water in Chinese rangelands 6: Processes in rangeland degradation, rehabilitation and recovery C: Part 3. Case studies of degradation and recovery 7: Hulunbuir grassland, Inner Mongolia 8: Horqin sandy land, Inner Mongolia 9: Xilingole grassland, Inner Mongolia 10: Ordos plateau, Inner Mongolia 11: Hexi corridor, Gansu 12: Alashan Plateau, Inner Mongolia 13: Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Rangelands 14: Northern Xinjiang D: Part 4. The Future - How to prevent the next major degradation episode 15: Land tenure arrangements, property rights and institutional arrangements in the cycles of rangeland degradation and recovery 16: Monitoring and Evaluation as Tools for Rangeland Management 17: How can the next degradation episode be prevented?
