Desertification of Inner Mongolia

Explanation: This week's main photo, above, displays a shuttered tourist center about to be engulfed by massive sand dunes tumbling over the hills behind.

This is a case of desertification, or the massive conversion of grassland steppe country to sandy sterile desert. Contributing to the cause has been overgrazing by livestock, increased conversion of land to permanent human habitations, and changes by the government from the historic seasonally-migratory grazing movements of the original Mongolian peoples to permanent occupation and overuse of rangelands. Other causes include climate shifts and additional socioeconomic factors.

My awareness and work on the issues of increased aridity and desertification in Nei Mongol (Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region), China, goes back some 18 years. Then, I was called upon to help evaluate the environmental situation and work with a binational Chinese-American team to pose some next steps in evaluation and remediation.

The issue remains, and since my time here, major projects have been created to help turn the tide.

Human activities have created the problem, including increased aridity from regional climate change.

As I had seen elsewhere, further south in Tibet, a governmental program now is racing after this crisis with programs to stabilize dunes and encourage plantings of native and exotic shrubs and trees.

Information:
     Feng, Q., H. Ma, X. Jiang, X. Wang, and S. Cao. 2015. What has caused desertification in China? Scientific Reports 5:Article number: 15998.
     Feng, Q., Y. Tian, T. Yu, Z. Yin, and S. Cao. 2019. Combating desertification through economic development in northwestern China. Land Degradation & Development 30(8):910-917.
     Li, S. G., Y. Harazono, T. Oikawa, H. L. Hao, Z. Y. He, and X. L. Chang. 2000. Grassland desertification by grazing and the resulting micrometeorological changes in Inner Mongolia. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 102(2-3):125-137.

EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week