Introduction to Deserts and Desertified Regions in China - Combating Desertification in Asia, Africa and the Middle East - page 3

• Deserts (P:ETP ratio 0.5) and desertified land are mainly distributed in arid,

semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas, covering 13 provinces and autonomous
regions in North-west China (including part of Tibet) and in Northeast China.
Gobi and sandy deserts cover an area of about 1,530,000 km 2 , which is equivalent
to 15.9 % of the national land area. According to Zhu ( 1998 ) the existing
desertified land area in China is 861,600 km 2 , accounting for 8.9 % of the
total land area, of which desertified land induced by water erosion covers
394,000 km 2 , making up 45.7 % of the total desertified area; wind-erosion
induced desertified area is 379,600 km 2 , or 44.1 %; and desertified area caused
by physical and chemical actions (such as secondary salinized land) occupies
88,000 km 2 , or 10.2 %.

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• Desertification in China should not include original desert such as sandy desert,

rocky of gravel desert (gobi), salt desert, wind-erosion related yardang relief and
frigid desert resulting from purely natural factors. The inclusion of the hyper-arid
areas (deserts) distorts the nature of the problem of desertification and its control
and reversal in China.

Keywords Land degradation • Deserts • Geographic distribution • Remediation
efforts • NPP • Dust and sand storms (DSS) • Poverty • Governance • Laws •
Regulations • Development strategy

1 China in Brief

1.1 Area and Administration Regions

China is located in the northern hemisphere with an area of more than 9.6 million
km 2 . It is 5,200 km wide from east to west and 5,500 km long from north to south. It
consists of a number of provincial-level administrative regions including two special
administrative regions, four municipalities directly under the central government.
Twenty-three provinces and five autonomous regions under which there are 331
regional areas, cities, autonomous areas and 2,858 counties. In 2010 there were 11
cities in China with more than two million population in each.

1.1.1 Geographical Location and Population

China consists of land and ocean and lies in the eastern part of the Asian Continent.
It is close to the Pacific in the eastern side and it deeply imbedded into the inland
of Asia in the northwest part. It is located 3 ı 52 0 and 31 ı 10 0 north latitude and 73 ı
40 0 and 135 ı 230 0 east longitude. The neighboring countries are Korea, Mongolia,
Russia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Myanmar (Burma), Vietnam, Malaysia
and Indonesia. China has the largest population in the world with a total population
of 1,334.7 billion by the end of 2009. The official total population figure is almost
certainly an underestimate.