Soil - Environmental Transformations - page 77

make our way deeper into the twenty-first century,
an episode of soil erosion that could yet match the
Dust Bowl is emerging in China. The rate and scale
of soil erosion in this country is now so severe
that many feel it could threaten the long-term
economic stability of this powerful nation.

water storage capacity and increasing the threat of
water scarcity ( Guardian , 2008).

4.4.2 The causes of soil erosion

As is often the case with soil erosion, the causes
of China's current soil erosion problems are
multiple and complex. China's rapidly expanding
economy and rising population have clearly placed
pressure on the country's agricultural sector.
These pressures have clearly led to the overuse
and mismanagement of soil resources. Physical
environmental factors also contribute to China's
land degradation issues. Increasing incidents of
droughts in China are clearly contributing to the
country's soil management problems. There is,
however, an additional environmental factor that
is adding to the rate of land degradation in China.
China's Ministry of Land Resources estimates that
there are approximately 239,000 hectares of slope
land in China (Jie, 2010). The greater the angle of
slope associated with land, the more severe soil
erosion processes are likely to be. On sloping land
gravity greatly accelerates soil erosion rates. Given
that 20 per cent of all of China's sloping land is
located in arable agricultural areas, it is clear that
this geomorphological condition is making soil
erosion in China much worse than it would be on
flatter land (Jie, 2010).
Despite these demographic and environmental
forces, political ecology reminds us that it is
important to place soil erosion in the context of the
political and economic circumstances under which
it is generated. Since the late 1970s China has
been going through a period of rapid economic
transformation. This transformation has seen the
opening up of China's economy and the increasing
application of free-market economic principles
within its development strategies. These policies
look likely to lead China to overtake the US as
the world's largest economy. National strategies
for rapid economic expansion have clearly placed
pressure on the agricultural sector to produce
increasing levels of food for commercial export and
to feed the rapidly expanding industrial cities of

4.4.1 The rate and scale of soil
erosion in China: soil erosion
at a national scale?
Between 2005 and 2007 a team of approximately
200 scientists undertook a large-scale survey in
order to estimate the rate and scale of soil ero-
sion in China. This Soil Erosion and Ecological
Safety Expedition revealed some troubling trends.
The survey, which looked at the soils of 7 regions
and 27 provinces, revealed that soil erosion is
now affecting 17 per cent of China's total land
cover (Jie, 2010). This level of soil erosion sees an
estimated 4.5 billion tonnes of soil removed from
the land every year ( Guardian , 2008). The problem
of soil erosion in China is not, however, just
restricted to one or two agricultural areas. The Soil
Erosion and Ecological Safety Expedition found
soil erosion in 30 per cent of all of China's counties
(Jie, 2010).
Beyond the obvious ecological issues, there are
significant socio-economic problems associated
with China's current patterns of land degrada-
tion. Perhaps most disturbing is the prediction
that current rates of soil erosion could see 100
million people in southwest China losing the
land on which they currently make their livelihood
( Guardian , 2008). According to China's own
Ministry of Water Resources, current patterns of
land degradation could also result in an approxi-
mately 40 per cent reduction in China's overall
food production levels (Jie, 2010). Soil erosion in
China is, however, also having knock-on effects for
water management. As the eroded 4.5 billion
tonnes of additional soil sediments enters China's
rivers every year, it is leading to rising incidents of
floods. This bulging sediment load is also clogging-
up the country's 80,000 reservoirs, reducing their