Developing a Multicollaborative Governance System: A Meta-Analysis for the Inner Mongolia Grassland Region

Grassland degradation is a global challenge for the sustainable development of social-ecological systems (SESs) (CSC 1992; Sneath 1998). As part of the largest grassland in the world—the Eurasian Steppe—and the largest grassland region in China (Han et al. 2009; Li et al. 2012; Wu and Loucks 1992), the Inner Mongolia grassland, stretches over an area of approximately 0.88 million km 2 and accounts for 73 percent of the total area of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (IMAR). Grassland degradation, including some severe desertification, has spread rapidly over the past several decades (Akiyama and Kawamura 2007; Tong et al. 2004; Wu and Ci 2002). As much as 90 percent or more of the region’s grassland is estimated to be degraded to some degree (Enkhe 2009). Grassland degradation has resulted in a number of environmental and economic problems, including desertification, reduction in grassland productivity and biodiversity, and more importantly the frequent occurrence of large-scale dust storms (Wu and Loucks 1992; Liu and Wang 1997; Wu and Overton 2002). In this article, I use the terms “grassland degradation” and “desertification” more broadly to refer to a complex process that results from human activities and climate variations in arid, semiarid, and dry subhumid regions, the consequence of which include soil loss, erosion, loss of fertility, and species change and that, in turn, leads to the permanent loss of grassland productivity (Yang and Wu 2010, 2012). I also define the specific meanings of some terms (such as soil loss and erosion) when necessary.