Elsevier

Ecological Engineering

Volume 36, Issue 3, March 2010, Pages 247-257
Ecological Engineering

Preface
Soil bio- and eco-engineering in China: past experience and future priorities

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoleng.2009.07.008Get rights and content

Abstract

China has the world's longest history of soil bioengineering, with the first mention of giant fascines to control torrential floodwaters dating from over 2000 BC. However, soil degradation on steep slopes has accelerated hugely over the last 50 years, due to poor farming practice, deforestation, road and dam construction. The central government has therefore devised a series of major programs to reduce the exploitation of forest resources (Natural Forest Protection Program – NFPP) and to rehabilitate steep slopes by encouraging the conversion of cropland to forest and orchards (Sloping Land Conversion Program – SLCP). In this review, we define soil bio- and eco-engineering and examine China's past experience in both domains. We focus on case studies whereby vegetation has been used in conjunction with civil engineering to prevent landslides in Hong Kong and the social and practical aspects of planting on steep slopes to conserve soil on a large-scale in mainland China. The successes and failures of tree planting and forest management in the NFPP and SLCP are discussed along with the priorities for future research and practical applications. This review introduces a special edition of the journal Ecological Engineering, whereby a selection of papers presented at the Second International Conference ‘Ground Bio- and Eco-engineering: The Use of Vegetation to Improve Slope Stability – ICGBE2’ held in Beijing, China, 14–18 July 2008, are published. This congress joined together scientists and practitioners with the aim of discussing new theory, methods and applications for using vegetation to fix soil on steep slopes prone to landslides and erosion. In this review, we consider the key points from the conference and place them in the context of managing and restoring degraded slopes in China, one of the world's most pertinent study sites.

Introduction

Alterations in land use coupled with the consequences of climate change have led to severe degradation of mountainous and hilly regions around the world. In China, a country where two-thirds of the land is made up of hills and mountains, erosion and landslides are largely the result of deforestation, bad farming practice and over-exploitation of resources in the last 50 years (Liu and Diamond, 2005, Stokes et al., 2008a, Cao et al., 2009). Natural processes such as mountain orogeny, floods, earthquakes also lead to substrate mass movement. The 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in the Sichuan Province caused more than 15,000 geohazards in the form of landslides, rockfalls, and debris flows, directly resulting in over 20,000 fatalities (Yin et al., 2009). China is the most populous country in the world and has to combine sustainable land management with crop production on sloping land, as China currently feeds 20% of the world population and possesses 7% of the world's croplands (FAO, 2007). The Chinese government is well aware of the fragile relationship between crop production and over-exploitation of soil resources and thus is currently searching for new solutions to rehabilitate sloping land. China's scientists, foresters, engineers and farmers are looking for innovative, ecological and economic methods for stabilizing soil against erosion and landslides, particularly on steep slopes. It was therefore highly appropriate to hold the Second International Conference ‘Ground Bio- and Eco-engineering: The Use of Vegetation to Improve Slope Stability – ICGBE2’ in Beijing, China, 14–18 July 2008. This meeting joined together scientists and practitioners with the aim of discussing new methods for experimental procedures, numerical modelling and with an emphasis on practical applications. A selection of papers presented at the conference are included in this special edition of Ecological Engineering. This preface considers the key points from the conference and places them in the context of managing and restoring degraded slopes in China, one of the world's most pertinent study sites.

Section snippets

What is ground, or soil, bio- and eco-engineering?

The terms ground (soil) bio- and eco-engineering have been coined by various authors, but confusion exists as to the exact definition of each. It appears that the term bioengineering was first used as the translation from the German word ‘Ingenieurbiologie,’ which described the work that encompassed both engineering and biology. The English translation of the first major book covering this topic was called ‘Bioengineering for Land Reclamation and Conservation’ written by Dr. H.M. Schiechtl in

History of soil bioengineering

The earliest references to examples of bioengineering can be found in Chinese history books. The first ruler and founder of the Xia Dynasty was Yu the Great, born in 2059 BC. Born a civilian, Yu was recruited by King Shun to control torrential river waters and instead of building earthen dikes to contain the flood waters (as his father did before him), he dredged new river channels for nine major rivers, serving as outlets for the torrential waters and as irrigation conduits for farmers. For

Soil bio- and eco-engineering outside mainland China: Taiwan

In addition to China, Taiwan shares the same rich Chinese cultural heritage in everyday living and also has to combat the threat of floods through river management. However, in Taiwan, this threat was never alleviated, therefore, debris flows became increasingly common, and people lost open spaces to ever-rising levees. The concept of bioengineering first emerged in Taiwan around 1998 as the government began experimenting with this concept to preserve natural beauty and animal habitats. Since

Soil bio- and eco-engineering outside mainland China: Hong Kong

Hong Kong experiences a unique sub-tropical monsoon climate, mountainous topography and heavily weathered soils. Historically, the Hong Kong region has experienced high rates of erosion and slope instability. Due to numerous landslides and associated loss of life, the Geotechnical Control/Engineering Office (GCO/GEO regulatory authority) became very active in the study and implementation of improving slope stability, including studying the level of protection and stabilization that vegetation

Soil bio- and eco-engineering outside China

At around the same era as Li Peng was working on the River Min, in Europe both Sophocles (496–406 BC) and Pliny (23–79 AD) refer to the need for limiting intensive farming and improving soil conservation on slopes (Stokes et al., 2004). With regard to forests, the first rules recognizing the protective function of forests by limiting forest clearing activities can be found in documents and regulations of the Republic of Venice from as early as the 13th and 14th centuries (Bischetti et al., in

Soil bioengineering successes in China

Few recent successful soil bioengineering cases have been recorded on steep slopes in mainland China; however, successful projects exist in Hong Kong where heavy monsoon rains cause an average of 350 natural terrain landslides to occur each year. Natural terrain covers approximately 60% of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) land area. Due to the size of the area and the frequent occurrence of landslides, the Hong Kong Government is interested in soil bioengineering measures to

The world's largest eco-engineering projects?

China's leaders are well-aware of the rapid degradation of land and the desperate need for a strategy to conserve soil, particularly in steep terrain. Since the 1970s, several national programs have been instigated in mainland China. Ten national forestry eco-engineering projects oriented to soil and water conservation, environmental protection and forest resources expansion have been carried out since 1978. Recently, the Chinese government integrated all former ten forestry programs under the

Future priorities

Although environmentalists blame deforestation and agriculture for soil degradation (Stokes et al., 2008a, Stokes et al., 2008b), 80% of landslides in China are as a result of human activities, in particular dam-building and road construction. A major new problem to be faced is the building of new roads linking villages to towns. The central government wishes that all administrative towns and villages in mainland China be linked by roads by 2010. The total mileage of rural roads has thus

Conclusion

China has a huge workforce. It is relatively easy to carry out large-scale mitigation actions with regard to soil bio- and eco-engineering. However, once the action has taken place, whether it be the installation of live crib walls or the simple but large-scale planting of trees, a minimum of maintenance is needed on the site, at least during the most fragile period after installation. If the local government does not undertake the maintenance itself, monetary incentives are needed so that

Acknowledgements

Funding for AS and MG was received from INRA (Jeune Equipe), CNRS (EcoPente project) and AgroParisTech, France. AMAP (Botany and Computational Plant Architecture) is a joint research unit which associates CIRAD (UMR51), CNRS (UMR5120), INRA (UMR931), IRD (2M123), and Montpellier 2 University (UM27). Thanks are due to the Chinese Academy of Sciences and LIAMA, in particular B. Hong and X. Zhang, for their help in the organization of the ICGBE2 Conference.

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