Abstract
This research aims to assess the driving factors hindering the effectiveness of these protected areas implemented to counter land degradation and evaluate the services provided by these ecosystems in the North West of China. With Ningxia province, Yanchi County chosen as experimental research area, preferential sampling technique was used with 50 plots of (quadrat) laid for plant community characteristics survey combined with species and biomass measures mainly in three different areas, along with unit price system of evaluating ecosystem services values based on Costanza’s evaluation model also used to quantify the V_ei (Ecosystem Service Value). The results showed both up and down trends of vegetation characteristics in protected areas including E, E1 and E2 year-round enclosure, seasonal and un-enclosed area respectively where anthropogenic disturbance has been prohibited for natural restoration. Moreover, compared to 1999, the total ecosystem service values of the year 2004 increased by 6.75% and those for 2010, 2015 increased by 7.28 and 5.55% respectively, indicating some positive effects of the protected on the total value of the grassland ecosystem service. In addition, regulatory and support services occupied the largest proportions: 52.08 and 32.69% respectively, followed by supply and cultural services 8 and 7% respectively. These results prove that the protected areas are improving the grasslands by reducing the soil loss and increasing their ecosystem services provision. Thus, sustainability and guarantee of the ability of the arid ecosystem to continue to provide the ecological services is important in the management taking into account the limiting factors. Key words: Land degradation, limiting factors, sustainable management, Ecosystem Service Value
Highlights
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) discovered that approximately 60% of the World’s ecosystem services were degraded due to human being disturbance (MEA, 2005)
Many articles related to grassland degradation omitted the crucial impact of the limiting factors of the projects implemented on land degradation in arid zones and the quantification of the services provided by these threatened ecosystems to make decisions and policy makers aware of the need to speed up sustainably the management plans and integrated strategies
This paper aims at analyzing the factors which limit enclosure or artificial fencing implemented for soil management in China especially in the Northern part of the country and provide a numerical value (Qian et al, 2014) of the services provided by the ecosystems in order to draw the attention of the policymakers to continue and reinforce what is being done to overcome the challenges of arid zones degradation which result in the decreasing of those ecosystem services
Summary
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) discovered that approximately 60% of the World’s ecosystem services were degraded due to human being disturbance (MEA, 2005). The degradation of the desert ecosystem has seriously constrained sustainable development so that the arid and semi-arid areas can be quoted among the regions whose economic and social developments are lagging behind in the World especially in China. This paper aims at analyzing the factors which limit enclosure or artificial fencing implemented for soil management in China especially in the Northern part of the country and provide a numerical value (Qian et al, 2014) of the services provided by the ecosystems in order to draw the attention of the policymakers to continue and reinforce what is being done to overcome the challenges of arid zones degradation which result in the decreasing of those ecosystem services
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