Abstract
Abstract. Desertification in semi-arid regions is currently a global environmental and societal problem. This research attempts to understand whether a 40-year-old rain-fed Artemisia sphaerocephala Krasch sand-fixing land as part of the Three North Shelterbelt Program (3NSP) of China can be developed sustainably or not using a newly designed lysimeter to monitor the precipitation-induced deep soil recharge (DSR) at 220 cm of depth. Evapotranspiration is calculated through a water balance equation when precipitation and soil moisture data are collected. A comparison of soil particle sizes and soil moisture distributions in artificial sand-fixing land and neighboring bare land is made to assess the impact of sand-fixing reforestation. Results show that such a sand-fixing reforestation results in a root system being mainly developed in the horizontal direction and a changed soil particle distribution. Specifically, the sandy soil with 50.53 % medium sand has been transformed into a sandy soil with 68.53 % fine sand. Within the Artemisia sphaerocephala Krasch sand-fixing experimental area, the DSR values in the bare sand plot and Artemisia sphaerocephala Krasch plot are respectively 283.6 and 90.6 mm in wet years, reflecting a difference of more than 3 times. The deep soil layer moisture in semi-arid sandy land is largely replenished by precipitation-induced infiltration. The DSR values of the bare sandy land plot and Artemisia sphaerocephala Krasch plot are respectively 51.6 and 2 mm in dry years, a difference of more than 25 times. The proportions of DSR reduced by Artemisia sphaerocephala Krasch are 68.06 % and 96.12 % in wet and dry years, respectively. This research shows that Artemisia sphaerocephala Krasch in semi-arid regions can continue to grow and has the capacity to fix sand. It consumes a large amount of precipitated water and reduces the amount of DSR considerably.
Highlights
Desertification is currently a global environmental and societal concern (Reynolds et al, 2007b)
The results show that the Artemisia sphaerocephala Krasch (ASK) root system in this area is mainly developed in the horizontal direction, which confirms that rainfall is the main water supply for plants in the Mu Us sandy land
The results show that the characteristics of precipitationinduced deep soil recharge (DSR) in the sandy land plot and the ASK plot are different
Summary
Desertification is currently a global environmental and societal concern (Reynolds et al, 2007b). A total of 20 % of these areas have experienced serious land degradation, which is expected to affect the survival of 250 million people (Reynolds et al, 2007a; Dregne and Chou, 1992; D’Odorico et al, 2013). Up to 2010, the total desertification area in China was 2 623 700 km, which is 27.33 % of the country’s entire land area. Within this percentage, the arid region desertification area is 1 158 600 km (44.16 % of the total desertification area of China), the semi-arid region desertification area is 971 600 km (37.03 % of the total desertification area of China), and the sub-humid arid region desertification area is 493 500 km
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