Abstract

Fighting land degradation of semi-arid and climate-sensitive grasslands are among the most urgent tasks of current eco-political agenda. Northern China and Mongolia are particularly prone to surface transformations caused by heavily increased livestock numbers during the 20th century. Extensive overgrazing and resource exploitation amplify regional climate change effects and trigger intensified surface transformation, which forces policy-driven interventions to prevent desertification. In the past, the region has been subject to major shifts in environmental and socio-cultural parameters, what makes it difficult to measure the extent of the regional anthropogenic impact and global climate change. This article analyses historical written sources, palaeoenvironmental data, and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) temporal series from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) to compare landcover change during the Little Ice Age (LIA) and the reference period 2000–2018. Results show that decreasing precipitation and temperature records led to increased land degradation during the late 17th century. However, modern landcover data shows enhanced expansion of bare lands contrasting an increase in precipitation (Ptotal) and maximum temperature (Tmax). Vegetation response during the early growing season (March–May) and the late grazing season (September) does not relate to Ptotal and Tmax and generally low NDVI values indicate no major grassland recovery over the past 20 years.

Highlights

  • Climate and land cover change, heavy grazing, and agricultural as well as resource exploitation contribute significantly to land degradation and desertification processes in sensitive arid and semi-arid regions of the earth (Burrell et al, 2020; Cowie et al, 2011; Herrmann and Hutchinson, 2005; Pederson et al, 2001; UN, 1994; UNCCD, 2020; Vogt et al, 2011; Zhao et al, 2005)

  • Today, the transition zone from northern China to Inner Mongolia and Mongolia is characterized by a pronounced landcover gradient from moderate forested areas in the south and the south-east to increasingly semi-arid and arid conditions towards the 155 Mongolian Plateau and the extensive grasslands of Inner Mongolia and Mongolia (Fig. 3)

  • China’s policy-driven decision-making processes pushed local to regional programs to prevent land degradation and stabilize sandy 335 areas and grasslands in order to decrease the potential of future soil erosion, surface transformation, and dust transport – a crucial factor, in the context of Beijing’s high vulnerability to increased numbers of sandstorms

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Summary

Introduction

Climate and land cover change, heavy grazing, and agricultural as well as resource exploitation contribute significantly to land degradation and desertification processes in sensitive arid and semi-arid regions of the earth (Burrell et al, 2020; Cowie et al, 2011; Herrmann and Hutchinson, 2005; Pederson et al, 2001; UN, 1994; UNCCD, 2020; Vogt et al, 2011; Zhao et al, 2005). The modern anthropogenic impact on semi-arid environments of the region has recently been emphasized by a great many authors (Cao et al, 2013; Conte and Tilt, 2014; Harris, 2010; Jordan et al, 2016; Kakinuma et al, 2013), isolating the climatic signal affecting land degradation processes from human-induced landcover change still provides a great challenge (Harris, 2010). In 45 this article, historical written sources from 1688 AD were used to evaluate and reconstruct non-standardized climatic and land surface conditions during the Little Ice Age (LIA) in northern China and Mongolia and to compare them to modern landcover development, partly deriving from satellite hyperspectral imagery, Copernicus Global Land Service data, and historical and current climate proxy datasets. The comparison of surface conditions during the late 17th century AD further enables the evaluation of current global climate change and the cross-validation of the strong anthropogenic overprint in semi-arid grasslands of northern China and southern Mongolia (Wu et al, 2015)

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