Abstract
Abstract. Karst rocky desertification occurs after vegetation deteriorates as a result of intensive land use, which leads to severe water loss and soil erosion and exposes basement rocks, creating a rocky landscape. Karst rocky desertification is found in humid areas in southwest China, the region most seriously affected by rocky desertification in the world. In order to promote ecological restoration and help peasants out of poverty, the Chinese government carried out the first phase of a rocky desertification control project from 2006 to 2015, which initially contained the expansion of rocky desertification. Currently, the Chinese government is prepared to implement the second phase of the rocky desertification control project, and therefore it is essential to summarise the lessons learned over the last 10 years of the first phase. In this paper, we analyse the driving social and economic factors behind rocky desertification, summarise the scientific research on rocky desertification in the region, and finally identify the main problems facing rocky desertification control. In addition, we put forward several policy suggestions that take into account the perspective of local peasants, scientific research, and China's economic development and urbanisation process. These suggestions include promoting the non-agriculturalization of household livelihoods, improving ecological compensation, strengthening the evaluation of rocky desertification control and dynamic monitoring, and strengthening research on key ecological function recovery technologies and supporting technologies.
Highlights
Karst rocky desertification (RD) is a term used to characterise the process that transforms a karst area covered by vegetation and soil into a bare rocky landscape almost devoid of soil and vegetation in fragile karst ecosystems in tropical and subtropical regions (Yuan, 1997; Wang et al, 2004a)
In order to curb rocky desertification, promote ecological restoration, and help peasants out of poverty, the Chinese government carried out the first phase of a rocky desertification control project between 2006 and 2015, which initially contained the expansion of rocky desertification (Bai, et al, 2013)
In the process of vigorously implementing rocky desertification control, we must pay close attention to the following two facts: first, the environmental consequences of the same human activities in the karst area in southwest China are far heavier than that in similar climate zones because of its special geological and ecological environment; second, the resilience of karst ecosystems is far lower than that in similar climate zones, and so it is very difficult for the ecological system to recover from destruction caused by unreasonable human activities
Summary
Karst rocky desertification (RD) is a term used to characterise the process that transforms a karst area covered by vegetation and soil into a bare rocky landscape almost devoid of soil and vegetation in fragile karst ecosystems in tropical and subtropical regions (Yuan, 1997; Wang et al, 2004a). Degraded land surface vegetation can gradually be restored and water loss and soil erosion can be reduced with timely management, leading to ecological recovery (Lovich and Bainbridge, 1999; Vieira et al, 2015) This has not occurred in the karst areas of southwest China. Because of vegetation deterioration caused by unreasonable human activities, water loss and soil erosion have already taken place This has caused bedrock to be exposed and has initiated a process similar to desertification (Fig. 1). Similar to the situation in karst areas in China, in the Mediterranean, agriculture production and deforestation caused by unreasonable human activities (Kéfi et al, 2007), such as slash-and-burn cultivation and destroying forest for land reclamation, were major causes of rocky desertification. The area has fallen into a vicious cycle of poverty and environmental degradation at different scales (Fig. 4)
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