Fruit · Shaanxi, Shanxi, Gansu and Inner Mongolia, China · 1994 to 2005 (and since)
Loess Plateau
Farming families on China's most eroded land rebuilt about 35,000 km² of hills and gullies, and more than 2.5 million people moved out of poverty.
about 35,000 km² in two World Bank projects
See it change from space
Google Earth Timelapse shows every year since 1984. Press play, and watch the land change.
The story
The Loess Plateau is home to more than 50 million people. Centuries of overuse and overgrazing on its dry, powdery soil led to one of the highest erosion rates in the world, and to deep poverty.
In 1994 the Chinese government and the World Bank began the first Loess Plateau Watershed Rehabilitation Project, covering 15,600 km² in nine tributary watersheds of the Yellow River. A second project followed in 1999 and covered about 19,500 km² across 37 counties. Both closed in 2005.
Farmers moved crops off steep slopes onto wide, level terraces. Villages built key dams, warping dams and small check dams in the gullies to catch sediment and store water. The slopes were closed to grazing and planted with trees, shrubs and grasses, and animals were raised in pens instead.
The grazing ban worked so well in the project areas that provincial leaders took it up across most of the plateau, an area of more than 500,000 km². Vegetation came back on its own wherever goats and sheep were kept out.
The project's leaders said the change was clearest when compared with photos from the 1990s. Satellites now show a much greener plateau, and the approach has been copied across China.
How they did it
- Built wide, level terraces so crops could leave the steep slopes
- Built key dams, warping dams and check dams in gullies to trap silt and store water
- Closed slopes to free grazing and raised animals in pens with cut fodder
- Planted trees, shrubs and grasses on slopes, with fruit and nut trees for income
- Small water tanks to catch runoff for villages and gardens
What changed
- More than 2.5 million people in Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu and Inner Mongolia moved out of poverty.[1]
- Incomes in project households grew from about US$70 to about US$200 per person per year.[1]
- Perennial vegetation cover rose from 17 to 34 percent.[1]
- Sediment flowing into the Yellow River fell by more than 100 million tonnes a year.[1]
- The second project alone built 80,832 ha of terraces and 2,117 dams, and planted 109,000 ha of trees and 71,000 ha of shrubs.[2]
- Forest along the middle Yellow River grew by 44 percent after 2000, from 26,000 km² to 33,000 km².[4]
Who did it
Farming families and village communities in four provinces and regions did the work, with county project offices, local bulldozer operators and the Yellow River Conservancy Commission. The Government of China funded it with World Bank loans and credits. Filmmaker John D. Liu recorded the change from 1995 in his films, including Green Gold.
Worth knowing
Researchers warn that revegetation on the plateau is nearing the limits of the water available, which could reduce water for people downstream.
Not all of the greening is from these two projects. China's national Grain for Green programme and other schemes have also planted large areas, and scientists say planting should match what each place can support.
The poverty and income figures come from the World Bank's own reporting.
What we can take from it
- Stopping free grazing can let land heal itself faster and cheaper than planting alone.
- Restoration lasts when it pays: terraces, orchards and penned animals gave farmers better incomes.
- Careful records of every plot helped funds reach the work on the ground.
Watch
Sources
- 1.Restoring China's Loess Plateau (archived copy; the live page now returns 404) · World Bank · Official
- 2.Implementation Completion Report: Second Loess Plateau Watershed Rehabilitation Project · World Bank · Report
- 3.Loess Plateau Watershed Rehabilitation Project (P003540) · World Bank · Official
- 4.Reforestation in China: wooded areas at the Yellow River have increased by 44 percent · German Aerospace Center (DLR) · Satellite
- 5.Revegetation in China's Loess Plateau is approaching sustainable water resource limits (Feng et al. 2016, Nature Climate Change) · IDEAS/RePEc listing · Research
- 6.A New Regionalization Scheme for Effective Ecological Restoration on the Loess Plateau in China (Chen et al. 2017) · Remote Sensing (MDPI) · Research
- 7.China and India Lead the Way in Greening · NASA Earth Observatory · Satellite
- 8.Green Gold (film page) · Films for the Earth · Film
More places brought back
Fazenda Bulcão, Aimorés, Minas Gerais, Brazil · 1998 to now
Instituto Terra
608 hectares of Atlantic Forest
When the Salgados came home to Aimorés in the 1990s, the family farm was bare and eroded. Lélia suggested they plant the forest back. Two decades on, the hills are forested, many species have returned and dry streams flow again.
Maradi and Zinder regions, southern Niger · 1983 to now
Niger's farmer-managed regreening
about 5 million hectares
After the droughts of the 1970s and 1980s, southern Niger's farmland was nearly bare. Farmers began protecting the shoots of living tree stumps in their fields. The trees came back across millions of hectares, at very low cost.
Tigray, northern Ethiopia · 1991 to 2020
Tigray
more than 1 million hectares
After famine and war in the 1980s, Tigray's communities spent about 30 years terracing hills, building check dams and closing worn-out land to grazing. Groundwater came back, irrigation grew from about 40 to almost 40,000 hectares, and the region won a UN-backed gold award in 2017. The 2020 to 2022 war took a terrible toll on people and on this work.