IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/lauspo/v86y2019icp261-267.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Suitable exclosure duration for the restoration of degraded alpine grasslands on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

Author

Listed:
  • Cao, Jianjun
  • Li, Guangdong
  • Adamowski, Jan F.
  • Holden, Nicholas M.
  • Deo, Ravinesh C.
  • Hu, Zeyong
  • Zhu, Guofeng
  • Xu, Xueyun
  • Feng, Qi

Abstract

Exclosures erected to prevent grazing have been widely adopted as a measure for the recovery of degraded grasslands. Many studies have explored the effects of exclosure use on vegetation and soil; these studies, however, were carried out over relatively short-time periods. Given the length of time required for a grassland to fully develop, short-term studies result in a limited understanding of exclosure effectiveness. To address this challenge, this study will use 5-, 13-, 22-, and 39-year exclosure times in an alpine grassland on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, China, to evaluate the influence of exclosure time on species number, aboveground biomass, including both living and dead biomass (i.e. standing dead biomass and litter), and soil water content. To explore the differences between traditional grazing activity and exclosures, seasonal grazing served as a control measure. The results show that species richness was at its lowest after a 39-year exclosure period while the most dominant species remained invariant for both seasonally-grazed and exclosed plots. The greatest increase in living biomass occurred after a 13-year exclosure time; in contrast, the greatest increase in dead biomass occurred after a 39-year exclosure time. Furthermore, the aboveground biomass did not vary with exclosure time. In terms of soil depths ranging from 0-0.30 m, there was little difference in soil water content between seasonally-grazed and exclosed plots. While the soil water content recorded at the 0-0.15 m layer fluctuated somewhat. At the 0.15−0.30 m layer it presented a consistent decreasing trend as exclosure time increased. A 13-year exclosure period proved to be a suitable duration for alpine grassland recovery since, at this stage, living biomass, species richness and soil water content were greater than that of seasonally-grazed grasslands.

Suggested Citation

  • Cao, Jianjun & Li, Guangdong & Adamowski, Jan F. & Holden, Nicholas M. & Deo, Ravinesh C. & Hu, Zeyong & Zhu, Guofeng & Xu, Xueyun & Feng, Qi, 2019. "Suitable exclosure duration for the restoration of degraded alpine grasslands on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 261-267.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:86:y:2019:i:c:p:261-267
    DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.05.008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837719301267
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.05.008?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Cao, Jianjun & Tian, Hong & Adamowski, Jan F. & Zhang, Xiaofang & Cao, Zijian, 2018. "Influences of afforestation policies on soil moisture content in China’s arid and semi-arid regions," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 449-458.
    2. Zheng, Xinyi & Zhang, Junze & Cao, Shixiong, 2018. "Net value of grassland ecosystem services in mainland China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 94-101.
    3. Liu, Yansui, 2018. "Introduction to land use and rural sustainability in China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 1-4.
    4. Zhuang, Minghao & Gongbuzeren, & Zhang, Jian & Li, Wenjun, 2019. "Community-based seasonal movement grazing maintains lower greenhouse gas emission intensity on Qinghai-Tibet Plateau of China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 155-160.
    5. Stephen Perz & Alexander Shenkin & Grenville Barnes & Liliana Cabrera & Lucas Carvalho & Jorge Castillo, 2012. "Connectivity and Resilience: A Multidimensional Analysis of Infrastructure Impacts in the Southwestern Amazon," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 106(2), pages 259-285, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wen Zhao & Yali Yin & Shixiong Li & Jingjing Liu & Yiling Dong & Shifeng Su, 2022. "Soil Microbial Community Varied with Vegetation Types on a Small Regional Scale of the Qilian Mountains," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-15, June.
    2. Xiaomeng Lucock & Keith Woodford & Xilai Li, 2022. "Sustainable Land Use and Livelihood Dynamics in Henan County on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau—A Transdisciplinary Systems Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-22, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Xia, Chengqi & Liu, Zhexi & Suo, Xinhao & Cao, Shixiong, 2020. "Quantifying the net benefit of land use of fruit trees in China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    2. Zhang, Pengyan & Yang, Dan & Qin, Mingzhou & Jing, Wenlong, 2020. "Spatial heterogeneity analysis and driving forces exploring of built-up land development intensity in Chinese prefecture-level cities and implications for future Urban Land intensive use," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    3. Jianglin Lu & Keqiang Wang & Hongmei Liu, 2022. "Residents’ Selection Behavior of Compensation Schemes for Construction Land Reduction: Empirical Evidence from Questionnaires in Shanghai, China," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-29, December.
    4. Lü, Da & Gao, Guangyao & Lü, Yihe & Xiao, Feiyan & Fu, Bojie, 2020. "Detailed land use transition quantification matters for smart land management in drylands: An in-depth analysis in Northwest China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    5. Yang, Yuanyuan & Bao, Wenkai & Liu, Yansui, 2020. "Scenario simulation of land system change in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    6. Weijia Chen & Yongquan Lu & Guilin Liu, 2022. "Balancing cropland gain and desert vegetation loss: The key to rural revitalization in Xinjiang, China," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(3), pages 1122-1145, September.
    7. Wang, Bo & Li, Fan & Feng, Shuyi & Shen, Tong, 2020. "Transfer of development rights, farmland preservation, and economic growth: a case study of Chongqing’s land quotas trading program," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    8. Xu, Tingting & Gao, Jay & Li, Yuhua, 2019. "Machine learning-assisted evaluation of land use policies and plans in a rapidly urbanizing district in Chongqing, China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    9. Yin, Xu & Wang, Jing & Li, Yurui & Feng, Zhiming & Wang, Qianyi, 2021. "Are small towns really inefficient? A data envelopment analysis of sampled towns in Jiangsu province, China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    10. Qinghu Liao & Wenwen Dong & Boxin Zhao, 2023. "A New Strategy to Solve “the Tragedy of the Commons” in Sustainable Grassland Ecological Compensation: Experience from Inner Mongolia, China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-24, June.
    11. Lili Guo & Yuting Song & Mengqian Tang & Jinyang Tang & Bright Senyo Dogbe & Mengying Su & Houjian Li, 2022. "Assessing the Relationship among Land Transfer, Fertilizer Usage, and PM 2.5 Pollution: Evidence from Rural China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(14), pages 1-18, July.
    12. Liu, Yansui & Zhou, Yang, 2021. "Territory spatial planning and national governance system in China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    13. Li, Jintao & Dong, Haoran & Li, Shaoxing, 2024. "Economic development and optimal allocation of land use in ecological emigration area in China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    14. Xia, Min & Zhang, Yanyuan & Zhang, Zihong & Liu, Jingjie & Ou, Weixin & Zou, Wei, 2020. "Modeling agricultural land use change in a rapid urbanizing town: Linking the decisions of government, peasant households and enterprises," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    15. Zehua Wang & Fachao Liang & Sheng-Hau Lin, 2023. "Can socially sustainable development be achieved through homestead withdrawal? A hybrid multiple-attributes decision analysis," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-18, December.
    16. Zhang, Yuanxia & Halder, Pradipta & Zhang, Xiaoning & Qu, Mei, 2020. "Analyzing the deviation between farmers' Land transfer intention and behavior in China's impoverished mountainous Area: A Logistic-ISM model approach," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    17. Yue, Wenze & Wang, Tianyu & Liu, Yong & Zhang, Qun & Ye, Xinyue, 2019. "Mismatch of morphological and functional polycentricity in Chinese cities: An evidence from land development and functional linkage," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    18. Cheng, Mengyao & Wu, Jialu & Li, Chaohui & Jia, Yuanxin & Xia, Xiaohua, 2023. "Tele-connection of global agricultural land network: Incorporating complex network approach with multi-regional input-output analysis," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    19. Wang, Weiwen & Gong, Jian & Wang, Ying & Shen, Yang, 2021. "Exploring the effects of rural site conditions and household livelihood capitals on agricultural land transfers in China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).
    20. Liu, Jing & Jin, Xiaobin & Xu, Weiyi & Sun, Rui & Han, Bo & Yang, Xuhong & Gu, Zhengming & Xu, Cuilan & Sui, Xueyan & Zhou, Yinkang, 2019. "Influential factors and classification of cultivated land fragmentation, and implications for future land consolidation: A case study of Jiangsu Province in eastern China," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:86:y:2019:i:c:p:261-267. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joice Jiang (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/land-use-policy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.