• Journal of the Korean Society of Environmental Restoration Technology
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.45-76
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• 2000

The purposes of this study were to investigate and understand the present status of various types of "deserts", such as sand desert, gravel desert, rock desert, earth desert, salt desert, desert, rocky desert, gobi desert, sandy desert, clay desert, etc., and the general countermeasures for the combating "desertification" "desertization", and to develop the technologies on the revegetation and restoration for the combating desertification in China. The methods of this study were mainly composed of field surveys on the several experimental sites and research institutes related to combating desertification in China, and examinations on the various technologies for the combating desertification at the Daxing Experimental Station of Beijing Forestry University. The conclusion from this study may be summarized as follows; 1. Status and tendency of desertification in China : China is one of the countries seriously threatened by desertification. Desertification affected areas in China are mainly distributed in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas in China, covering the most regions of the Northeast China (eastern region of Inner-Mongolia), the northern part of the North China (middle and western region of Inner-Mongolia, Shaanxi, Ningsha, Gansu) and the western part of the Northwest China (Xinzang, Qinghai, Xizang). The total area affected by desertification in China is approximately 2.622 million $km^2$. It covers 27.3% of the total territory of China. Until recently, it is estimated that the annual spreading ratio of desertification in China is 2,460 $km^2$. Therefore, desertification is mostly serious problems facing to the Chinese people. 2. The causes and environmental effect of desertification : The desertification in China is mainly caused by compound factors, including natural condition and human activities. In China, the desertification is started by the decrease of precipitation, continuous dry and drought, strong wind, wind and water erosion, land degradation and loss of natural vegetation caused by climate variation, and accelerated by the human activities, such as over-cultivating, over-grazing, over-cutting of woods, irrational use of water resources. Because desertification has affected the geographical features, soil nutrients contents, salinity, vegetation coverage and the functions of ecosystem, the environmental deteriorations in the desertification affected areas are very seriously. 3. The fundamental strategies of combating desertification in China are the increase of education and awareness of people through various mass media, the revision of laws to guarantee operation of Desertification Combating Law and to improve many relating laws and regulations, the application of advanced technologies and training of experts, the establishment of discriminative policies, and increasing arrangement of budget-investment, and so on. China, as a signed country in UNCCD, has made efforts for the combating desertification. Korea is also signed country in UNCCD, so we should play an important role in the desertification combating projects of China for the northest asia and global environmental conservation as well as environmental conservation of Korea.

• Journal of Ecology and Environment
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.228-236
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• 2021

Background: A review of the literature was carried out to study dust and sandstorm (DSS) in terms of its ecosystem processes and relationship to other dryland disasters in Northeast Asia. Drylands are ecosystems that include grasslands, semi-deserts, and deserts, and these types of ecosystems are vulnerable due to their low primary productivity that depends on a small amount of precipitation. Results: Drought, dust, desertification, and winter livestock disasters (called dzud) are unique natural disasters that affect the region. These disasters are related in that they share major causes, such as dryness and low vegetation cover that combine with other conditions, wind, cold waves, livestock, and land-surface energy, to dramatically impact the ecosystem. Conclusions: The literature review in this study illustrates the macroscopic context of the spatial and temporal patterns of DSS according to geography, climate, and vegetation growth in the drylands of Northeast Asia. The effects of ocean climates and human activities were discussed to infer a possible teleconnection effect of DSS and its relations to desertification and dzud.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.422-429
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• 2013

It is generally known that the increase of the Earth surface temperature due to the global warming together with the land desertification by rapid urban development has caused severe climate and weather change. In desert or desertification land, it is observed that there are always severe flooding phenomena, even if desert sand has the high porosity, which could be believed as the favorable condition of rain water infiltration into ground water. The high runoff feature causes possibly another heavy rain by quick evaporation with the depletion of underground water due to the lack of infiltration. The basic physics of desert flooding is reasonably assumed due to the thermal buoyancy of the higher temperature of the soil temperature than that of the rain drop. Considering the importance of this topic associated with water resource management and climate disaster prevention, no systematic investigation has, however, been reported in literature. In this study, therefore, a laboratory scale experiment together with the effort of numerical calculation have been performed to evaluate quantitatively the basic hypothesis of run-off mechanism caused by the increase of soil temperature. To this end, first, of all, a series of experiment has been made repeatedly with the change of soil temperature with well-sorted coarse sand having porosity of 35% and particle diameter, 2.0 mm. In specific, in case 1, the ground surface temperature was kept at $15^{\circ}C$, while in case 2 that was high enough at $70^{\circ}C$. The temperature of $70^{\circ}C$ was tested as this try since the informal measured surface temperature of black sand in California's Coachella Valley up to at 191 deg. $^{\circ}F$ ($88^{\circ}C$). Based on the experimental study, it is observed that the amount of runoff at $70^{\circ}C$ was higher more than 5% compared to that at $15^{\circ}C$. Further, the relative amount of infiltration by the decrease of the surface temperature from 70 to $15^{\circ}C$ is about more than 30%. The result of numerical calculation performed was well agreed with the experimental data, that is, the increase of runoff in calculation as 4.6%. Doing this successfully, a basic but important research could be made in the near future for the more complex and advanced topic for this topic.