Human Causes of Aeolian Desertification in Northern China

Aeolian desertification has rapidly developed in the past 50 years in Northern China, covered an area of 0.386 million km2 by 2000, affected nearly 170 million population, and caused the direct and indirect economic loss of about $6.75 (U.S. dollar) billion per year. Here we present several lines of evidence to demonstrate that human activities guided by policy shifts have been a major force to drive aeolian desertification via changes in land-use patterns and intensity. It is suggested that the desertification can be curbed or even reversed by adopting prevention and control measures with ecologically sound land-use practices in China.