Several Issues on Aridification in the Northern China
中国北方干旱化的几个问题

Based on our surveys and site investigations on environmental changes in the western area of Northeast China (mainly the western area of jilin province) and the eastern area of Inner Mongolia, the present statue was analyzed of aridification and life-supporting environment changes of China. The functions of human activities on aridification and the social and economic impacts on China were also explored. In this paper, we offered our considerations on a set of issues, including: 1) The aridification in the northern China is in severe situation, and the general conditions of eco-environment in such a region continue to deteriorate; 2) The influence of irrational human activities on eco-environment is a vital factor to speed up aridification; 3) Because of the two features: its sensitivity and its ability to recover from a bias process, the semi-arid area, characterized as the climatic and ecological transitional zone, is one of the key areas for aridification researches; 4) The natural rules must be followed in present human activities to convert land for forestry and pasture, and in the planning for a perspective beautiful land with green mountains and clean rivers; 5) Orderly human activity is the radical countermeasure to improve eco-environmental conditions so as to alleviate the negative impacts of the aridification in the northern China and to realize sustainable development; 6) The government policies of eco-treatment through orderly human activity conflict, to some extent, the current system of fixing farm output quotas on the household basis; 7) The relations among investments, operations and rewards in eco-environment treatment must be carefully considered.