Pursuing sustainable desertification reversion through establishment of water-saving vegetations in Horqin Sandy Land in Inner Mongolia

       第十一届国际旱地发展会议——Horqin Sandy Land once was one of the most severely desertified lands in northern China. Since 1987, desertification is reversed and vegetation restored. However, monitoring found that both the reversion and restoration were fragile to the climatic change and rapidly increasing water use. The desertified land had increased from 4230 km²in 1975 to 61008 km²in 1987 and then decreased to 50197 km²in 2000 and less than 50000 km²in 2010. While desertification is reversed, the biological productivity of restored desertified grassland was decreased from 380 g/m²in 1982 to 220 g/m²in 2005 and increased to about 380g/m²in 2010 and the diversity was decreased.