Environmental Change in the Agro-Pastoral Transitional Zone, Northern China: Patterns, Drivers, and Implications

Basic information

• Case ID: INT-231-1
• Intervention type: Created habitats
• Intervention description:

  "large-scale ecological restoration programs in Chengde and its adjacent areas, including the Beijing–Tianjin Sand Source Control Project, the Three-North Shelterbelt Project, and the Grain for Green Project Since the early 1980s, a series of ecological engineering projects was implemented in Chengde and in the neighboring areas. The largest of these projects, the Grain for Green Project and the Beijing–Tianjin Sand Source Control Project, began in about 2000. As reported by Yao et al [48], the total area of afforestation during 2000–2006 was 153,600 ha, which is expected to play a positive role in vegetation restoration Soil conservation measures such as terraces and afforestation were implemented since the late 1970s"

• Landscape/sea scape ecosystem management: Yes

• Climate change impacts	Effect of Nbs on CCI	Effect measures
  Reduced water availability	Negative	percent contribution to changes in streamflow + water consumption by afforestation
  Biomass cover loss	Positive	NDVI mapped over study area

• Approach implemented in the field: Yes
• Specific location:

  Chengde is located in northern China, bounded by 40 ̋121–42 ̋371 N and 115 ̋541–119 ̋151 E (Figure 1), and its total area is 39,808.9 km2, accounting for 21.2% of the entire area of Hebei Province.

• Country: China
• Habitat/Biome type: Created forest |
• Issue specific term: Not applicable
  

Evidence

• Notes on intervention effectivness: effectiveness determined by assessing change in outcome measures overtime since the interventions were implemented for water, look at contribution of climate and human activities to changes in measure, then break down contribution of each human activity including afforestation - test contribution of climate to changes in streamflow and then assume remaining effect is from people "the change in streamflow caused by climate variability (DQclim), calculated as Equation (15), is 20.3 mm, accounting for 33.2% (Table 4). According to the DQ value of 61.3 mm, the change in streamflow induced by human activities (DQhum) is 40.9, accounting for 66.8%." ... "The dramatic increase in forest area caused by ecological construction also induced ecological water consumption (Figure 5b). However, it should be noted that the ecological water consumption accounted for only a small proportion of total water consumption (figure omitted), at less than 4%" for biomass cover loss, authors state most change is from climate but suggest that restoration projects were also involved "Precipitation was the main influencing factor for vegetation growth, and the correlation coefficient between precipitation and NDVI was larger compared with that of temperature vs. NDVI. It should be noted that the correlation coefficient between the annual mean temperature and NDVI with positive trends was relatively small and did not pass the significance test. A possible cause is that this area experienced large-scale ecological construction, which accelerated the vegetation restoration; thus, the vegetation growth was not controlled purely by natural conditions." ... "The changes in vegetation growth in Chengde during 1982–2012 showed obvious spatial heterogeneity. At the annual scale, vegetation in the southeastern and central regions presented restoration trends, and the vegetation in the northwestern area showed a degradation trend. The pixels with obvious degradation trends correlated significantly with the annual mean temperature and annual precipitation. Ecological engineering also played a positive role in the vegetation restoration."
• Is the assessment original?: Yes
• Broadtype of intervention considered: Not applicable
• Compare effectivness?: No
• Compared to the non-NBS approach: Not applicable
• Report greenhouse gas mitigation?: No
• Impacts on GHG: Not applicable
• Assess outcomes of the intervention on natural ecosystems: No
• Impacts for the ecosystem: Not reported
• Ecosystem measures:
• Assess outcomes of the intervention on people: No
• Impacts for people: Not reported
• People measures:
• Considers economic costs: No
• Economic appraisal conducted: No
• Economic appraisal described:
• Economic costs of alternative considered: No
• Compared to an alternative: Not reported

Evaluation methodology

• Type of data: Quantitative
• Is it experimental: No
• Experimental evalution done: Not applicable
• Non-experimental evalution done: Empirical case study
• Study is systematic: