China's Ministry of Water Resources (MWR) said Monday that eroded soil amounted to 4.5 billion tonnes every year, and 24 million hectares of affected arable land needed to be improved immediately.
The Minister Chen Lei made the remarks Monday in a work conference on soil protection. He called for more effective measures to protect soil.
Soil erosion has become an urgent problem for China. From 1950 to 1999, the riverbed in lower reach of the Yellow River had been raised 2 to 4 meters as 9.2 billion tonnes of silt had been carried from soil erosion areas, he said.
In northeastern Liaohe River, the riverbed is 1 to 2 meters higher than the ground, and the river is literally flowing "above the ground."
Soil erosion also caused more than 1.6 billion cubic meters of silt pile up in 80,000 reservoirs across the country, and landslides were more likely to happen in soil erosion areas, Chen said.
According to a study by the MWR, economic losses brought by the soil erosion accounted for 2.25 percent of the gross domestic product every year, and environmental losses were even worse.
"The soil erosion situation has made clear that it is an imminent problem for China," Chen said.
He said the nation would take 15 to 20 years to improve conditions in soil erosion areas, and would prevent soil erosion from happening by protecting green vegetation and forbidding violations such as overgrazing and plowing grasslands.
Source: Xinhua
|
Comment
Tell A Friend
Print Format
Save Article