Prepared by Ronald G.

Knapp
State University of New York at New Paltz

ESSAY: The Lessons of the Loess Plateau

Over the millennia since the dawn of civilization, the human impact on physical

environments because of the expansion of agriculture as well as settlements has transformed the

Earths surface. Varying in character and intensity, these impacts on local and global ecosystems

has sometimes been positive but all too often destructive, especially over the past two hundred

years with accelerating increases in population. It took until 1804 for the population of the world

to reach 1 billion, then reached 2 billion in 1927, 3 billion in 1960, 4 billion in 1974, 5 billion in

1987, 6 billion in 1999, and will reach 7 billion in 2012 or 2013. 1 Each additional billion took

less and less time to be added, the first more than a century with the most recent only a bit more

than a decade. While Chinas population growth in the nineteenth and twentieth century was not

as rapid as the worlds increase, the increase from 583 million in 1953 to 1.34 billion in 2010 in

Chinamore than doubling in a half centuryhas brought with it extraordinary

environmental damage. Moreover, as striking as the impact of rapid increases in population

alone has been on the environment, the effects of ill-fated national policies, inopportune

community decisions, and unfortunate individual actions have compounded ecological damage.

These factors are complex and interrelated.

Ecological deterioration and environmental degradation have a long and complicated

history linked to imbalances among population, the resource endowment, and decision-making.

In poorer countries, it is the rampant overcutting of vegetation or the extensive over-grazing by

animals that often degrades the environment. In developed countries, it is the extraction of raw

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http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/sixbillion/sixbilpart1.pdf

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 Prepared by Ronald G. Knapp
State University of New York at New Paltz

materials such as coal, coupled with unbridled industrialization, which brings on environmental

stress. Floods, droughts, and other natural disasters exacerbate stressful conditions, frequently

triggering the impoverishment of the population. All too often, deteriorating environmental

conditions are seen as being irreversible with people sacrificing long-term sustainability in order

to merely survive at persistent levels of abject poverty. Concern for ecosystem destruction, loss

of biodiversity, carbon fixation, and global warming are for the most part all too often alien and

abstract notions to local residents who are often poor and uneducated.

Newspapers worldwide echo those in China that deplore the range of environmental

problems that have accompanied Chinas breakneck economic growth over the past thirty years.

Beyond unacceptable levels of air and water pollution that are the scourge of Chinas cities,

rural areas continue to suffer from the intrusion of heavy metals into rice paddies and vegetable

gardens as well as recurring drought and flooding conditions countrywide. In addition, there are

shortages of water as well as excessive emissions of greenhouses gases, a twin set of crises that

affects both the present and the future. Lax enforcement of environmental regulations and

endemic corruption together paint a dismal picture that is frequently portrayed in international

press reports. Yet, in spite of all this doom and gloom, there have been some notable successes in

countering environmental problems.

One of Chinas bright spots, which has garnered little attention in the West, is the large-

scale rehabilitation of the damaged ecosystems of the Loess Plateau that has also remarkably

reduced poverty for millions of rural dwellers. The Loess Plateau, which covers an area the size

of Texas or France, spans seven Chinese provinces and has a population exceeding 50 million. It

has suffered centuries of severe soil erosion and overall extensive environmental degradation.

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 Prepared by Ronald G. Knapp
State University of New York at New Paltz

These unsatisfactory environmental conditions have led inevitably to widespread poverty and a

difficult life for villagers.

Even a brief glimpse of most photographs of the region reveals a stark physical

environment that is treeless and lacking water. Yet, over the course of only a decade, an

extraordinary transformation of what once was largely a desolate environment has taken place.

This is the result of a cooperative effort of The World Bank and the Chinese government. Called

the Loess Plateau Watershed Rehabilitation Project, this effort, which began in 1995, engaged

villagers with a team of Chinese and foreign specialists to restructure local land use practices that

involved altering the regions hydrology, vegetation cover, soil dynamics, and animal husbandry

practices.

The Loess Plateau straddles the middle course of the Huang He or Yellow River, which is

sometimes called Chinas Mother River. In this vast region, wind-blown silt called loess,

which has been carried from the deserts and steppes to the West for thousands of years, has piled

to great depths. In some areas, the loess is about 500 feet (150 meters) thick, about the height of

a fifty-storey building, and in eastern Gansu province exceeds 1000 feet (300 meters). Although

loessial soil is found in the United States and Europe, nowhere in the world is its extent as great

as it is in China. Called huangtu or yellow earth in Chinese, loess is actually light brown in

color. The word is derived from the German word lss (also L), which is generally

pronounced in English as if it were spelled luss. When loess has vegetation growing on it, it

tends to be quite fertile because of decayed organic matter, but once vegetative cover is lost,

fertility drops quickly.

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 Prepared by Ronald G. Knapp
State University of New York at New Paltz

The Loess Plateau once was a type of tableland with broad areas of level land. Today,

however, jagged gullies and canyons scar the region. While the climate of this region is semi-

arid with only limited rainfall, the storms that periodically arrive in summer bring torrents of

water that easily erode the loess and sweep it first into small streams and then into the Huang He

(Yellow River) that dominates North China. Eroded loess, which is held in suspension as

sediment in the Huang He, gives the river its characteristic muddy appearance, which the

Chinese say is yellow in colorrather than light brownand thus its name. Carrying 40%

sediment by weight in summer (for other rivers in the world 3% would be considered a heavy

sediment load), the Huang He eventually deposits vast amounts of alluvium (water born

sediment) as it courses downstream across the North China Plain.

Although in recent centuries, the Loess Plateau has been known for its poverty and

backwardness, it was along the banks of the Huang He that Neolithic settlements and indeed one

of the early flowerings of Chinese civilization took place. For this reason, the region is often

referred to as a Cradle of Chinese Civilization. Over the centuries, the population of the region

has adapted reasonably well to limited resources. Outside the cities, most of the population has

lived until recently in subterranean dwellings called yaodong, literally caves dug into the sides of

ravines. Since loessial soil compacts well, it can be dug into relatively easily. Cave-like

dwellings are warm in winter and cool in summer, benefitting from the insulation of the soil. The

principal crops grown by villagers often on steep hillslopes continue to be millet and corn, both

crops that respond well to semiarid conditions and soils that are not rich.

Land degradation on the Loess Plateau, of course, resulted from many conditions just as

the restoration of degraded land has involved a variety of science-based knowledge and human-

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 Prepared by Ronald G. Knapp
State University of New York at New Paltz

based approaches. Soil erosion, for example, is a fundamental cause of degradation as is loss of

soil fertility because of the disruption of the hydrologic cycle (water cycle), removal of natural

vegetation, and the overgrazing by sheep and goats. When compounded by inappropriate land

use practices, such a combination of environmental deficiencies only provided low-level

sustenance for the inhabitants for centuries. Breaking such a cycle of environmental degradation

in order to restore a vital ecosystem has rarely been attempted at a large scale anywhere in the

world.

With evocative photography and a compelling narrative, the video The Lessons of the

Loess Plateau documents the challenges and successes of such an ambitious project that has led

to the restoration of a degraded ecological system. Directed by John C. Liu, this video clearly

shows how the hydrology was reshaped, soil dynamics restored, and agricultural practices

realigned. Focusing on the landscape and people of Houjiagou Village, the narrative outlines the

specific remedies employed that led to the restoration of the ecosystem. By engaging villagers in

the search for solutions, scientists and planners were successful in the rehabilitation of the

natural system and rejuvenation of the human system. Breaking the linked cycles of ecological

destruction and poverty has brought about improvements in both the ecologic health of the

physical environment and the well-being of the people. In less than a decade, once denuded

hillslopes have been restored with a cover of grasses, bushes, and even trees. This vegetative

cover has altered the hydrologic cycle by increasing the absorption of water by the soil and has

reduced destructive erosion. Wildlife, including birds and insects, have now returned to the

region, and are visible markers of environmental health. An ambitious undertaking, this

rehabilitation of a large area of the Loess Plateau reveals how sustained efforts can overcome

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 Prepared by Ronald G. Knapp
State University of New York at New Paltz

centuries of destructive actions. The narrator calls attention to the power of nature to heal itself

once human intervention begins to set a path that counters destruction. The film offers a hopeful

approach that landscape transformation can lead to positive changes in peoples livelihoods and

the quality of their lives.