China soil erosion

Man-induced erosion has reduced the productivity of vast areas of the world s agricultural land. Lowdermilk (1953) surveyed lands in the Middle East, China, and Europe during 1938—1939 and blames serious soil erosion and land-use problems for the decline and disappearance of many ancient cultures and civilizations. Following this study, he was invited to give a radio talk in Jerusalem in June 1939 and gave for the first time what has since... 

Fortunately conditions in the Nile valley of Egypt have remained suitable for cropping. Erosion has not been a serious problem there and flood irrigation has been the usual practice. The conditions seem to be much like those encountered in the flood plains of the rivers of China. Elsewhere in North Africa soil erosion has proceeded much as in the lands farther east. 

Indeed soil erosion caused by wind and water is responsible for the loss of about 30% of the world cropland during the past 40 years. For example, the rate of soil loss in Africa has increased 20-fold during the past 30 years. Wind erosion is now so serious in China that Chinese soil can be detected in the Hawaiian atmosphere during the Chinese spring planting period. Similarly, soil eroded by wind is carried from Africa to Florida and Brazil. 

Singh, G., et al. 1992. Soil erosion rates in India. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation 47 97-99 Zhu Z., Q. Wen, and J. R. Freney, eds. 1997. Nitrogen in Soils of China. Dordrecht Kluwer Academic. 

Zhu et al. (2004) reported the concentrations of 10 PAHs in four bodies of water in Hangzhou, China (July and November 1999 2002). The maximum levels of PAHs in the water bodies (34.4-67.7 pgl-1) were found in July, while significantly lower PAH concentrations (4.7-15.3 pgl-1) were measured in November. The measured PAH concentrations in sediments and soils, runoff water, and air particles were 224-4222 ngg-1, 8.3 pgl-1 and 2.3 pgm-3, respectively. Clearly, such substantial contamination may lead to acute toxic effects on aquatic organisms. However, the erosion of soil material does not contribute significantly to the contamination of sediments. The atmospheric PAH deposition to water bodies in the city area of Hangzhou was estimated to be 530tons/a, while the contribution of surface runoff water was... 

Our company worked with many US companies that were trying to develop an engagement strategy to deal with the flood of imports, many of very high qirahty, dining this time. One, for example, was a producer of cast iron soil pipe. The company had seen imported product coming into the US from China at prices 20% to 30% lower than domestic prices. It seemed there was no way to stop this market and price erosion. Yet when China began to reverse the... 

A very well-known example of environmental impact during operations relates to the large sedimentation of the reservoir in the Three Gorges dam, in China. To deal with the erosion of soils from the hydraulic basin, which are mainly transported to the reservoir by the tributaries, additional dams have been constructed in several of the water lines to retain sediments and thus to avoid them reaching the reservoir. A program of forestation upstream has also been implemented. Furthermore the design of the... 

---