Agricultural structure adjustment and ecosystem restoration planning at the village level to combat desertification: a pilot study in the Minqin Basin, Northwest China

摘要

A village-scale approach was developed to break the cycle between desertification and poverty by providing sustainable employment and income, promoting environmental restoration by reducing water consumption, and integrating poverty amelioration with environmental restoration to ensure that solving one problem does not create new ones. The advantages of high-efficiency water-saving planting, a profitable livestock system, a sand-processing industry, and sand control and afforestation are integrated into what we call the Zhengxin pattern, which offers overall ecological and environmental benefits superior to those of competing approaches. The overall output efficiency of the Minqin basin water resources will increase threefold.