Rocky Desertification, Antidesertification, and Sustainable Development in the Karst Mountain Region of Southwest China

摘要

The karst mountain region of Southwest China is one of the largest karst geo-morphologic distributing areas in the world (1). It is estimated that the karst geomorphology covers about 620 000 km~2 in this region, involving Sichuan province, Hunan province, Hubei province, Guangdong province, and Chongqing municipality, but largely Guizhou province, Guangxi autonomous region, and Yunnan province (Fig. 1). In the extremely fragile karst geological environment, together with the pressure of overpopulation and lagged social economy, local people have to overexploit land for subsistence, leading to serious land degradation in the form of karst rocky desertification. It is a progressive process where soil is seriously or thoroughly eroded and bedrock exposure is widespread. Productive capability of land declines and, finally, a landscape similar to desert appears under human impact on a vulnerable ecogeoenvironment (2). This major type of desertification finally results in extensive exposure of bedrock. The photo shows different kinds of karst rocky desertification in Southwest China.