Relationship of shrub distribution and soil properties in Horqin Desert

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26340073
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Modeling and technologies for environmental conservation and remediation
• Research Institution: Kochi University
• Principal Investigator: KANG Yumei 高知大学, 教育研究部総合科学系生命環境医学部門, 教授 (70284429)
• Research Collaborator: LIU Teizhi 赤峰学院, 生命科学部, 教授 ; ZHANG Weiguo 内蒙古民族大学, 農学院, 准教授 ; Siriguleng 赤峰学院, 観光学部, 講師
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 中国 / 内モンゴル / ホルチン沙地 / 低木 / 牧草 / アルファルファ / 窒素 / 土壌

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The Horqin area in the Inner Mongolia of China is a climate where the grasslands are originally distributed, but the grassland has been destroyed by excessive human activities of recent centuries and transformed into desert. The desertification gave catastrophic blow to pastoral livestock industry, causing severe environmental problems such as sandstorm and yellow sand generation. Restoration of these sandy areas can be said to be the last fort to stop desertification. In this study, we first examined the relation between shrubs growing in desert area and soil micro environmental factors. As a result, it was revealed that compared to lowland, the slope and top of desert dunes had lower nutrient and moisture contents in soil and more shrubs. In addition, we succeeded in cultivating the local varieties (Aohan) of shrub Alfalfa in sandy soil. It was shown that cultivation of autogenous shrub plants had a great effect on restoration of desert.

Free Research Field

土壌環境学