首页|Will large-scale forestation lead to a soil water deficit crisis in China's drylands?

Will large-scale forestation lead to a soil water deficit crisis in China's drylands?

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Trading water for carbon has cautioned large-scale afforestation in global drylands.However,model sim-ulations suggested that the consumption of soil water could be partially offset by increasing precipitation due to vegetation feedback.A systematic meta-analysis of long-term and large-scale field observations is urgently required to address the abovementioned limitations,and the implementation of large-scale afforestation since 1978 in northern China provides an ideal example.This study collected data compris-ing 1226 observations from 98 sites in northern China to assess the variation in soil water content(SWC)with stand age after afforestation and discuss the effects of tree species,precipitation and conversions of land use types on SWC.We found that the SWC has been decreased by coniferous forest and broadleaf forest at rates of 0.6 and 3.2 mm decade-1,respectively,since 1978.There is a significant declining trend of SWC with the stand age of plantations,and the optimum growth stage for plantation forest is 0-20 a in northern China.However,we found increases in SWC for the conversion from grassland to forest and in the low-precipitation region,both are corresponding to the increased SWC in coniferous forest.Our study implies that afforestation might lead to a soil water deficit crisis in northern China in the long term at the regional scale but depends on prior land use types,tree taxa and the mean annual precipitation regime,which sheds light on decision-making regarding ecological restoration policies and water resource man-agement in drylands.

Soil waterAfforestationTree plantingLand use changesArid and semiarid area

Qiuming Wang、Hongyan Liu、Boyi Liang、Liang Shi、Lu Wu、Jing Cao

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College of Urban and Environmental Sciences,and PKU Saihanba Station,Peking University,Beijing 100871,China

College of Forestry,Precision Forestry Key Laboratory of Beijing,Beijing Forestry University,Beijing 100083,China

Key Laboratory of Ecosystem Network Observation and Modeling,Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research,Chinese Academy of Sciences,Beijing 100101,China

China Meteorological Administration Training Center,Beijing 100081,China

State Key Laboratory of Environmental Criteria and Risk Assessment,State Environmental Protection Key Laboratory of Regional Eco-process and Function Assessment,Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences,Beijing 100012,China

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国家重点研发计划国家自然科学基金

2022YFF080180342161144008

2024

10.1016/j.scib.2024.03.005

科学通报(英文版)
中国科学院

科学通报(英文版)

CSTPCD
ISSN：1001-6538
年,卷(期)：2024.69(10)
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