4.3 Defense scenario
It
is undeniable that clean energy will replace traditional energy in the
near future because it can
mitigate
greenhouse gas emissions and environmental pollution. However,
the cost of soil and water
conservation for clean energy projects
is
relatively low, accounting for only 0.4 to 4% of the total project
investment (Jiang, 2007). Besides, many productive and constructive
projects in China ignore environmental regulations, because local
governments tend to prioritize making money over protecting the
environment (Li et al., 2014). So numerous environmental issues have
been still caused by clean energy projects which, even though, is
considered to cause fewer environmental problems. From a technology
perspective,
controlling
soil and water loss is not difficult in project construction, 5 specific
points are shown as the following. First, it is necessary to ensure the
protection measures and funds of the ecological environment before
productive and constructive engineering can be constructed. Because,
generally speaking, construction companies attach great importance to
the quality, technology, and management of the principal part of the
project, but the soil and water conservation measures have problems of
low investment levels, low engineering standards, backward technological
means, outdated ideas, and lax management systems (Zhang, 2002). At the
same time, soil and water conservation investment needs to be
scientifically estimated according to the aforementioned soil erosion
classification to ensure enough investment. Second, it is necessary to
change the old idea – pollute first, clean up later – to truly ensure
that soil and water conservation facilities must be designed,
constructed, and commissioned simultaneously with the principal part of
the project,
so that clean energy does not
depart
from
the original intention of decreasing the pollution. For structurally
controlled soil and water loss during production and construction
activities, comprehensive control that combines structural, vegetative,
and managerial measures is advocated, which
ensures
the ecological and environmental benefits with less investment. As a
minimum the following recommendations should be needed during the
construction process: during ground excavation works in the construction
of projects, soils should be watered to raise the moisture content to
avoid dust pollution; ground cover and trees on hills and in gullies
that are destroyed before infilling should be replanted as soon as
possible to prevent soil erosion; irregular configurations of terrain
with steep slopes and varying degrees of instability need to be managed
to avoid gravity erosion; and farmers who lose farmland should be
compensated. Third, soil and water conservation monitoring and the
principal part of the development and construction project must be
carried out at the same time to ensure the timely implementation of soil
and water conservation engineering measures, in turn, to avoid dozens or
even hundreds of times restoration costs required for soil erosion
treatment if serious soil erosion or even land desertification is caused
by that the soil and water conservation engineering measures have not
been implemented timely. Soil and water conservation projects for which
soil and water conservation monitoring is not carried out promptly shall
be strictly handled in accordance with the law.
Fourth,
as part of the capacity-building efforts in environmental control, an
exclusion zone is also needed in an ecologically fragile area, which
prevents any human activity from aggravating the environmental disaster.
The last but not the least, processes of soil formation proceed very
slowly, 1 cm of soil humus is formed under natural conditions every
300-400 years (Zharikov et al., 2002). However, it is eroded in only one
year. Hence, public awareness of soil erosion prevention should be
improved, which is considered as an important factor for fundamentally
controlling environmental issues caused by productive and constructive
engineering.