4.1 Urgency and confliction
China is undergoing rapid economic growth and urbanization. The projects, such as construction and development of cities and towns, highway and railway, resource exploitation, are advancing at unprecedented scale and speed. As shown in Figure 7, the number of productive and constructive projects involving soil erosion was 42.67 × 104 from 2003 to 2018, the corresponding scope of soil erosion prevention and control responsibility was 23.22 × 104 km2 (MWRPRC, 2003-2018), almost the same area of the UK (24.3× 104km2). This indicated that the number of productive and constructive projects remained high and even increasing trend, and the corresponding scope was very wide. Accelerated soil erosion accompanied by human irrational activities – land exploitation, deforestation, and the anthropogenic water and soil erosion, is also very serious. The contradiction between development and protection is very prominent.
Also, although the law of soil and water conservation stipulates that the management of soil and water loss caused by the productive and constructive engineering should be strengthened in mountainous, hilly, and wind and sand areas. However, the people living in this mountainous area have to face a conflict between promoting economic growth and protecting the soil and water environment. However, neglecting water and soil conservation during the period of construction caused serious soil erosion (Figure 4) and even land desertification (Figure 3). Hence, if the soil erosion caused by the productive and constructive engineering is not controlled, the increasingly serious water and soil loss will not only restrict the development of economy and society but also pose a threat to the country’s ecological security.