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conservation measures have problems of low investment levels, low engineering standards, backward technological means, outdated ideas, and lax management systems (Zhang, 2002).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.