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.