4096 Conclusion and Future Prospective
Dryland agriculture of China is located in semi-arid and semi humid but drought-
prone areas. Despite the low rainfall, it is still able to support a certain crop produc-
tion. In the absence of external water resources for irrigation, it can still support a
certain level of social economic development. Owing to insufficient rainfall with
large fluctuation, however, agricultural productivity has been remained at a low and
unstable state in a long run. Also due to low vegetation coverage and soft soil tex-
ture, the soil has been seriously eroded. Furthermore, because of social and eco-
nomic development was lagged behind in the region, there existed a widespread
poverty issue. Water and soil erosion, over-reclamation and overgrazing resulted in
serious land degradation. There existed a complex interaction between extensive
poverty and serious land degradation, which brought about a very prominent contra-
diction between agricultural production and ecological protection. Following the
exploration and efforts for decades, significant progress has been achieved in recent
10 years. In the presence of large-scale construction of terraced fields, the ridge-
furrow covering farming technology has enhanced the efficient use of rainwater in
dry farmland, and agricultural productivity has continued to improve, which pro-
vided plenty of crude forage sources for the development of animal husbandry. In
this case, natural grassland and artificial grassland are no longer the main support of
the development of animal husbandry. And instead, they turned to play more roles
of ecological protection. Under such circumstance, the pattern of coordinated devel-
opment of farming, animal husbandry and grassland industries has formed. As a
result of remarkable improvement of land productivity, the organic matter input to
the soil was accordingly increased. What’s more, soil erosion from farmland and
grassland has been effectively controlled. Land degradation has been suppressed
and turned to improve the quality of soil as future trend of development. Under the
global change of decreasing rainfall and increasing air temperature, dryland eco-
logical system did not further degrade, but instead got a continuous improvement
and development. This provides a successful case for adaptive management of dry-
land ecosystem under the background of global change.
However, optimal management of dryland ecosystems is still facing a lot of chal-
lenges. Continuous improvement of land productivity and soil quality is the base for
sustainable development of ecosystem. It is an inevitable requirement to ensure the
sustainability of ecological system via the explorations on scientific basis and tech-
nical means to continuously improve agricultural productivity and soil quality. The
structure of agricultural production is frequently driven by the market process. It is
the key of determining the direction of dryland ecosystem development, to keep
seeking and forming environment-friendly production process of agricultural prod-
ucts. In the context of global change, we also have to face the increasing challenges
of drought and extreme weather.
Integrated Dryland Agriculture Sustainable Management in Northwest China