© Springer International Publishing AG 2016 393
M. Farooq, K.H.M. Siddique (eds.), Innovations in Dryland Agriculture,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-47928-6_14
Integrated Dryland Agriculture Sustainable
Management in Northwest China
Feng-Min Li, You-Cai Xiong, Xiao-Gang Li, Feng Zhang, and Yu Guan
1 Introduction
China dryland agriculture is developed in the region with an average annual rainfall
of 250–550mm, at longitude 73°50′–135°05′, latitude 33°20′~53°30′. The total
area of this region is up to 5.42 million km^2 , accounting for 56% of total land area
of Chinese territory. The area of regional arable land is 51 million hm^2 , i.e. about 51
% of total arable land area of China. Sixty five percentage of which belongs to the
area of dryland without irrigation. Local population in this region accounts for 32 %
of total population of the country. Dryland agriculture is mainly distributed in the
hilly area and few are distributed in the plain area for the region. As for local weather
condition, winter is cold and dry, and summer is warm and rainy. Monthly average
temperature ranges from −10 to −5 °C in January, and from 20 to 25 °C in July.
Seasonal precipitation amount during the period from June to September occupies
60–70 % of annual precipitation amount. In most areas, average annual temperature
is almost 6–10 °C, and the frost-free period reaches up to 100–170 days (Li 2007 ).
As affected by southeast and west monsoon, local rainfall is at a low level but with
high fluctuation, resulting in low and unsteady agricultural productivity, which
forms the basic characteristics of dryland agriculture (Li et al. 2003 ).
China’s dryland agriculture is mainly distributed in hilly area, which favors the
formation of rich biodiversity and the maintenance of ecosystem stability. Supposing
the reclamation intensity is lower, fine biodiversity would be maintained and turn to
be beneficial for the stability and sustainable development of agricultural ecosys-
tems. However, due to low yield of crops in this region, a vicious circle has been
F.-M. Li (*) • Y.-C. Xiong • X.-G. Li • F. Zhang • Y. Guan
State Key Laboratory of Grassland Agroecosystem, Institute of Arid Agroecology,
School of Life Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China
e-mail: [email protected]