Characteristics of desertification and its rehabilitation in China

The definition of desertification and its causes in the Chinese literature are reviewed and compared with those in international publications. Both Chinese researchers and their western counterparts have difficulty in reaching a generally accepted definition for desertification and an agreement upon the exact role played by human activities and environmental settings in desertification initiation and development. Tremendous efforts in China have gone into rehabilitating desertified land into productive uses with great contribution to existing knowledge in reclaiming desertified land. The early biological-oriented measures based solely on economic return have recently been replaced by a much more successful, multi-disciplinary approach of rehabilitation combined with preventive measures that follow sound ecological principles.