4. Discussion

,

Among them, the impact of low and medium desertification expansion was more obvious. The area of expansion from non-desertified lands to deserts and desertified land was 127,700 km<sup>2</sup>

Reversion from desertification to non-

Expansion from non-desertification to

Farmland Water

Farmland Water

areas

areas

desertification

desertification

grassland

1.78 1.51 6.62 0.36 2.91

1.82 0.11 0.12 0.04 0.30

3.00 0.94 21.24 0.47 0.39

0.32 0.32 0.38 0 0.30

grassland

which had led to 38.15 billion yuan loss of ESV, and was mainly induced by the expansion

The impact of desertification dynamics on regional ESV at the subregion level showed a significant spatial heterogeneity. From 1981 to 2010, the ESV in bash, htpy, and erdos was increased, and the desertification dynamics played a promoting role in this increment, which meant the increment of ESV of deserts and desertified land led to the increase of regional ESV. The ESV in hlbr, hsdk, char, and horq showed a decreasing trend, and the desertification dynamics also showed a promoting effect, which was mainly attributed desertification expansion in these subregions. However, the desertification dynamics in wmt, nmhs, and alsh had

from forest and undegraded grassland to low and medium desertification.

Table 4. The impact of desertification expansion on regional ESV (billion yuan).

an opposite effect on the change of regional ESV.

Value Desertification reversion among different

Change type Forest Undegraded

Table 3. The impact of desertification reversion on regional ESV (billion yuan).

Change type Forest Undegraded

Value Desertification expansion among different

degrees

Low desertification — 2.20 1.72 0.05 0.83

High desertification 4.17 0.82 2.13 0.51 0.80

Desert 2.28 1.14 0.06 0 0.16

Low desertification 6.32 5.67 4.40 0.06 0.28

High desertification 0.53 0 1.53 0.05 0.36

Desert — 0.11 0.13 0.02 1.50

degrees

20 Community and Global Ecology of Deserts

Medium desertification

Severe desertification

Medium desertification

Severe desertification

3.4. Impact of desertification dynamics on regional ESV in different subregions

As one of the most important land degradation types in dry land, desertification dynamics can bring a great impact on regional ecosystem service supply and sustainable livelihoods, especially for the people living in rural area. According to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA), livelihood activities in dry land tend to be more dependent on available ecosystem services than elsewhere [42]. In order to enhance the ecosystem services and sustainable development in dry land, UNCCD had launched a policy strategy called "Zero Net Land Degradation" (ZNLD) in 2012, aiming to prevent the degradation of productive land and restore already degraded land by sustainable land management. To achieve these goals, we need to investigate the impact of desertification dynamics on regional ecosystem services at regional scale and identify the sensitive area to support the policy-making.

Due to the location and various driving factors, Inner Mongolia of China is a perfect place to study desertification dynamics and its impact on regional ecosystem services. According to our study, impacted by both climate change and human activities, desertification in Inner Mongolia had changed dramatically over the past three decades. Due to the implementation process of the "Three North" Shelterbelt Project, the Beijing-Tianjin sandstorm source project, and the Natural Forest Protection, the coverage of vegetation was increased, and some areas showed obvious desertification reversion [43], which made it possible to increase the ESV. In the same period, intensive human activities, such as coal mining, oil and gas drilling, road, subway, and pipeline laying, had promoted the economic development in rural areas and pastoral areas as well as destroy the vegetation in ecologically fragile regions with abundant resources; land desertification problem was more prominent [44], resulting in ESV loss. All factors mentioned above made the impact of desertification dynamics on regional ESV, which showed a great spatial heterogeneity.

other north-central sand areas. There was a significant spatial heterogeneity in the desertification reversion and expansion, and the main changes in the types of desertification were

The Impact of Desertification Dynamics on Regional Ecosystem Services: A Case Study of Inner Mongolia (China)

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.74817

23

Over the past 30 years, the ESV in the Inner Mongolia has decreased by 67.16 billion yuan. Compared with 1981, the ESV in the northeast hsdk, central hlbr decreased, and the ESV in the eastern erdos increased. Desertification dynamics had a great impact on regional ESV in Inner Mongolia, and the ESV decrement caused by desertification dynamics reached 15.89 billion

Desertification reversion and expansion on the ESV showed a spatial heterogeneity. The desertification dynamics had promoted the ESV change in bash and hlbr but played an opposite role in wmt and other places. The sensitivity of ESV to desertification was also different. Horq and htpy were more sensitive than other sub-regions, and the sensitivity of them were higher than 50. Hlbr and nmhs was less sensitive. To enhance economic development and the ecological service supply, "win-win" measures should be used for subregions

This research is jointly supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2016YFC0501002,

2017YFC0506704) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71573245).

Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of

[1] Ning J, Liu J, Zhao G. Spatio-temporal characteristics of disturbance of land use change on major ecosystem function zones in China. Chinese Geographical Science. 2015;25(5):

[2] Zhou LH, Zhu YL, Huang YB. Quantitative evaluation of the effect of prohibiting grazing on restoration of desertified grassland in agro-pastoral transitional zone in northern

between adjacent desertification degrees.

with different sensitivities.

Acknowledgements

Author details

Sciences, Beijing, China

Duanyang Xu

References

yuan, accounting for 23.7% of the total value loss.

Address all correspondence to: xudy@igsnrr.ac.cn

523-536. DOI: 10.1007/s11769-015-0776-8

China. Journal of Desert Research. 2012;32(2):308-313

The further investigation based on the sensitive analysis results showed that the desertification reversion in erdos and alsh had play a promoting role in the increment of regional ESV, which was mainly attributed to the ecological projects and policies implementation and ecologybased industry development. Taking alsh as an example, by developing the farming of Haloxylon-Cistanche, two genera of useful plants, the yield of Cistanche increased from 200 to 800–1000 tons per year in Inner Mongolia, which not only increased the income of farmers but also achieved the goal of combating desertification [45]. However, the ESV in nmhs and horq showed a significant decreasing trend, especially for horq, whose sensitive coefficient reached 74.53, and these regions should be the focus of desertification control in the future. For the ESV decrement areas which are less sensitive such as hlbr, more attention should be paid to protect and prevent damage. To avoid the reduction of forest and undegraded grassland area and quality decline, different measures, such as soil and water management and rational exploitation, improve the quality of population, and delineation of "ecological red line," should be implemented to ensure the regional ecological security.

The impact of desertification dynamics on regional ecosystem services was carried out by monetizing the value of different ecosystems, including deserts and desertified land. According to the equal interval principle, five desertification grades were divided. The low and medium desertified areas might overlap the grassland with a certain degree of desertification. Thus, compared with other research results [46, 47], the area and ESV of deserts and desertified land were higher, and the area and ESV of undegraded grassland were lower. However, the land classifications in this study could be used to objectively analyze the impact of different processes of desertification on regional ecosystem service change. In the future, data of climate change and human activities would be involved to quantify the mechanisms of the impact of desertification dynamics. Besides, the linkage of ecosystem service change and sustainable livelihoods of rural community should be further investigated, and the specific measures and policies for how to enhance the adaptive ability and resilience of rural community should be studied in the future.
