Profile Distribution of Soil Properties on Sloping Cropland in Yingwugou Small Watershed of the Dan River Basin

Based on 3 m×3 m grid in sloping cornfield with soil auger in Yingwugou Small Watershed of the Dan River Basin,a total of 39sampling points were collected,and soil water content and nutrient content were measured in different soil depths.Meanwhile,the soil properties of different depth have been analyzed by traditional statistical and geo-statistics approaches.The results showed:the mean value of total nitrogen and soil organic carbon reduced as soil depth increased in general.But soil water content increased as the soil depth increased.The change of total phosphorus with soil depth was not obvious.The total nitrogen,soil water content,soil organic carbon and total phosphorus presented a moderate intensity variation and strong spatial dependence.In the four sampling depths,semi-variance model can simulate spatial structure of total nitrogen,soil water content and total phosphorus in 0 to 10 cm and 10 to 20 cm well.But the spatial structure of soil organic carbon was not good,which could not be simulated with semi-variance model.The analysis with Kriging interpolation showed that,the total nitrogen,soil water content and total phosphorus presented layered distribution in 0 to 10 cm and 10 to 20 cm;when the spatial distribution changed to 10 to 20cm from 0 to 10 cm,the average total nitrogen content reduced to from 0.598 g/kg 0.310 g/kg,while the average soil water content and total phosphorus increased from 12.988%to 15.439%and from 0.229 g/kg to 0.366 g/kg,respectively.

Has“Grain for Green”threaten food security on the Loess Plateau of China?

There is debating over the question of whether the large-scale‘Grain for Green’program on the Loess Plateau of China threatens regional food security.Self-sufficiency index and cropland pressure index were used to assess food security on the Loess Plateau after the implementation of revegetation program.The results showed that the‘Grain for Green’program initially had a considerable impact on regional food security,where grain yield fell from 1999 to 2001,resulting in a lower grain self-sufficiency and increased farmland stress.Subsequently,grain yield in this region increased due to the elevated agricultural material input and increased construction of terraces and check dams.The grain self-sufficiency index would have increased to 96.55%if there were improvements to the agricultural conditions,such as fertilization and irrigation,which would have resulted in an increase in the crop yield per unit of 20%.However,the grain self-sufficiency increased to 105.25%via the construction of terraces and check dams.Thus,the government should further expand the‘Grain for Green’program in coordination with improvements to the agricultural production conditions and the construction of terraces and check dams on the Loess Plateau.