FELD 02/2017

INNER MONGOLIA INNER

INNER MONGOLIA INNER MONGOLIA The intensity of grazing should be adapted to the varying amounts of precipitation, since this has a crucial influence on the ecological resilience of the grassland. When the spring storms began, the wall grew visibly larger, as the coarser soil particles that were swirled up got caught on it whilst fine particles flew over the wall and were removed from the field.« His measuring instruments indicated that the resultant loss of soil totals around 136 tonnes per hectare. »To illustrate this, imagine a football field, from which ten truckloads of fertile fine soil is removed during just one spring,« explains Hoffmann. »On the adjacent grassy pasture, we measured average dust emissions of just up to 2.5 tonnes per hectare.« However, the values increased with increasing grazing intensity. Highly stressed areas already showed loss rates of a critical 5 tonnes per hectare, which makes them ‘hot spots’ for dust emissions in addition to arable land. DR. CARSTEN HOFFMANN Sand dunes caused by dust emissions repeatedly force people to abandon their homes and farms. 24 25