Forschungsprojekt ::

Sustainable Management of River Oases along the Tarim River China (SuMaRiO): WP 4.1.4 - Protective functions and sustainable use of riparian forests

Dieses Projekt ist Teil des Forschungsprojektes Sustainable Management of River Oases along the Tarim River China (SuMaRiO)

Projektbeschreibung

The policy of the opening of the P.R. of China as well as the economic reforms initiated in 1978, have led to a re-evaluation of the economic and strategic importance of the Tarim Basin as an important area for oil and gas production. Furthermore the basin is crossed by pipelines and therefore serves as an important eastwest-connection. Recent enormous investments in the traffic and transport system support this policy. At present a modern highway as well as a pipeline leading to the neighbouring Qinghai Province run in parallel next to 400 km of the lower reaches of the Tarim River. Feasibility studies for an additional railway line have been conducted. The belt of riparian forests (tugai forests1) along this highway is the so-called ‘Green Corridor’. To be ‘green’, and to be a corridor is only one important ESS of the riparian forests. It is the nature and biodiversity issue.
The safety of this traffic link – primarily the prevention of wind erosion and sand drift – relies on the rehabilitation and restoration of a belt of riparian forests, growing next to the Tarim River, which separates the sandy Taklamakan Desert in the West from the also sandy Kuruq-Tag Desert in the East (Xia et al. 1993, Dong et al. 2000, Lei et al. 2002, Dong et al. 2004, Zeng 2004). The hopes for a restoration are based on a controlled discharge of the Tarim River (‘ecological water’/shengtai shushui), which started in 2000.
However, the last ‘ecological water’ reached the lower reaches of the Tarim River in 2005 (Tao et al. 2008, Westermann et al. 2008) The non-existence of a reliable watershed management and the excessive demand of irrigation water for the State Farms resulted in an almost complete destruction of the riparian forests between the years 1975 and 2000 (Thomas et al. 2000, Gries et al. 2003, Zhuang & Chen 2006, Li et al. 2007, Thevs et al. 2008a, Thevs et al. 2008b). A political revision of 2000 has led to a renewal of water supply for the downstream forests resulting in a surprising revival, which however is far from a desirable and sustainable condition.
Although the Tarim River Basin Administration (TRBA) was set up in 1993, it is not yet in the position to guarantee a regular water supply for the lower reaches of the Tarim River. Further ESS can be found in the provisioning and supporting services (cf. WP 4.1.3). Fuel wood production and the use of the wood for construction and handicraft purposes as well as the use of understorey plants for nutritional and medicinal use also belongs to this group of ESS. Management plans, however, do not exist, neither for the biodiversity ESS nor for sand protection, fuel wood or medicinal ESS of the riparian forest. And everything depends on the supply of ‘ecological water’, at least at the lower reaches of the Tarim River.
In brief, the deficits are:

• Monitoring of soil moisture
• Monitoring of sand drift
• Identification of areas suitable for remediation (area assessment)
• Identification of areas under pressure (area assessment)