Responses to climate change and farming policies by rural communities in northern China

Abstract

To address land degradation and rural poverty the Chinese government has put in place a series of land conversion programmes in the Loess Plateau area in northern China. In addition to problems arising from unsustainable land use, water resource availability driven in part by climatic forcing is also a threat to livelihoods in this region. To understand climate impacts on farming practice in poor areas of China, field observation and village reconnaissance took place in the summer of 2009 in 3 selected counties of Shaanxi and Ningxia Province, northern China. This research was supported by the Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) programme