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Grasslands and Grassland Sciences in Northern China (1992)

Chapter: 10 The Northeast

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Suggested Citation:"10 The Northeast." National Research Council. 1992. Grasslands and Grassland Sciences in Northern China. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1942.
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10
The Northeast

NORTHEAST NORMAL UNIVERSITY, INSTITUTE OF GRASSLAND SCIENCE

Chinese

Dongbei shifan daxue caoyuan yanjiuso

Address

Changchun, Jilin Province, 130024 China

Director

Zhu Tingcheng

Telephone

885085 ext. 693

Northeast Normal University (NNU), in Changchun, Jilin Province (Map 1-3), is the only one of the 33 major universities under the State Educational Commission that maintains an institute dedicated to teaching and research on grassland science. Founded in 1950, Northeast Normal University now has 5650 undergraduate and 830 graduate students, and nearly 1400 faculty in 17 departments representing the arts and sciences. First established in 1960 as a research laboratory of the department of biology and upgraded to its current rank in 1980, the Institute of Grassland Science (IGS) has fifteen faculty, including three full and one associate professors, and ten master's and four Ph.D. students. Since 1980, IGS has awarded 18 M.S. and 5 Ph.D. degrees, the latter in ecology with a specialization in grasslands. Six students from the institute are now studying for Ph.D.'s in Canada, but none has returned to China, an experience that has persuaded IGS director Zhu Tingcheng that he should not send more students abroad for long-term study.

During the 1980s, research at this institute focused on identifying and analyzing the structure, function, and productivity of grasses in Western Manchuria and Eastern Inner Mongolia. Much of this work has been carried out

Suggested Citation:"10 The Northeast." National Research Council. 1992. Grasslands and Grassland Sciences in Northern China. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1942.
×

at the IGS grassland research station, located in Changling, on the Manchurian plain, 150 km northwest of Changchun. This site, 100 m above sea level, has a semiarid, continental, cold-temperate climate, with mean annual temperature of 4–5°C, precipitation of 434 mm, and evaporation of 1368 mm. The dominant vegetation is sheepgrass (Aneurolepidium chinense). Research at this site has resulted in the publication of about 100 articles, of which 40% were devoted to seed strains, 30% to study of the plant community, and many of the rest to descriptions of grassland types and rangeland management techniques. The institute's specimen room in Changchun contains more than 10,000 samples of local flora. In recent years, the Changling station has been equipped with $500,000 worth of equipment purchased with a grant from the World Bank.

Since 1984 the IGS has had a cooperative program with the University of Saskatchewan, administered by Professor Robert Copeland and supported by a grant of Can$1 million from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). Half of the money has been used to support the doctoral studies of 6 IGS students at Saskatchewan and another Can$300,000 to pay for 12 Canadian lecturers who offered training courses on grassland science, which have been held at the IGS and attended by more than 300 people from 14 provinces and regions of northern China. In view of the apparent failure of Chinese students from IGS (and elsewhere) to return to China and tighter restrictions on students seeking to go abroad, the remainder of this grant will be used to support research in China. Dr. Robert Redmond will continue his research at Changling in 1992, and one or two Canadian scholars will come to the institute in each of the next three years.

During the 1980s, research at IGS focused exclusively on natural grasslands; in the 1990s, attention will shift to creating and improving artificial grasslands through the application of irrigation, fertilizers, and improved seed strains. The major threat to grasslands in the Northeast is salinization or alkalinization of the soil. The Manchurian plain occupies a former lake bed, whose underlying soil has a high salt content. When exposed by overgrazing, evapotranspiration removes moisture from the soil leaving it saline. Professor Li Jiandong of IGS has received 400,000 Renminbi (RMB) under the ''Project of Optimum Ecological Modeling of Grassland in Northern China'' (see Chinese Academy of Sciences [CAS] Institute of Botany) to study and find methods for improving grassland of the "alkaline steppe" type. The IGS has also received funding from the Jilin Department of Agriculture to work on grassland improvement in that province and will begin a similar project in cooperation with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences' (CAAS) Institute of Grassland Science in Hohhot on grasslands in neighboring Inner Mongolia.

Suggested Citation:"10 The Northeast." National Research Council. 1992. Grasslands and Grassland Sciences in Northern China. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1942.
×

SHENYANG INSTITUTE OF APPLIED ECOLOGY, CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

Chinese

Zhongguo kexueyuan Shenyang yingyong shengtai yanjiuso

Address

72 Wenhua Road, Shenyang 110015, China

Director

Shen Shanmin

Deputy Dir.

Zhao Shidong

Telephone

(024) 383401-230

Fax

(024) 391320

Telex

80095 IMRAS CN

Established in 1954 as the Institute of Forestry and Soil Science and renamed in 1988, the CAS Institute of Applied Ecology (IAE) in Shenyang conducts a broad program of research in modern ecology and describes its tasks as "ecological planning, ecological engineering and technology, especially solving the problems of conservation and sustainable development of renewable natural resources in Northeast China." The institute has a staff of 600, including 26 full and 120 associate professors, organized into 10 departments: forest ecology, forest ecoengineering, ecoclimate, agricultural ecology, pollution ecology, landscape ecology, soil ecology, microbe ecology, nitrogen fixation and microbe engineering, and plant resources. Its facilities include a chemical analysis center, computer center, library containing 100,000 books and periodicals, and an arboretum with 400 woody plants native to the Northeast. The institute publishes three journals: Acta of Applied Ecology [Yingyong shengtai xuebao], Chinese Journal of Ecology [Zhongguo shengtaixue zazhi], and Forest Ecosystem Research [Senlin shengtai xitong yanjiu].

Research on grasslands has been a minor theme at this institute, whose principal focus has been on forest ecology, particularly at the Changbaishan Reserve in southeastern Liaoning, along the Korean border. Seven members of the geobotany program and approximately fifteen other scientists at IAE work on topics related to the grasslands. During the Seventh Five-Year Plan (1985–1990), the institute had two major grants, from the Ministry of Forestry and the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region government, worth 500,000–700,000 RMB, to support grassland research. Most of this work was carried out at the Wulanaodu research station, the only one of six IAE field stations that is devoted to grassland research.

Suggested Citation:"10 The Northeast." National Research Council. 1992. Grasslands and Grassland Sciences in Northern China. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1942.
×

WULANAODU GRASSLAND ECOSYSTEM RESEARCH STATION

Chinese

Wulanaodu caoyuan shengtai yanjiuzhan

Address

c/o Shenyang Institute of Applied Ecology

Director

Kou Zhenwu

The Wulanaodu research station is located in Wulanaodu Village, Wengniute Banner, Chifeng City (formerly Zhaowuda League), Inner Mongolia (119°39'E, 43°02'N), approximately 100 km north of Chifeng, at the western extremity of the Keerqin Sandland. For at least a millennium, this area supported nomadic animal husbandry, but the influx of Han settlers and the expansion of agriculture during the past century and, particularly, the past few decades have destroyed much of the natural vegetation, giving rise to large, unstable dunes. Support for the Wulanaodu research station comes from agencies concerned with the practical problems of salvaging the land and maintaining the economy, rather than an interest in basic knowledge.

Creation of the research station was an outgrowth of the Cultural Revolution and illustrates both the hardships of many urban Chinese who were forced to endure these events and the benefits to backward rural areas that proponents of the Cultural Revolution claimed it would produce. In 1970 a team of scientists from the Shenyang institute were "sent down" to a village on the Xilamulun [Xar Moron] River, just north of Wulanaodu, where they lived, worked with the local peasants, and carried out simple research. In 1974, one member of this group, Kou Zhenwu, came to Wulanaodu and began more serious research. The research station was formally established in 1975. In 1991, it had a staff of four professors, led by Kou Zhenwu, two senior engineers, and five assistant professors, all men between the ages of 25 and 33 with master's degrees in the fields of dendrochronology, plant community dynamics, population dynamics, landscape ecology, and geographic information systems. The station covers 3000 hectares and includes natural and artificial grasslands, an artificial forest, experimental plots, a meteorological station, and buildings that house dormitory, kitchen, offices, and laboratories.

Since 1975, scholars at the station have carried out experiments on the construction of forest shelterbelts, dune fixation, and grassland improvement. The dune fixation work, which is currently supported by a grant of 300,000 RMB per year from the Inner Mongolian government, follows the established method of securing 1-m squares of sand with straw inserts and planting a shrub in the center of each square. After the shrubs take hold, natural seeding gives rise to other vegetation types. Grassland improvement relies on soil and vegetation surveys to establish the degree of degradation of each area, followed by the application of appropriate fencing, plowing, seeding, and fertilization. Both types of experiments have been performed on a demonstration basis, after which the station seeks to promote adoption of the techniques by local

Suggested Citation:"10 The Northeast." National Research Council. 1992. Grasslands and Grassland Sciences in Northern China. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1942.
×

farmers and herders. In the course of this work, scholars at Wulanaodu have assembled more than 10 years of data on the climate, vegetation, and soils of this region, which provide a firm basis for continued ecological study. The main results of this research have appeared in Studies on the Integrated Control of Wind, Sand-Drifting and Drought in Eastern Inner Mongolia, Vol. 1, 26 papers (People's Press of Inner Mongolia, 1984); Vol. 2, 37 papers (Scientific Press, 1990).

Suggested Citation:"10 The Northeast." National Research Council. 1992. Grasslands and Grassland Sciences in Northern China. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1942.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Northeast." National Research Council. 1992. Grasslands and Grassland Sciences in Northern China. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1942.
×
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Northeast." National Research Council. 1992. Grasslands and Grassland Sciences in Northern China. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1942.
×
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Northeast." National Research Council. 1992. Grasslands and Grassland Sciences in Northern China. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1942.
×
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Northeast." National Research Council. 1992. Grasslands and Grassland Sciences in Northern China. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1942.
×
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Northeast." National Research Council. 1992. Grasslands and Grassland Sciences in Northern China. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1942.
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Suggested Citation:"10 The Northeast." National Research Council. 1992. Grasslands and Grassland Sciences in Northern China. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/1942.
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Grasslands and Grassland Sciences in Northern China Get This Book
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This volume describes one of the most extensive grassland ecosystems and the efforts of Chinese scientists to understand it.

Leading Chinese scientists attribute the decline in China's grasslands to overgrazing and excessive cultivation of marginal areas and discuss measures to limit the damage. The book gives its view on the Chinese approach to the study of grasslands and the relevance of this activity in China to global scientific concerns.

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