Interdisciplinary governance of soil erosion on the Loess Plateau
Tailin Liu
THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, OLD COLLEGE SOUTH BRIDGE
DOI: https://doi.org/10.59429/pest.v7i4.12446
Keywords: Loess Plateau; soil erosion; interdisciplinary governance; ecological compensation; agricultural sustainability; social equity
Abstract
The Loess Plateau is one of the most severely eroded regions in the world. Over the past decades, China’s ecological restoration programs, such as the Grain for Green Project, have significantly reduced soil erosion but also created new challenges including the reduction of arable land and livelihood difficulties for farmers. This paper adopts an interdisciplinary governance perspective—Integrating ecology, agricultural economics, law, sociology, and ethics—To analyze the limitations of current policies and explore pathways toward sustainable soil and water management. The findings indicate that single-disciplinary policies often overlook the socio-economic complexity of environmental governance, whereas interdisciplinary approaches can better coordinate ecological restoration, economic incentives, legal safeguards, and social justice. Policy recommendations include promoting eco-agricultural coexistence models, establishing long-term market-based incentive mechanisms, clarifying land tenure rights with legal guarantees, and building urban–rural ecological compensation systems to ensure a win–win outcome between environmental sustainability and rural livelihoods.
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