Climate Change and Dryland Agricultural Ecosystem Management

The Institute of Arid Agroecology
The Institute of Arid Agroecology of Lanzhou University is affiliated to the MOE (Ministry of
Education) Key Laboratory of Arid and Grassland Ecology. It bears a glorious history and fine
academic tradition. Since its establishment in the 1990s, the institute has undertaken the mission of the
revitalization of agricultural and ecological sustainable development in northwest China. Its objective
is to develop water-saving ecological agriculture in arid and semiarid areas, and harmonize the
relationship between human and nature in ecologically fragile areas. Nowadays, the drought has
severely restricted the northwest environmental and social development, and the ecological crisis
compels us to seek to resolve these issues. It is incumbent for the institute to take up the responsibility
of scientific research in arid environments.
The institute centers on the arid and semi-arid regions, which occupies 52.5% of the total area.
Because of the drought and coldness, especially the serious degradation of ecosystems resulting from
the fragility of the ecological environment, high intensity of population and agricultural pressures, the
sustainable development and the protection of ecological environment have become major issues
worldwide. To solve the above problem lies in how to correctly understand and appropriately control
the evolution of natural ecosystems to increase vegetation coverage and improve the ecological
environment; how to improve and monitor agro-ecosystem productivity in order to enhance the overall
development level, which precisely constitute the core and the goal of our team’s research.
Faced with these problems, based on farmland-land productivity, studies on agriculture and
animal husbandry are combined to improve agricultural productivity and increase integrated
ecosystem vegetation coverage. The team stands out by the combination of ecology and
agriculture-forestry. In the mid-80s mid-90s of the 20th century, to deal with the long-term
degradation of ecosystems and low life quality in the semi-arid Loess Plateau region, the team, led by
Professor Song-Ling Zhao, proposed rain-harvesting agriculture system, which would serve as the
foundation of further dryland agro-ecological research.
The founder of the research team for the original State Key Laboratory of Arid Agroecology was
Professor Song-Ling Zhao. As early as the mid-1980s, Professor Song-Ling Zhao led the team to carry
out studies on agricultural ecology, when the most important issue facing the region was to feed
people. The team did a large amount of research on the relationship between environmental factors
and yield of spring wheat, and proposed theories of rain-harvesting agriculture, which drew attention
from former Premier Li Peng. Rain-harvesting agriculture was widely applied in northwest provinces
and initiated a wave of water utilization studies. After the death of Professor Song-Ling Zhao in 1996,
Professor Feng-Min Li became the team leader. Based on the past achievement, the team proposed
rain-harvesting eco-agriculture, which was approved by academics and national leaders. In the new
century, especially in the past three years, the team managed to achieve new development by
emphasizing basic science research and establishment of regional ecological planning.
Main Faculty Staff and Postgraduates Prof. Feng-Min Li, Director of the Institute
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