This book comprehensively describes the major ecosystem services in dryland environments that are provided by typical land use, including forestland, grassland and farmland, using the Loess Plateau, Northwest China as an example. It offers extensive information on land policy, implementation and scientific evidence, and discusses the restoration of the degraded Loess Plateau environment, which that brings new challenges in the sustainable use of natural resources, in particular soil and water. It presents a transdisciplinary and up-to-date understanding of interlinkages and competition between different ecosystem services and illustrates benefit sharing among different users and stakeholders, land- management practitioners and local governments. It is a major contribution to the on-going debate on future land-development strategies and identifies areas where there is a need for more research. This book is a valuable resource for students, scientists and policy makers.
Dr. Lulu Zhang works in the Soil and Land Management unit at United Nations University Institute for Integrated Management of Material Fluxes and of Resources (UNU-FLORES). One of her current research focuses is multifunctional land-use system in water-stress area that enables a balanced ecosystem services supply – demand under changing environment. She has a background of hydrology and soil science and works with hydrological modelling.
Dr. Lulu Zhang obtained her PhD from the Technische Universität Dresden (TU Dresden) as a scholar funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). During her time at TU Dresden, she has worked in research on impact assessment of soil and land-use management in forest and agricultural ecosystems across subtropical and drought-prone areas. These experiences gave her special insights and interests in land-based and regional specific management of natural resources, specifically in ecological conservation - vegetation – hydrology interaction.
Dr. Kai Schwärzel is an Academic Officer at United Nations University Institute for Integrated Management of Material Fluxes and of Resources (UNU-FLORES) where he leads the Soil and Land-use Management unit. The overall goal of his work is to understand, quantify, and predict processes that control water and matter fluxes in variable saturated soils ranging from the plot to catchment scale. He is using lab and field experiments, as well as numerical modelling, to deal with these problems.
After completing his PhD in the field of Soil Physics and Soil Hydrology, Dr. Schwärzel worked as a Postdoc at the Chair of Site Ecology and Soil Protection, Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin). During his time at TU Berlin, his research focused mainly on the impact of dewatering of wetlands on hydraulic soil properties, water budget, trace gas fluxes, and crop yields.
In 2004, Dr. Schwärzel became a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Soil Science and Site Ecology at the Forestry Department of the Technische Universität Dresden (TU Dresden). In 2012, he completed his habilitation at the TU Dresden and received the venia legend for ‘soil Science and Ecohydrology’. His research over the last decade has focused on the impact of soils, land use management and climate on water and matter fluxes, green and blue water pools, and related soil physical properties. He has studied the functions of soils under various types of land use and management with respect to flood prevention in mountainous regions, drought mitigation and soil physical health. The work of Dr. Schwärzel combines aspects of soil physics/hydrology and soil-plant-atmosphere interactions.
