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This study evaluates the labor response of rural households participating in the Grain-for-Green program in China, the largest payments for ecosystem services program in the developing world. Using a panel data set that we designed and implemented, we find that the participating households are increasingly shifting their labor endowment from on-farm work to the off-farm labor market. However, the effects vary depending on the initial level of human and physical capital. The results support the view that one reason why the participants are more likely to find off-farm employment is because the program is relaxing households' liquidity constraints.

Aim China's Grain for Green Program (GFGP) is the largest reforestation programme in the world and has been operating since 1999. The GFGP has promoted the establishment of tree plantations over the restoration of diverse native forests. In a previous study, we showed that native forests support a higher species richness and abundance of birds and bees than do GFGP plantations and that mixed‐species GFGP plantations support a higher level of bird (but not bee) diversity than do any individual GFGP monocultures (although still below that of native forests). Here, we use metabarcoding of arthropod diversity to test the generality of these results. Location Sichuan, China. Methods We sampled arthropod communities using pan traps in the land cover types concerned under the GFGP. These land use types include croplands (the land cover being reforested under the GFGP), native forests (the reference ecosystem as the benchmark for the GFGP’s biodiversity effects) and the dominant GFGP reforestation outcomes: monoculture and mixed‐species plantations. We used COI‐amplicon sequencing (“metabarcoding”) of the arthropod samples to quantify and assess the arthropod community profiles associated with each land cover type. Results Native forests support the highest overall levels of arthropod species diversity, followed by mixed‐species plantations, followed by bamboo and other monocultures. Also, the arthropod community in native forests shares more species with mixed‐species plantations than it does with any of the monocultures. Together, these results broadly corroborate our previous conclusions on birds and bees but show a higher arthropod biodiversity value of mixed‐species plantations than previously indicated by bees alone. Main conclusion In our previous study, we recommended that GFGP should prioritize the conservation and restoration of native forests. Also, where plantations are to be used, we recommended that the GFGP should promote mixed‐species arrangements over monocultures. Both these recommendations should result in more effective protection of terrestrial biodiversity, which is an important objective of China's land‐sustainability spending. The results of this study strengthen these recommendations because our policy prescriptions are now also based on a dataset that includes over 500 species‐resolution taxa, ranging across the Arthropoda.

Contexts An important feature of ecosystem service interaction is that it changes over time and across spatial scales. Objectives This research aims to find which ecosystem service interactions temporally vary and depend on spatial scale. Methods We calculated six ecosystem services of the Baota District on the central Loess Plateau of China for 2000, 2005, and 2010. Furthermore, we quantified the interactions among these services at the beginning and after the end of the first phase of the Grain for Green Program in this area, and across the pixel scale of 1 km 2 and the town scale. Results Water yield decreased significantly, and habitat quality, net primary productivity, and evapotranspiration increased significantly across different land use types from 2000 to 2005. The synergy between food productivity and water yield, and the trade-off between water yield and evapotranspiration, greatly reduced from 2000 to 2010 at the pixel scale. Water yield was a trade-off to habitat quality, NPP, and recreation capacity in 2000 at the pixel scale while a synergy to the three services in 2010. The synergies between habitat quality and NPP, evapotranspiration, and recreation capacity at the pixel scale were enhanced from 2000 to 2010. Changes in the direction or significance of correlations among ecosystem services were observed across the pixel and town scales in 2000 and 2010. Conclusions This study contributes to increasing the understanding of the temporal variation of ecosystem service interactions caused by regional ecological restoration programs, and the spatial scale dependency of the interactions.

In recent decades, climate change has affected vegetation growth in terrestrial ecosystems. We investigated spatial and temporal patterns of vegetation cover on the Loess Plateau’s Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia region in central China using MODIS-NDVI data for 2000–2014. We examined the roles of regional climate change and human activities in vegetation restoration, particularly from 1999 when conversion of sloping farmland to forestland or grassland began under the national Grain-for-Green program. Our results indicated a general upward trend in average NDVI values in the study area. The region’s annual growth rate greatly exceeded those of the Three-North Shelter Forest, the upper reaches of the Yellow River, the Qinling–Daba Mountains, and the Three-River Headwater region. The green vegetation zone has been annually extending from the southeast toward the northwest, with about 97.4% of the region evidencing an upward trend in vegetation cover. The NDVI trend and fluctuation characteristics indicate the occurrence of vegetation restoration in the study region, with gradual vegetation stabilization associated with 15 years of ecological engineering projects. Under favorable climatic conditions, increasing local vegetation cover is primarily attributable to ecosystem reconstruction projects. However, our findings indicate a growing risk of vegetation degradation in the northern part of Shaanxi Province as a result of energy production facilities and chemical industry infrastructure, and increasing exploitation of mineral resources.

The importance of accurately monitoring rangeland degradation dynamics over decades is increasing in Linxia rangeland, the birthplace of the Yellow River in China. Since 2000, the Chinese government has implemented the “Grain for Green” program and enforced a grazing ban in Gansu province, one of the most degraded provinces, to mitigate the problem of rangeland degradation. The effects of these policies are controversial and have become a topic of public concern. In this study, a grading system was established for the estimation of Linxia rangeland degradation. Degrees of rangeland degradation were interpreted and the spatio-temporal dynamics of the degraded rangeland through several study periods were mapped and monitored using the Linear Spectral Mixture Analysis method on Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM)/ETM+ (Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus) images for the years of 1996, 2001, 2006, and 2011. The results demonstrated that the time around the year 2001 appeared to be a turning point of the rangeland degradation reversion course, as the rangeland degradation reversed significantly since 2001. From 1996 to 2001, the total degraded area in Linxia rangeland increased from 2922.01 km2 to 3048.48 km2 (+4.33%), and decreased by 4.54% to 2909.97 km2 in 2011; the non-degraded rangeland gradually increased from 602.74 km2 to 710.01 km2, an increase of 17.80%. Degraded rangeland vegetation was restored significantly during 2001–2011: the area of slightly degraded rangeland increased by 3.71% and 3.83% annually during 2001–2006 and 2006–2011 intervals, respectively, and the area of moderately and severely degraded rangeland decreased annually by 4.77% and 2.41% from 2001 to 2006, and 4.58% and 0.81% during 2006–2011, respectively. These results indicated that the “Grain for Green” program and grazing ban policy, together with other ecological impacting factors, helped reverse the rangeland degradation and promote the rehabilitation of rangeland vegetation.

Drought affects the growth and productivity of vegetation, and the analysis of drought resistance of vegetation can help ecological and environmental protection and sustainable development in drought-prone areas. The Loess Plateau (LP) is a drought-prone area in China with an extremely fragile ecological environment. This study analyzed the drought resistance of vegetation across different climate regions and vegetation biotypes, explored the characteristics of changes in vegetation drought resistance before and after the implementation of the Grain for Green Program (GGP), and evaluated the relative contribution of climatic factors and human activities to the change in drought resistance of vegetation. The following conclusions are obtained. (1) The drought resistance of vegetation on the LP basically showed a spatial pattern of increasing from northwest to southeast with the degree of aridity. The vegetation in the semi-humid and arid regions showed the strongest and weakest drought resistance, respectively. (2) The drought resistance of vegetation on the LP mainly showed an increasing trend since the GGP was implemented, but there were differences in different climatic zones. In semi-humid regions, the drought resistance of vegetation mainly showed a weakening trend, while in arid and semi-arid regions, it mainly showed an increasing trend. There were differences between vegetation biotypes as well; the drought resistance of forest and grassland showed a different trend in different climatic zones, while that of crops in all climatic zones showed an increasing trend. In the area with cropland returned, the drought resistance tended to increase where crops turned to forests, but the area where crops turned to grassland showed a weakening trend. (3) The positive contribution of climate change and human activities leads to the enhancement of drought resistance of vegetation in most areas of the LP, and the weakening of drought resistance of vegetation in semi-humid regions is dominated by the negative contribution of climate change. The negative contribution of human activities is the main reason for the decrease in drought resistance of vegetation in the area of returning cropland to grassland. This study can provide a reference for ecological protection and high-quality development of the LP.

Context The Yellow River Basin (YRB) is a key ecological barrier in China. The Natural Forest Protection Program (NFPP) and Grain for Green Program (GGP) are ecological restoration programs implemented in response to the deterioration of China’s ecological environment. It is essential to understand how the NFPP and GGP protect forest resources to appreciate how they support the restoration of the forest ecosystem in the YRB. Objectives Evaluating the effects of the two ecological programs on forest resources provides a solid scientific basis for maintaining the forest ecosystem’s stability in the YRB. Methods Based on the 30 m resolution land cover products in 2000, 2010, and 2020, this study analyzed the dynamic changes of landscape patterns in the YRB from 2000 to 2020 through GuidosToolbox spatial analysis software. Results In the past 20 years, the area of cropland in the YRB decreased by 4.13%, while the area of forest and grassland increased by 1.34% and 0.56%, respectively. The core area, which is important for maintaining the stability of the forest ecosystem, increased by 0.55%. The area with low fragmentation increased by 0.91%. In the natural forest, the core area increased by 1.20%. In the range of the GGP, 28.20% of cropland area was transferred out, of which over  80% was converted to forest and grassland. Conclusions These findings demonstrated an improvement in forest area and quality of the YRB between 2000 and 2020. The NFPP and GGP have greatly aided in the restoration of the forest ecosystem, which will support the ecosystem’s high-quality development in the YRB.

In the late 1990s, China’s Yangtze and Yellow River Basins suffered devastating natural disasters widely attributed to the degradation of soil and water resources. The Government of China responded with a number of major environmental programs, the most expensive and influential of which, the Grain for Green (GfG) Program, was implemented widely from 1999. Under the GfG Program—also known as the Sloping Land Conversion or Conversion of Cropland to Forest Program—the central government compensates farmers to convert cropland on steep slopes or otherwise ecologically sensitive areas to forest or grassland. Its long-term success depends on households’ ability to make sustainable changes to their household income streams and income diversification strategies. In this paper, we use a difference-in-difference estimation approach to examine the role of migration as a household-level response to the GfG Program, testing the extent to which individuals migrate following a reduction in land available for farming. Importantly, we exploit 15 years of data on migration decisions and establish that participating and non-participating households were on parallel migration paths before the program, thus refuting a key threat to causality in a difference-in-difference model. We find that participating families do, in fact, choose migration as an income diversification strategy more frequently than non-participants. The program effects varied over time but peaked post-Great Recession in 2011 when migration rates in GfG households exceeded those of non-GfG households by 5.9% points (p = 0.003) or about 26%. Our findings should encourage policymakers that families are making long-term adjustments to their livelihood strategies to avoid poverty in anticipation of the eventual withdrawal of government supports.

As an important means regulating the relationship between human and natural ecosystem, ecological restoration program plays a key role in restoring ecosystem functions. The Grain-for-Green Program (GFGP, One of the world’s most ambitious ecosystem conservation set-aside programs aims to transfer farmland on steep slopes to forestland or grassland to increase vegetation coverage) has been widely implemented from 1999 to 2015 and exerted significant influence on land use and ecosystem services (ESs). In this study, three ecological models (InVEST, RUSLE, and CASA) were used to accurately calculate the three key types of ESs, water yield (WY), soil conservation (SC), and net primary production (NPP) in Karst area of southwestern China from 1982 to 2015. The impact of GFGP on ESs and trade-offs was analyzed. It provides practical guidance in carrying out ecological regulation in Karst area of China under global climate change. Results showed that ESs and trade-offs had changed dramatically driven by GFGP. In detail, temporally, SC and NPP exhibited an increasing trend, while WY exhibited a decreasing trend. Spatially, SC basically decreased from west to east; NPP basically increased from north to south; WY basically increased from west to east; NPP and SC, SC and WY developed in the direction of trade-offs driven by the GFGP, while NPP and WY developed in the direction of synergy. Therefore, future ecosystem management and restoration policy-making should consider trade-offs of ESs so as to achieve sustainable provision of ESs.

Understanding the postprogram land use plans of participants is necessary for the sustainability of the conservation achievements from payments for ecosystem services (PES) programs. Previous studies have analyzed many individual factors affecting participants’ reconversion plans after PES programs. However, whether the regional ecosystem services changes caused by PES programs affect reconversion willingness remains elusive. Here, we used the multilevel linear model to determine the effects of regional ecosystem services changes and individual characteristics on participants’ land reconversion willingness after the Grain for Green Program (GFGP) in the Yanhe watershed of the Loess Plateau. We found that household income, ecological awareness, and employment changes negatively affected reconversion willingness, while nonfarm employment positively affected it at the individual level. At the regional level, the grain production and water yield changes could influence the reconversion willingness of respondents with different individual characteristics. With improved understanding of the factors affecting reconversion willingness, several suggestions to improve the sustainability of the GFGP were proposed. Our study provides a template for analyzing the multilevel factors that affect the sustainability of other PES programs.