Abstract:

Jinsha River Basin in Yunnan Province, which is the most ecologically fragile mountain area and one of the areas with the most severe soil erosion as well as one of the areas with most the notable LUCC in China, has been on Chinese Government’s list of the nation’s key areas to be improved ecologically. This paper is to reveal the basic trend of this area’s LUCC and soil erosion change and to provide a basis for the future sustainable use of land resources by studying Binchuan County, a typical place in medium-altitude mountain-plateau and dry-hot valley zone in the middle reaches of Jinsha River. Based on the County’s land use/cover and soil erosion map in 1960, 1980 and 2000 drawn with the aid of aerial photograph interpretation, field investigation and GIS mapping techniques, the paper is to study the County’s LUCC during the period from 1960 to 2000 and soil erosion change arising from it. In addition, the paper sums up the main experiences and lessons of harnessing land ecological environment from 1960 to 2000 in the County, and puts forward some proposals of engineering and techniques for harnessing land ecological environment in the County.

Key words: , sustainable land use, land use/cover change (LUCC), soil erosion, the middle reaches of Jinsha River