Guobin Liu
Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Northwest A&F University
The Chinese Academy of Sciences and Ministry of Water Resources

The Loess Plateau is well known for its serious soil erosion and ecosystem degradation. This paper analysis the characteristic of soil erosion and on the Plateau，and reviewed ecosystem rehabilitation and management as well as sustainable development in the future. In the last 30 years, the scientist has paid a great attention on the integrated ecosystem management and restoration of the Loess Plateau. A regional network of long term field station has been established under the support by the CERN. The integrated observation system on the environment in the plot, small watershed and regional scale were setup. Chinese scientist presented strategy and conservational eco-agriculture on the Plateau for Grain food security, ecological security and economical sustainable. The long term research found that the driving force for ecosystem succession on the Loess Plateau is the land use pattern, and re-vegetation is the key measure for rehabilitation. The ecosystem rehabilitation models in different scale have been established which provide the real case for research and extension in local people. The result showed that after 20 years’ continuous rehabilitation management of watershed in the hilly Loess Plateau, soil erosion was controlled and watershed eco-economic system came into fine development period with sustainable development. The further research on the ecosystem rehabilitation should focus on the ecosystem natural rehabilitation, impact of rehabilitation on the environment and intergraded assessment as well as the ecosystem stability.
Key words: soil erosion, ecosystem rehabilitation, Loess Plateau