A Survey Study on Grassland Degradation over the Source Water Region of the Yellow River

The source water region of the Yellow River covers southern part of Qinghai province and part of southern Gansu province,China,its ecological and environmental conditions have essential impacts on the downstream social economics and water supplies,and the stock raising has high proportional contributions to the local economics.However,this region is currently suffering from serious grassland degradation,and the capacity for livestock feeding is decreasing dramatically.By using questionnaire in this survey analysis,the causes for the grassland degradation had been investigated in the source water region of the Yellow River.The results indicated that the natural causes for grassland degradation are small.While,because of the restriction of local cultures,religion,education and economic structure,the herdsmen expect to increase their income by overgrazing after carrying out the limited grazing in a fixed and fenced area policy,and the over-grazing is main cause of the grassland degradation.The conflict between the administration policy and local social economical development is one of the main factors affecting the degradation of the grassland.