The Achievements of the Project “The Function Optimization of Ecological Functions and Soil and Water Resources Utilization in the Dongting Lake Basin” Awarded the First Prize of Hunan Province Annual Scientific and Technological Progress

On the medal presentation congress of CEEUSRO Innovation and Technological Achivements in Hunan province, the achievements of the project “The Study and Application of Key Technologies on Function Optimization of Ecological Functions and Soil and Water Resources Utilization in the Dongting Lake basin”, presided by Prof. Kelin Wang, the director of Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, CAS, awarded the first prize of scientific and technological progress in Hunan province in 2008.

Aiming at the problems of increasingly acute contradictions between people and land, and decrease of ecological functions, etc. in Dongting Lake basin, the project applied the technical route of the combination of regional research and long-term experiment, as well as the coordinated development of "tackling-demonstration-extension ", through three scales, namely the Dongting Lake area, around lake hilly and whole basin, simultaneously carrying out the research from ecological changes, function optimization, and sustainable and highly efficient utilization of soil and water resources, the project has obtained research achievements with importance and innovation from 6 aspects:

1) Systematically revealed the relationship between the land use / land cover changes and lake capacity, flood storage function and flood risk in Dongting Lake area in the recent 20 years;

2) Scientifically assessed the service function value of the wetland ecosystem in Dongting Lake area, and determined the basic ecological functions; initially proved the succession trends and evolution mechanisms of wetland ecosystem and biodiversity before and after implementation of “Returning Farmland to Lake Engineering” in lake area; and constructed the high-performance eco-agricultural model of environmental protection in wetlands and coordinated agriculture development;

3) Revealed the migration laws on soil and water erosion, soil fertility evolution and the main nutrient elements in hilly sloping lands; elucidated the reasons and occurrence regularity of seasonal drought in hilly region; discovered the function on water retention, drought resistance and flood prevention of ”water-rich soil layer" in hilly uplands; constructed the technical system on regulation and storage of suface water resources; established the mutually beneficial model on "soil-water-biology" resources; and revealed the potentiality, evolution trends and development mechanisms on exploitation and utilization in hilly sloping lands;

4) Established the ecological environment and agricultural development database of the Dongting Lake Basin; studied and revealed the main problems and causes on the ecological security of the basin; firstly proposed the complete management strategies on alleviation of waterlog threats and protection of ecological security in the whole basin;

5) Firstly and systematically defined the concept, characteristics and the study boundary of competitiveness in rural regions, and built the evaluation index system and prediction model; firstly revealed the spatial pattern differences and their dynamic changes on the rural competitiveness of the Hunan county, city territory and province level under provincial scale, and put forward the overall strategies and the essential measures to enhance rural competitiveness in Hunan province;

6) Assembled and integrated the practical techniques on protective reclamation in hilly land resources, exploitation of green alternative industry in Dongling Lake encirclement dike, comprehensive administration on agricultural non-point pollution, ecological prevention and control of pests, rehabilitation of degraded soils, comprehensive resistance and defence om seasonal drought; constructed the technical system on the eco-safety function rehabilitation and improvement in the basin, which has been popularization and application in large area. (Dec. 4, 2008)