Location: Stations--Agricultural Stations--Ansai Research Station Of Soil and Water Conservation, Chinese Academy Of Sciences

Location and regional characteristics Ansai station

first as a field station of Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) and the Ministry of Water Conservancy has been in operation since 1973, and became one of the leading stations of Chinese Ecosystem Research Network (CERN) in 1992 . Working on soil erosion, long term agro-ecosystem research and sustainable agriculture as well as extension in loess hilly and gully region with serious soil erosion, the station has become a research , demonstration and training center since it was established.

Ansai Station, situated in the suburb of Ansai County, Yan'an Prefecture of Shaanxi Province, lies in the typical loess hill-gullied region of the Loess Plateau (Longitude E109°9'23", Latitude N36 °51'30") with an elevation of 1010--1431m, gully density of 4.2-8km /km2 and erosion modules of 13,500t/km2.y.

The station is located in semiarid area in warm temperate zone with an annual mean temperature of 8.8° (minimum -23.6 and maximum 36.8 ), . The >=10 accumulate temperature is 3,113.9 . The Station has free frost period of 159 days, the annual sunshine duration and total radiation are of 2,416 hours and 548,000 J/cm2, the annual precipitation, evaporation and aridity index are 541.2 mm, 1,464 mm, and 1.46, respectively.

The vegetation in the region belongs to the temperate forest-steppe zone. However, the original vegetation has already been destroyed. Ansai county has a population density of 45persion/km2, which is one of the counties with most serious soil erosion by human activity impact , irrational land use and degraded ecosystem. However, it's a county with great potential for developing of crop production, forestry and animal husbandry whose land needs to be well managed.

Research area and current research projects

Based on local characteristics, Ansai station carries out long term positioning research in the following aspects: to study the evolution of soil erosion and its impact on environment; natural resources, eco-environment, social economy and system productivity and regulation as well as their time and spatial change under human impact. Place more emphasis on the process, mechanism and control of soil erosion; rational use of land resources; deteriorated ecosystem restoration and health indicators; conservational eco-agriculture to provide the model with high efficiency and stable development for comprehensive control and sustainable development in the Loess Plateau, and provide necessary information of the Loess Plateau region to CERN and IGBP.

Working condition and research staff

Since its establishment, the station has been implementing a number of national and provincial key research projects on comprehensive control and sustainable agriculture in Loess Plateau, and conducted some cooperation research with Russia, Japan and USA institutions.

The research achievements

awarded the first prize of National Scientific and Technological InnovationNSTI) , the first, second and third prizes of STI of CAS and Shaanxi Province. The station has collected long-term information on soil erosion and ecological factors. The station has 1900 M2 of building with living quarters and offices for 30 staff with six laboratories. The field installation are built in 75 ha. of hilly slope including

 *Water Equilibrium Site Lysimeter, evaporation gauge and tank, 46 of plots in cropland (terrace and sloping field) ; grassland and woodland.

 *Nutrient Cycling Site: including 28 plots with different crops and tillage in both terrace and slope land.

*Soil Erosion Site: including 86 runoff plots with different slope lengths, gradients and shapes as well as different crops and management.

*Meteorological Station and Micro-climate Site: There is one automatic meteorological station in the comprehensive site and there are three micro-climate sites in cropland, grassland and woodland of the station.

*Grassland improvement and use site: This experimental site is mainly located in the steep gully area.

The station also has an experimental and demonstration area--Zhifang gully watershed with an area of 8.27 km2 to implement the result of the research and carry out some national research projects, and to set up the model for conservation eco-agriculture, land management and ecosystem restoration.

MANAGEMENT

As a department of the Institute and a leading station of CERN, Station consists of a director and a deputy director in charge of the research project and management, as well as a manager for maintenance.

Director: Dr. Guobin Liu , Ph.D. Prof.

Deputy director: Yinli Liang, Ph.D. Prof

Address: Ansai station, Institute of Soil and Water Conservation CAS and Ministry of Water Resources 26 Xinong Road Yangling, Shaanxi Province P. R. China 712100

Tel: +86 (0)29-7012907

Fax: +86 (0)29-7012210

E-mail: gbliu@ms.iswc.ac.cn