Ningxia

This chapter highlights Ningxia Province, with a largely agriculture-based economy that is undergoing both planned (policy-driven) and autonomous (individual-and household-level) transitions. Environmental degradation, overexploitation of water resources and agricultural intensification make the province’s ecosystems particularly vulnerable to harm during droughts and other weather hazards, in turn increasing the vulnerability of the populations that depend upon the land and its ecosystem services to support their livelihoods. Ningxia is one of the most arid regions of China, experiencing serious water resource shortages due to lack of supply availability, inefficient use of water supplies and high demand, with high evapotranspiration rates (Xu et al., 2013). The province’s average annual per capita water availability is 687 m3, less than one-third of the national average at an amount categorised as ‘severe water shortage’ according to World Bank standards (Qiu et al., 2012; see also Chapter 4). Fragile soils, land use changes and multi-year droughts have intensified desertification rates, with degraded areas now accounting for around 44% of provincial land area (Qiu et al., 2012). The types of challenges that Ningxia faces exemplify some aspects of China’s larger adaptation challenge. Families in Ningxia that rely on agriculture and livestock raising for their living, like Ma Changjun’s, cannot afford to waste a drop of water. His family and those living in Yanchi in Ningxia make their living by growing maize and breeding sheep, and through temporary migration to find work in other places. Many families in rural communities in central and northern parts of the province (Figure 8.1) rely on cisterns to meet drinking water needs, and they ration and recycle water from bathing to wash clothes and water their vegetables and sheep. Despite this, there is not enough water in some years,

Ma says in a 2012 interview. Drought, declines in rainfall over the past two decades and overgrazing that damages the land are stressing these families’ abilities to survive. The types of issues facing Ningxia’s families – land use and water resource management, transitioning socio-economic conditions, pollution issues and migration – are emblematic of the types of issues facing families in other provinces in China, particularly rural families. Many rural provinces, including Ningxia, have greater proportions of ethnic groups who have different cultures, traditional livelihoods and relationships with the land – in effect marking multiple Chinas. These identities and socio-cultural values are shifting in response to wider environmental, policy and economic pressures, as discussed in Chapter 2. Climate change is an additional pressure placed upon the inhabitants of Ningxia, and altering their climate risks.