ABSTRACT
In the gullied and rolling Loess Plateau, soil and water conservation is the basic way to change natural landscape, increase crop yield, improve overall development of farming, forestry, animal husbandry and side-line production, increase economic income and reduce sediment entering the Yellow River. This paper discusses the effect of soil and water conservation on development of rural economy taking Wangmaogou small watershed as example, which lays in No. 1 sub-region of the gullied and rolling Loess Plateau and is subject to serious soil loss. The effect of soil and water conservation on development of the rural economy is: setting up basic farmland, improving agricultural production conditions, increasing crop yield, and meeting the demand of local people for selfsufficiency in grain. Additionally, it reduced farmland area, provided conditions for forest and grass production, increased forest development (especially increasing economic forest area) and animal husbandry. Additionally, farmers’ workdays have been reduced, allowing time for development of other trades, thereby increasing income of industry and side-line which adjusts the industrial structure and increases economic income. By enlarging forest-grass areas, degree of vegetation cover is increased and the ecological environment is improved.
