Shanxi province, which used to suffer from severe soil erosion, has seen steady improvements after decades of efforts.
Shanxi is located in the middle reaches of the Yellow River and in the eastern part of the Loess Plateau. The region had been a victim of soil erosion for many centuries because of its terrain being dominated by mountains and hills with less vegetation coverage and loose soil.
In the early 1950s, the area of soil erosion in Shanxi was 108,000 square kilometers, of which 67,600 sq km was in the Yellow River drainage basin. The soil erosion-induced annual sediment in the Yellow River was 366 million metric tons during that period.
Shanxi began its initiative in curbing soil erosion in that period and the pace has been accelerated since 2012.
After years of continuous treatment, the area of soil erosion in the province has been reduced to 58,000 sq km at the end of 2021, a decrease of 12,300 sq km, or 17.5 percent, from the figure of 70,300 sq km in 2011. This also means that 63 percent of Shanxi's territory has been freed from soil erosion.
In Shanxi, the efforts in soil erosion are a combination of greening and engineering measures.
With regard to greening, Shanxi has seen an annual addition of nearly 270,000 hectares of forest in recent years on average. The latest survey by the Shanxi Forestry and Grassland Administration shows that the province's forest coverage surpassed 25 percent at the end of 2020.
Engineering measures, such as building level terraces and works for gully head protection, also proved to be successful in erosion control. This is especially true in the areas of the Lyuliang and Taihang mountains, which feature steeper slopes.
The province has enhanced legislative efforts for curbing soil erosion, especially that caused by human activities.
Over the past few decades, Shanxi has released a number of regulations and laws for soil erosion control and has deployed special task forces for law enforcement.
During 2020-21, for instance, the province implemented a special law enforcement campaign to curb activities that could lead to soil erosion.
Thanks to the use of the latest technologies like remote sensing, provincial law enforcement identified 1,155 projects with potential risks of soil erosion and ordered the related businesses to act.
The province will continue its efforts to curb soil erosion in the years to come. According to Shanxi's 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-25) for Soil Erosion Control, it plans to bring nearly 370 sq km of eroded land under control every year over the next three years.

Li Shu contributed to this story.
By Yuan Shenggao