Environmental Pollution and Protection

Download PDF (368.1 KB) PP. 81 - 88 Pub. Date: December 23, 2016

DOI: 10.22606/epp.2016.12003

• Yun Liu^*
  Key Laboratory of the Three Gorges Reservoir Region’s Eco-Environment (Southwest University), Ministry of Education, College of Resources and Environment, Southwest University, Chongqing 400716, China
• J.H. Martin Willison
  School for Resource and Environmental Studies, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 4R2

The drawdown zone of China's Three Gorges Reservoir is available for crops during summer, but few perennial crops tolerate the winter flooding stress. We examined white mulberry (Morus alba L.) at a site in Muhe Village, Chongqing, where a 15-yearold mulberry plantation has survived seven cycles of winter immersion since 2009. The plantation lies on riverside terraces and is maintained by silk farmers who have adapted their crop management regime for the changed conditions. Despite benefits to farmers, their use of the resource conflicts with the management regime for the reservoir, which had not anticipated mulberry survival. It is concluded that mulberry trees have potential roles in a strategy for managing the drawdown zone so as to provide environmental protection, ecosystem services and use of the land resource. It is recommended that the reservoir management system become more adaptive and participatory, and that land-use regulations encourage mulberry use.

Sericulture, Morus alba, Three Gorges Reservoir, flooding stress, ecosystem services

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