Journal article
The new era of the livestock production in Mongolia: Consequences on streams of the Great Lakes Depression
The Science of the total environment, v 409(22), pp 4841-4846
15 Oct 2011
PMID: 21889787
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Mongolia, a landlocked country of the Central Asian plateau, is experiencing a significant modification of herding practices coupled with an increase in livestock numbers. These modifications lead to increasing impacts of grazing on the Mongolian steppes with major consequences on the waterbodies. We researched the impacts of grazing intensity on the streams of the Great Lakes Depression in northwestern Mongolia. We assessed the level of watershed and stream bank erosion and the type of vegetation structure. We calculated the livestock densities per watershed and linked them to the stream water discharge through a new metric (I(CU)). I(CU) was created as a function of cattle unit density and water discharge, having water discharge at a stream section reflecting its location in the drainage and therefore accounting for the surface area drained upstream. We measured also the major nutrients in the stream water and researched the causalities between the grazing and the impairment of watersheds and streams. Our results suggest that the increase of livestock numbers is reaching beyond the grassland and affecting the stream ecosystem. Two major impacts were highlighted by this study, 1) the extensive watershed and stream bank erosion and 2) the increase in concentration of suspended particles and orthophosphate in stream systems. When compared with past values from literature, our results show recent eutrophication of the streams compared to the preliberalization of the herding activity in Mongolia (before 1991). Consequently the continued uncontrolled increase of livestock numbers could threaten the conservation of the Mongolian waterbodies, with notable consequences on the life of the nomadic population of the Central Asian Plateau. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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Details
- Title
- The new era of the livestock production in Mongolia: Consequences on streams of the Great Lakes Depression
- Creators
- Alain Maasri - Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel UniversityJon Gelhaus - Drexel University
- Publication Details
- The Science of the total environment, v 409(22), pp 4841-4846
- Publisher
- Elsevier
- Number of pages
- 6
- Grant note
- 0743732 / National Science Foundation; National Science Foundation (NSF)
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Biodiversity, Earth, and Environmental Science (BEES)
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000296306900024
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-80053332414
- Other Identifier
- 991019168454004721
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