Temporal variations of ecological security with soil and water loss stress in black soil region of northeast China: a case study on Baiquan County

Abstract The deterioration of ecological situation with serious soil and water loss in black soil region of northeast China has attracted more attention due to its significant role on food security of China. To investigate the temporal characteristics of ecological status in typical black soil areas, Baiquan County is selected. Based on the model of Press-Status-Response (P-S-R), indicators are established and the ecological security situations with soil and water loss of Baiquan County are evaluated for the years of 1979, 1990, 2000 and 2005. The results show that the ecological insecurity indicator changes from 0.701 to 0.435 from 1979 to 2005, with a decrease of 37.9% for Baiquan County. And the contributions of physical and human factors to the temporal variations of the ecological security are discussed in detail. Moreover, several problems are recognized to be the potential threats to the ecological security in Baiquan county, including reduction of the effective thickness, excessive application of the fertilizer and low efficiency of the agricultural irrigation system. It is found that effective soil and water loss control actions have made great contribution to the improvement of the ecological security in Baiquan county. All these results and discussions are very helpful for the further investigation on the quantitative relationship between soil and water loss and ecological security in black soil region of northeast China.