Abstract
Desertification is one of the most pressing environmental issues in the world today. The environmental problem of desertification can be remedied through better environmental management and policy—these methods are taken to be the most effective ways of combating desertification. This study comparatively analyzes the implementation of environmental policies designed to combat desertification in Kuwait and the region of Hotan in China. The natural causes of desertification in the two regions are largely the same; therefore, the comparison focuses on policies to control the human factors that cause the problem. The comparisons show that desertification policies in Kuwait and Hotan differ in five ways: the role of local government, laws and regulations, timeliness, public participation, and government funding for forestry. This study aims to share China’s “top-down” model for implementing the environmental policies designed to combat desertification. Results demonstrate that the Chinese “top-down” model might be applied in Kuwait to combat desertification and improve environmental management. Although both Kuwait and Hotan are different in the political and economic system, both of them suffered from desertification, and desertification combating as a part of national action. The proposed assumptions provide a global strategy and a comprehensive project on combating desertification. Kuwait and China should thus enhance their collaboration and communication and make a joint effort to combat desertification via environmental policy management.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Akhtar-Schuster M, Thomas RJ, Stringer LC (2011) Improving the enabling environment to combat land degradation institutional, financial, legal and science-policy challenges and solutions. Land Degrad Dev 22(2):299–312. https://doi.org/10.1002/ldr.1058
Alberti M, Marzluff JM, Shulenberger E et al (2003) Integrating humans into ecology opportunities and challenges for studying urban ecosystems. Bioscience 53:1169–1179
Aliyu SB, Naeema AH (2015) Prospects of environmental governance in addressing sustainability challenges of seawater desalination industry in the Arabian Gulf. Environ Sci Policy 50:145–154
Bai XM, Shi PJ, Liu YS (2014) Realizing China’s urban dream. Nature 509:158–160
Benson D, Jordan AJ (2009) Environmental policy. In: Cini M (ed) European Union politics. Oxford University Press, Oxford
David RS (2008) The national rural employment guarantee act towards governance and conservation of natural resources. In: international association for the study of the commons conference proceedings, Cheltenham, England.
Evans J, Geerken R (2004) Discriminating between climate and human-induced dryland degradation. J Arid Environ 57:535–554
Fikry IK, Al-Awadhi J, Misak RF (2013) Land-use planning for controlling land degradation in kuwait. Managing the Hazards of Drought and Shifting Sands in Dry Lands: The Case Study of Kuwait 01(39):669–690
Fleishman RK (2004) Watershed groups in Ohio the effects of organizational characteristics on political behavior, accomplishments, and perceived effectiveness. The Ohio State University School of Environment and Natural Resources, Columbus, Ohio, M.S. thesis
Fu HL, Liu XJ (2017) Research on the phenomenon of chinese residents’ spiritual contagion for the reuse of recycled water based on SC-IAT. Water 9(11):846
Grimm NB, Grove JM, Pickett STA et al (2000) Integrated approaches to long-term studies of urban ecological systems. Bioscience 50:571–584
Hans GB, Liotta PH, Marquina A et al (2003) Security and environment in the Mediterranean. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-55854-2
Harashima Y, Morita T (1998) A comparative study on environmental policy development processes in the three East Asian countries Japan, Korea, and China. Environ Econ Policy Stu 1:39–67
Jasem M, Raafat FM, Samira SO (2003) Causes and consequences of desertification in Kuwait a case study of land degradation. B Eng Geol Environ 62:107–115
Li W, Higgins P (2013) Controlling local environmental performance an analysis of three national environmental management programs in the context of regional disparities in China. J Contemp China 22:409–427. https://doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2012.748961
Li JH, Yu KL (2011) A study on legislative and policy tools for promoting the circular economic model for waste management in China. J Mater Cycles Waste 13:103–112. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10163-011-0010-4
Li Y, Cheng HR, Beeton A, Halog. (2015) Sustainability from a Chinese cultural perspective the implications of harmonious development in environmental management. Environ Dev Sustain 18(3):679-696.
Li Z, Qi S, WEI D (2018) Empirical research on the relationship between natural gas consumption and economic growth in the Northeast Asia. Energy Environ.
Liu J (2010) China’s road to sustainability. Science 328:50. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1186234
Liu ZL (2017) China’s strategy for the development of renewable energies. Energ Source Part B 12(11):971–975
Liu LX, Zhang B, Bi J (2012) Reforming China’s multi-level environmental governance: Lessons from the 11th Five-Year Plan. Environ Sci Policy 21:106–111
Liu N, Zhou LH, Hauger JS (2013) How sustainable is government-sponsored desertification rehabilitation in China? Behavior of households to changes in environmental policies. Plos One 8(10). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0077510
Ma (2005) Ecosystems and human well-being desertification synthesis. Millennium ecosystem assessment, World Resources Institute, Washington
Mi C, Zhang ZW, Huang YF (2016) A fast automated vision system for container corner casting recognition. J Mar Sci Tech 24(1):54–60
Mohamed FH (2001) Desalination and water resource management in Kuwait. Desalination 138:385–393
People’s Republic of China (2010) National report of the People’s Republic of China on environment and development. China Environmental Science Press, Beijing
Said AS, Hameed S (2014) Comparative study of environmental institutional framework and setup in the GCC states. J Environ Prot 5:745–750
Schwilch G, Liniger HP, Hurni H (2014) Sustainable land management (SLM) practices in drylands how do they address desertification threats? Environ Manage 54:983–1004
Shahid SA, Omar S, Al-Ghawas S (1999) Indicators of desertification in Kuwait and their possible management. Desert Control Bull 34:61–66
UNCCD (1994) United nations convention to combat desertification. United Nations. Geneva, Switzerland
Yang L (2015) Local knowledge, science, and institutional change: the case of desertification control in northern China. Environ Manage 55:616–633
Yang LH, Wu JG, Shen PY (2013) Roles of science in institutional changes: The case of desertification control in China. Environ Sci Policy 27:32–54
Zhang Y, Li N, Zhang Y (2015) The research of China’s urban umart environmental protection management mode. Geo-Informatics in Resource Management and Sustainable Ecosystem 482:415–423
Funding
This research was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA20030102), and it was funded by the Science and Technology partnership Program, Ministry of Science and Technology of China (KY201502003) and the Chinaproposed “the Belt and Road” Special Project of Chinese Academy of Sciences (131965KYSB20170038).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
This article is part of the Topical Collection on Geological Modeling and Geospatial Data Analysis
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
You, Y., Lei, J., Wang, Y. et al. Comparative study of the implementation of environmental policies to combat desertification in Kuwait and the Hotan Region of China. Arab J Geosci 12, 751 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-019-4929-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-019-4929-4