Effect of restoring grassland from overgrazing project on vegetation restoration in Jiuquan city, Gansu province

Effects of four basic measures, including grazing prohibition, grazing suspending, reseeding, and rotational grazing, on vegetation restoration in five years were investigated since 2003 in semi-arid grassland of 3 experimental counties of restoring grassland from overgrazing project in Jiuquan city. The results showed that in terms of comprehensive effects of plant diversity, coverage, height and production, all of the four measures were significant; among which, grazing prohibition and reseeding had better effects than the others. For ecological restoration on seriously degraded grassland, the best project was prohibiting grazing four to five years continuously. For both ecology restoration and livestock production, the best project was combining grazing prohibition with reseeding. Given priority to grassland construction, the best project was rotational grazing, but should avoid or reduce spring and autumn grazing.