Officials with the Heilongjiang Water Resources Bureau said the three-year project, the Northeast China Black Soil Protection Trial Project, passed its feasibility evaluation organized by the country's leading experts last month.

The project is being sponsored jointly by the Heilongjiang bureau and the Management Committee of Songnen and Liaohe River Plains under the Ministry of Water Resources.

Environmental experts have warned the black soil, a rare nutrient-rich type of soil, in Northeast China could disappear in 50 years if unguarded.

Long-term soil erosion is destroying the fertility of the black soil in Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, said Liu Yan, an official with the Water and Soil Conservation Department of the Heilongjiang Water Resources Bureau.

The thickness of the black soil layer is decreasing by about a half- to a full-centimeter annually, Liu said in a telephone interview yesterday.

"The average thickness of 60 to 70 centimeters in the 1950s has now decreased to less than 30 centimeters," Liu said.

Black soil, comprised of degenerating vegetation, is rich in natural organic material. It is among the most fertile soil on the earth for agricultural production.

Northeast China's vast expanse of black soil is a rarity in the world, with the only other two similar areas being located in Ukraine and the United States.

Water and wind erosion along with human activities are the main reasons for the soil degeneration, Zhou Lianren, a professor with Northeast China Agricultural University, said yesterday.

Over the past 50 years, half of the black soil has been washed away, leaving only the barren yellow soil behind, Zhou said. "This area will soon become the nation's second Loess Plateau if no one takes measures to save it."

One of the country's major grain production bases, Heilongjiang boasts 9.3 million hectares of farmland. However, 5.3 million hectares out of the total have suffered soil erosion, statistics from the province's water resources bureau show.

(China Daily April 8, 2003)