Study on the cological safety assessment of farminggrazing transition zone in China

The area between farming and animal husbandry is the ecological transition zone between traditional agricultural area and pastoral area in China. It is also called agropastoral area or ecological ecotone. It is very important in terms of the economic, social development, and the environmental protection in China. It is the China's largest climate ecological transition zone and the unique important interface among industries. Based on the special ecological conditions in this area and in consideration of the existing natural environment pressure, the socioeconomic pressure and the human positive pressure, the economic and social response and the current and potential pressure on ecosystems were selected as the indicator and evaluation criteria to evaluate the ecological environment and the overall security situation assessment of the Chinese ecotone. So, based on the characteristics of farmingpastoral zone and the concept of pressurestatusresponse model, an indicator system for assessment of ecological safety and the appropriate standards was setup as the theoretic basis for the future research on assessment of farmingpastoral zone safety and management of ecoenvironment.