Water Resources Utilization And Agricultural Development In Northwest China In The Ming Dynasty

Water resource is the main factor that restricts the development of northwest China.To explore the water resources utilization mode of the people in northwest China in a certain period and to study the influence of agricultural development can deepen the understanding of the wisdom and experience of the people in this period in the use of water resources to better provide reference for the reality.In northwest China,except for a few mountainous areas,most of the natural precipitation areas are not suitable for crop growth and agricultural development.Ming dynasty northwest region than now dry and cold,precipitation than now small.The utilization of water is the formation of irrigation areas except rainfed agricultural areas.The utilization of agricultural water resources is mainly surface water,especially surface runoff.Groundwater comes next.In order to better study,the northwest region is divided into Northern Shaanxi plateau,Middle-Gansu basin,Weihe River plain,Ningxia plain,Qinba mountain,Hehuang valley,etc.In the Ming dynasty,the agricultural water resources in northwest China were mainly from surface water,most of which were runoff tributaries.Groundwater or surface water could be used as a supplement to surface runoff.Irrigation is the most important way of using surface water,performance in different regions of different irrigation project construction in northwest China in Ming dynasty.By sorting out irrigation projects in different areas and their construction methods,the engineering features are as follows,construction of small and medium-sized water conservancy projects,more frequent waste,strong military factors,water conservancy technology has developed.There are different classifications of irrigation projects:according to the classification of investors,there are three types of irrigation projects with military factors:,government-civilian cooperation and private self-cultivation.Water diversion can be classified into dam diversion and non-dam diversion.The higher cost of irrigation project construction,the unfavorable political environment and the different water diversion methods have a certain impact on the development of agricultural economy.The construction of irrigation project has a deep impact on agricultural economic development.Firstly,the expansion of irrigation area.The tunneling activities of the military defense in the border areas played a great role in expanding the cultivated land area,but it was not the direct result of water conservancy construction.Its rate of development mainly depends on the geographical environment and the basis of agricultural development,as well as the increase and decrease of population.The cultivated land area in the interior area increased in the middle and late Ming dynasty,which was closely related to the agricultural development foundation,the miniaturization of irrigation projects,the implementation of policies,and the change of planting structure.The correlation between irrigation area expansion and irrigation engineering construction is also different in different areas.The correlation between irrigation area expansion and irrigation engineering construction is also different in different areas,and there are spatial and temporal differences.Secondly,the choice of agricultural technology.In terms of crop introduction,dryland crops play a limited role in changing the planting structure.The planting scale of commercial crops is small and sporadic,and most areas are still dominated by the cultivation of subsistence crops.Water resource utilization plays a role in crop cycle and planting structure changes including crop rotation and intercropping.Agricultural tools are diverse,especially the emergence of water-wheel,water-mill and ship-mill in water resource utilization,but only in some parts of Middle-Gansu.Fertilizer is widely used in agricultural stimulation measures.The water conservation measures represented by Middle-Gansu sand field is a kind of innovation,but the renewal cost of the two is higher.In short,no significant breakthroughs have been made in the production tools and technologies related to the utilization of water resources.Different ways of using water resources will affect the state of agricultural economic development,and there are regional differences.In the Ming dynasty,a variety of agricultural management modes coexisted in northwest China.The main modes of economic development were fertility maintenance mode,induced technology-system mode,and fertility maintenance mode intersected with induced technology-system mode to some extent.The regional difference of agricultural economy is closely related to the regional difference of water resources.In a word,through to the northwest of Ming dynasty on the discussion of agricultural development and utilization of water resources,is can be used for reference in engineering and technology innovation,measures of agricultural production,water resources allocation and utilization of diversified development trend,and shortcomings are water source is too single,water resource utilization technologies not widespread popularization and the relative lag and parts of blindly expand cultivated land,etc.There are still some problems in water resources utilization in northwest China,which are similar to the history.In the future,with the increasing water consumption,a series of related measures will be taken to achieve the rational use of water resources.