In July 2015 Dr. Conghe Song led a team of students from UNC Chapel Hill and Beijing Forestry University conducting household survey in Ji County, Shanxi Province. This effort is part of a project funded by US National Science Foundation (grant number DEB-1313756) to understand the impacts of China’s Conversion of Cropland to Forest Program on the dynamics of the coupled natural and human systems.
The picture above shows the field crew, from left: Na Zhao, Yushen Zhu, Tao Li, Tong Qiu, Ying Wang, Qi Zhang, Conghe Song, Zhuoling Li and Jinxin Guan. Na, Yushen, Tao, Zhuoling are graduate students from Beijing Forestry University. Qi and Tong are UNC Chapel Hill graduate students, and Ying from China University of Geoscience is an incoming visiting graduate student to Dr. Song’s lab in the fall of 2015. Qi led a group of four, and Ying led another group of four in the field.
Ji County is located in the Loess Plateau. Many rural residents still live in caves dug into the thick Loess layer. The three caves shown above belong to one household. The family have to travel several kilometers to fetch water. They used a small solar panel to generate electricity that is stored in a battery, enough to power the lights and a satellite TV inside.
Photo with the family after we finished interview. Dr. Bilsborrow from the Carolina Population Center is helping us designing the questionnaire and drawing household samples to be interviewed in the study area.