The Zoigê Marsh (), also known as the Ruoergai Marsh or the Songpan Grasslands, is located in the eastern part of the

Tibetan Plateau The Tibetan Plateau (, also known as the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau or the Qing–Zang Plateau () or as the Himalayan Plateau in India, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central, South and East Asia covering most of the ...

and forms the largest high-altitude marsh area in the world.Shuang Xiang, Ruqing Guo, Ning Wu, Shucun Sun, Current status and future prospects of Zoige Marsh in Eastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Ecological Engineering 35: 553-562

Location

The marsh areas are mainly located in northern

Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...

Province, but extend into southern Gansu and southeastern

Qinghai Qinghai (; alternately romanized as Tsinghai, Ch'inghai), also known as Kokonor, is a landlocked province in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. It is the fourth largest province of China by area and has the third smallest po ...

.Britannica Educational Publishing, Lakes and Wetlands, The Rosen Publishing Group, 2011
/ref> The marshes are formed in a region of poor drainage that is located between the watersheds of the

Yellow Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In the ...

and

Yangtze River The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ; ) is the longest list of rivers of Asia, river in Asia, the list of rivers by length, third-longest in the world, and the longest in the world to flow entirely within one country. It rises at Jari Hill in th ...

s. The marshes are located at an altitude of about 3,600 meters above sea level and cover an area of about 2,600 square kilometers. To east, they are bordered by the

Min Mountains Min Mountains or Minshan () are a mountain range in central China. It runs in the general north-south direction through northern Sichuan (the eastern part of the Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture and adjacent areas of Mianyang Prefec ...

and to the west by the Amne Machin mountain range.

Geology

The marshes can be divided into four geomorphological regions: the Zoigê plateau plain, the Hong Yuan plateau mound, the A Ba plateau mountain, and the Songpan-Lixan Alp. The soil of the marshes contains a layer of

peat Peat (), also known as turf (), is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation or organic matter. It is unique to natural areas called peatlands, bogs, mires, moors, or muskegs. The peatland ecosystem covers and is the most efficient ...

that is about 2 to 3 meters thick in most places, but can reach up to 7 meters in thickness.

History

The

Long March The Long March (, lit. ''Long Expedition'') was a military retreat undertaken by the Red Army of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the forerunner of the People's Liberation Army, to evade the pursuit of the National Army of the Chinese ...

passed through the Zoigê Marsh in August 1935. The marshes were partially drained for grazing of cattle, sheep, and horses in the 1970s. This involved digging 200 km of ditches to drain 1,400 km² of marshland. The project continued until the 1990s and exacerbated desertification problems. Herders reported that gold miners have also used cloud-seeding cannons to prevent rainfall, which has caused die-offs in vegetation. In 1994, a nature preserve was established in the marshes. From 2010, community efforts to replant local grasses have been underway, with light grazing by yak allowed, so that the animals can tread the seeds down and stimulate regrowth.

References

Landforms of Sichuan Wetlands of China Ramsar sites in China Marshes {{PRChina-geo-stub