The Zoigê Marsh (), also known as the Ruo'ergai 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 Qingzang Plateau, is a vast elevated plateau located at the intersection of Central Asia, Central, South Asia, South, and East Asia. Geographically, it is located to the north of H ...

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 is a province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capital city is Cheng ...

Province, but extend into southern

Gansu Gansu is a provinces of China, province in Northwestern China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeastern part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibetan Plateau, Ti ...

and southeastern

Qinghai Qinghai is an inland Provinces of China, province in Northwestern China. It is the largest provinces of China, province of China (excluding autonomous regions) by area and has the third smallest population. Its capital and largest city is Xin ...

.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 t ...

and

Yangtze River The Yangtze or Yangzi ( or ) is the longest river in Eurasia and the third-longest in the world. It rises at Jari Hill in the Tanggula Mountains of the Tibetan Plateau and flows including Dam Qu River the longest source of the Yangtze, i ...

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 and to the west by the

Amne Machin Amne Machin, Anyi Machen, or Anyê Maqên ("Grandfather Pomra") is the highest peak of a mountain range of the same name in the southeast of Qinghai province, China. It is revered in Tibetan Buddhism as the home of the chief indigenous deity of ...

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 is an accumulation of partially Decomposition, decayed vegetation or organic matter. It is unique to natural areas called peatlands, bogs, mires, Moorland, moors, or muskegs. ''Sphagnum'' moss, also called peat moss, is one of the most ...

that is about 2 to 3 meters thick in most places, but can reach up to 7 meters in thickness.The wetland is a low-level developed herbaceous swamp since the

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), as well as the current and most recent of the twelve periods of the ...

Himalayan orogeny The geology of the Himalayas is a record of the most dramatic and visible creations of the immense mountain range formed by plate tectonic forces and sculpted by weathering and erosion. The Himalayas, which stretch over 2400 km between t ...

. It is also an important water conservation area in the upper reaches of the

Yellow River The Yellow River, also known as Huanghe, is the second-longest river in China and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system on Earth, with an estimated length of and a Drainage basin, watershed of . Beginning in the Bayan H ...

, accounting for 29-45% of the water supply of the total upstream inflow.

History

The

Long March The Long March ( zh, s=长征, p=Chángzhēng, l=Long Expedition) was a military retreat by the Chinese Red Army and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from advancing Kuomintang forces during the Chinese Civil War, occurring between October 1934 and ...

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. On 10 November 2023, the

National Forestry and Grassland Administration The National Forestry and Grassland Administration, concurrently known as the National Park Administration, is China's national bureau responsible for the supervision and management of forests, grasslands, wetlands, deserts, and terrestrial wild ...

issued ''List of Important Habitats for Terrestrial Wildlife(first batch)'', with the Zoigê Marsh being listed as a major habitat of the

Black-necked crane The black-necked crane (''Grus nigricollis'') is a medium-sized crane (bird), crane in Asia that breeds on the Tibetan Plateau and remote parts of India and Bhutan. It is long with a wingspan, and it weighs . It is whitish-gray, with a black h ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zoige Marsh Landforms of Sichuan Wetlands of China Ramsar sites in China Marshes of Asia