*4.3. The Implications of Arable Land and Irrigation Water Resources Quota for Ecological Migration Policy*

Arable land and water resources remain the critical restrictive factors among natural resources necessary for agriculture, especially in arid areas. The relatively long history of voluntary out-migration in the study area, especially among the northern villages bordering desert, is driven mainly by declining arable land and irrigation water resources. The implementation of the river governance program in Shiyang River Basin has amplified the shortage of arable land and irrigation water resources quota. The remarkable diminution of arable land and water resources for agricultural production has resulted in immediate reduction of the natural capitals for the rural households' traditional livelihoods. To cope with these tensions, migration may be one of the adaptive livelihood strategies [15,35]. This viewpoint is backed by the out-migration history in the study area.

As the inland river governance planning has dual aims, to rehabilitate the eco-environment and to improve the victims' livelihood, the measures to decrease the arable land and irrigation water resources quota must be accompanied by measures to diversify livelihood and to develop water/land-saving industries. Otherwise, the migration intentions could not be transformed into actual migration actions, and the environmental conflicts might be transformed into social conflicts. The results of this study indicate that the respondents have more odds of intending to migrate when they have less arable land quota or when they deem water resources insufficient both for domestic use and agricultural production. A compulsory ecological migration policy is not recommended; with such a policy, the forced out-migration would be a failure of the social-ecological system to adapt as stated by Warner [35].
