Alt cause – development accelerates soil impacts.

From the perspective of demand, the economy’s development has placed enormous pressures on the scarce natural resources of Inner Mongolia, and this extensive economic development has led to greater demands for energy and resources, which is characterized by high energy consumption, large amounts of waste, and serious levels of pollution. From 2000 to 2010, about 2469.73 km2 area of other land was converted to urban land, the GDP-2 rate had improved by 29.66% and the GDP-1 rate had fallen by 64.87%; together, this indicates that the economic structure has been transformed, shifting in emphasis from agriculture to industry. The production of energy and the mining of mineral resources have been accompanied by the destruction of vegetation and the accumulation of waste materials [60]. Large areas of grassland, approximately 1754.03 km2 had been converted to urban land via transportation and excavation that have markedly disturbed local natural ecosystems. The soil erosion generated in just one year due to this activity would be the equivalent of the amount of natural, and even agricultural, erosion occurring over dozens of years [61]. The results of this study suggested that increasing the GDP-2 proportion of total GDP could worsen soil erosion. A study of the WuLanMuLun River, in the Shenfu mining area, indicated that sediment discharge had doubled after mining commenced, the erosion modulus of the mining area had increased by 15,000 t/km2 ·a, with a 14.965-million ton increase in the annual soil erosion loss [62]. In addition, heavy industry, mining, and construction not only directly influence the land surface through excavation and waste accumulation, but they indirectly further aggravate soil erosion through road transport and the consumption of resources and energy [63].