Elevation: 1,000-3,000 meters.

Natural resources

Land

Gansu features a land area of 455,000 square kilometers, including 3.53 million hectares of cultivated land or 0.14 hectare per capita, 16.64 million hectares of grassland, and 4.26 million hectares of forests with a standing timber reserve of 200 million cubic meters. In addition, there are 1 million hectares of wasteland suitable for agriculture, 6.66 million hectares of wasteland suitable for forestation, and 4.67 million hectares of mountain slopes suitable for livestock breeding.

Minerals

Nearly 3,000 deposits of 145 kinds of minerals have been found and the reserves of 94 kinds of minerals have been ascertained, including nickel, cobalt, platinum family elements, selenium, casting clay, finishing serpentine, and five other minerals whose reserves are the largest in the country. Gansu has special advantages in tapping 15 kinds of minerals such as nickel, zinc, cobalt, platinum, iridium, copper, stibium, barite, and baudisserite.

Energy

The water resources in Gansu are mainly distributed in nine river systems in the Yellow, Yangtze, and inland river drainage basins with an annual discharge of 61.4 billion cubic meters and a combined hydropower potential of 17.24 million kw. Gansu places ninth among China's provinces and autonomous regions in terms of hydropower potential. To date, 29 hydropower stations have been constructed in the province with an installed generating capacity of 30 million kw and an annual output of 23.565 billion kwh. The Liujiaxia, Yanguoxia, and Bapanxia hydropower stations on the upper reaches of the Yellow River and the Bikou Hydropower Station on the Bailong River have a total installed capacity of 2.125 million kw. The proved reserves of coal are 8.92 billion tons, and those of petroleum, between 600 and 700 million tons. There is also a considerable potential for the development of wind and solar energies.

Animals and plants

There are 659 species of wild animals, including the giant panda, snub-nosed monkey, antelope, snow leopard, deer, fawn, musk deer, bactrian (two-humped) camel, and 24 other first-class rare animals under state protection, and 441 species of birds in Gansu Province. There are over 4,000 species of wild plants including 951 species of medical value. Among the plants of medical value, 450 species, such as angelica root, rhubarb, hairy asiabell root, licorice root, fritillary bulb, mariajuana, the bark of eucommia, glossy ganoderma, and Chinese caterpillar fungus, have been developed. Gansu holds second place among China's provinces and autonomous regions in the variety of medicinal herbs.

Environment and current issues

By the end of 2003, two of the province’s cities met the state second-grade air quality standard, compared with none in the previous year. Meanwhile a further five cities reached third-grade standard, two more than the year before.

Just 7 percent of the province’s cities suffered from severe noise-pollutions, 14 percentage points lower than the previous year.

A total of 43 smog-control zones had been established, four more than at the previous year end. Together they cover an area of some 398 square km (up 17.8 percent in the year).

Forty-six zones meeting the noise-control criteria had been set up, one more than the year before and accounting for an area of some 242 square km (up 1.2 percent).

There were 47 nature reserves across the province with the eight now designated at national level representing an increase of two in the year. At 8,358,400 hectares, nature reserves account for 19.63 percent of the total area of Gansu Province.

Monitoring of surface water quality showed minimum criteria being met as follows: 50.00 percent reached Class III standards (up 19.97 percent), 71.81 percent reached Class IV (up 13.19 percent) and 73.43 percent reached Class V (up 4.46 percent). Viewed another way just 26.57 percent failed to satisfy the minimum standards of Class V.