Directions: Read the following passage carefully and then translate
each underlined part into Chinese.
Desertification in the arid United States is flagrant.
Groundwater supplies beneath vast stretches of land are dropping precipitously.
Whole river systems have dried up; others are chocked with sediment washed from
denuded land. 71. Hundreds of thousands of acres of previously irrigated
cropland have been abandoned to wind or weeds. Several million acres of natural
grassland are eroding at unnaturally high rates as a result of cultivation or
overgrazing. All told, about 225 million acres of land are undergoing severe
desertification. 72. Federal subsidies encourage the
exploitation of arid land resources. Low-interest loans for irrigation and other
water delivery systems encourage farmers, industry, and municipalities to mine
groundwater. Federal disaster relief and commodity programs encourage
arid-land farmers to plow up natural grassland to plant crops such as wheat and,
especially cotton. Federal grazing fees that are well below the free market
price encourage overgrazing of the commons. The market, too, provides
powerful incentives to exploit arid land resources beyond their carrying
capacity. 73. When commodity prices are high relative to the farmer’s
or rancher’s operating costs, the return on a production-enhancing investment is
invaribly greater than the return on a conservation investment. And when
commodity prices are relatively low arid land ranchers and farmers often have
to use all their available financial resources to stay solvent.
74. If the United States is, as it appears, well on its way toward
overdrawing the arid land resources then the policy choice is simply to pay now
for the appropriate remedies or pay far more later, when productive benefits
from arid - land resources have been both realized and largely
terminated.