Investigation into local peoples' perceptions can produce useful information that could be incorporated into the decision-making process to help resolve environmental problems. Within the arena of land degradation, a number of studies have also been conducted to explore local peoples' views of the problem. However, the perceptions of land-degrading practices of the general public have so far not been actively solicited. This study aimed to contribute to this area of research by adopting the psychometric scaling technique to empirically explore the lay public's ecological risk perceptions of land-degrading activities in Minqin County in Gansu Province, northern China. The primary data were collected via a questionnaire survey (n=1,138) administered between 14 and 31 December 2002. The major findings of the survey were: (1) Respondents perceived the ecological risks posed by different land-degrading activities to be different. (2) There was a considerable incongruence in the way in which mining of groundwater was conceived by experts and laymen, respectively. (3) Respondents were pretty unsure of expert knowledge. (4) Respondents' ecological risk perceptions were significantly affected by their personal attributes. As far as the policy implications of these findings are concerned, this study accentuates that we must be aware of, and involved in, the environmental perceptions of the lay public in order to succeed in guiding any human-environment tensions along more sustainable trajectories and navigating the transition to sustainability.