The environmental quality of heavy metals (Pb, Cd, Cr, As, Hg) in agricultural surface soil of Chongming Island was assessed by national, local and professional standards based on a large scale investigation, in which 28 samples from vegetable plots, 65 samples from paddy fields and 9 samples from watermelon fields were collected from whole island area. Results showed that the average concentration of Pb, Cd, Cr, As and Hg was 21.6 mg·kg^-1 , 0.176 mg·kg^-1, 69.4 mg·kg^-1, 9.209 mg·kg^-1 and 0.128 mg·kg^-1, respectively. Compared with the background value of Shanghai City soil, except for Pb and Cr, all the other heavy metals average concentrations in Chongming Island agricultural surface soil exceeded their corresponding natural-background values. The concentrations of Cd, As and Hg were 33.0%, 1.2% and 26.3% higher than the background value of Shanghai City, respectively. In addition, inverse distance interpolation (IDW) tool of GIS was also applied to study the spatial variation of heavy metals. The results indicated that most of agricultural soil quality was good, and the ratio of ecological, good soil, certified soil and disqualified soil were 1.26%, 97.1%, 1.47% and 0.12%, respectively. About 10.1%, 85.7%, 27.0%, 55.4% and 55.2% soil samples exceeded the Pb, Cd, Cr, As and Hg background value of Shanghai City, respectively. Among these three land use type soils, vegetable soil was most seriously polluted by heavy metals, which is probably related to the over-application of pesticides. The annual deposition fluxes of Pb, Cd, As and Hg were 7736 μg·m^-2·a^-1, 208 μg·m^-2·a^-1, 2238 μg·m^-2·a^-1 and 52.8 μg·m^-2·a^-1, respectively. Crop straw burning was the important source of heavy metals of atmospheric deposition, and atmospheric deposition contributed a lot to heavy metals in agricultural soil in Chongming Island.

Urban soil, forming along with the development of city, has unique properties of soil organic carbon. On the basis of field investigation and laboratory analysis, soil organic carbon (SOC) of Kaifeng city was studied, and the results showed that the characteristics of SOC were different not only among function districts in urban area, but also between urban area and suburbs. The order of SOC in topsoil was industrial district > recreational district > traffic district > cultural/educational district > residential/administrative district. The density of soil organic carbon (SOCD) in both topsoil and profile followed the orders of recreational district > industrial district > traffic district>cultural/educational district > residential/adminis- trative district, and cultural/educational district > traffic district>industrial district>recreational district > administrative/residential district, respectively. SOCD in both topsoil and profile decreased along the transection line from urban area to suburbs and urban area had 2.53-fold more SOCD in topsoil and 1.56-fold more SOCD in profile than suburbs, respectively. SOC decreased with the depth and was mainly distributed within the scope of 0–30 cm. The variances of SOC in urban area were more complicated than that in suburbs.

Pollen records from the Chinese Loess Plateau revealed a detailed history of vegetation variation and associated climate changes during the last 13.0 ka BP. Before 12.1 ka BP, steppe or desert-steppe vegetation dominated landscape then was replaced by a coniferous forest under a generally wet climate (12.1–11.0 ka BP). The vegetation was deteriorated into steppe landscape and further into a desert-steppe landscape between 11.0 and 9.8 ka BP. After a brief episode of a cool and wet climate (9.8–9.6 ka BP), a relatively mild and dry condition prevailed during the early Holocene (9.6–7.6 ka BP). The most favourable climate of warm and humid period occurred during mid-Holocene (7.6–~4.0 ka BP) marked by forest-steppe landscape and vegetation alternatively changed between steppe and desert- steppe from ~4.0 to ~1.0 ka BP.

The net primary production (NPP) of grasslands in northeastern Asia was estimated using improved CASA model with MODIS data distributed from 2000 and ground data as driving variables from 2000 to 2005. Average annual NPP was 146.05 g C m?2 yr?1 and average annual total NPP was 0.32 Pg C yr?1 in all grasslands during the period. It was shown that average annual grassland NPP in the whole northeastern Asia changed dramatically from 2000 to 2005, with the highest value of 174.80 g C m?2 yr?1 in 2005 and the lowest value of 125.65 g C m?2 yr?1 in 2001. On regional scale, average annual grassland NPP of 179.71 g C m?2 yr?1 in southeastern Russia was the highest among the three main grassland regions in the six years. Grasslands in northern China exhibited the highest average annual total NPP of 0.16 Pg C yr?1 and contributed 51.42% of the average annual total grassland NPP in northeastern Asia. Grassland NPP in northeastern Asia also showed a clear seasonal pattern with the highest NPP occurred in July every year. Average monthly grassland NPP in southeastern Russia was the highest from May to August while average monthly grassland NPP in northern China showed the highest NPP before May and after August. The change rate distribution of grassland NPP between the former three years and the latter three years showed grassland NPP changed slightly between the two stages in most regions, and that NPP change rate in 80.98% of northeastern Asia grasslands was between –0.2 and 0.2. Grassland NPP had close correlation with precipitation and temperature, that indicates climate change will influence the grassland NPP and thus have a great impact on domestic livestock in this region in future.

Tamarix nabkha is one of the most widespread nabkhas, distributing in the arid region of China. Based on the observations outdoors and the simulation experiments in laboratories, analysis in this paper refers to the biological geomorphologic features and growth process of Tamarix nabkhas in the middle and lower reaches of the Hotan River, Xinjiang. And the results indicate that the ecological type of Tamarix in the study area is a kind of Tugaic soil habitat based on the deep soil of the Populus Diversifolia forests and shrubs. This type of habitat can be divided into three kinds of sub-habitats which demonstrate the features of ecological environment of Tamarix nabkhas during the differential developed phases. Meanwhile, the Tamarix nabkha can exert intensified disturbance current on wind-sand flow on the ground, and its root and stems not only have strong potential of sprouting but are characteristic of wind erosion-tolerance, resistance to be buried by sand and respectively tough rigid of the lignified branches, for it has a rather longer life-time. Thus, the wind speed profile influenced by the Tamarix nabkha is different from the Phragmites nabkha and Alhagi nabkha. And the structure of the wind flow is beneficial to aeolian sand accumulating in/around Tamarix shrub，which can create unique Tamarix nabkhas with higher average gradient and longer periodicity of life. Tamarix nabkha evolution in the area experienced three stages: growth stage, mature and steady stage and withering stage. In each stage, morphological features and geomorphic process of Tamarix nabkha are different due to the discrepant interaction between the nabkha and aeolian sand flow.

The sediment content of the Yellow River is resulted from the interactions of natural, economic, and social factors, so it includes some evolutive information of the Yellow River Basin system. Sediment contents from 1952 to 2007 on Toudaoguai, Tongguan, Huayuankou and Lijin sections along the river are chosen as the study time series, and correlation dimensions (D2), Kolmogorov entropies (K2), and Hurst indexes (H) of the time series were calculated. Correlation dimensions on Toudaoguai, Tongguan, Huayuankou, and Lijin sections are 3.24, 5.69, 6.57 and 7.34 respectively, and the Kolmogorov entropies are 0.13, 0.37, 0.40 and 0.38 respectively, which indicates that the systems controlled by different sections along the Yellow River are chaotic systems and the chaotic degrees increase gradually from the upper to lower section. The average predictable period of the sediment contents is 8 years on Toudaoguai section and 3 years on the other sections with the reciprocals of the Kolmogorov entropies. The more obvious the chaotic degree is, the shorter the average predictable period is. Hurst indexes on the sections are above 0.5, with the maximum of 0.86 on Tongguan section and the minimum of 0.68 on Toudaoguai section, which indicates that the time series have persistent trends in the average predictable period. Eight state variables and two control parameters are necessary to construct the dynamic model of the Yellow River Basin system.

The seasonal variability and spatial distribution of precipitation are the main cause of flood and drought events. The study of spatial distribution and temporal trend of precipitation in river basins has been paid more and more attention. However, in China, the precipitation data are measured by weather stations (WS) of China Meteorological Administration and hydrological rain gauges (RG) of national and local hydrology bureau. The WS data usually have long record with fewer stations, while the RG data usually have short record with more stations. The consistency and correlation of these two data sets have not been well understood. In this paper, the precipitation data from 30 weather stations for 1958–2007 and 248 rain gauges for 1995–2004 in the Haihe River basin are examined and compared using linear regression, 5-year moving average, Mann-Kendall trend analysis, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, Z test and F test methods. The results show that the annual precipitation from both WS and RG records are normally distributed with minor difference in the mean value and variance. It is statistically feasible to extend the precipitation of RG by WS data sets. Using the extended precipitation data, the detailed spatial distribution of the annual and seasonal precipitation amounts as well as their temporal trends are calculated and mapped. The various distribution maps produced in the study show that for the whole basin the precipitation of 1958–2007 has been decreasing except for spring season. The decline trend is significant in summer, and this trend is stronger after the 1980s. The annual and seasonal precipitation amounts and changing trends are different in different regions and seasons. The precipitation is decreasing from south to north, from coastal zone to inland area.

We have appraised the relationships between soil moisture, groundwater depth, and plant species diversity in the lower reaches of the Tarim River in western China, by analyzing field data from 25 monitoring wells across eight study sites and 25 permanent vegetation survey plots. It is noted that groundwater depth, soil moisture and plant species diversity are closely related. It has been proven that the critical phreatic water depth is five meters in the lower reaches of the Tarim River. We acquired the mean phreatic evaporation of different groundwater levels every month by averaging the two results of phreatic evaporation using the Qunk and Averyanov formulas. Based on different vegetation types and acreage with different groundwater depth, the total ecological water demand (EWD) of natural vegetation in 2005 was 2.4×108 m3 in the lower reaches of the Tarim River. Analyzing the monthly EWD, we found that the EWD in the growth season (from April to September) is 81% of the year’s total EWD. The EWD in May, June and July was 47% of the year’s total EWD, which indicates the best time for dispensing artificial water. This research aims at realizing the sustainable development of water resources and provides a scientific basis for water resource management and sound collocation of the Tarim River Basin.

Groundwater residence time is an important indicator of hydrological cycle and essential for water resources development and utilization. In this paper, groundwater residence time in non-flood season, flood season and water year has been determined from daily streamflow hydrograph of ten hydrological stations in Wudinghe River Basin located in the middle reaches of the Yellow River Basin. Results have showed that: baseflow recession constant in Wudinghe River Basin ranges from 0.72 to 0.94 with a larger recession rate in flood season than that in non-flood season. Spatially, the recession rate of baseflow in loess area is the biggest, but is the smallest in the sandy area. The half-residence time of groundwater varies from 1.8 to 45.5 days while overall residence time of groundwater is between 34 and 342 days in different sub-basins of the Wudinghe River Basin. The annual average overall residence time of groundwater decreases from 117 days in the upper reaches to 73 days in the lower reaches.

In every map, irrespective of its theme, objects are represented at a reduced scale. Map contents do not decrease proportionally to the reduction of the map size. Usually an increasing density of the map contents occurs at smaller scales. That is where the generalization plays an important role. Generalization is the process of creating a legible map at a given scale from a more detailed geographical dataset. It is done in such a manner that the character or essence of the original features is retained at successively smaller scales. Though the purposes and benefits of generalization are manifold it is indeed a complex decision-making process which must be intelligently steered by goals and rules from the geographical application domain such that the generalized representation conveys knowledge consistent with the reality. In recent past, lot of work has been done in 2D generalization (Beard, 1991; Weibel, 1995; Bealla, 1995; Ruas and Plazanet, 1996; Sarjakoski and Kilpel?inen, 1999) which defines a set of operations to be performed with the goal to achieve the similar results to those from manual generalization. But 3D generalization is altogether perceived differently. A given 3D urban area mostly consists of roads and buildings. These buildings are of different styles and features. Further the city area may be viewed from different angles and at different heights. So generalization in general and aggregation in particular must deal with all these issues. In this paper, an effort has been made to address these issues.

Samples of suspended particulate matters (SPMs), surface sediment and road dust were collected from the Yangtze estuarine and nearby coastal areas, coastal rivers, and central Shanghai. The samples were analyzed for the presence of 16 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the USEPA priority-controlled list by GC-MS. The compound-specific stable carbon isotopes of the individual PAHs were also analyzed by GC-C-IRMS. The sources of PAHs in the SPMs and surface sediments in the Yangtze estuarine and nearby coastal areas were then identified using multiple source identification techniques that integrated molecular mass indices with organic compound-specific stable isotopes. The results revealed that 3-ring and 4-ring PAH compounds were dominant in the SPMs and surface sediments, which are similar to the PAH compounds found in samples from the Wusong sewage discharge outlet, Shidongkou sewage disposal plant, Huangpu River, coastal rivers and central Shanghai. Principal component analysis (PCA) integrated with molecular mass indices indicated that gasoline, diesel, coal and wood combustion and petroleum-derived residues were the main sources of PAHs in the Yangtze Estuary. The use of PAH compound- specific stable isotopes also enabled identification of the PAHs input pathways. PAHs derived from wood and coal combustion and petroleum-derived residues were input into the Yangtze Estuary and nearby coastal areas by coastal rivers, sewage discharge outlets during the dry season and urban storm water runoff during the flood season. PAHs derived from vehicle emissions primarily accumulated in road dust from urban traffic lines and the commercial district and then entered the coastal area via the northwest prevailing winds in the dry season and storm water runoff during flood season.

Transport infrastructure plays an important role in shaping the configuration of spatial socio-economic structures and influences regional accessibility. This paper defines transport dominance from three aspects: quality, quantity, and advantage, measured by density, proximity, and accessibility indices. County is the basic unit for analysis. The results reveal: (1) Transport dominance statistically follows a partial normal distribution. A very few counties, 1.4% of the total, have extremely high transport dominance which strongly supports the socio-economic development in these areas. In contrast, one eighth of all counties have poor transport dominance which impedes local socio-economic development to some extent. The remaining areas, about 70% of the counties, have median transport dominance. (2) Transport dominance is spatially unevenly distributed, with values decreasing gradually from the coastal area to the inland area. Areas in the first-highest level of transport dominance are mainly concentrated in the Yangtze River Delta, the Greater Beijing area, and the Pearl River Delta. Areas in the second-highest level are focused in Chengdu, Chongqing, and Wuhan metropolitan areas. Provincial capitals and a few other counties belong to the third-highest level.

Nowadays, spatial simulation on land use patterns is one of the key contents of LUCC. Modeling is an important tool for simulating land use patterns due to its ability to integrate measurements of changes in land cover and the associated drivers. The conventional regression model can only analyze the correlation between land use types and driving factors, but cannot depict the spatial autocorrelation characteristics. Land uses in Yongding County, which is located in the typical karst mountain areas in northwestern Hunan province, were investigated by means of modeling the spatial autocorrelation of land use types with the purpose of deriving better spatial land use patterns on the basis of terrain characteristics and infrastructural conditions. Through incorporating components describing the spatial autocorrelation into a conventional logistic model, we constructed a regression model (Autologistic model), and used this model to simulate and analyze the spatial land use patterns in Yongding County. According to the comparison with the conventional logistic model without considering the spatial autocorrelation, this model showed better goodness and higher accuracy of fitting. The distribution of arable land, wood land, built-up land and unused land yielded areas under the ROC curves (AUC) was improved to 0.893, 0.940, 0.907 and 0.863 respectively with the autologistic model. It is argued that the improved model based on autologistic method was reasonable to a certain extent. Meanwhile, these analysis results could provide valuable information for modeling future land use change scenarios with actual conditions of local and regional land use, and the probability maps of land use types obtained from this study could also support government decision-making on land use management for Yongding County and other similar areas.

Earth is always changing. Knowledge about where changes happened is the first step for us to understand how these changes affect our lives. In this paper, we use a long-term leaf area index data (LAI) to identify where changes happened and where has experienced the strongest change around the globe during 1981–2006. Results show that, over the past 26 years, LAI has generally increased at a rate of 0.0013 per year around the globe. The strongest increasing trend is around 0.0032 per year in the middle and northern high latitudes (north of 30°N). LAI has prominently increased in Europe, Siberia, Indian Peninsula, America and south Canada, South region of Sahara, southwest corner of Australia and Kgalagadi Basin; while noticeably decreased in Southeast Asia, southeastern China, central Africa, central and southern South America and arctic areas in North America.

This review summarizes main research findings in soil fauna eco-geography in China in the past 30 years. The subject areas and main results were overviewed including biodiversity and eco-geological distribution of soil fauna communities. Studies of ecological distributions of soil fauna and dynamic ranges in space from tropical, subtropical to temperate regions, and in categories from forest, grassland, desert, wetland, farmland to urban ecosystems, the responses and indications of soil fauna to soil environments. Effects of intensive disturbance such as fire, grazing, farming, fertilization on soil fauna include sensitive (e.g. nematode) and rare groups and community indexes. The functions of soil fauna were discussed including environmental construction, environmental purification, litter decomposition and elements cycling. Interactions between soil fauna and other biota in soil ecosystems and linking between aboveground and belowground diversity and the effects of global change on soil fauna community in China were also included. Finally, the authors pointed out common interests in soil fauna eco-geographical studies, which include application of molecule biology into soil fauna taxa; function and mechanism of soil fauna community diversity; interaction between aboveground and belowground ecosystems; effects of disturbance, pollution, biological invasion, and global change on soil fauna community and function. The review is to provide a scientific basis for promoting soil fauna eco-geographical studies in China.

The issue of China’s energy supply security is not only the key problem which affects China’s rapid and sustainable development in the 21st century, but also the one which international attention focuses on. Based on the notable characteristic of spatial imbalance between energy production and consumption in China, this paper takes the evolution of China’s primary energy resources development(excluding hydropower) from 1949 to 2007 as the study object, with the aim to sum up the evolutive characteristics and laws of China’s energy resources development in the past nearly 60 years. Then, based on comprehensive considerations of coal’s, oil’s and natural gas’s basic reserves, qualities, geological conditions, production status, and ecological service function of every province, this paper adopts development potential index (DP)to evaluate the development potential of every province’s energy resources, and divide them into different ranks. Conclusions are drawn as follows: (1) Generally speaking, China’s gross energy production was increasing in waves from 1949 to 2007. From the viewpoint of spatial patterns, China’s energy resources development has shown a characteristic of “concentrating to the north and central areas, and evolving from linear-shaped to “T-shaped” pattern gradually since 1949. (2) The structure evolution of China’s energy resources development in general has shown a trend of “coal proportion is dominant but decreasing, while oil and gas proportions are increasing” since 1949. (3) At the provincial scale, China’s energy resources development potential could be divided into large, sub-large, general and small ranks, four in all. In the future, the spatial pattern of China’s energy production will evolve from “T-shaped” to “Π-shaped pattern”. These conclusions will help to clarify the temporal and spatial characteristics and laws of China’s energy resources development, and will be beneficial for China to design scientific and rational energy development strategies and plans, coordinate spatial imbalance of energy production and consumption, ensure national energy supply, avoid energy resources waste and disorderly development, and promote regional sustainable development under the globalization background with changeful international energy market.

The geological heritage protection and its development at home and abroad reflect the progress in the aspect from the single protection to the coordination between protection and exploitation. The geopark established by UNESCO has closely combined the protection of geological heritages with the promotion of sustainable development of local economy, which has become the best way to protect geological heritages. The geological heritages in Xinjiang, China, are characterized by their large quantity, rich variety and high grade. The complicated geologic-geomorphic environment in Xinjiang contributes to the creation of various geological heritage types and their spatial distribution, and at the same time makes them under control. The main types of the geological heritages in Xinjiang are the geologic- geomorphic landscapes and the water landscapes. The spatial distribution can be divided into five geological heritage districts: Altay, Junggar, Tianshan, Tarim and Kunlun-Altun, among which Tianshan and Kunlun-Altun are most important. Based on the first systematic investigation of the geological heritages in Xinjiang, it is confirmed that the insufficient coordination between protection and exploitation is the primary cause for the backward situation in the geological heritage protection. To solve the problem, this paper proposes 6 major protection steps—from determining the protection types, the protection forms, the protection modes, the protection grades, the protection sequences to determining the protection zones, brings forward the idea of optimal-selection which integrates geoparks with geological heritage protection areas and other protection areas as well as 5 corresponding modes, and makes a protection and exploitation reserve list for 209 important geological heritages in Xinjiang.

The Lhasa River Basin is one of the typical distribution regions of alpine wetlands on the Tibetan Plateau. It is very important to get a better understanding of the background and characteristics of alpine wetland for monitoring, protection and utilization. Wetland construction and distribution in the basin were analyzed based on multi-source data including field investigation data, CBERS remote sensing data and other thematic data provided by 3S technology. The results are (1) the total area of wetlands is 209,322.26 hm2, accounting for 6.37% of the total land area of the basin. The wetlands are mainly dominated by natural wetland, with artificial wetland occupying only 1.09% of the wetland area; marsh wetland is the principal part of natural wetland, dominated by Kobresia littledalei swampy meadow which is distributed in the river source area and upstream of Chali, Damshung and Medro Gongkar counties. The ratio and type of wetlands in different counties differ significantly, which are widely distributed in Chali and Damshung counties (accounting for 62% of the total wetland area). (2) The concentrated vertical distribution of wetlands is at an elevation of 3600–5100 m. The wetlands are widely distributed throughout the Yarlung Zangbo River Valley from river source to river mouth into the Yarlung Zangbo River. Marsh wetland is dominant in the source area and upstream of the river, with the mosaic distribution of lakes, Kobresia littledalei and Carex moorcroftii swampy meadow, shrubby swamp and river; as for the middle-down streams, the primary types are river wetland and flooded wetland. The distribution is in a mosaic pattern of river, Kobresia humilis and Carex moorcroftii swampy meadow, Phragmites australis and subordinate grass marsh, flooded wetland and artificial wetland.

Eco-compensation is an environmental economic instrument for internalization of external cost. Returning farmland to lake is one of the important parts of restoring wetland ecosystem function in the Yangtze River Valley of China. Whether the project of lake recovery can be successful depends on the compensation to the farmers who have lost their original benefits and contributed to the wetland ecosystem recovery by returning farmland to lake. Aiming at the wetland recovery of the Dongting Lake, the practical implementation of programs of the lake recovery and flood control in this area has been challenged by the heavy task of population resettlement, so it is an ideal area for case studies to reach the academic objectives proposed as the above. Based on field survey and experimentation, this research evaluated the benefit losses of the resettled farmers and the increased values of ecosystem service functions caused by wetland recovery, and furthermore, the value of eco-compensation for relocated farmers was calculated by considering the combination of the farmers’ compensation appeal. The value of eco-compensation for relocated farmers in the Dongting Lake area was 6084.5 yuan per household by synthetic analysis of the effects on wetland ecosystem restoration. Moreover, this article took Dongting Lake area as a case to study and explore the basic issues of the eco-compensation by returning farmland to lake, that was who should pay, who should be paid, how much the payment was and what the payment means was, which sought the mechanisms of wetland restoration eco-compensation and prompted the people’s enthusiasms for ecological restoration.

Based on Landsat TM images in 2005 and urban planning data of 2005–2020 in Hangzhou Bay Industrial Belt, this paper studied the potential risk of the planned urban construction land extension to the wetlands by employing a GIS spatial analysis method. The results show that: (1) The wetland resources are widely distributed and diverse, with a proximal distribution to present urban construction lands spatially. (2) From 2005 to 2020, the urban construction lands will expand vastly and rapidly, and will take over large areas of wetlands that are mostly the ponds and the aquiculture water areas in the reclamation areas of Hangzhou Bay south coast. Moreover, this change will be spatially uneven obviously, e.g., the most serious recessions of the wetlands are concentrated in Ningbo city, Hangzhou city and Cixi city. (3) Overall, the potential risk to wetlands is very high, and will keep increasing with the trend of urbanization. (4) The quantity and spatial pattern of the planning urban construction land have substantial impacts on the wetland loss. Therefore, some policies and regulations are suggested to coordinate the relationship between urban economic development and wetland resource protection such as adjusting the construction land planning, compensating for wetland occupation as well as constructing wetland parks.

Based on the samples collected from the west wall of the ABYT2004 at Yuhuicun Site in Bengbu, Anhui Province, the multi-environmental substitute indexes such as the grain-size, Rb/Sr, zircon crystal morphology and magnetic susceptibility were analyzed. The age of archaeological strata was determined by AMS14C dating. According to the results, combined with the information of the ancient human activities and the cultural heritage data obtained from the Longshan cultural archaeological strata, it can be concluded that (1) Before 4500 aBP, the climate was humid and water level was high in the Huaihe River and its tributaries, the drainage basin and its surrounding areas were even flooded, so the site area was submerged and there were no human activities around the site. (2) About 4500 aBP, the climate began to become drier and water level of the Huaihe River and its tributaries began to decline, thus floodplain gradually appeared, Yuhuicun Site and Longshan Culture began to appear. (3) Around 4100 aBP, the climate was humid and rainfall was abundant, which resulted in frequent flood disasters in the whole Huaihe River Basin. (4) After 4100 aBP, the climate gradually transited to be cold and dry, agricultural production was constrained to reduce the food source, Yuhuicun Site was almost abandoned. (5) The environmental information in sedimentary strata and historical records based on ancient books agree with each other. In addition, Yuhuicun Site was related to Dayu Zhishui (Yu the Great in taming the floods) in ancient books.

Coastal dune rocks in China are eolian sands cemented by calcium carbonate under subaerial conditions, widely distributing on the tropical and subtropical coasts of South China. Particular temperature and precipitation as well as local wave and landform conditions are required for the formation of the dune rocks. A correspondence was found between Holocene environmental changes and coastal dune rock development by comparing the features of the sea-level and climate changes in the Holocene period with the ages, scales, and cementation of the dune rocks on the South China coasts. The findings provide well grounded explanation for some problems unresolved in the past researches on the coastal dune rock in South China: (1) There were no dune rocks with ages older than 6000 years in South China because the dune rocks formed before 6000 a BP were covered by the sea water that rose in the later period; (2) the dune rocks with ages of around 3000 a BP were widely found in South China today because the coastal dunes were cumulated on a large scale at that time as a result of temperature falling after the end of Megathermal; (3) Medieval Warm Period was the main period for the eolian dunes to be cemented into the coastal dune rocks in South China; (4) lack of dune rocks of younger than 1000 a BP was accounted for by that the climate conditions in recent one thousand years were not suitable for the cementation.

Land use and land cover change as the core of coupled human-environment systems has become a potential field of land change science (LCS) in the study of global environmental change. Based on remotely sensed data of land use change with a spatial resolution of 1 km × 1 km on national scale among every 5 years, this paper designed a new dynamic regionalization according to the comprehensive characteristics of land use change including regional differentiation, physical, economic, and macro-policy factors as well. Spatial pattern of land use change and its driving forces were investigated in China in the early 21st century. To sum up, land use change pattern of this period was characterized by rapid changes in the whole country. Over the agricultural zones, e.g., Huang-Huai-Hai Plain, the southeast coastal areas and Sichuan Basin, a great proportion of fine arable land were engrossed owing to considerable expansion of the built-up and residential areas, resulting in decrease of paddy land area in southern China. The development of oasis agriculture in Northwest China and the reclamation in Northeast China led to a slight increase in arable land area in northern China. Due to the “Grain for Green” policy, forest area was significantly increased in the middle and western developing regions, where the vegetation coverage was substantially enlarged, likewise. This paper argued the main driving forces as the implementation of the strategy on land use and regional development, such as policies of “Western Development”, “Revitalization of Northeast”, coupled with rapidly economic development during this period.

A typical requirement in digital society is the rapid distribution and effective application of digital products. Geographical data bases are far more complex than other ones in that both attribute and spatial data have to be stored and handled under the same framework. On the other hand, the number of end users of digital cartographic data is explosively increasing, ranging from professional map makers to vehicle drivers and individual tourists. Thus arises a question: how can a data supplier give the “best” service to each user? In nature it involves such difficult problems as cartographic generalization and map simplification. In this paper, the author argues that the visual knowledge or perception experience can be effectively exploited and used to guide the process of data simplification. We have developed a prototype system with a subset of the vector road database covering Munich city.

There is plenty of forests in Northeast China which contributes a lot to the conservation of water and land resources, produces timber products, and provides habitats for a huge number of wild animals and plants. With changes of socio-economic factors as well as the geophysical conditions, there are dramatic changes on the spatial patterns of forest area. In this sense, it is of great significance to shed light on the dynamics of forest area changes to find the underlining reasons for shaping the changing patterns of forest area in Northeast China. To explore the dynamics of forest area change in Northeast China, an econometric model is developed which is composed of three equations identifying forestry production, conversion from open forest to closed forest and conversion from other land uses to closed forest so as to explore the impacts on the forest area changes from demographic, social, economic, location and geophysical factors. On this basis, we employ the Dynamics of Land System (DLS) model to simulate land-use conversions between forest area and non-forest cover and the land-use conversions within the sub-classes of forest area for the period 2000–2020 under business as usual scenario, environmental protection scenario and economic growth scenario. The simulation results show that forest area will expand continuously and there exist various kinds of changing patterns for the sub-classes of forest area, for example, closed forest will expand continuously and open forest and shrub will decrease a little bit, while area of other forest will keep intact. The research results provide meaningful decision-making information for conserving and exploiting the forest resources and making out the planning for forestry production in the Northeast China region.

Sustainable land use patterns are ecological and economic prerequisites of regional sustainable development. This is especially true for arid lands, where the environment is wholly fragile thanks to extremely limited precipitation, and where human activities have greatly transformed natural desert system by clearing natural vegetation, expanding oases and even building dams on inland rivers. However, the current studies on land use patterns are still characterized by field investigations and case studies, with almost no solid scientific basis. This paper holds that land types and their combination patterns are the principal basis for designing sustainable land use patterns, and that GIS and RS-based large-scale land type mapping and the study of their spatial combination structures should be coordinated with the demand of social development. The existing environmental problems induced by irrational land use mostly result from their deviation from the natural properties of land types. Taking the northern slope of the Tianshan Mountains (NSTM) as an example and considering land type patterns as the basis of land use patterns, this paper improves the vertical oasis- and-mid-mountain two-belts development model and the sustainable mountain land use model for arid lands put forward in recent years; and in terms of oases patterns, it outlines oasis development models, including intensive land use pattern in alluvial-diluvial fans, moderate agricultural development pattern in alluvial plains, and ecological land use pattern in river-end oases.

This article explores the factors and mechanism driving the land-use conversion at regional level by developing and using an econometric approach which is called the simultaneous equations model (SEM). A case study in Jiangxi Province of China is conducted by establishing the SEM, which consists of three equations including agricultural production, land conversion of cultivated land to built-up area and land conversion of cultivated land to forest cover/grassland from 1988 to 2005. And then this paper employs the method of piecewise estimation to represent the influences of the factors such as population, society, economy, location and geophysical conditions on the process of land-use conversion in Jiangxi Province. Estimation results show that population is a predominant factor driving the land-use conversion at counties, while social and economic factors are determinant factors in the short term for the entire Jiangxi Province. Specifically, the size of agricultural population and the magnitude of agricultural input determine the agricultural production to a large extent; population size, plain area proportion at counties and land management policies together affect the direction and magnitude of conversion between cultivated land and built-up area; agricultural population proportion, terrain slope, grain production and non-agricultural industry promote the conversion of cultivated land to forest cover/grassland. Furthermore, the explored mechanism also reveals the underlying causes of the land use changes driven by a series of factors in Jiangxi Province. Finally, this paper concludes that factors proven to play an important role in driving the land-use conversion need to be considered when the land management agencies make out the land use planning to optimize the land use, expand the agricultural production, and conserve the cultivated land.

Although traditional urban expansion simulation models can simulate dynamic features, these models fail to address complex changes produced by different agents' behaviors. The paper has built up a set of spatial-temporal land resource allocation rules and developed a dynamic urban expansion model based on a multi-agent system, which can simulate the interaction among different agents, such as residents, peasants, and governments. This model is applied to simulate urban expansion process taking Changsha City, in China as a study area. The results show that this model can not only reflect basic characteristics of urban expansion, but also help explain the reasons for urban expansion process and understand the effect of agents' behavior on the expansion process, and provide insights into the causing factors behind the expansion. In addition, in contrast to simulation results with land use classification map from remote sensing images, the precision of the simulation reached over 68% with higher precision than cellular automata model according to the cell-by-cell comparison. The results suggest that the model can help to provide land use decision making support to government and urban planners.

Trends in pan evaporation are widely relevant to the hydrological community as indicators of hydrological and climate change. Pan evaporation has been decreasing in the past few decades over many large areas with differing climates globally. This study analyzes pan evaporation data from 671 stations in China over the past 50 years in order to reveal the trends of it and the corresponding trend attribution. Mann-Kendall test shows a significant declining trend in pan evaporation for most stations, with an average decrease of 17.2 mm/10a in China as a whole, the rate of decline was the steepest in the humid region (29.7 mm/10a), and was 17.6 mm/10a and 5.5 mm/10a in the semi-humid/semi-arid region and arid region, respectively. Complete correlation coefficients of pan evaporation with 7 climate factors were computed, and decreases in diurnal temperature range (DTR), SD (sunshine duration) and wind speed were found to be the main attributing factors in the pan evaporation declines. Decrease in DTR and SD may relate to the increase of clouds and aerosol as well as the other pollutants, and decrease in wind speed to weakening of the Asian winter and summer monsoons under global climate warming.

Solar radiation is an important driving force for the formation and evolution of climate system. Analysis of change in solar radiation is helpful in understanding mechanism of climate change. In this study, the temporal and spatial variations of solar radiation and the cause of the change in solar radiation have been analyzed based on meteorological data from 46 national meteorological stations and aerosol index data from TOMS over the Haihe River Basin and surrounding areas. The results have shown that solar radiation and direct radiation significantly decreased, while scattered radiation increased during the period 1957–2008. Spatially, the decreasing trend of solar radiation was more and more significant from low population density areas to high population density areas. The spatial distribution of increase in aerosol index is consistent with that of decrease in solar radiation. The increase in aerosols resulting from human activities was an important reason for the decrease in solar radiation.