The lower reaches of the Tarim River are one of the areas suffering from most severe sandy desertification in Xinjiang, Northwest China. Irrational utilization of water and land resources results in eco-environmental deterioration in the Tarim River. In May 2000, the local government carried out the water conveyances project in the Tarim River. The influence of water conveyance on desertification reversion is analyzed and discussed according to the monitoring data in the past three years. Based on monitored data of the nine observed sections, along the channel of conveyance, the intensity and scope of desertification reversion in the upper reaches are larger than those in the lower reaches. Dynamic changes of desertification reversion are more obvious from the channel of conveyance to its two sides. However, the range of influence and intensity of desertification reversion is limited at present. It is suggested that the way and range of water conveyances should be adjusted in the future.

Based on 740 stations of daily precipitation datasets in China, the precipitation- concentration degree (PCD) and precipitation-concentration period (PCP) of different intensity durative precipitation events were calculated to analyze their statistical characteristics, mainly including spatial and temporal distributions, variations and climatic trends of the two parameters of the durative heavy precipitation events in China. It is proved that these two parameters of heavy rainfall can display the temporal inhomogeneity in the precipitation field. And it is also found that there is a good positive relationship between the precipitation-concentration degree and annual rainfall amount in the Eastern and Central China. This method can be applied in flood assessment and climate change fields.

The Yangtze delta area is among the fastest developing areas in China. Here there are mega-cities like Shanghai, Nanjing and the attached urban areas of different sizes including those along the lower reaches of the Yangtze River from Shanghai up to Nanjing as well as their satellite cities and towns, forming one of the most densely distributed urban areas in China. This is a case study done in Suzhou city at the center of the Yangtze delta to reflect the impact of urban sprawl on soil resources using satellite images and digital soil databases. The extent of the developed land in the studied area and the impact of development on soil resources at 1:100,000 scale are estimated and the soil types impacted most by urbanization development are determined through overlaying the soil map on the satellite images (Landsat-7) of the studied area at different times (1984, 1995, 2000 and 2003). The methodology for this study consists of analyzing data resulting from using a geographic information system (GIS) to combine urban land use maps of different times derived from satellite images with data on soil characteristics contained in the established soil databases by which some results come into being to present the fast expanding trend of urbanization in the Yangtze delta area, the urban spread and the soils occupied by the urbanization process, and also the quality of the occupied soils.

Using geographic information system (GIS) techniques and the newest seasonal and annual average precipitation data of 679 meteorological stations from 1971 to 2000, the multiple regressions equations of the precipitation and topographical variables are established to extract the effect of topography on the annual and seasonal precipitation in the upper-middle reaches of the Yangtze River. Then, this paper uses a successive interpolation approach (SIA), which combines GIS techniques with the multiple regressions, to improve the accuracy of the spatial interpolation of annual and seasonal rainfall. The results are very satisfactory in the case of seasonal rainfall, with the relative error of 6.86%, the absolute error of 13.07 mm, the average coefficient of variation of 0.070, and the correlation coefficient of 0.9675; in the case of annual precipitation, with the relative error of 7.34%, the absolute error of 72.1 mm, the average coefficient of variation of 0.092, and the correlation coefficient of 0.9605. The analyses of annual mean precipitation show that the SIA calculation of 3-5 steps considerably improves the interpolation accuracy, decreasing the absolute error from 211.0 mm to 62.4 mm, the relative error from 20.74% to 5.97%, the coefficient of variation from 0.2312 to 0.0761, and increasing the correlation coefficient from 0.5467 to 0.9619. The SIA iterative results after 50 steps identically converge to the observed precipitation.

Along the north bank of the Xuxi River, the sand-intercalated-muddy gravel layer from -3.7~-5.8 m in the borehole 7508 at the East Dam and the middle, coarse and fine sand layer with a thickness of 4.5 m at the lower part of the borehole 8179 between the East Dam and the West Dam indicate that a large natural river was here before the Kingdom of Wu excavated the Xuxi Canal. The existence of Neolithic sites such as Xuecheng, Chaoduntou and Xiajiadang along the Xuxi River and the silt layer with dozens of meters archived under the earth's surface within a range of 1 km along both banks are the even more important evidences for the existence of the ancient Zhongjiang River. The floodgate of the East Dam nowadays makes against the communication between the Shuiyangjiang River and the Taihu Lake. The authors suggest the canal between Wuhu and Taihu Lake should be excavated as soon as possible, namely, the navigation channel from Wuhu through Guchenghu Lake, Xuxi River, East Dam, Liyang, Yixing to Taihu Lake should be further widen and the deposits composed of slope wash on the watershed between Shuiyangjiang River and Taihu Lake should be dredged away. Then, the channel journey can be shortened, the boats in ship transportation on the Yangtze River can be shunted to ensure the security of shipping, the resources of sand and gravel in the old river channel can be exploited and the dike of the Yangtze River can be reinforced. So, the problems of irrigation, flood diversion, pollution abatement and drainage of flooded fields in the lower Yangtze River will be resolved. Then, the above methods can impel the sustainable development of the Xuxi River and Taihu Lake area.

The method of time series is applied to analyze the variation of precipitation and temperature from 1961 to 2002 in the mountainous areas of the Tarim River Basin, as well as water consumption in the headstream and mainstream areas. Those hydrologic parameters are verified. Quantitative results indicate that the precipitation and temperature in the headstream areas have an increasing trend to different extent. The increasing trend of precipitation is less significant than that of the temperature (α= 0.05). Runoff of three headstreams also increases especially from 1994 to 2002. Compared with the perennial runoff, the annual runoff has increased by 25.163×10⁸ m3/a. However, inflows of the mainstream areas has only increased by 0.9985×10⁸ m3/a. So the runoff at the different hydrologic stations in the headstream areas has a linear decreasing trend. It is shown that the degraded trend of eco-environment of the Tarim River Basin hardly changes in the special water period for ten consecutive years. Given runoff of three headstreams is accounted in normal period from 1957 to 2003, the annual runoff of the headstream areas would be only 22.57×10⁸ m3. Therefore, more attention should be given to ecological safety of the Tarim River Basin.

Ecosystem services are premises for human beings to exist and develop in the world, and it is of importance to study effects of land use change on ecosystem functions. Songnen plain, located in Northeast China, is one of the national key bases for agricultural production. Because there were remarkable variations in land use in recent years, it can supply specific foundation for protection and restoration of regional eco-environment to explore changes in its values of ecosystem services. This study aims to qualify long-term changes in land use of Songnen plain from 1980 to 2000, and to explore the impact of land use change on ecosystem services. With 2-period land use data using RS and GIS, this paper analyzed changes in land use and in ecosystem service values using the ecosystem service value coefficients (VC) put forward by Costanza et al. Results showed that from 1980 to 2000, area of rangeland, water area and wetlands and area of cropland decreased, but urban area and unused land increased. Due to cropland's comparatively low VC and comparatively high VC of wetlands and water area, increment in cultivated land could not offset the total decrement in regional ecosystem service values because of the decrease in area of wetlands and water area. Meanwhile, city sprawl has also led to loss of ecological values. Total ecosystem service values of the study area reduced dramatically, from 34,926.10×10⁶$ to 31,744.54×10⁶$ in the period 1980-2000. This represents a 9.11% net decline in annual value of ecosystem services in the study area.

Under Rayleigh equilibrium condition, stable isotopic ratio in residual water increases with the decrease of the residual water proportion f exponentially, and the fractionation rate of stable isotopes is inversely proportional to temperature. However, under kinetic evaporation condition, the fractionation of stable isotopes is not only related to the phase temperature but also influenced by the atmospheric humidity and the mass exchange between liquid and vapor phases. The ratio δ in residual water will not change with f after undergoing evaporation of a long time for great relative humidity. The rate that the evaporating water body reaches isotopic steady state is mainly dependent on the relative humidity in atmosphere. The analysis shows that the actual mean linear variety rates, about -30.0, of the δ18O in residual water versus the residual water proportion at Nagqu and Amdo stations are consistent with the simulated process under temperature of 20 oC and relative humidity of 50%. The distillation line simulated under Rayleigh equilibrium condition is analogous to the global meteoric water line (MWL) as the temperature is about 20 oC. Under non-equilibrium condition, the slope and constant values of distillation line are directly proportional to temperature and relative humidity. According to the basic data, the simulated distillation line is very consistent with the actual distillation line of Qinghai Lake.

On the basis of the geomorphology, paleosol, paleoclimate and loess age, major changes of the Loess Plateau were studied. There are five major changes in the evolution of the Loess Plateau in China. Among them, the first, second, third and fourth major changes have taken place since the formation of the Loess Plateau, and the fifth major change will happen in 100 years. The first major change, which occurred at about 2.50 Ma BP, was a transition from red earth plateau to the Loess Plateau, and reflects the climate from the warm-sub-humid to the alteration between cold-and-dry and warm-and-humid. The driving force of this first major change was climate. The second major change, which took place at about 1.60 Ma BP, was a vital transition of the main rivers in this area from non-existence to existence, and represented an important change on the Loess Plateau's neotectonic uplift from the slow rising to periodically accelerated rising, and making the river's erosion go from feeble to strong. The driving force of the second major change is tectonic uplift. The third major change which occurred at about 150 ka, was a great transition of the Yellow River's inpouring from a lake outlet to a sea outlet. At that time, the Yellow River cut the Sanmen Gorge. The transition led to the transformation of loess material from internal transportation to external transportation. The driving force of the third major change was running water erosion. The fourth one that occurred at about 1.1 ka was a change of the Loess Plateau from natural erosion to erosion accelerated by human influences. The driving force of the fourth major change is mainly human activities. The fifth major change, which is the opposite change to the fourth one, in which the motive power is human activity, too.

In this paper, we discuss the development of electronic atlas in China, with focus on the issues of visualization. We particularly categorise this development into four periods, and then analyse the characters in each period and discuss the visualization issues. The four periods are highlighted: 1) Infant period (<1990) characterized as computer assisted mapping with products of screen maps; 2) Starting period (1991-1995) characterized as object-oriented mapping with products of interactive maps/atlases; 3) Advancing period (1996-2000) characterized as integrated mapping with products of multimedia cartographic maps; 4) New era (> 2001) characterized as web mapping and adaptive map design with products of Internet maps and atlas as well as adaptive maps. It is obvious that the development follows the logical way from static to dynamic, and even real time visualization, from single user to multiple users, from presentation to exploration for effective communication and knowledge construction. Current research and development projects are focused on customisation of atlas information systems for real-time tasks, Internet operability, small displays and mobile environments. The major challenges involved in each of such customisation processes are identified and commented in relation to the further development of visualization.

The role of remote sensing in phenological studies is increasingly regarded as a key to understand large area seasonal phenomena. This paper describes the application of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) time series data for forest phenological patterns. The forest phenological phase of Northeast China (NE China) and its spatial characteristics were inferred using 1-km 10-day MODIS normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) datasets of 2002. The threshold-based method was used to estimate three key forest phenological variables, which are the start of growing season (SOS), the end of growing season (EOS) and growing season length (GSL). Then the spatial patterns of forest phenological variables of NE China were mapped and analyzed. The derived phenological variables were validated by the field observed data from published papers in the same study area. Results indicate that forest phenological phase from MODIS data is comparable with the observed data. As the derived forest phenological pattern is related to forest type distribution, it is helpful to discriminate between forest types.

Conversion of cropland to forestry and grassland is an important method to reduce soil erosion and improve the biophysical environment in the Loess Plateau. The feasibility, methods, and environmental effects of cropland conversion were studied based on 11 typical watersheds of national experimental bases instead of different geographic areas of the Loess Plateau. Between 1986 and 2000, cropland, sloping cropland and non-agricultural land decreased by 8%, 92.5% and 8% respectively, while forestry increased by 15.7%. The land use change not only decreased annual soil erosion by 74%, but also increased vegetation coverage by 100% and improved the soil condition and biodiversity. This can be achieved by building basic farmland, increasing capital and scientific input, and planting trees and grasses according to the natural biophysical restrictions.

Through detailed statistics and analysis of drought and water disasters in the Weihe Plain in the historical period, we discovered that in more than 2300 years (from 370 BC to 2000 AD), natural disasters occurred most frequently in two periods. One is from 610 to 850 AD (from the late Sui Dynasty to the late Tang Dynasty) and the other is from 1580 to 2000 AD (after the late Ming Dynasty). Different natural disasters occurred synchronously, that is to say, when the drought occurred frequently, water disasters occurred frequently in the same periods. Frequencies of natural disasters, on the one hand, connected with climate changes and development course of ancient cities, while on the other, related closely to population changes. The excessive exploitation of natural resources and human disturbance and damages to ecological environment are the major reasons for the increased drought and water disasters.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the feasibility of using Landsat TM data to retrieve leaf area index (LAI). To get a LAI retrieval model based ground reflectance and vegetation index, detailed field data were collected in the study area of eastern China, dominated by bamboo, tea plant and greengage. Plant canopy reflectance of Landsat TM wavelength bands has been inversed using software of 6S. LAI is an important ecological parameter. In this paper, atmospheric corrected Landsat TM imagery was utilized to calculate different vegetation indices (VI), such as simple ratio vegetation index (SR), shortwave infrared modified simple ratio (MSR), and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). Data of 53 samples of LAI were measured by LAI-2000 (LI-COR) in the study area. LAI was modeled based on different reflectances of bands and different vegetation indices from Landsat TM and LAI samples data. There are certainly correlations between LAI and the reflectance of Tm³, TM4, TM5 and TM7. The best model through analyzing the results is LAI = 1.2097*MSR + 0.4741 using the method of regression analysis. The result shows that the correlation coefficient R2 is 0.5157, and average accuracy is 85.75%. However, whether the model of this paper is suitable for application in subtropics needs to be verified in the future.

This paper, taking Hexi Corridor as an example, analyzes the alternating intimidation and the dynamic evolving relation between urbanization and eco-environment in arid area of West China. We argue that the harmonious development system of the urbanization and eco-environment would go through four phases: rudimentary symbiotic phase, harmonious developmental phase, utmost increasing phase and spiral type rising phase. Throughout the four phases, the elements of the system would influence each other, coerce each other, and complete the spiral type rising process from low-grade symbiosis to high-grade harmony together. The study on Hexi Corridor shows that the urbanization level in Hexi Corridor has increased gradually from 1985 to 2003 accompanied with the fluctuations of eco-environment state. The response of eco-environment to urbanization has been evident, but lagged behind the urbanization course. At present, the harmonious development system in Hexi Corridor was in its harmonious developmental phase. However, the coupling degree has increased quickly and approached 90 yet, which is signaling that the system is about to enter the utmost increasing phase, and the ecological crisis will enter the latent period. We have found that the coupling degree can well reflect the interactive coercing and dynamic evolving situation between urbanization and eco-environment in Hexi Corridor. From the temporal change of the coupling degree, it can be concluded that urbanization sometimes needs to pay a certain cost for the damage of the eco-environment in its initial stages, but as the urbanization continues, the state of the eco-environment would be meliorated.

The landscape fragmentation caused by road construction has many direct and indirect impacts on wildlife and ecosystems. By using the GIS and statistic software of fragmentation computation, a comprehensive index, road-induced landscape fragmentation index (RLFI), is proposed to quantify the degree of landscape fragmentation resulting from different levels of road constructions. The results show that road-induced fragmentation index in China ranges from 0.987 to 3.357, with a mean of 1.846 in 2002. The regional differences of landscape fragmentation are obvious and scoring sequence is: North China (2.65) > East China (2.62) > Central China (2.60) > South China (2.51) > Southwest China (2.34) > Northeast China (2.19) > Inner Mongolia (1.88) > Northwest China (1.67) > Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (1.65). The anisotropic analysis indicates that the variation of fragmentation index in east-west direction is larger than that in south-north direction.

The investigations on the organic carbon (OC) of core sediments were carried out in Chongming east tidal flat (CM) during Scirpus mariqueter growing stage (from April to December 2004) in Yangtze Estuary. The Yangtze River annually transports a runoff discharge of 30,000 m3/s, carrying about 480 million tons of sediments to the estuarine and coastal area, which formed a great OC pool. In the sampling spots, seven quadrats of 50 cm × 50 cm and five sediments cores of 20 cm deep (40 cm deep in December) were randomly established in order to collect vegetations and core sediments samples during the low tide each month except November. After pretreatment, the core sediments were sieved and their OC contents were measured according to the potassium dichromate method. The results show that the higher surface sediment OC content in summer comes from allochthonous terrigenous particle settlements on the Chongming east middle tidal flat S. mariqueter zone. In autumn and winter, the decomposing of the defoliated S. mariqueter increases the surface sediments OC content. Settling velocity, sediment temperature and S. mariqueter growth are the main factors that can control the sediment carbon content. Summer is the "carbon losing" period of the tidal flat sediments, while from September, it changes into the "carbon accumulating" period of sediment OC pool because of the decomposing of dead S. mariqueter community in the sediments. From this alternation of "carbon losing" period and "carbon accumulating" period, we conclude that carbon in the OC pool of the middle tidal flat S. mariqueter zone sediments mainly comes from the atmospheric carbon rooted by S. mariqueter photosynthesis.

Land pressure and adaptation are the main factors determining environmental degradation in most of China’s mountainous regions. Little attention so far has been paid to the adaptation strategies based on evaluation of land pressure in these regions. We evaluated the grain production pressure and economic development pressure for 21 small watersheds undergoing soil conservation measures in the northern mountainous region of China, compared the evaluation results with actual production for each of the watersheds, and analyzed the adaptation strategies. The results imply that land pressure was spatially heterogeneous among the sample watersheds, but there was a balancing trend between land pressure and productive capacity for each watershed. Under rising pressure, these watersheds developed a variety of adaptation strategies such as labor migration, increasing fruit and nut production, and expanding rural tourism if possible. These strategies result from evolution of the market economy in China, and persistent development of the national economy determines the variation of environment in these mountainous regions.

Based on sediment and discharge flux data for the Yellow River, realistic forcing fields and bathymetry of the Bohai Sea, a suspended sediment transport module is driven by a wave-current coupled model to research seasonal variations and mechanisms of suspended load transport to the Bohai Sea. It could be concluded that surface sediment concentration indicates a distinct spatial distribution characteristic that varies seasonally in the Bohai Sea. Sediment concentration is rather high near the Yellow River estuary, seasonal variations of which are controlled by quantity of sediment from the Yellow River, suspended sediment concentration reaches its maximum during summer and fall. Furthermore, sediment concentration decreases rapidly in other seas far from the Yellow River estuary and maintains a very low level in the center of the Bohai Sea, and is dominated by seasonal variations of climatology wind field in the Bohai Sea. Only a small amount of sediments imported from the Yellow River are delivered northwestward to the southern coast of the Bohai Bay. Majority of sediments are transported southeastward to the Laizhou Bay, where sediments are continuously delivered into the center of the Bohai Sea in a northeastward direction, and part of them are transported eastward alongshore through the Bohai Strait. 69% of sediments from the Yellow River are deposited near the river delta, 31% conveyed seaward, within which, 4% exported to the northern Yellow Sea through the Bohai Strait. Wind wave is the most essential contributor to seasonal variations of sediment concentration in the Bohai Sea, and the contribution of tidal currents is also significant in shallow waters when wind speed is low.

Theoretical difficulties for mapping and for estimating river regime characteristics in a large-scale basin remain because of the nature of the variable under study: river flows are related to a specific area, i.e. the drainage basin, and are hierarchically organized in space through the river network with upstream-downstream dependencies. Another limitation is there are not enough gauge stations in developing countries. This presentation aims at developing the hydro-stochastic approach for producing choropleth maps of average annual runoff and computing mean discharge along the main river network for a large-scale basin. The approach applied to mean annual runoff is based on geostatistical interpolation procedures coupled with water balance and data uncertainty analyses. It is proved by an application in the upstream at Bengbu in the Huaihe River Basin, a typical large-scale basin in China. Hydro-stochasitic approach in a first step interpolates to a regular grid net and in a second step the grid values are integrated along rivers. The interpolation scheme includes a constraint to be able to account for the lateral water balance along the rivers. Grid runoff map with 10 km × 10 km resolution and the discharge map along the river with the 1 km basic length unit are the main results in this study. This kind of statistic approach can be widely used because it avoids the complexity of hydrological models and does not depend on the meteorological data.

Evapotranspiration is one of the key components of hydrological processes. Assessing the impact of climate factors on evapotranspiration is helpful in understanding the impact of climate change on hydrological processes. In this paper, based on the daily meteorological data from 1960 to 2007 within and around the Aksu River Basin, reference evapotranspiration (RET) was estimated with the FAO Penman-Monteith method. The temporal and spatial variations of RET were analyzed by using ARCGIS and Mann-Kendall method. Multiple Regression Analysis was employed to attribute the effects of the variations of air temperature, solar radiation, relative humidity, vapour pressure and wind speed on RET. The results showed that average annual RET in the eastern plain area of the Aksu River Basin was about 1100 mm, which was nearly twice as much as that in the western mountainous area. The trend of annual RET had significant spatial variability. Annual RET was reduced significantly in the southeastern oasis area and southwestern plain area and increased slightly in the mountain areas. The amplitude of the change of RET reached the highest in summer, contributing most of the annual change of RET. Except in some high elevation areas where relative humidity predominated the change of the RET, the variations of wind velocity predominated the changes of RET almost throughout the basin. Taking Kuqa and Ulugqat stations as an example, the variations of wind velocity accounted for more than 50% of the changes of RET.

The Annual Meeting of China's Geographical Journals Editing was held in Fuzhou city on April 21-25, 2011. This meeting was co-sponsored by the Working Committee for Editing and Publication under The Geographical Society of China (EPWC, GSC) and Fujian Normal University. The theme of the meeting was "Innovation and Development of the Geographical Journals in China".

The source regions of the Yangtze and Yellow rivers are important water conservation areas of China. In recent years, ecological deterioration trend of the source regions caused by global climate change and unreasonable resource development increased gradually. In this paper, the spatial distribution and dynamic change of vegetation cover in the source regions of the Yangtze and Yellow rivers are analyzed in recent 10 years based on 1-km resolution multi-temporal SPOTVGT-DN data from 1998 to 2007. Meanwhile, the correlation relationships between air temperature, precipitation, shallow ground temperature and NDVI, which is 3×3 pixel at the center of Wudaoliang, Tuotuohe, Qumalai, Maduo, and Dari meteorological stations were analyzed. The results show that the NDVI values in these two source regions are increasing in recent 10 years. Spatial distribution of NDVI which was consistent with hydrothermal condition decreased from southeast to northwest of the source regions. NDVI with a value over 0.54 was mainly distributed in the southeastern source region of the Yellow River, and most NDVI values in the northwestern source region of the Yangtze River were less than 0.22. Spatial changing trend of NDVI has great difference and most parts in the source regions of the Yangtze and Yellow rivers witnessed indistinct change. The regions with marked increasing trend were mainly distributed on the south side of the Tongtian River, some part of Keqianqu, Tongtian, Chumaer, and Tuotuo rivers in the source region of the Yangtze River and Xingsuhai, and southern Dari county in the source region of the Yellow River. The regions with very marked increasing tendency were mainly distributed on the south side of Tongtian Rriver and sporadically distributed in hinterland of the source region of the Yangtze River. The north side of Tangula Range in the source region of the Yangtze River and Dari and Maduo counties in the source region of the Yellow River were areas in which NDVI changed with marked decreasing tendency. The NDVI change was positively correlated with average temperature, precipitation and shallow ground temperature. Shallow ground temperature had the greatest effect on NDVI change, and the second greatest factor influencing NDVI was average temperature. The correlation between NDVI and shallow ground temperature in the source regions of the Yangtze and Yellow rivers increased significantly with the depth of soil layer.

The changing pattern of the Lower Yellow River (LYR) obtained from the traditional studies, which mainly did literal analysis based on historical documents related to the LYR are too macroscopic and absent of intuitiveness. This paper integrates all the records in historical documents related to course shift, flood and overflow of the last 3000 years and stores them in a GIS database. Then, all the data will be visualized in the form of map, which is helpful to show and understand the rules those events conform more intuitively and accurately. Taking these data as foundation, this study summarizes characteristics of the LYR’s courses and influence scope, and classifies them both into three types; divides the flow directions of the LYR’s courses into two periods, and proposes its changing pattern; concludes the characteristic of diversion points of courses shift events; calculates the velocity of courses shifts, gradient and sinuosity, and analyzes their changing patterns. Finally, this study classifies factors that may influence the occurrence of a course shift into two types: the internal factors, such as sediment rate, gradient and sinuosity of the river, and the external factors, such as precipitation and human activities.

The scientific environmental ethics plays a key role in the recognition of the human- environment interactions. Modern environmental ethics is the philosophical re-thinking of modern human race environmental behavior. The development of environmental ethics theory, as well as its application in reality, determines the viewpoints of environmental ethics. Sustainable development implies harmony on human-environment interactions and inter- generation responsibility, with emphasis on a harmonious relationship among population, resources, environment and development, so as to lay a sustainable and healthy foundation of resources and environment for future generations. The harmonious society construction in China that is raised by the Chinese central government should be covered by environmental ethics. The connotation of open environmental ethics includes a respect for nature, care for the individual human race, and respect for the development of future generations, which means giving consideration to natural values, individual and human race benefits and welfare across generations. The role of environmental ethics in regional development consists of cognition, criticism, education, inspiration, adjusting, legislation and promoting environmental regulations. The major problems in regional development are extensive resource exploration, fast population growth, irrational industrial structure, unfair welfare distribution and the twofold effects of science and technology development. The formulation of environmental ethics that aims at regional sustainable development, can not only harmonize the relationship of population, resource, environment and economic development, but also guide behavior selection, push social and political system transformation, strengthen the legal system, and raise environmental awareness of the public.

Local spatial interaction between neighborhood land-use categories (i.e. neighborhood interaction) is an important factor which affects urban land-use change patterns. Therefore, it is a key component in cellular automata (CA)-based urban geosimulation models towards the simulation and forecast of urban land-use changes. Purpose of this paper is to interpret the similarities and differences of the characteristics of neighborhood interaction in urban land-use changes of different metropolitan areas in Japan for providing empirical materials to understand the mechanism of urban land-use changes and construct urban geosimulation models. Characteristics of neighborhood interaction in urban land-use changes of three metropolitan areas in Japan, i.e. Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya, were compared using such aids as the neighborhood interaction model and similarity measure function. As a result, urban land-use in the three metropolitan areas was found to have had similar structure and patterns during the study period. Characteristics of neighborhood interaction in urban land-use changes are quite different from land-use categories, meaning that the mechanism of urban land-use changes comparatively differs among land-use categories. Characteristics of neighborhood interaction reveal the effect of spatial autocorrelation in the spatial process of urban land-use changes in the three metropolitan areas, which correspond with the characteristics of agglomeration of urban land-use allocation in Japan. Neighborhood interaction amidst urban land-use changes between the three metropolitan areas generally showed similar characteristics. The regressed neighborhood interaction coefficients in the models may represent the general characteristics of neighborhood effect on urban land-use changes in the cities of Japan. The results provide very significant materials for exploring the mechanism of urban land-use changes and the construction of universal urban geosimulation models which may be applied to any city in Japan.

The spatial differentiation of land use changes of Tuticorin is studied using high resolution LISS III satellite imagery and Maximum Likelihood algorithms. The classification accuracy of 95.2% was obtained. In this study, the land use of Tuticorin is classified as settlement, salt pan, agricultural land, wasteland, water bodies and shrubs. The settlement area is increased to 4.6 km² during the year 2001 and 2006. The settlement area change is mainly driven by growth of industries and migration of people from peripheral villages. Shrub is increased to 3.63 km² in the six year period. Water logging due to growth of shrubs in Tuticorin leads to several environmental and health hazard. This study warrants proper urban planning for Tuticorin for sustainable use of resource and environment.

Parameters of weather generator BCC/RCG-WG for daily non-precipitation variables including maximum temperature, minimum temperature and sunshine hours at 669 stations in China are estimated using history daily records from 1951 to 1978 and from 1979 to 2007 respectively. The changes in the parameters for the two periods are revealed to explore the impact of climate change on these parameters. The results show that the parameters of the non-precipitation variables have experienced different changes. While the annual means and the amplitudes of the seasonal cycle show a clear change, the interannual variability, the timings of the seasonal cycles, and the temporal correlations for each variable remain practically unchanged. This indicates that climate changes in China over the last 57 years are mainly reflected in variations in the means and in the strength of the seasonal cycles. The changed parameters have implications for the stationary assumption implied in the parameter estimation and use of the weather generator for climate change studies.

There exists great potential of rural land consolidation in China due to the aggravated hollowed villages against the background of rapid rural-urban transformation. The paper aims to investigate the potential of rural land consolidation within four urbanization scenarios: Complete urbanization, Semi-urbanization, Urbanization in batches and prospective urbanization in 2020. Research findings show that, (1) the potentials of rural land consolidation in complete and semi-urbanization are 809.89×10⁴ hm² and 699.19×10⁴ hm² respectively while rural consolidation rates are 50.70% and 43.77%. As for the urbanization in batches and urbanization in 2020, the potentials are 757.89×10⁴ hm² and 992.16×10⁴ hm². (2) Beside Tibet and Ningxia, rural consolidation rates in most provinces are between 40% and 60%, and the land increase rates are between 3% and 12%. Significant correlation between potential of rural land consolidation and the degree of hollowed villages is also found. (3) Evident differences of potential of rural land consolidation exist across provinces. Rural consolidation rates in the East and Central provinces are higher than that in the West provinces. Villages in the developed areas have higher consolidation rates than those in the less developed areas, and villages in the plain areas tend to have higher consolidation rates than those in the mountainous areas.

Knowledge of the sediment flux derived from different sources is critical for interpreting the sedimentary records associated with large river sedimentary systems. For the Changjiang River system, previous studies hardly focused on the sediment load from the adjacent Zhoushan Archipelago (ZA). Based on four prediction models, aiming to improve the understanding of the sediment load from the ZA during the Holocene, we show that the predicted sediment flux of the ZA ranges from ~0.7 to 26.5 Mt·yr^-1, with an average value of 10.7 Mt·yr^-1, and the islands with a relatively large area or high relief contribute greatly to the total flux. This sediment load is an order of magnitude lower than that of the Changjiang River, but it is similar to those of the local small rivers. Located in the core area of the southward dispersal path of the Changjiang River plume, the ZA also influences the sediment transport into Hangzhou Bay and over the Zhejiang-Fujian coastal seas. On the Holocene temporal scale, e.g., for the period from 6 ka BP to 2 ka BP, the sediments discharged from the ZA had a considerable effect on the shelf sedimentary system. This study provides evidence for an important role an archipelago can play in terms of sediment supply and transport in coastal and inner continental shelf regions.