Snowpacks samples were colleted from two glaciers: Baishui No.1 glacier and Hailuogou No.1 glacier in June, 2006. The method of sea-salt ions tracer, correlation analysis and trend analysis were used in this research in order to confirm the source of main ions, it is indicated that Na+ is mainly from marine moisture and other ions mainly originate from land dust. The non-marine source percent of Cl^-, NO^-₃, SO^2-₄, K⁺, Ca²⁺ and Mg²⁺ is 52%, 99%, 100%, 98%, 99.9% and 83%, respectively, in Hailuogou No.1 glacier, while the corresponding value in Baishui No.1 glacier is 68%, 99%, 100%, 98%, 99% and 59%. The non-marine source of ions is from dust of Central Asia arid regions carried by westerly circulation and the plateau borne-areas with Qinghai-Tibet Plateau winter monsoon in two glacial areas. How-ever, the import of local dust in glacial area has made a great contribution to ions concentra-tion in Baishui No.1 glacier, which accounts for the reason why the ions concentration in Bai-shui No.1 glacier is much higher than that of Hailuogou No.1 glacier. It is obvious that the source of each ion is different between Hailuogou No.1 glacier and Baishui No.1 glacier. There are three reasons which can explain it: firstly, the difference in the internal environment of glacial area, such as lithology, mountain-valley wind system, topographical relief and so on; secondly, the influence exerted by ions elution in snowpacks section, and ions elution in Hailuogou No.1 glacier is very strong; and thirdly, the difference caused due to varying ions transporting styles, deposition modes, chemical characteristics and post-ions-deposition process.

Lakes in China have undergone considerable environmental changes during the past 50 years, e.g. lake level, water area changes, as did in the past several thousands years. The enhanced human activities, such as land reclamation, application of chemical fertilizer, land use and cover, irrigation and industrialization in the catchment etc., have played an im-portant role on the recent decades’ changes of these lakes, although constrained to a great extent by the natural impact. Comparative study on variations of lake volume (water level, depth and area) in the eastern and western lake regions of China during 1950–2000 indicated that, lake volume in the eastern region had approximately undergone a two-stage change, i.e. a dramatic decrease from the 1950s to 1970s, and a continuous increase between the 1980s and 1990s; while, in the western region, lake volume had been decreasing nearly all the time. Further studies on some typical lakes concluded that, climatic change was a primary factor for the variations of lake volume during the past 50 years, although human activities showed important effect.

Summer monsoons (South Asian monsoon, South China Sea monsoon and Sub-tropical monsoon) are prominent features of summertime climate over southern China. Dif-ferent monsoons carry different inflow moisture into China and control the temporal and spa-tial distributions of precipitation. Analyses of meteorological data, particularly wind, tempera-ture and pressure anomalies are traditional methods of characterizing moisture sources and transport patterns. Here, we try to utilize the evidence from stable isotopes signatures to trace summer monsoons over southern China. Based on seven CHNIP (Chinese Network of Iso-topes in Precipitation) observatory stations located in southern China, monthly composite precipitation samples have been collected and analyzed for the composition of δ¹⁸O during July, 2005. The results indicated that the spatial distributions of δ¹⁸O in precipitation could properly portray the moisture sources together with their transport pathways. Moreover, the amount effect, altitude effect, temperature effect and the correlation between δ¹⁸O vs. relative humidity were discussed.

By the Empirical Mode Decomposition method, we analyzed the observed monthly average temperature in more than 700 stations from 1951–2001 over China. Simultaneously, the temperature variability of each station is calculated by this method, and classification chart of long term trend and temperature variability distributing chart of China are obtained, supported by GIS, 1 km×1 km resolution. The results show that: in recent 50 years, the temperature has increased by more than 0.4℃/10a in most parts of northern China, while in Southwest China and the middle and lower Yangtze Valley, the increase is not significant. The areas with a negative temperature change rate are distributed sporadically in Southwest China. Meanwhile, the temperature data from 1881 to 2001 in nine study regions in China are also analyzed, indicating that in the past 100 years, the temperature has been increasing all the way in Northeast China, North China, South China, Northwest China and Xinjiang and declining in Southwest China. An inverse ‘V-shaped’ trend is also found in Central China. But in Tibet the change is less significant.

Based upon the 1970 aero-photo topographic map, and TM/ETM satellite images taken in 1991 and 2000, the authors artificially interpreted boundaries of lake and glaciers in Nam Co Catchment, and quantified lake-glacier area variations in different stages by “inte-grated method” with the support of GIS. Results show that from 1970 to 2000, lake area in-creased from 1942.34 km² to 1979.79 km² at a rate of 1.27 km²/a, while glacier area de-creased from 167.62 km² to 141.88 km² at a rate of 0.86 km²/a. The increasing rate of lake in 1991–2000 was 1.76 km²/a that was faster than 1.03 km²/a in 1970–1991, while in the same period of time, the shrinking rates of glaciers were 0.97 km²/a and 0.80 km²/a respectively. Important factors, relevant to lake and glacier response to the climate, such as air tempera-ture, precipitation, potential evapotranspiration and their values in warm and cold seasons, were discussed. The result suggests that temperature increasing is the main reason for the accelerated melting of glaciers. Lake expansion is mainly induced by the increase of the gla-cier melting water, increase of precipitation and obvious decrease of potential evapotranspi-ration. Precipitation, evaporation and their linkages with lake enlargement on regional scale need to be thoroughly studied under the background of global warming and glacier retreating.

Having analyzed the tree ring width and maximum latewood density of Pinus den-sata from west Sichuan, we obtained different climate information from tree-ring width and maximum latewood density chronology. The growth of tree ring width was responded princi-pally to the precipitation in current May, which might be influenced by the activity of southwest monsoon, whereas the maximum latewood density reflected summer temperature (June–September). According to the correlation relationship, a transfer function had been used to reconstruct summer temperature for the study area. The explained variance of re-construction is 51% (F=52.099, p<0.0001). In the reconstruction series: before the 1930s, the climate was relatively cold, and relatively warm from 1930 to 1960, this trend was in accor-dance with the cold-warm period of the last 100 years, west Sichuan. Compared with Chengdu, the warming break point in west Sichuan is 3 years ahead of time, indicating that the Tibetan Plateau was more sensitive to temperature change. There was an evident sum-mer warming signal after 1983. Although the last 100-year running average of summer tem-perature in the 1990s was the maximum, the running average of the early 1990s was below the average line and it was cold summer, but summer drought occurred in the late 1990s.

With the rapid economic development during the last 30 years in China, more and more disparities have emerged among different regions. It has been one of the hot topics in the fields of physical geography and economic geography, and also has been the task for Chinese government to handle. Nevertheless, to quantitatively assess the impacts of physio-geographical patterns (PGP) on the regional development disparity has been ignored for a long time. In this paper, a quantitative method was adopted to assess the marginal ef-fects of the PGP on spatio-temporal disparity using the partial determination coefficients. The paper described the construction of the evaluation model step by step following its key scien-tific thinking. Total GDP, per capita GDP, primary industrial output value and secondary in-dustrial output value were employed in this study as the indicators to reflect the impacts of PGP on the regional development disparity. Based on the evaluation methods built by re-searchers, this study firstly analyzed the temporal impacts of the PGP on spatio-temporal disparity of the regional development in China during the past 50 years, and then explained the spatial differences at each development stage. The results show that the spatio-temporal disparity in China is highly related to the PGP, and that the marginal contribution rate could be employed as an effective way to quantitatively assess the impact of the PGP on spa-tio-temporal disparity of the regional development.

Data of 44 glacier systems in China used in this paper were obtained from Chinese Glacier Inventories and the meteorological data were got from Meteorological Atlas of Plateau of west China. Based on the statistical analysis and functional model simulation results of the 44 glacier systems in China, the glacier systems were divided into extremely-sensitive glacier system, semi-sensitive glacier system, extremely-steady glacier system and semi-steady glacier system in terms of glacier system’s level of water-energy exchange, rising gradient of the equilibrium line altitudes and retreating rate of area to climate warming, their median size and vertical span distribution, and their runoff characteristics to climate warming. Furthermore, the functional model of glacier system to climate warming was applied in this paper to predict the average variation trends of the 4 types of glacier systems, which indicate that different sensitivity types of glacier systems respond to the climate warming differently.

The relief degree of land surface (RDLS) is an important factor for describing the landform at macro-scales. This study defines a concept for RDLS and applies the concept for population distribution study of the entire country. Based on the concept and macro-scale digital elevation model datum and ARC/INFO software, the RDLS at a 10 km×10 km grid size of China is extracted. This paper depicts systemically the spatial distributions of RDLS through analyzing the ratio structure and altitudinal characters of RDLS in China. The con-clusions are drawn as follows: the RDLS in more than 63% of the area is less than one (1) (relative altitude is less than 500 m), reflecting the fact that most of RDLS in China is low. In general, the RDLS in the west is larger than that in the east and so is the south than that of the north in China. The RDLS decreases with the increase of longitude and latitude and the change of RDLS at the latitudes of 28°N, 35°N, 42°N, as well as at the longitudes of 85°E, 102°E, 115°E could reflect the three major ladders of China. In the vertical direction, the RDLS increases with the increase of altitude. Analysis of the correlation between RDLS and population distribution in China and its regional difference shows that the R² value between RDLS and population density is 0.91 and RDLS is an important factor influencing the spatial distribution of population. More than 85% of the people in China live in areas where the RDLS is less than one (1), while the population in areas with RDLS greater than 3 accounts only for 0.57% of the total. The regional difference of correlation between RDLS and population within China is significant and such correlation is significant in Central China and South China and weak in Inner Mongolia and Tibet.

The Gurbantunggut Desert is the largest stable and semi-stable sand desert in China, yet few data exist on vegetation pattern and species-environment relationships for these diverse desert landscapes. The sand dunes of the survey area are mainly of the longitudinal form from north to south, but checkerboard-shaped and honeycomb-shaped forms are also present, with the height of 10–50 m. We measured vegetation and soil data on north–south transects and compared them with vegetation and soil data on east–west transects. Analysis revealed that the varying trend and strength of the species diversity, dominance and cover of the plant communities in the longitudinal and transverse directions across the landscape are significantly different. The results of CCA ordination show that the microhabitats of soil organic matter (OM), soil salts (TS), sorting index (σ), topsoil water-content (SM) and pH relate to the differences in vegetation observed as differences in species assemblage from salt-intolerant ephemerals, micro-subshrubs and subshrubs to salt-tolerant shrubs and micro-arbors. The terrain (alt.) and soil texture (the contents of Mz and φ1) affect the spatial differentiation of many species. However, this spatial differentiation is not so marked on transects running longitudinally with the landscape, in the same direction as the dunes. The species of the desert vegetation have formed three assemblages under the action of habitat gradients, relating to three sections running transversely across the landscape, at right angles to the direction of the dune crests. In the mid-east section of the study area the topography is higher, with sand-lands or dune-slopes with coarse particles. Here the dominant vegetation comprises shrubs and subshrubs of Seriphidium santolium and Ephedra distachya, with large numbers of ephemeral and ephemeroid plants of Senecio subdentatus, and Carex physodes in spring and summer. On the soil of the dune-slopes in the mid-west of the study area, with coarse particles and abundant TK, the plant assemblage of Haloxylon persicum, Soranthus meyeri and Agriophyllum squarrosum is developed. The species composition in the east marginal belt of the study area has similar characteristics to the mid-west section. There is no corresponding section in the north–south transects (except for the north and south margins). This is because the habitats of most plants are located in the middle of the microhabitat gradients in the north–south direction in the desert.

At about 173 ka BP of the late period of mid-Pleistocene, the second terrace of the river had been formed as a result of uplift happening in Shangshan area because of the cli-mate, sea level change and tectonic action. Between 173?75 ka BP, aeolian deposited on the terrace, a layer of reticulate red clayey soil about 80?100 cm thick deposited and developed under the warmer and higher temperature. In the last glacial period, the drop of the tem-perature and the decrease of the precipitation induced the dust-storms increased, A layer of Xiashu loess about 1.0?1.5 m thick accumulated on Shangshan terrace in the last glacial, which has the reticulate red clayey soil buried. At the beginning of the Holocene (11500 a BP?), temperature went higher gradually and precipitation got more, the pre-persons moved on the Shangshan terrace (11,400?8600 a BP), which is one of the most important archaeo-logical sites, and can connect the paleolithic culture with Neolithic culture. It could be as-sumed from the results that the lower reaches of the Yangtze River are the home of rice cul-tivation, too. The lower place to the west of the Shangshan site experienced the two cycles process of the fluvial facies and the lacustrine facies, indicating that the water source of the pre-historical Shangshan is the river water or lake water. Two AMS ¹⁴C age proved the water source disappeared more than 1000 years ago.

Supported by MSS images in the mid and late 1970s, TM images in the early 1990s and TM/ETM images in 2004, grassland degradation in the “Three-River Headwaters” region (TRH region) was interpreted through analysis on RS images in two time series, then the spatial and temporal characteristics of grassland degradation in the TRH region were ana-lyzed since the 1970s. The results showed that grassland degradation in the TRH region was a continuous change process which had large affected area and long time scale, and rapidly strengthen phenomenon did not exist in the 1990s as a whole. Grassland degradation pattern in the TRH region took shape initially in the mid and late 1970s. Since the 1970s, this deg-radation process has taken place continuously, obviously characterizing different rules in different regions. In humid and semi-humid meadow region, grassland firstly fragmentized, then vegetation coverage decreased continuously, and finally “black-soil-patch” degraded grassland was formed. But in semi-arid and arid steppe region, the vegetation coverage de-creased continuously, and finally desertification was formed. Because grassland degradation had obviously regional differences in the TRH region, it could be regionalized into 7 zones, and each zone had different characteristics in type, grade, scale and time process of grass-land degradation.

Anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHG) emission and related global warming issues have been the focus of international communities for some time. The international communities have reached a consensus to reduce anthropogenic GHG emissions and restrain global warming. The quantitative assessment of anthropogenic GHG emissions is the scientific basis to find out the status of global GHG emission, identify the commitments of each country, and arrange the international efforts of GHG emission reduction. Currently the main assessment indicators for GHG emission include national indicator, per capita indicator, per GDP indicator, and international trade indicator etc. The introduction to the above indicators is put forward and their merits and demerits are analyzed. Based on the GHG emission data from the World Resource Institute (WRI), the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), and the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC), the results of each indictor are calculated for the world, for the eight G8 industrialized countries (USA, UK, Canada, Japan, Germany, France, Italy and Russia), and the five major developing countries including China, Brazil, India, South Africa and Mexico. The paper points out that all these indicators have some limitations. The Indicator of Industrialized Accumulative Emission per Capita (IAEC) is put forward as the equitable indicator to evaluate the industrialized historical accumulative emission per capita of every country. IAEC indicator can reflect the economic achievement of GHG emission enjoyed by the current generations in every country and their commitments. The analysis of IAEC indicates that the historical accumulative emission per capita in industrialized countries such as UK and USA were typically higher than those of the world average and the developing countries. Emission indicator per capita per GDP, consumptive emission indicator and survival emission indicator are also put forward and discussed in the paper.

Based on the acquaintance of the regional background of urban-rural transforma-tional development and investigations on the spot, this paper discusses the holistic situation, dominant factors and mechanism of arable land loss and land for construction occupation in the coastal area of China over the last decade, with the aid of GIS technology. Conclusions of the research are summarized as follows: (1) the arable land had been continuously de-creasing from 1996 to 2005, with a loss of 1,708,700 hm² and an average decrement of 170,900 hm² per year; (2) land for construction increased 1,373,700 hm², with an average increment of 153,200 hm² per year; (3) total area of encroachment on arable land for con-struction between 1996 and 2005 was 1,053,100 hm², accounting for 34.03% of the arable land loss in the same period, the percentages of which used for industrial land (INL), trans-portation land (TRL), rural construction land (RUL) and town construction land (TOL) are 45.03%, 15.8%, 15.47% and 11.5%, respectively; and (4) the fluctuation of the increase of construction land and encroachment on arable land in the area were deeply influenced by the nation’s macroscopic land-use policies and development level of regional economy. The growth of population and advancement of technology promoted the rapid industrialization, construction of transportation infrastructures, rural urbanization and expansion of rural set-tlements in the eastern coastal area, and therefore were the primary driving forces of land-use conversion.

Based on the daily maximum temperature data covering the period 1961–2005, temporal and spatial characteristics and their changing in mean annual and monthly high temperature days (HTDs) and the mean daily maximum temperature (MDMT) during annual and monthly HTDs in East China were studied. The results show that the mean annual HTDs were 15.1 and the MDMT during annual HTDs was 36.3℃ in the past 45 years. Both the mean annual HTDs and the MDMT during annual HTDs were negative anomaly in the1980s and positive anomaly in the other periods of time, oscillating with a cycle of about 12–15 years. The mean annual HTDs were more in the southern part, but less in the northern part of East China. The MDMT during annual HTDs was higher in Zhejiang, Anhui and Jiangxi provinces in the central and western parts of East China. The high temperature process (HTP) was more in the southwestern part, but less in northeastern part of East China. Both the HTDs and the numbers of HTP were at most in July, and the MDMT during monthly HTDs was also the highest in July. In the first 5 years of the 21st century, the mean annual HTDs and the MDMT during annual HTDs increased at most of the stations, both the mean monthly HTDs and the MDMT during monthly HTDs were positive anomalies from April to October, the number of each type of HTP generally was at most and the MDMT in each type of HTP was also the highest.

The summer day-by-day precipitation data of 97 meteorological stations on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau from 1961 to 2004 were selected to analyze the temporal-spatial dis-tribution through accumulated variance, correlation analysis, regression analysis, empirical orthogonal function, power spectrum function and spatial analysis tools of GIS. The result showed that summer precipitation occupied a relatively high proportion in the area with less annual precipitation on the Plateau and the correlation between summer precipitation and annual precipitation was strong. The altitude of these stations and summer precipitation ten-dency presented stronger positive correlation below 2000 m, with correlation value up to 0.604 (α=0.01). The subtracting tendency values between 1961–1983 and 1984–2004 at five altitude ranges (2000–2500 m, 2500–3000 m, 3500–4000 m, 4000–4500 m and above 4500 m) were above zero and accounted for 71.4% of the total. Using empirical orthogonal function, summer precipitation could be roughly divided into three precipitation pattern fields: the Southeast Plateau Pattern Field, the Northeast Plateau Pattern field and the Three Rivers' Headstream Regions Pattern Field. The former two ones had a reverse value from the north to the south and opposite line was along 35°N. The potential cycles of the three pattern fields were 5.33a, 21.33a and 2.17a respectively, tested by the confidence probability of 90%. The station altitudes and summer precipitation potential cycles presented strong negative corre-lation in the stations above 4500 m, with correlation value of –0.626 (α=0.01). In Three Rivers Headstream Regions summer precipitation cycle decreased as the altitude rose in the sta-tions above 3500 m and increased as the altitude rose in those below 3500 m. The empirical orthogonal function analysis in June precipitation, July precipitation and August precipitation showed that the June precipitation pattern field was similar to the July’s, in which southern Plateau was positive and northern Plateau negative. But positive value area in July precipita-tion pattern field was obviously less than June’s. The August pattern field was totally opposite to June’s and July’s. The positive area in August pattern field jumped from the southern Pla-teau to the northern Plateau.

Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating for polymineral fine-grained loess samples, collected in Laoguantai (LGT) section on the south of the Chinese Loess Plateau, was made by application of single-aliquot regenerative-dose (SAR) protocol. A ‘Double-SAR’ procedure in which aliquots are subjected to both infrared (IR) and blue stimulations was used, and two sets of equivalent dose (D_e) determinations were produced and assumed to relate predominantly to feldspathic and quartz fine grain populations respectively. The OSL ages estimated from IRSL signals are smaller than those estimated from [post-IR] OSL signals due to the anomalous fading of feldspar IR signals, based on fading experiment. The young ages of the samples near ground surface may be originated from the post-depositional disturbance by the intensifying humanity’s cultivation since 3.0 ka BP in the Guanzhong Basin, south of the Chinese Loess Plateau. Based on OSL dating, as well as field observations and stratigraphic correlation, we determine the chronology of the LGT loess-paleosol sequence. In combination with climate proxy records, it is indicated that aeolian loess deposition and pedogenesis underwent polyphase changes during the Holocene, likely to have been driven by shifts in the East Asian monsoon. This suggests that aeolian loess deposition is episodic and highly variable, with contributions from non-aeolian processes such as alluvial deposition found in the area.

This paper studies the variation of runoff of Red River Basin and discusses the influence of “corridor-barrier” functions of valleys and mountains on variation of runoff by using GIS and statistic methods based on the monthly precipitation, temperature and evaporation data from 1960 to 2000 at 32 meteorological stations in Red River Basin, and the annual runoff data of Yuanjiang River, Lixian River and Panlong River from 1956 to 2000. The results show out: (1) Under the effect of “corridor-barrier” functions of valleys and mountains in Red River Basin, the patterns of annual precipitation and runoff depth distribution in spatial change a NW–SE direction, which is similar with the trend of the Red River valley and Ailao mountains. (2) In the long temporal scale averaged over years, the most obvious effects of the “corridor-barrier” functions is on runoff variation, and the second is on the precipitation, but not obvious on the temperature. (3) Under the superposed effect of climate changes and the “corridor-barrier” functions of valleys and mountains in Red River Basin, the difference of runoff variation is obvious in the east–west direction: the runoff variation of Yuanjiang River along the Red River Fault present an ascending trend, but the Lixian River on the west side of the Fault and the Panlong River on the east present a descending trend; the annual runoff in Yuanjiang River and Panlong River had a quasi-5a periods, and Panlong River had a quasi-8a periods; the runoff variation are quite inconsistent in different periods among the three river basins.

This paper brought out a new idea on the retrieval of suspended sediment concentration, which uses both the water-leaving radiance from remote sensing data and the grain size of the suspended sediment. A principal component model and a neural network model based on those two parameters were constructed. The analyzing results indicate that testing errors of the models using the two parameters are 0.256 and 0.244, while the errors using only water-leaving radiance are 0.384 and 0.390. The stability of the models with grain size parameter is also better than the one without grain size. This research proved that it is necessary to introduce the grain size parameter into suspended sediment concentration retrieval models in order to improve the retrieval precision of these models.

In order to estimate the present-day pollution levels in the ecosystem of the Se-lenga River Delta and to monitor the changes caused by the discharge of household refuse and industrial wastes, as well as the functioning of the agricultural and stock farming, a comprehensive study of the water and bottom sediments in the main branches of the Selenga River Delta was carried out. This study has determined the concentrations of heavy metals in river water and bottom sediments in its delta.

Based on four phases of TM images acquired in 1990, 1995, 2000 and 2005, this paper took Kitakyushu in Japan as a case study to analyze spatial change of land use landscape and corresponding effects on environmental issues guided by landscape ecology theory in virtue of combining technology of Remote Sensing with GIS. Firstly, land use types were divided into 6 classes (farmland, mountain, forestland, water body, urban land and unused land) according to national classification standard of land use, comprehensible ability of TM image and purpose of this study. Secondly, following the theory of landscape ecology analysis, 11 typical landscape indices were abstracted to evaluate the environmental effects and spatial feature changes of land use. Research results indicated that land use has grown more and more diversified and unbalanced, human activities have disturbed the landscape more seriously. Finally, transfer matrix of Markov was applied to forecast change process of land use in the future different periods, and then potential land use changes were also simulated from 2010 to 2050. Results showed that conversion tendency for all types of land use in Kitakyushu into urban construction land were enhanced. The study was anticipated to help local authorities better understand and address a complex land use system, and develop improved land use management strategies that could better balance urban expansion and ecological conservation.

Land use change plays an important part in the studies of global environmental change and regional sustainable development. The change of soil quality can particularly reflect the impacts of human socio-economic activities on environment. Taking the coastal plain of south Hangzhou Bay as a study case, we analyzed the effects of land use changes on organic matter (OM), total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), available phosphorus (AP), available potassium (AK), total salinity (TS), pH value in soil genetic layers, and assessed soil quality change related to different land use types from 1982 to 2003. The results show that: (1) The general change tendency of soil quality in the coastal plain of south Hangzhou Bay declined obviously in A layer and slightly rise in B (or P) layer and C (or W) layer. The contents of TP decreased generally in all soil genetic layers, but the variety difference of other soil quality indices was relatively great. (2) The change of soil quality in the areas where land use changed is far more remarkable than that with land use unchanged. The value of quality variety is A layer >B (or P) layer >C (or W) layer. (3) The changes of soil tillage, cultivation, fertilization, irrigation and drainage activities related to land use may make some soil-forming processes disappeared and bring in other new processes which will affect the soil quality and soil genetic layers directly.

Understanding the effect of human activities on the soil environment is fundamental to understanding global change and sustainable development. In the process of transformation of tropical rain forests and semiarid grasslands to farmlands, land degradation usually occurs. But the transformation of arid desert landscape to oasis is found to have quite different consequences. Taking an alluvial plain oasis in the north piedmont of the Tianshan Mountains as a case study, we investigate oasis soil properties related to different land-use systems during the transformation of arid desert to oases. Selected land-use systems consisted of an annual crop field less than 3 years old, annual crop field 3?6 years old, annual crop field more than 6 years old, perennial crop field less than 4 years old, perennial crop field of 4-6 years old, perennial crop field more than 6 years old, abandoned farmland more than 3 years old, woodland field more than 6 years old, ecological forestation field, natural shrubbery field, desert grass land, and saline or alkaline field. Different land-use systems affect significantly the distribution of sand, silt and clay. Sand content in oasis soil tends to decrease with cultivation years but silt and clay contents tend to be increased in the oasis soils. Soil fertility is higher in the land-use systems under strong human disturbance than under weak human disturbance. Oasis soil nutrients also tend to increase with cultivation years. Soils have a significantly lower salinity in the land-use systems under strong human disturbance than under weak human disturbance. Soil organic matter and nutrients of the annual and perennial crop systems in the oasis tend to increase with cultivation time with the oasis soil acting as a carbon sink. These results show that soils are not degraded and the soil quality is gradually improved under rational land use and scientific management patterns, including uniform exploitation of land resources, effective irrigation systems, sound drainage systems, balanced fertilizer application, crushed straw return to soil and transformation of annual crop fields to perennial ones.

Based on dynastic period division and AMS¹⁴C dating performed on the sedimen-tary layers at Zhongba and Yuxi sites, and also the analysis of Na, Ca and Mg of 201 sedi-mentary samples from Zhongba site and that of Ca and Na in 47 sedimentary samples from Yuxi by using an inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (ICP), we found that there were 35 time periods when the contents of Ca and Na were reversely correlated, i.e. when-ever the content of Ca was the highest, the content of Na was the lowest, and vice versa. Among them, there were 21 time periods when the content of Ca was the highest, and Na was the lowest, indicating that there were about 21 prosperous periods of ancient salt pro-duction at Zhongba site since 3000BC. Other 14 time periods with the peak values of Na while the low values of Ca indicate 14 declined periods of salt production at Zhongba site since 3000BC. The conclusion obtained from the reverse relationship between Ca and Na contents in this paper is consistent with that “the salt production at Zhongba site started in the new stone age, developed in the Xia and Shang dynasties, reached at the heyday in periods from the Western Zhou to the Han Dynasties, maintained stable to develop in the Tang and the Song dynasties, and gradually declined after the Song Dynasty because the sea salt were conveyed into Sichuan region, however, still had production in the 1970s–1980s”, educed from archeological exploration. All the above mentioned results indicate that there is a re-verse relationship obviously between the contents of Na and Ca in sediments at Zhongba site for ancient salt production, which can

The chemical weathering intensity and element migration features of the Xiashu loess profile in Zhenjiang are studied in this paper. (1) The Xiashu loess profile underwent moderate chemical weathering. It seems that the precipitation is a more important factor than the temperature in controlling the process of the chemical weathering. (2) The major elements such as Si, K, Na, Ca, Mg, Mn and P were migrated and leached, while the elements Fe and Ti were slightly enriched. The migration features of the major elements reveal that the Xiashu loess finished the primary process of chemical weathering characterized by leaching of Ca and Na, and almost reached the secondary process characterized by leaching of K. Except the elements Sr and Ga, other trace elements such as Th, Ba, Cu, Zn, Co, Ni, Cr and V were enriched. It might be caused by both the biogeochemical process and the adsorption of trace elements by clay mineral and organic materials. (3) The difference of element migration down the Xiashu loess profile reveals that the climate was warm and wet at the early-middle stage of the middle Pleistocene. At the end of the middle Pleistocene, it became dry and cool. At the early stage of the Late Pleistocene, the paleoclimate became warm and wet again. As a whole, the paleoclimate generally became drier and cooler in this region from the beginning of the middle Pleistocene.

A total of 219 agricultural soil and 48 vegetable samples were collected from the midstream and downstream of the Xiangjiang River (the Hengyang–Changsha section) in Hunan Province. The accumulation characteristics, spatial distribution and potential risk of heavy metals in the agricultural soils and vegetables were depicted. There are higher accu-mulations of heavy metals such as As, Cd, Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn in agricultural soils, and the contents of Cd (2.44 mg kg^-1), Pb (65.00 mg kg^-1) and Zn (144.13 mg kg^-1) are 7.97, 3.69 and 1.63 times the corresponding background contents in soils of Hunan Province, respectively. 13.2% of As, 68.5% of Cd, 2.7% of Cu, 2.7% of Ni, 8.7% of Pb and 15.1% of Zn in soil sam-ples from the investigated sites exceeded the maximum allowable heavy metal contents in the China Environmental Quality Standard for Soils (GB15618-1995, Grade II). The pollution characteristics of multi-metals in soils are mainly due to Cd. The contents of As, Cd, Cu, Pb and Zn in vegetable soils are significantly higher than the contents in paddy soils. 95.8%, 68.8%, 10.4% and 95.8% of vegetable samples exceeded the Maximum Levels of Contami-nants in Foods (GB2762-2005) for As, Cd, Ni and Pb concentrations, respectively. There are significantly positive correlations between the concentrations of Cd, Pb and Zn in vegetables and the concentrations in the corresponding vegetable soils (p<0.01). It is very necessary to focus on the potential risk of heavy metals for food safety and human health in agricultural soils and vegetables in the midstream and downstream of the Xiangjiang River, Hunan Province of China.

This study examined livelihood diversification and cropland use pattern in Keerma village, located in Jinchuan County, eastern Tibetan Plateau. Through stratified random sampling survey, participatory rural appraisal, investigation of households’ plots and statistical methods, 63 households and 272 cropland plots were systemically investigated and sampled. The results show: (1) Different types of household have variety livelihood strategies, portfolio and income. Livelihood diversification and introducing and expanding off-farm activities can be the future trend, whereas, adverse natural environment, socio-economic conditions and peasants’ capabilities together affect sustainable livelihood and land use. (2) Each livelihood strategy has its own impact on land use, mainly affecting land use type and land use intensification level. (3) Diversification into off-farm activities could be the key of building sustainable livelihood and the essential approach of realizing sustainable land use in the region.

For researching the spatio-temporal variation of the stable isotopic composition of the riverine dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC), we had carried out a survey throughout the hydrologic year during which the δ¹³CDIC of the surface water and its physicochemical pa-rameter were examined along the Xijiang River Inner Estuarine waterway from September 2006 to June 2007. There was a striking seasonal variation on the average δ¹³CDIC, as the average δ¹³CDIC in summer (?13.91‰) or autumn (?13.09‰) was much less than those in spring (?11.71‰) or winter (?12.26‰). The riverine δ¹³CDIC was controlled by decomposed condition of the riverine organic matter linking the seasonal variation of the physicochemical parameter in the surface water according to the correlation analysis which indicated notable relations between δ¹³CDIC and water temperature (p = 0.000; r = ?0.569) or between δ¹³CDIC and oxide-reduction potential (p = 0.000; r = 0.646). The striking positive correlation between δ¹³CDIC and the sampling distance happened in the summer rainy season, while striking negative correlation happened in the spring dry season, indicating that river-sea interaction influenced water physicochemical parameters and controlled the riverine DIC property in the survey waterway. In view of the riverine δ¹³CDIC decreasing for the decomposition of the ter-restrial organic matter in the rainy season in summer and increasing for the briny invaded zone extending in the spring dry season along the waterway from the Makou gauging station to the Modaomen outlet, the δ¹³CDIC spatio-temporal variation was closely related to the geographical environment of the Xijiang drainage basin.

Based on the geochemical elements Rb and Sr in sediments with three different grain size fractions from profile H3 on the northern lacustrine bottomland 13 m above the Huangqihai Lake surface in 1986, the paper investigates the record of palaeolake stand state, sedimentary environmental evolution, and winter monsoon change. First, these samples are separated into three different grain size fractions, i.e., total sediments, 77–20 μm and <20 μm. Second, the chemical elements—Rb and Sr—of the grain size separation were tested and analyzed systematically in this paper. Then the elements compositions of these samples are measured using VP-320 mode fluorescence spectrum instrument, respectively. The magnetic susceptibility of these samples is measured using Kappabridge KLY-3 mode instrument made in Czech AGICO Company. The results showed the elements and the ratios varied regularly with the grain size. But the ratio of Rb/Sr in the sediments <20 μm correlates positively with the magnetic susceptibility of these samples. Therefore, the ratio of Rb/Sr in the fraction <20 μm from the lake sediments reflected the strengthening of the weathering in the deposition sites. It is a good indicator of the summer monsoon-induced weathering and pedogenesis fluctuations and can be used to reconstruct the conditions of the paleoclimate and paleoen-vironment.

The dynamics of water and energy fluxes in the high mountains of central Norway was studied along micro-spatial topographic gradients in different altitudes and regions of the Scandes. Landscape ecological processes like snow accumulation during winter, snow melting, evaporation, percolation, soil moisture variability and temperature variations were quantified. Combining spatio-temporal data on physical environment functioning and vegeta-tion patterns resulted in a process-oriented characterisation of high mountain ecosystems. Extensive data from long-term measurements were synthesised illustrating the influence of micro-climate, snow cover, and soil moisture on high mountain ecosystem functioning. The results reveal that the micro-climatic impact on the vegetation is predominantly determined by snow cover overlaying soil moisture gradients. Water only becomes superior where near-surface water saturation and flooding occur. A lack of soil moisture availability was not found during any time of the year even under driest site conditions. Contrasting literature, the Norwegian mountain vegetation was found to be interpreted by environmental variable con-stellations excluding drought stress.