This paper presents the structure and contents of a standardized layered classification system of digital geomorphology for China. This digital classification method combines landforms characteristics of morphology with genesis. A total of 15 categories of exogenic and endogenic forces are divided into two broad categories: morpho-genetic and morpho-structural landforms. Polygon patches are used to manage the morpho-genetic types, and solitary points, lines and polygons are used to manage the morpho-structural types. The classification method of digital morpho-genetic types can be divided into seven layers, i.e. basic morphology and altitude, genesis, sub-genesis, morphology, micro-morphology, slope and aspect, material and lithology. The method proposes combinations of matrix forms based on layered indicators. The attributes of every landform types are obtained from all or some of the seven layers. For the 15 forces categories, some classification indicators and calculation methods are presented for the basic morphology, the morphologic and sub-morphologic landforms of the morpho-genetic types. The solitary polygon, linear and point types of morpho-structural landforms are presented respectively. The layered classification method can meet the demands of scale-span geomorphologic mapping for the national primary scales from 1:500,000 to 1:1,000,000. The layers serve as classification indicators, and therefore can be added and reduced according to mapping demands, providing flexible expandability.
Tropical cyclone, a high energy destructive meteorological system with heavy rainfall and gale triggered massive landslides and windstorms, poses a significant threat to coastal areas. In this paper we have developed a Tropical Cyclone Potential Impact Index (TCPI) based on the air mass trajectories, disaster information, intensity, duration, and frequency of tropical cyclones. We analyzed the spatial pattern and interannual variation of the TCPI over the period 1949–2009, and taking the Super Typhoon Saomai as an example have examined the relationship between the TCPI and direct economic losses, total rainfall, and maximum wind speed. The results reveal that China's TCPI appears to be a weak decreasing trend over the period, which is not significant overall, but significant in some periods. Over the past 20 years, the TCPI decreased in the southern China coastal provinces of Hainan, Guangdong and Guangxi, while it increased in the southeastern coastal provinces of Zhejiang, Fujian and Taiwan. The highest values of TCPI are mainly observed in Taiwan, Hainan, the coastal areas of Guangdong and Fujian and Zhejiang’s southern coast. The TCPI has a good correlation (P=0.01) with direct economic loss, rainfall, and maximum wind speed.
The regional hydrological system is extremely complex because it is affected not only by physical factors but also by human dimensions. And the hydrological models play a very important role in simulating the complex system. However, there have not been effective methods for the model reliability and uncertainty analysis due to its complexity and difficulty. The uncertainties in hydrological modeling come from four important aspects: uncertainties in input data and parameters, uncertainties in model structure, uncertainties in analysis method and the initial and boundary conditions. This paper systematically reviewed the recent advances in the study of the uncertainty analysis approaches in the large-scale complex hydrological model on the basis of uncertainty sources. Also, the shortcomings and insufficiencies in the uncertainty analysis for complex hydrological models are pointed out. And then a new uncertainty quantification platform PSUADE and its uncertainty quantification methods were introduced, which will be a powerful tool and platform for uncertainty analysis of large-scale complex hydrological models. Finally, some future perspectives on uncertainty quantification are put forward.
This study was performed at three eutrophic rivers in Southeast China aiming to determine the magnitude and patterns of dissolved N2O concentrations and fluxes over a seasonal (in 2009) and diurnal (24 h) temporal scale. The results showed that N2O concentrations varied from 0.28 to 0.38 (mean 0.32±0.04), 0.29 to 0.46 (mean 0.37±0.07), and 2.07 to 3.47 (mean 2.84±0.63) μg N-N2O L-1 in the Fengle, Hangbu and Nanfei rivers, respectively, in the diurnal study performed during the summer of 2008. The study found that mean N2O concentration and estimated N2O flux (67.89 ± 6.71 μg N-N2O m-2 h-1) measured from the Nanfei River with serious urban wastewater pollution was significantly higher than those from the Fengle and the Hangbu Rivers with agricultural runoff. In addition, the seasonal study during June and December of 2009 also showed that the mean N2O concentration (10.59±14.67 μg N-N2O L-1) and flux (236.87±449.74 μg N-N2O m-2 h-1) observed from the Nanfei River were significantly higher than those from the other two rivers. Our study demonstrated both N2O concentrations and fluxes exhibited seasonal and diurnal fluctuations. Over three consecutive days during the summer of 2008, N2O accumulation rates varied within the range of 3.91-7.21, 2.76-15.71, and 3.23-30.03 μg N-N2O m-2 h-1 for the Fengle, Hangbu and Nanfei Rivers, respectively, and exponentially decreased with time.
A balanced ecological carrying capacity and its understanding are important to achieve sustainable development for human kind. Here, the concept of ecological carrying capacity has been used for measuring the dependencies between human and nature. China’s ecological balance between supply and demand has become a global concern and is widely debated. In this study the ‘Ecological Footprint’ method was used to analyze the supply- demand balance of China’s ecological carrying capacity. Firstly, the ecological supply and demand balance was calculated and evaluated, and secondly, the ecological carrying capacity index (ECCI) was derived for each county of China in 2007, and finally this paper systematically evaluated the ecological carrying capacity supply-demand balance of China. The results showed that ecological deficit appeared to be the main characteristic of ecological carrying capacity supply-demand balance in 2007 of China at county scale. In general, more than four-fifths of the Chinese population was concentrated in less than one-third of the land area and more than two-thirds of the land area was inhabited by less than one-fifth of the population. The spatial distribution of the ecological carrying capacity demand-supply was unbalanced ranging from significant overloading to affluence from southeastern to northwestern part of China. It appeared to be more dominant in regions located at coastal areas which are attracted by migrants and had a generally higher population density. Along with the rapid development and urbanization trends in China, ecological deficits in these regions will become more severe.
The landscape pattern of Beijing wetlands has undergone a significant change as a result of natural and artificial elements. Supported by remote sensing and GIS technology, using multi-temporal TM images from 1984 to 2008 in Beijing, this paper analyzed the dynamic characteristics of wetlands landscape pattern through selected typical indices including patch area, patch average area, fractal dimension index, diversity, dominance, contagion indices and the spatial centroids of each wetlands type were calculated. Finally, the paper explored the evolution mode and driving factors of wetland landscape pattern. The results were obtained as follows: the total wetland area increased during the period 1984-1996, then decline from 1996 to 2004. The wetland area in 1994 accounted for only 47.37% of that in 2004. The proportion of artificial wetland area was larger than that of natural wetland. The proportion of reservoir wetland was 33.50% to 53.73% and had the maximum average area. pond and paddy field wetland type with the least average area accounted for 16.46% to 45.09% of the total wetland area. The driving forces of the natural river wetland were mainly natural elements; its fractal dimension index was greater than the others. The Shannon diversity index of wetland landscape increased from 1.11 in 1992 to 1.34 in 2004, indicating that the difference between proportions of each wetland type decreased and areas of each wetland type were evenly distributed. The contagion index went down from 65.59 to 58.41, indicating that the connectivity degraded. Miyun Reservoir had the largest area and its area change had a great impact on the location of the centroid. Wetland resources degenerated gradually from the joint effects of natural and artificial factors. During the period 2006-2008, the precipitation increased and the drought condition was relieved. The government implemented series of positive policies to save water resources, and the wetland area increased.
In the urbanizing world, the Yangtze Delta Region (YDR) as one of the most developed regions in China, has drawn a lot of the world’s attention for the remarkable economic development achieved in the past decades. Nevertheless, the rapid economic development was certain to be accompanied by unprecedented consumption and loss of natural resources. Therefore, the analysis of the ecological situation and driving factors of environmental impact was of great significance to serve the local sustainable development decision- making and build a harmonious society. In this paper, the ecological footprint (EF) was taken as the index of the ecological environmental impact. With the help of Geographic Information System (GIS), we studied the spatiotemporal change of ecological footprint at two scales (region and city) and assessed urban sustainable development ability in YDR. Then we discussed the driving factors that affected the change of ecological footprint by the Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence, and Technology (STIRPAT) model. The results showed that increasing trends of regional ecological footprint during 1998-2008 (1.70-2.53 ha/cap) were accompanied by decreasing ecological capacity (0.31-0.25 ha/cap) but expanding ecological deficit (1.39-2.28 ha/cap). The distribution pattern of ecological footprint and the degree of sustainable development varied distinctly from city to city in YDR. In 2008, the highest values of ecological footprint (3.85 ha/cap) and the lowest one of sustainable development index (SDI=1) in YDR were both presented in Shanghai. GDP per capita (A) was the most dominant driving force of EF and the classical EKC hypothesis did not exist between A and EF in 1998-2008. Consequently, increasing in ecological supply and reducing in human demand due to technological advances or other factors were one of the most effective ways to promote sustainable development in YDR. Moreover, importance should be attached to change our definition and measurement of prosperity and success.
To tackle the issues concerning agriculture, farmers, and rural areas, the central government of China initiated a new strategy called ‘new countryside construction’ in 2005. For better understanding its actual effect, this paper analyzes the regional diversity of peasant household response to this new countryside construction strategy based on Kruskal-Wallis H test and sampling survey data from 586 households in the Bohai Rim Region (BRR), Yangtze River Delta Region (YDR), and Pan Pearl River Delta Region (PPR). The result indicates that regional diversity in eastern coastal China (ECC) does exist in the form of recognized priority sequence, policy requirements, expected policy effects, and behavior response. As a result of the deviation between local policy practice and households’ inherent demand, peasants fulfill their de facto demand via individual effort instead of government aid, and therefore the new countryside construction fails to carry out the expected target. It thus needs to shift the current policy priority, ensure the peasants’ mainstay role, and formulate scientific ‘Rules for new countryside construction’.
A single nomenclature for national park terminology has evolved into a massive global data network from information gathered together from the past 140 years. This has been created using the most recent UNEP-WDPA data and its 98483 national designation records from 192 countries, two other customized databases accommodating 2638 records of officially designated national parks from 184 jurisdictions around the globe, and 2064 records of extended Chinese national park sites. However, mushrooming designations and growing databases are posing significant challenges even though the IUCN and UNEP have both devoted efforts to build and promote a common language called the “System of Management Categories for Protected Areas”. Thus conversely the best possible outcome and the worst confusion might have originated from the same objective that is known by the simple moniker as a national park. This is why much more work needs to be done to enhance communication among different stakeholders from the world. In this paper, the authors are intending to demonstrate that China’s government agencies should boost a dialogue with the UNEPWDPA operating staff in order that the current innovative national park programs are recognized by the global community. Meanwhile, the authors also recommend that IUCN needs to revise and refresh the current protected area classification system for the purpose of effectively servicing the diverse stakeholders in such a diversified world of national park systems around the globe.
The paper applies Cobb-Douglas Production Function and Solow-Swan Model to constructing the calculation model of the contribution rate of cultivated land occupation by construction (CLOC) to China’s economic growth, and analyzes the contribution change of CLOC to China’s economic growth qualitatively and quantitatively. The main conclusions are as follows: 1) From 1989 to 2007, the contribution rates of capital, labor, and CLOC to China’s economic growth were 45.76%, 8.47%, and 6.19% respectively. 2) From the period 1989-1996 to the period 1997-2007 the contribution rate of CLOC to China’s economic growth increased from 5.40% to 5.87%. The degree of contribution was enhanced significantly. 3) The contribution of CLOC to China’s economic growth had a spatial distribution characteristic that the contribution rate of eastern coastal regions was the highest, that of central regions came second, and that of western regions the lowest. The paper indicates that in order to enhance the contribution of CLOC to China’s economic growth, some relevant economic and administrative measures might be taken, and land might be used intensively and economically to increase land economic density. The cost of promoting gross domestic product (GDP) growth might be reduced as much as possible to achieve higher GDP growth and lower land resource consumption.
A total of 1362 archaeological sites from the Paleolithic Age to the Warring States time in Hubei Province increase gradually from west to east and from high land to low land. The number of Paleolithic sites with altitude of 50-500 m account for 78% of the whole, while 71%-95% of sites from the Neolithic Age to the Warring States time mainly distribute at the areas of 0-200 m. The temporal-spatial distribution of archeological sites in this area is affected by two factors. For one thing, the human beings of every period need to choose the first or the second terrace as living sites which are near water source and are easy to withstand flood. Additionally, affecting by the regional tectonic uplift since the Holocene, down cutting of rivers can form new river valley, and lateral erosion and accumulation of river in stable time of tectonic movement can result in increasing of many new terraces. So, the human beings migrated to adapt to the change of terrace location, leading to the sites increase gradually in the lower areas of the central and eastern parts of this province. For other things, the temporal-spatial distribution of archeological sites in this area is affected by the climate condition. The Paleolithic sites mostly distribute in the Hanshui River Valley in northeastern Shiyan, southeast of Jinzhou and east of Jinmen, which is because rivers distributed in higher areas in this period. During the Chengbeixi Culture period, the sites are rare in the quondam Paleolithic sites distribution area, but increase obviously along the Yangtze River near the southwest Yichang. The spore-pollen record of Dajiuhu Basin indicates that only 23 Chengbeixi cultural sites may be related to more precipitation and flood during the Holocene wet and hot period. The Daxi Culture, Qujialing Culture and Shijiahe Culture are corresponding to middle and top of the Dajiuhu spore-pollen Zone Ⅳ, during which the climate is in order as a whole and is propitious to agricultural development. In the Qujialing Culture period, 32 of original 34 Daxi cultural sites disappeared, while 90 sites increase abruptly in the higher highlands in the north of Xiangfan-Jinmen-Xiaogan, which may respect with enlarging of water areas. The Chu Culture period is corresponding to Dajiuhu spore-pollen Zone V, which is in warm and dry Holocene phase, but it seems that the climate condition is still propitious to agricultural cultivation and the number of archeological sites increase heavily to 593. In addition, there are the least archaeological sites in the lake areas of southeast Hubei Province because of low-lying topography with altitude of 0-50 m and the severest flood.
Climate change and human activities are the two kinds of driving forces in desertification, and assessing their relative role in desertification is of great significance to deeply understanding the driving mechanisms and preventing desertification expansion. This paper has systematically reviewed the progress of the researches on assessing the relative role of climate change and human activities in desertification from qualitative, semi-quantitative and quantitative aspects respectively. The authors found that there were still some problems in the previous researches. For example, the subjectivity in assessment was obvious, the assessment cannot be easily repeated, and the assessment and its results were always based on administrative regions and less taken and expressed in a continuous space. According to the progress of previous researches and the works conducted by the authors recently, we put forward a quantitative approach by selecting NPP as a common indicator to measure the relative role of climate change and human activities in desertification and dividing the ecological process of “driving force effect-dynamic response of desertified land” into several scenarios. Meanwhile, validation and scale of assessment should be taken into account when quantitative assessment of the relative role of climate change and human activities in desertification are carried out.
Along with the highly speedy development of economy and society in the developed area in China, with the sharp increase in the quantity of pollutant discharge such as agricultural fertilizers, industrial wastewater and domestic sewage, the water environment has been deteriorated continuously and then become a restricting factor to regional development. For harmonizing the relationship between economic development and water environment, many countries have been attempting water environmental function zoning so as to provide a scientific basis for the basin management. However, focusing mainly on water body, these researches ignored the spatial relation between water and land as well as the restricted function of water environment on regional industrial layout. So previous index system adapted only to the environmental genes but excluded the stress genes of socio-economic development. This paper, thus, taking both the sensitivity and pressure of water environment into consideration, discusses the methods of constraint regionalization of water environment, including how to divide the assessed units, choose and manage the assessed elements. Then, as a case study, Jiangsu Province is divided into four types of areas by the method of quadrant analysis, i.e., high-pressure and high-sensitivity area (HP-HS Area), high-pressure and low-sensitivity area (HP-LS Area), low-pressure and high-sensitivity area (LP-HS Area) and low-pressure and low-sensitivity area (LP-LS Area). Finally, this paper presents the schemes of industrial layout and the policy of industrial development direction respectively, which are very important bases for harmonizing the industrial development and the bearing capacity of water environment.
Qinghai Lake Watershed (QLW) is a hot place of a series of ecological restoration and environmental remediation programs nowadays. However, little information is available on change of ecosystem service and economic practice in this area. As ecosystem service and natural capital are closely related with social and economic development, an index of concordance between environment and economy (ICEE) has been proposed to compare the annual variation rate of ecosystem service value (RESV) with that of gross domestic product (RGDP). Using this Index, we have assessed concordance between environment and economy (CEE) for the QLW in the period 1977-2004. The result showed that from 1977 to 2004, the ecosystem service value in the QLW descended from 128.81×108 yuan to 127.32×108 yuan; In contrast, the GDP increased from 0.931×108 yuan to 8.856×108 yuan. The values of the ICEE were -1.14, -0.22, and -0.14 in the stages of 1977-1987, 1987-2000 and 2000-2004, respectively. The result indicated that during the first stage 1977-1987, the relationship between environment and economy in the QLW was not concordant but at a high conflict; from 1987 to 2004, there was a low conflict between environment and economy, and the CEE appeared to increase slowly. Analysis of the assessment results showed that the national policies and industrial adjustment practice play an important role in the CEE changes.
