Tree-ring standardized chronologies are developed by 78 cores collected from the eastern and western Helan Mountain. Statistical analysis shows that both the STD and RES chronologies correlate negatively with the temperature of different periods of early half year, especially with January to August mean (JA) temperature, which means that JA temperature is one of the predominant limiting factors of tree growth in the Helan Mountain. Based on this analysis, we reconstructed JA temperature, and the explained variance is 43.3% (F=21.422, p<0.001). The comparatively high temperature periods in the reconstruction were: 1805?1818, 1828–1857, 1899–1907, 1919–1931 and 1968–1995; and the comparatively low temperature periods happened in 1858–1872, 1883–1895 and 1935–1953. Ten-year moving average curve shows three slow uplifting trends: 1766–1853, 1862–1931 and 1944–1995. Each tem-perature increase was followed by a sudden temperature decrease about 10 years, that is to say, the JA temperature in the Helan Mountain is characterized by slow increase and sudden decrease. The 70- and 10.77-year periodicities detected in the temperature series correspond to the Gleissberg (80-year) and Schwabe (11-year) periodicities of solar activity respectively, the 2.11–2.62 years cycles are considered to be influenced by QBO (Quasi-Bie- nnial-Oscillation) and the local environmental change.
The temporal and spatial changes of NDVI on the Tibetan Plateau, as well as the relationship between NDVI and precipitation, were discussed in this paper, by using 8-km resolution multi-temporal NOAA AVHRR-NDVI data from 1982 to 1999. Monthly maximum NDVI and monthly rainfall were used to analyze the seasonal changes, and annual maximum NDVI, annual effective precipitation and growing season precipitation (from April to August) were used to discuss the interannual changes. The dynamic change of NDVI and the corre-lation coefficients between NDVI and rainfall were computed for each pixel. The results are as follows: (1) The NDVI reached the peak in growing season (from July to September) on the Tibetan Plateau. In the northern and western parts of the plateau, the growing season was very short (about two or three months); but in the southern, vegetation grew almost all the year round. The correlation of monthly maximum NDVI and monthly rainfall varied in different areas. It was weak in the western, northern and southern parts, but strong in the central and eastern parts. (2) The spatial distribution of NDVI interannual dynamic change was different too. The increase areas were mainly distributed in southern Tibet montane shrub-steppe zone, western part of western Sichuan-eastern Tibet montane coniferous forest zone, western part of northern slopes of Kunlun montane desert zone and southeastern part of southern slopes of Himalaya montane evergreen broad-leaved forest zone; the decrease areas were mainly distributed in the Qaidam montane desert zone, the western and northern parts of eastern Qinghai-Qilian montane steppe zone, southern Qinghai high cold meadow steppe zone and Ngari montane desert-steppe and desert zone. The spatial distribution of correlation coeffi-cient between annual effective rainfall and annual maximum NDVI was similar to the growing season rainfall and annual maximum NDVI, and there was good relationship between NDVI and rainfall in the meadow and grassland with medium vegetation cover, and the effect of rainfall on vegetation was small in the forest and desert area.
This paper quantitatively explores farmers’ vulnerability to flood in the Poyang Lake Region (PLR) with the supports of GIS spatial functions. The analysis consists of three major steps, which is based on the spatial unit of township. Firstly, the spatial extent and charac-teristics of flood risk areas were determined using a digital elevation model (DEM) derived from the 1:50,000 topographic map. Secondly, for each of the township, six indices indicating the economic activities of local farmers were calculated. These indices are: rural population proportion, cultivated land proportion, GDP per unit area, employment proportion of primary industry, net rural income per capita and agricultural income proportion. These six indices were then normalized and used for later vulnerability assessment. Thirdly, the normalized indices (as GIS data layers) were overlaid with the flood risk areas to produce the risk coeffi-cient for each township and to calculate the overall vulnerability for each township. The analysis results show that in the PLR there are high flood risk areas where the farmers’ livings are seriously influenced or threatened. About 55.56% of the total 180 townships in the flood risk areas have a high degree of flood vulnerability. The townships under flood risk are mainly distributed in the areas around the Poyang Lake and the areas along the “five rivers”.
Neolithic culture series in the Yishu River Basin developed in the order of Beixin culture–Dawenkou culture–Longshan culture–Yueshi culture. During the early and middle stage of Longshan culture (4600–4300 cal. yr BP), the climate in the Yishu River Basin was warm and wet. Paddy-oriented agriculture planted paddy was very developed. The society was flourishing with great amount of archaeological sites. The cooling starting in 4200 cal. yr BP made the paddies shortfall in output or even no seeds were gathered. This situation in-tensified the discrepancy between population and resource. The scarcity in natural resource led to substantial decrease in population and subsequent drop in archaeological sites. About 4000 cal. yr BP Longshan culture was displaced by Yueshi culture which was relatively un-derdeveloped, simple and unsophisticated.
In this article the meaning of the quantity and quality of environmental flows of river in dualistic water cycle is discussed, and compared with the meaning of unitary water cycle. Based on the analysis of the relationship between environmental flows of river re-quirements, the efficiency of water resource usage, the consumption coefficient, and the concentration of waste water elimination, the water quantity and water quality calculation method of the environmental flows of river requirements in dualistic water cycle is developed, and the criteria for environmental flows of river requirements are established, and therefore the water quantity-quality combined evaluation of natural river flows requirements are realized. Taking the Liaohe River as a model, the environmental flows of river requirements for Xiliao River, Dongliao River, mainstream Liaohe River, Huntai River and northeast rivers along the coasts of the Yellow and Bohai seas in unitary water cycle are calculated, each taking up 39.3%, 63.0%, 43.9%, 43.3% and 43.5% of runoff respectively. Evaluated according to Tennant recommended flow, the results show that: except Xiliao River is “median”, the rest are all upon “good”, the Dongliao River is even “very good”. The corresponding results in dualistic water cycle are that, the proportion of natural flows for each river is 57.5%, 74.1%, 60.8%, 60.3% and 60.4%; while the combined evaluation results show that: considering “quantity”, except Xiliao River, the rest rivers can all achieve the “quantity” criteria of the en-vironmental flows of river requirements, but if considering the aspect of “quality”, only Dongliao River can reach the “quality” standard. By water quantity-quality combined evalua-tion method, only Dongliao River can achieve the criteria. So the water quality is the main factor that determines whether the environmental flows can meet the river ecosystem de-mands.
This paper reveals the temporal and spatial variations of stable isotope in precipita-tion of the Yarlung Zangbo River Basin based on the variations of δ18O in precipitation at four stations (Lhaze, Nugesha, Yangcun and Nuxia) in 2005. The results show that δ18O of pre-cipitation has distinct seasonal changes in the Yarlung Zangbo River Basin. The higher value of δ18O occurs in spring prior to monsoon precipitation, and the lower value occurs during monsoon precipitation. From the spatial variations, with the altitude-effect and rainout process during moisture transport along the Yarlung Zangbo River Valley, 18O of precipitation is gradually depleted. Thus, δ18O of precipitation decreases gradually from the downstream to the upstream, and the lapse rate of δ18O in precipitation is approximately 0.34‰/100m and 0.7‰/100km for the two reasons. During monsoon precipitation, spatial variation of δ18O in precipitation is dominated by the amount effect in the large scale synoptic condition.
The Heihe River drainage basin is one of the endangered ecological regions of China. The shortage of water resources is the bottleneck, which constrains the sustainable development of the region. Many scholars in China have done researches concerning this problem. Based on previous researches, this paper analyzed characteristics, tendencies, and causes of annual runoff variations in the Yingluo Gorge (1944–2005) and the Zhengyi Gorge (1954–2005), which are the boundaries of the upper reaches, the middle reaches, and the lower reaches of the Heihe River drainage basin, by wavelet analysis, wavelet neural network model, and GIS spatial analysis. The results show that: (1) annual runoff variations of the Yingluo Gorge have principal periods of 7 years and 25 years, and its increasing rate is 1.04 m3/s·10y; (2) annual runoff variations of the Zhengyi Gorge have principal periods of 6 years and 27 years, and its decreasing rate is 2.25 m3/s·10y; (3) prediction results show that: during 2006–2015, annual runoff variations of the Yingluo and Zhengyi gorges have ascending tendencies, and the increasing rates are respectively 2.04 m3/s·10y and 1.61 m3/s·10y; (4) the increase of annual runoff in the Yingluo Gorge has causal relationship with increased temperature and precipitation in the upper reaches, and the decrease of annual runoff in the Zhengyi Gorge in the past decades was mainly caused by the increased human consumption of water resources in the middle researches. The study results will provide scientific basis for making rational use and allocation schemes of water resources in the Heihe River drainage basin.
The decrease of runoff in the Luanhe river basin, which caused water crisis in Tian-jin for several times, was investigated using discharge data covering the period 1956–2002. The data from the differential integral curves of the annual runoff indicate that the decreasing point began in 1979 in the six sub-basins. The decrease of runoff in the Luanhe river basin resulted from the combination of climate effects and human activities, in which the latter plays an important role. This can be illustrated by noting that after 1979 the runoff generated by similar precipitation decreased under the condition that the total precipitation did not decrease in the entire basin. As a result, the annual runoff of the Luanhe river basin after 1979 de-creased by about 6.46×108 m3 each year. To analyze the runoff characteristics, it is inade-quate to seek the runoff trends only and the identification of cyclical component of the runoff as accurate as possible is necessary. From the natural annual runoff discharge time series, we can see the annual runoff fluctuates around the long-term average. Analyzed by VRL (Variable Record Length) method, the main periods of 3, 5–6, 7, 9, 16–20 and 37–39 years were found. The last decade causing water crisis was the driest period in the history, and this condition will last several years from trend analysis and power spectrum analysis. So finding new water sources is urgent to
In a given district, the accessibility of any point should be the synthetically evalua-tion of the internal and external accessibilities. Using MapX component and Delphi, the author presents an information system to calculate and analyze regional accessibility according to the shortest travel time, generating thus a mark diffusing figure. Based on land traffic network, this paper assesses the present and the future regional accessibilities of sixteen major cities in the Yangtze River Delta. The result shows that the regional accessibility of the Yangtze River Delta presents a fan with Shanghai as its core. The top two most accessible cities are Shanghai and Jiaxing, and the bottom two ones are Taizhou (Zhejiang province) and Nantong. With the construction of Sutong Bridge, Hangzhouwan Bridge and Zhoushan Bridge, the re-gional internal accessibility of all cities will be improved. Especially for Shaoxing, Ningbo and Taizhou (Jiangsu province), the regional internal accessibility will be decreased by one hour, and other cities will be shortened by about 25 minutes averagely. As the construction of Yangkou Harbor in Nantong, the regional external accessibility of the harbor cities in Jiangsu province will be speeded up by about one hour.
Ecological shelter zones reconstruction is an ecosystem restoration and conserva-tion project aimed to the ecological safety of nations, regions and basins. Reconstruction of ecological shelter zones of the upper reaches of the Yangtze River became one of the most important tasks of Western Development strategy. This article, taking Zhaotong as an exam-ple, studies the functional regionalization of ecological shelter zones. The study supplies a case for functional regionalization of small and medium regions whose main tasks are envi-ronment reservation. With the guidance of theories of functional regionalization, and based on the analysis of Zhaotong’s natural, ecological and socioeconomic factors, the paper suggests five principles for factors selection. These principles include: (1) reversing order evaluation; (2) selecting main factors; (3) keeping the integrality of administrative regions of towns; and (4) making the products acceptable by local government. To analyze spatial status of selected factors, LUCC data in 2002, 1:50,000 relief maps and town-unit socioeconomic statistical data in 2004 are used. RS and GIS tools are also applied to melt traditional and modern geo-graphical methods. This would be useful to functional regionalization research in mountain-ous areas. As a conclusion, the leading functional regions of ecological conservation or economic development are suggested, respectively. Zhaotong city is divided into two-level functional regions. The first-level includes three leading functional regions and they will lead developing direction of sub-regions. The second-level includes eight sub-regions, which are policy implemented regions, and will supply guidance to Zhaotong’s ecological shelter zones reconstruction.
Characteristics of soil erosion change along a long slope in the gentle hilly areas in black soil region in Northeast China are discussed. A simplified slope model based on seg-ments was used to analyze the runoff data and soil erosion data observed between 2003 and 2004 over 10 field plots with different slope length in Heshan Farm, Heilongjiang Province. We found that soil erosion rate over long slopes in the black soil region changed alternatively along the slope and creates alternative zones of intensive erosion and week erosion.The exact place of each zone is different for different rainfall conditions. In a year with less and mild precipitation, rill cannot happen within the top 50 m, while in a year with large and inten-sive precipitation, rill can be formed starting even at 15 m from the top of the slope.
