Based on the daily observation data of 824 meteorological stations during 1951- 2010 released by the National Meteorological Information Center, this paper evaluated the changes in the heat and moisture conditions of crop growth. An average value of ten years was used to analyze the spatio-temporal variation in the agricultural hydrothermal conditions within a 1 km2 grid. Next, the inter-annual changing trend was simulated by regression analysis of the agricultural hydrothermal conditions. The results showed that the contour lines for temperature and accumulated temperatures (the daily mean temperature ≥0°C) increased significantly in most parts of China, and that the temperature contour lines had all moved northwards over the past 60 years. At the same time, the annual precipitation showed a decreasing trend, though more than half of the meteorological stations did not pass the significance test. However, the mean temperatures in the hottest month and the coldest month exhibited a decreasing trend from 1951 to 2010. In addition, the 0°C contour line gradually moved from the Qinling Mountains and Huaihe River Basin to the Yellow River Basin. All these changes would have a significant impact on the distribution of crops and farming systems. Although the mechanisms influencing the interactive temperature and precipitation changes on crops were complex and hard to distinguish, the fact remained that these changes would directly cause corresponding changes in crop characteristics.
Based on daily surface climate data and weather phenomenon data, the spatial and temporal distribution and trend on the number of consecutive days of severe weathers were analyzed in China during 1959-2014. The results indicate that the number of consecutive days for hot weathers increased at a rate of 0.1 day per decade in China as a whole, while that for cold weathers, snowfall weathers, thunderstorm weathers and foggy weathers showed significant decreasing trends at rates of 1.4, 0.3, 0.4 and 0.4 day per decade, respectively. Spatially, there were more consecutive hot days and rainstorm days in southeastern China, and more consecutive cold days and snowfall days in northeastern China and western China. Consecutive thunderstorm days were more in southern China and southwestern China, and consecutive foggy days were more in some mountain stations. Over the past 56 years, annual number of consecutive cold days decreased mainly in most parts of western China and eastern China. Consecutive thunderstorm days decreased in most parts of China. The trend of consecutive hot days, snowfall days and foggy days was not significant in most parts of China, and that of consecutive rainstorm days was not significant in almost the entire China.
Precipitation heterogeneity has a nontrivial influence on human life. Many studies have analyzed precipitation heterogeneity but none have proposed a systematic graded index for its evaluation, and therefore, its true characteristics have not been expressed. After comparisons of various methods, the precipitation concentration degree (PCD) method was selected to study precipitation heterogeneity. In addition to the PCD, normal distribution functions, cumulative frequencies, and percentiles were used to establish a graded index for evaluating precipitation heterogeneity. A comprehensive evaluation of precipitation heterogeneity was performed, and its spatiotemporal variation in China from 1960 to 2013 was analyzed. The results indicated that (1) seven categories of precipitation heterogeneity were identified (high centralization, moderate centralization, mild centralization, normal, mild dispersion, moderate dispersion, and high dispersion) and (2) during the study period, the precipitation in more parts of China tended to be normal or dispersed, which is beneficial to human activities.
Evolution of river systems under the background of human activities has been a heated topic among geographers and hydrologists. Spatial and temporal variations of river systems during the 1960s-2010s in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) were investigated based on streams derived from the topographic maps in the 1960s, 1980s and 2010s. A list of indices, drainage density (Dd), water surface ratio (WSR), ratio of area to length of main streams (R), evolution coefficient of tributaries (K) and box dimension (D), were classified into three types (quantitative, structural, and complex indices) and used to quantify the variations of stream structure. Results showed that: (1) quantitative indices (Dd, WSR) presented decreasing trend in the past 50 years, and Dd in Wuchengxiyu, Hangjiahu and Yindongnan have decreased most, about 20%. Structurally, the Qinhuai River basin was characterized by significant upward R, and K value in Hangjiahu went down dramatically by 46.8% during the 1960s-2010s. Decreasing tendency in D was found dominating across the YRD, and decreasing magnitude in Wuchengxiyu and Hangjiahu peaks for 7.8% and 6.5%, respectively in the YRD. (2) Urbanization affected the spatial pattern of river system, and areas with high level of urbanization exhibited least Dd (2.18 km/km2), WSR (6.52%), K (2.64) and D (1.42), compared to moderate and low levels of urbanization. (3) Urbanization also affected the evolution of stream system. In the past 50 years, areas with high level of urbanization showed compelling decreasing tendency in quantitative (27.2% and 19.3%) and complex indices (4.9%) and trend of enlarging of main rivers (4.5% and 7.9% in periods of the 1960s-1980s and the 1980s-2010s). In the recent 30 years, areas with low level of urbanization were detected with significant downward trend in Dd and K. (4) Expanding of urban land, construction of hydraulic engineering and irrigation and water conservancy activities were the main means which degraded the river system in the YRD.
Based on an empirical sediment transport equation that reflects the characteristics of “more input, more output” for sediment-laden flow in rivers, a general sediment transport expression was developed, which can take into account the effects of upstream sediment input, previous cumulative sediment deposition, critical runoff for sediment initiation, and the differences in sediment particle sizes between the mainstream and tributaries. Then, sediment load equations for non-flood and flood seasons for the sub-reaches from Bayangaole to Sanhuhekou and from Sanhuhekou to Toudaoguai, as well as the whole Inner Mongolia reach from Bayangaole to Toudaoguai, were formulated based on data collected between 1952 and 2010. The corresponding sediment deposition and the cumulative values at each river reach were calculated using the proposed sediment transport equations for the period 1952 to 2010 according to the principle of sediment conservation. Comparisons between the calculated and measured values using the proposed sediment load equations for the sub-reaches and the entire reach showed that the calculated sediment load and sediment deposition and the corresponding cumulative values in the flood and non-flood seasons were in good agreement with the measured values. These results indicated that the proposed methods can be applied to calculate the sediment load and the associated sediment deposition in the flood and non-flood seasons for long-term trend analysis of sediment deposition in the Inner Mongolia reach of the Yellow River.
Stable hydrogen and oxygen isotope has important implication on water and moisture transportation tracing research. Based on stable hydrogen (δD) and oxygen (δ18O) isotope using a Picarro L1102-i and water chemistry (e.g. major ions, pH, EC and TDS) measurement, this study discussed the temporal variation and characteristics of stable hydrogen and oxygen isotope, chemistry (e.g. TDS, pH, EC, Ca2+, Mg2+, Na+ and Cl-) in various water bodies including glacier meltwater runoff, ice and snow, and precipitation at the Laohugou glacier basin during June 2012 to September 2013. Results showed that δD and δ18O in the meltwater runoff varied obviously with the temporal change from June to September, showing firstly increasing trend and then decreasing trend, with the highest values in July with high air temperature and strong glacier melting, which could indicate the temporal change of glacier melting process and extent. Variations of δD and δ18O in the runoff were similar with that of snow and ice on the glacier, and the values were also above the GMWL, which probably implied that the glacier runoff was mainly originated from glacier melting and precipitation supply. The glacier meltwater chemical type at the Laohugou glacier basin were mainly composed by Ca-Na-HCO3-SO4 and Ca-Mg-HCO3-SO4, which also varied evidently with the glacier melting process in summer. By analyzing the temporal change of stable hydrogen and oxygen isotope and chemistry in the melting period, we find it is easy to separate the components of the snow and ice, atmospheric precipitation and melt-runoff in the river, which could reflect the change process of glacier melting during the melting period, and thus this work can contribute to the glacier runoff change study of large-scale region by stable isotope and geochemical method in future.
With rapid economic and social development, soil contamination arising from heavy metals has become a serious problem in many parts of China. We collected a total of 445 samples (0-20 cm) at the nodes of a 2 km×2 km grid in surface soils of Rizhao city, and analyzed sources and risk pattern of 10 heavy metals (As, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Hg, Mn, Ni, Pb and Zn). The combination of Multivariate statistics analysis and Geostatistical methods was applied to identify the sources and hazardous risk of heavy metals in soils. The result indicated that Cr, Ni, Co, Mn, Cu, and As were mainly controlled by parent materials and came from natural sources. Cd and Hg originated from anthropogenic sources. Pb and Zn, belonging to different groups in multivariate analysis, were associated with joint effect of parent materials and human inputs. Ordinary Kriging and Indicator Kriging suggested that single element and elements association from the same principal components had similar spatial distribution. Through comprehensive assessment on all elements, we also found the high risk areas were located in the populated urban areas and western study area, which could be attributed to the higher geological background in the western part and strong human interference in the eastern part.
In this paper, we compared the concept of agricultural drought and its relationship with other types of droughts and reviewed the progress of research on agricultural drought monitoring indices on the basis of station data and remote sensing. Applicability and limitations of different drought monitoring indices were also compared. Meanwhile, development history and the latest progress in agricultural drought monitoring were evaluated through statistics and document comparison, suggesting a transformation in agricultural drought monitoring from traditional single meteorological monitoring indices to meteorology and remote sensing-integrated monitoring indices. Finally, an analysis of current challenges in agricultural drought monitoring revealed future research prospects for agricultural drought monitoring, such as investigating the mechanism underlying agricultural drought, identifying factors that influence agricultural drought, developing multi-spatiotemporal scales models for agricultural drought monitoring, coupling qualitative and quantitative agricultural drought evaluation models, and improving the application levels of remote sensing data in agricultural drought monitoring.
