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

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

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

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

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

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

Landscape spatial pattern mainly refers to the distribution of patches, which are different in size and shape in space owing to the interaction of various ecological activities. In landscape ecology study, landscape pattern has been one of the key study areas. Water body landscape plays an important role in the development history of a city, but at present city water body landscape in many cities has been destroyed, hence protecting water body in the city is becoming more and more important. In order to protect city water body landscape reasonably, the precondition is to probe the dynamics of water body landscape. Based on historical data and remote sensing data, six indexes including patch number, patch area, landscape dominance index, fractal dimension, patch density and connectivity index etc. were used to analyze landscape pattern dynamics of water body in Kaifeng city since the end of the Qing Dynasty (in the 20th century). The results showed: (1) Since the end of the Qing Dynasty, landscape area of water body in Kaifeng city increased first and then decreased from 1898 to 2002AD; the landscape dominant degree had the same changing tendency with the area. (2) Patch number of water body landscape in Kaifeng city had an increase from 1898 to 2002, but maximum area of patch, minimum area of patch and average area of patch decreased, which resulted in an increase in landscape fragment degree. (3) Connectivity index decreased and fractal dimension increased from 1898 to 2002. The reasons for these changes were the repeated overflows and flooding of the Yellow River and the influence of human activities.

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

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

According to the field investigation, observation by an electronic microscope and x-ray identification and chemical analysis, desert-steppe migration in the Loess Plateau at about 450 kaBP was studied. The data show that gypsum illuvial horizon indicating the desert-steppe environment developed in the early stage of the formation of the fifth layer loess in Shaoling tableland in Chang'an and Bailu tableland in Xi'an of Shaanxi are situated in the southern Loess Plateau. This indicates that remarkable drying occurred, a large-scope migration of desert steppe took place toward south and the climate zone migrated 5 degrees in latitude to south which is the largest migration range indicated by geochemical indexes. The desert-steppe and more wild environment distributed widely on the Loess Plateau at that time. The development of gypsum also indicates that the climate changed at 450 kaBP from monsoon climate to nonmonsoon climate in the Loess Plateau, and the region was not affected by summer monsoon and was in the cold and dry environment of nonmonsoon climate. Annual mean precipitation was about 200 mm, 400 mm less at that time than at present.

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

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

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

An abrupt ice and snow storm disaster which occurred in the spring of 2008 severely destroyed forests over a surprisingly large portion of southern China. A transect crossing Jinggang Mountain-Jitai Basin-Yushan Mountain-Wuyi Mountain was selected as the study area. The authors integrated field data collected in two field surveys to analyze the impacts of the disturbance on forests. The following results were obtained. (1) The extent of damage to plantations along the transect decreased in the order of slash pine > masson pine > mixed plantation > Chinese fir. Slash pine is an introduced species from southern America which is characterized by fast growth, low wood quality and rich oleoresin, and showed a damage rate of 61.3% of samples, of which 70.4% cannot recover naturally. Masson pine is the native pioneer species of forests with harder wood, and 52.5% were damaged due to turpentine, of which 60.9% cannot recovery naturally. Chinese fir is a local tree species and samples showed a rate of 46% and a relative rate of 32.5%, lower than the mixed plantation. (2) From west to east along the transect, we can see that evergreen broad-leaved forest of the western transect on Jinggang Mountain showed the lightest damage extent, and a Cryptomeria plantation at an altitude of 700 m was severely destroyed while Chinese fir showed light damage below 700 m and relatively severe damage above 900 m. Masson pine and slash pine in the central transect in Jitai Basin were damaged severely due to turpentine activities, and closed natural secondary deciduous broad-leaved forest was damaged severely due to high ice and snow accumulation on intertwined shrubs. Masson pine aerial-seeding plantations below 400 m along the eastern transect in Xingguo and Ningdu counties were nearly undamaged for small tree sizes, and Chinese fir at 500-900 m altitude showed a lighter damage extent. However, masson pine which was distributed above 400 m and planted in the 1960s, was severely damaged due to turpentine.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Based on energy consumption data of each region in China from 1997 to 2009 and using ArcGIS9.3 and GeoDA9.5 as technical support, this paper made a preliminary study on the changing trend of spatial pattern at regional level of carbon emissions from energy consumption, spatial autocorrelation analysis of carbon emissions, spatial regression analysis between carbon emissions and their influencing factors. The analyzed results are shown as follows. (1) Carbon emissions from energy consumption increased more than 148% from 1997 to 2009 but the spatial pattern of high and low emission regions did not change greatly. (2) The global spatial autocorrelation of carbon emissions from energy consumption increased from 1997 to 2009, the spatial autocorrelation analysis showed that there exists a “polarization” phenomenon, the centre of “High-High” agglomeration did not change greatly but expanded currently, the centre of “Low-Low” agglomeration also did not change greatly but narrowed currently. (3) The spatial regression analysis showed that carbon emissions from energy consumption has a close relationship with GDP and population, R-squared rate of the spatial regression between carbon emissions and GDP is higher than that between carbon emissions and population. The contribution of population to carbon emissions increased but the contribution of GDP decreased from 1997 to 2009. The carbon emissions spillover effect was aggravated from 1997 to 2009 due to both the increase of GDP and population, so GDP and population were the two main factors which had strengthened the spatial autocorrelation of carbon emissions.

At present, land use optimization at small watershed scale is the key measure to control soil erosion, restore the eco-environment and improve the farmers’ living standard on the Loess Plateau, China. Based on the land use survey maps of 1966, 1988, 1997, 2003 and the digital topographic map of 1984 in Yangou watershed, and assisted by spatial techniques of GIS, the basic characteristics and driving forces of land use change in Yangou watershed are analyzed. According to the summarization of land-use optimization characteristics since 1997, and with the help of continuous monitoring data for years and farmer investigation data, this paper appraises eco-environmental benefits, economic benefits and sustainability of Yangou watershed. We have used sediment reduction benefits, coverage ratio of permanent vegetation, per capita food production and per capita income of farmers as indices. The results show that Yangou watershed project has successfully controlled the soil and water loss and the farmers’ living standard has been improved markedly by reasonable adjustment to land use structure. The benefit of sediment reduction is higher than 80% and the coverage ratio of permanent vegetation reaches 61.03%. In 2006, the per capita income increased by 1493 yuan compared with the year 1998.The successful measures and experiences of Yangou watershed are worth promoting on the Loess Plateau.

It is a very complicated problem to estimate evapotranspiration (ET) over a large area of land surface. In this paper, the evapotranspiration estimation models for dense vegetation and bare soil are presented, based on the information of parameters like vegetation cover-degree and surface albedo. Combined with vegetation cover-degree data, a model for regional evapotranspiration estimation over the heterogeneous landscape is derived. Through a case study using remote sensing data over Northwest China, the accuracy of the model for regional evapotranspiration estimation is checked. The result shows that the accuracy of the model is satisfactory. The features of evapotranspiration over Northwest China are also discussed with the application of the model.

Based on monthly mean, maximum, and minimum air temperature and monthly mean precipitation data from 10 meteorological stations on the southern slope of the Mt. Qomolangma region in Nepal between 1971 and 2009, the spatial and temporal characteristics of climatic change in this region were analyzed using climatic linear trend, Sen's Slope Estimates and Mann-Kendall Test analysis methods. This paper focuses only on the southern slope and attempts to compare the results with those from the northern slope to clarify the characteristics and trends of climatic change in the Mt. Qomolangma region. The results showed that: (1) between 1971 and 2009, the annual mean temperature in the study area was 20.0℃, the rising rate of annual mean temperature was 0.25℃/10a, and the temperature increases were highly influenced by the maximum temperature in this region. On the other hand, the temperature increases on the northern slope of Mt. Qomolangma region were highly influenced by the minimum temperature. In 1974 and 1992, the temperature rose noticeably in February and September in the southern region when the increment passed 0.9℃. (2) Precipitation had an asymmetric distribution; between 1971 and 2009, the annual precipitation was 1729.01 mm. In this region, precipitation showed an increasing trend of 4.27 mm/a, but this was not statistically significant. In addition, the increase in rainfall was mainly concentrated in the period from April to October, including the entire monsoon period (from June to September) when precipitation accounts for about 78.9% of the annual total. (3) The influence of altitude on climate warming was not clear in the southern region, whereas the trend of climate warming was obvious on the northern slope of Mt. Qomolangma. The annual mean precipitation in the southern region was much higher than that of the northern slope of the Mt. Qomolangma region. This shows the barrier effect of the Himalayas as a whole and Mt. Qomolangma in particular.

Study on hydroclimatological changes in the mountainous river basins has attracted great interest in recent years. Changes in temperature, precipitation and river discharge pattern could be considered as indicators of hydroclimatological changes of the river basins. In this study, the temperatures (maximum and minimum), precipitation, and discharge data from 1980 to 2009 were used to detect the hydroclimatological changes in the Bagmati River Basin, Nepal. Simple linear regression and Mann-Kendall test statistic were used to examine the significant trend of temperature, precipitation, and discharge. Increasing trend of temperature was found in all seasons, although the change rate was different in different seasons for both minimum and maximum temperatures. However, stronger warming trend was found in maximum temperature in comparison to the minimum in the whole basin. Both precipitation and discharge trend were increasing in the pre-monsoon season, but decreasing in the post-monsoon season. The significant trend of precipitation could not be observed in winter, although discharge trend was decreasing. Furthermore, the intensity of peak discharge was increasing, though there was not an obvious change in the intensity of maximum precipitation events. It is expected that all these changes have effects on agriculture, hydropower plant, and natural biodiversity in the mountainous river basin of Nepal.

Man-land relationship research, as the core of geographical research, runs through each development stage of Geography. Based on extensive literature review, this paper systematically generalizes the connotations, research development and contents of man-land relationship in China. (1) It explores the connotations and evolvement rules of man-land relationship in different social development stages in China, and finds that the core role of man-land relationship in geographical research has been strengthened continuously. Changing with times, its connotations have been considerably enriched by sustainable development and other notions, and so does its theoretical system. (2) It applies the bibliometric method to sketch out the basic research status of man-land relationship in China. Specifically, it quantitatively identifies the funding sources, major research teams and journals for publication. It finds that the funding sources show a diversification trend with national funding being the primary source of research grants. The most competitive research teams are mainly concentrated in the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and normal universities. Journals sponsored by The Geographical Society of China are most influential in publishing man-land relationship research. (3) As resources and environment are the fundamental carriers of man-land relationship, this study focuses further on the research on resource-environmental base of man-land relationship, and finds that the resource-environmental base research in China has gone through an evolution process from single factor perspective research to comprehensive multiple perspective research gradually. Research themes have also experienced similar changes from land, water, energy minerals or other single factor research to comprehensive factor research of resources and environment. Empirical study on national and regional development strategies is the feature of man-land relationship in China. More emphasis should be put on considering and following the changes in features of “man” and “land” and research on the impacts of new factors on man-land relationship in a developing and dynamic manner in the future. Particularly, we should pay more attention to research on the impacts of spatio-temporal changes in resource-environment absolute location on modes of man-land interaction, and to strengthening interdisciplinary research and systematic research on comprehensive techniques so as to advance the development of application of man-land relationship theories and practices.

The karst critical zone is an essential component of the carbon (C) pool, constituting the global C cycle. It is referred to as one of the “residual land sink” that remains largely indeterminate. Karst area (2.2×10⁷ km²) comprises 15% of the world’s land area, and karst area comprises 3.44×10⁶ km² of area in China. Due to the complexity of karst structure and its considerable heterogeneity, C sequestration rate estimations contain large inaccuracies, especially in relation to the different methods used in calculations. Therefore, we reevaluated rock weathering-related C sink estimations in China (approximately 4.74 Tg C yr^-1), which we calibrated from previous studies. Additionally, we stipulated that more comprehensive research on rock-soil-biology-atmosphere continuum C migration is essential to better understand C conversion mechanisms based on uncertainty analyses of C sink estimations. Moreover, we stressed that a collective confirmation of chemical methods and simulated models through a combined research effort could at least partially eliminate such uncertainty. Furthermore, integrated C cycling research need a long-term observation of the carbon flux of multi-interfaces. The enhanced capacity of ecosystem C and soil C pools remains an effective way of increasing C sink. Karst ecosystem health and security is crucial to human social development, accordingly, it is critical that we understand thresholds or potential C sink capacities in karst critical zones now and in the future.

Soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks in terrestrial ecosystems vary considerably with land use types. Grassland, forest, and cropland coexist in the agro-pastoral ecotone of Inner Mongolia, China. Using SOC data compiled from literature and field investigations, this study compared SOC stocks and their vertical distributions among three types of ecosystems. The results indicate that grassland had the largest SOC stock, which was 1.5- and 1.8-folds more than stocks in forest and cropland, respectively. Relative to the stock in 0-100 cm depth, grassland held more than 40% of its SOC stock in the upper 20 cm soil layer; forest and cropland both held over 30% of their respective SOC stocks in the upper 20 cm soil layer. SOC stocks in grazed grasslands were remarkably promoted after ≥20 years of grazing exclusion. Conservational cultivation substantially increased the SOC stocks in cropland, especially in the 0-40 cm depth. Stand ages, tree species, and forest types did not have obvious impacts on forest SOC stocks in the study area likely due to the younger stand ages. Our study implies that soil carbon loss should be taken into account during the implementation of ecological projects, such as reclamation and afforestation, in the arid and semi-arid regions of China.