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

The difference between ground soil and air temperature (Ts-Ta) was studied by using the data of ground and air temperature of 99 stations over the Qinghai–Xizang (Tibet) Plateau from 1960 to 2000,and its spatial distribution and time changing tendency have been diagnosed by principal component analysis and power spectral analysis methods. The results show that the values of (Ts-Ta) are the maximum in June and the minimum in December. The first three loading eigenvectors, which reflect the main spatially anomalous structure of (Ts-Ta) over the Qinghai–Xizang Plateau, contain the contrary changing pattern between the north-western and the southeastern regions, the pattern response of the sea level elevation and the geography, and the pattern response of the distribution of the permafrost. There are four patterns of time evolution including the patterns of monotonous increasing or decreasing trends, the basic stability pattern and the parabola pattern with the minimum value. (Ts-Ta) has a periodic variation about 2 years. According to the spatial distribution of the third loading eigenvectors of (Ts-Ta) over the Qinghai–Xizang Plateau in cold season, the permafrost re-sponse region and the seasonal frozen ground response region are identified.

The total precipitation of the highest 1 day, 3 day, 5 day and 7 day precipitation amount (R1D, R3D, R5D and R7D) in the Yangtze River basin was analyzed with the help of linear trend analysis and continuous wavelet transform method. The research results indi-cated that: 1) Spatial distribution of R1D is similar in comparison with that of R3D, R5D and R7D. The Jialingjiang and Hanjiang river basins are dominated by decreasing trend, which is significant at >95% confidence level in Jialingjiang River basin and insignificant at >95% con-fidence level in Hanjiang River basin. The southern part of the Yangtze River basin and the western part of the upper Yangtze River basin are dominated by significant increasing trend of R1D extreme precipitation at >95% confidence level. 2) As for the R3D, R5D and R7D, the western part of the upper Yangtze River basin is dominated by significant increasing trend at >95% confidence level. The eastern part of the upper Yangtze River basin is dominated by decreasing trend, but is insignificant at >95% confidence level. The middle and lower Yangtze River basin is dominated by increasing trend, but insignificant at >95% confidence level. 3) The frequency and intensity of extreme precipitation events are intensified over time. Pre-cipitation anomalies indicated that the southeastern part, southern part and southwestern part of the Yangtze River basin are dominated by positive extreme precipitation anomalies be-tween 1993–2002 and 1961–1992. The research results of this text indicate that the occurrence probability of flash flood is higher in the western part of the upper Yangtze River basin and the middle and lower Yangtze River

Based on temperature reconstruction and proxy data from 14 sites in the Northern Hemisphere, this paper focused on comparing the cycles of temperature variations between the Arctic and other areas, including Atlantic, Europe, China, Asia, Pacific, Indian Ocean, and America during the transition from the last Interstade to the Last Glacial Maximum, from the Last Glacial Maximum to megathermal period in Holocene and the transition of the Little Ice Age (LIA) by the methods of Singular Spectrum Analysis (SSA) and Maximum Entropy Spec-trum (MES). The results showed that environmental changes in the Arctic are most similar to that in the North American and better similar to Asia, Atlantic and Pacific, the least similar to Indian Ocean and Europe. The 1500-year oscillation of temperature existed both in Arctic and Europe.

This paper has studied the change of streamflow and the impact of climatic vari-ability conditions on regional hydrological cycle in the headwater of the Tarim River Basin. This study investigates possible causes of observed trends in streamflow in an environment which is highly variable in terms of atmospheric conditions, and where snow and ice melt play an important role in the natural hydrological regime. The discharge trends of three head streams have a significant increase trend from 1957 to 2002 with the Mann–Kendall test. Complex time-frequency distributions in the streamflow regime are demonstrated especially by Morlet wavelet analysis over 40 years. The purpose is to ascertain the nature of climatic factors spatial and temporal distribution, involved the use of EOF (Empirical Orthogonal Function) to compare the dominant temperature, precipitation and evaporation patterns from normally climatic records over the Tarim’s headwater basin. It shows that the first principal component was dominated since the 1990s for temperature and precipitation, which identifies the significant ascending trend of spatial and temporal pattern characteristics under the con-dition of the global warming. An exponential correlation is highlighted between surface air temperature and mean river discharge monthly, so the regional runoff increases by 10%–16% when surface air temperature rises by 1℃. Results suggest that headwater basins are the most vulnerable environments from the point of view of climate change, because their wa-tershed properties promote runoff feeding by glacier and snow melt water and their funda-mental vulnerability to temperature changes affects rainfall, snowfall, and glacier and ice melt.

Based on analysis of parameters of cores taken from Gaoyou Lake, including magnetic susceptibility, grain-size characteristics and sedimentary rate, environmental changes during the modern period were examined with the assistance of historical records and Gaoyou Lake water level materials. It is concluded that during the modern period a higher value of magnetic susceptibility and a lower sediment grain size coincided with a wet climate, while a lower value of magnetic susceptibility and a higher grain size were related with a dry climate. The results indicate that the climate in the 123 years period from 1880 to 2003AD can be divided into four stages: two low water level stages (1880–1915AD, 1948–1981AD) and two high water level stages (1915–1948AD, 1981–2003AD). It appears that the regional cli-mate generally underwent a dry–wet–dry–wet pattern in 30-year cycles. At present, it is at the end of a wet period, so the regional climate is expected to become dry in the near future. This conclusion corresponds with the climate records in the historical literature of the Gaoyou area, and it also matches with the climatic changes in North Jiangsu area.

In this paper, a grid-based distributed hydrological model BTOPMC (Block-wise use of TOPMODEL) is introduced, which was developed from the original TOPMODEL. In order to broaden the model’s application to arid regions, improvement methodology is also implemented. The canopy interception and soil infiltration processes were incorporated into the original BTOPMC to model event-based runoff simulation in large arid regions. One de-signed infiltration model with application of time compression approximation method is emphasized and validated for improving model’s performance for event hydrological simulations with a case study of Lushi River basin.

The lower Yellow River still faces the threat of flood due to the unusual precipita-tion caused by global environmental change, river channel sedimentation, hidden danger in the dike and unfavorable river regime of “hanging river”. According to the characteristics of the dike-break flood of the Yellow River, this paper has simulated, in six different scenarios, the dike-break flood routing by inputting the terrain data, typical historical flood data and land use data of study area to two-dimensional unsteady flow model. The results show that: firstly, the routing process of flood will occupy other rivers on the way and return to the rivers after reaching the lower reaches; secondly, in the same river reach, flood inundating area of north band is bigger than that at corresponding location of south bank under the same historical flood; thirdly, it is different in the degree of flood inundation in different regions due to different geographical locations in flood plain; fourthly, the area of mainstream where flood is deep and flow velocity is quick is relatively smaller, but the area of non-mainstream, where flood is shallow and flow velocity is slow, is relatively big; and finally, the possible influenced area of the dike-break flood is 141,948 km².

Characteristics and tidal flat trends of soil organic matter (SOM) turnover were studied for the Chongmingdongtan Salt Marsh in the Yangtze River estuary, based on analyses of stable carbon isotope composition (δ¹³C), grain sizes and contents of particulate organic carbon (POC), total nitrogen (TN) and inorganic carbon (TIC) for three cores exca-vated from high tidal flat, middle tidal flat and bare flat. Results demonstrate that correlations between soil POC contents and δ¹³C values of the salt marsh cores were similar to those between soil organic carbon (SOC) contents and δ¹³C values of the upper soil layers of mountainous soil profiles with different altitudes. SOM of salt marsh was generally younger than 100 years, and originated mainly from topsoil erosions in catchments of the Yangtze River. Correlations of TN content with C/N ratio, POC content with TIC content and POC content with δ¹³C values for the cores suggest that turnover degrees of SOM from the salt marsh are overall low, and trends of SOM turnover are clear from the bare flat to the high tidal flat. Bare flat samples show characteristics of original sediments, with minor SOM turnover. Turnover processes of SOM have occurred and are discernable in the high and middle tidal flats, and the mixing degrees of SOM compartments with different turnover rates increase with evolution of the muddy tidal flat. The exclusive strata structure of alternate muddy lami-nae and silty laminae originated from dynamic depositional processes on muddy tidal flat was a great obstacle to vertical migration of dissolved materials, and SOM turnover was then constrained. The muddy tidal flat processes exerted direct influences on sequestration and turnover of SOM in the salt marsh, and had great constraints on the spatial and temporal characteristics of SOM turnover of the Chongmingdongtan Salt Marsh in the Yangtze River estuary.

Taking the source region of the Yellow River as a study area and based on the data from Madoi Meteorological Station and Huangheyan Hydrological Station covering the period 1955–2005, this paper analyses the changing trends of surface water resources, climate and frozen ground and reveals their causes. Results show that there exist frequent fluctuations from high to low water flow in the 51-year period. In general, the discharge has shown a de-clining trend in the 51 years especially since the 1990s. The annual distribution shows one peak which, year on year is getting smaller. (1) Precipitation has a significant and sustained influence on discharge. (2) A sharp rise of temperature resulted in the increase of evaporation and the decrease of discharge, which has a greater effect than on ice-snow melting. (3) Frozen ground tends to be degraded markedly. There is a significant positive correlation be-tween the permafrost thickness and the discharge. (4) Evaporation rates are significantly increasing, leading to the decrease of discharge. 70% of the discharge reduction resulted from climate change, and the remaining 30% may have been caused by human activities.

Trends of annual and monthly temperature, precipitation, potential evapotranspi-ration and aridity index were analyzed to understand climate change during the period 1971–2000 over the Tibetan Plateau which is one of the most special regions sensitive to global climate change. FAO56–Penmen–Monteith model was modified to calculate potential evapotranspiration which integrated many climatic elements including maximum and mini-mum temperatures, solar radiation, relative humidity and wind speed. Results indicate gen-erally warming trends of the annual averaged and monthly temperatures, increasing trends of precipitation except in April and September, decreasing trends of annual and monthly poten-tial evapotranspiration, and increasing aridity index except in September. It is not the isolated climatic elements that are important to moisture conditions, but their integrated and simulta-neous effect. Moreover, potential evapotranspiration often changes the effect of precipitation on moisture conditions. The climate trends suggest an important warm and humid tendency averaged over the southern plateau in annual period and in August. Moisture conditions would probably get drier at large area in the headwater region of the three rivers in annual average and months from April to November, and the northeast of the plateau from July to September. Complicated climatic trends over the Tibetan Plateau reveal that climatic factors have nonlinear relationships, and resulte in much uncertainty together with the scarcity of observation data. The results would enhance our understanding of the potential impact of climate change on environment in the Tibetan Plateau. Further research of the sensitivity and attribution of climate change to moisture conditions on the plateau is necessary.

Based on the NOAA AVHRR-NDVI data from 1981 to 2001, the digitalized China Vegetation Map (1:1,000,000), DEM, temperature and precipitation data, and field investiga-tion, the spatial patterns and vertical characteristics of natural vegetation changes and their influencing factors in the Mt. Qomolangma Nature Reserve have been studied. The results show that: (1) There is remarkable spatial difference of natural vegetation changes in the Mt. Qomolangma Nature Reserve and stability is the most common status. There are 5.04% of the whole area being seriously degraded, 13.19% slightly degraded, 26.39% slightly im-proved, 0.97% significantly improved and 54.41% keeping stable. The seriously and slightly degraded areas, which mostly lie in the south of the reserve, are along the national bounda-ries. The areas of improved vegetation lie in the north of the reserve and the south side of the Yarlung Zangbo River. The stable areas lie between the improved and degraded areas. Degradation decreases with elevation. (2) Degeneration in the Mt. Qomolangma Nature Re-serve mostly affects shrubs, needle-leaved forests and mixed forests. (3) The temperature change affects the natural vegetation changes spatially while the integration of temperature changes, slopes and aspects affects the natural vegetation change along the altitude gradi-ents. (4) It is the overuse of resources that leads to the vegetation degeneration in some parts of the Mt. Qomolangma Nature Reserve.

Freeze-thaw erosion is the third largest soil erosion type after water erosion and wind erosion. Restricted by many factors, few researches on freeze-thaw erosion have so far been done at home and abroad, especially those on the assessment method of freeze-thaw erosion. Based on the comprehensive analysis of impact factors of free-thaw erosion, this paper chooses six indexes, including the annual temperature range, annual precipitation, slope, aspect, vegetation and soil, to build the model for relative classification of freeze-thaw erosion using weighted and additive methods, and realizes the relative classification of the freeze-thaw erosion in Tibet with the support of GIS software. Then a synthetic assessment of freeze-thaw erosion in Tibet has been carried out according to the relative classification result. The result shows that the distribution of freeze-thaw eroded area is very extensive in Tibet, accounting for 55.3% of the total local land area; the spatial differentiation of freeze-thaw erosion with different intensities is obvious; and the difference in distribution among different regions is also obvious.

Standardization is one of the important procedures in dendroclimatology. We used abundant Qilian juniper (Sabina przewalskii Kom.) tree-ring samples from the eastern margin of the Qaidam Basin to develop a new standardization method, i.e. total growth curve (TGC). The samples that contained the complete pith and reached to the growing culmination around the 40th–60th year were used to fit TGC, and the generalized negative exponential function was used to fit the curve. Usually, most cores cannot reach the arboreal pith for some reasons and it is difficult to determine the arboreal cambial age. The empirical model of initial radial growth (IRG) was employed to estimate the number of rings missing from the pith by the same data and IRG model explained 90.9% of the variance. When developing the chronology, the cambial ages of cores that contained the complete pith were regarded as beginning from the first year and others were determined by the numbers of missing and included rings in the core. Standardization was accomplished by dividing each tree-ring series by corresponding TGC. The chronologies developed by TGC can retain more low-frequency variational infor-mation and TGC helps to develop more reliable tree-ring width chronology.

The author selects a thorny issue of doubled designations that bother pol-icy-makers, professional planners and managers in the field of conservation for protected areas. The analyzed case study areas cover 5 National Geoparks of China in Sichuan Prov-ince, 18 UNESCO Global Geoparks in China, and 219 World Heritage sites in China and 8 European nations. Through analysis and synthesis, the author concludes that doubled des-ignation, which also leads to unbalanced park distribution, is particularly prevalent in China other than in Europe. Therefore, on-site management agencies and related governments in China should carefully translate the doubled designations into responsibilities and harmoni-ous partnerships between all stakeholders in order to enhance the management effectiveness and avoid paper park phenomenon.

The sand dredging and its impacts on riverbed evolution and tidal dynamic change in the lower reaches and delta of the Dongjiang River are examined in this paper. The large amount of sand, totally 3.32 billion m³ from 1980 to 2002, was mined from the riverbeds of the lower reaches and delta of the Dongjiang River. Increasing of the channel capacity, lowering of the average riverbed elevation, deepening of the water depth and decreasing of the longi-tudinal riverbed gradient are the main effects on the riverbed evolution brought by the large amount of sand dredging. Under the strong sand dredging and associated significant riverbed deformation, the notable changes of the tidal dynamic in the lower reaches and delta of the Dongjiang River occurred, including: (1) in the upper reaches of the Dongjiang River delta and lower reaches of the Dongjiang River, tidal level dropped apparently, tidal range widened, flood tidal duration became longer, amplitudes for major tidal components became bigger and tidal dynamics intensified; (2) tidal wave spread faster; and (3) the limits of the tidal level, tidal current and salt water moved upstream.

According to the textual research into the historical documents dominated by ar-chives yearly, as well as the verification with several other kinds of data, the later or earlier starting time of the rainy seasons in Yunnan during 1711–1982 has been reconstructed. The analysis indicates that there are obvious fluctuations in the starting date of the rainy seasons in Yunnan in a year or years, and long fluctuation on the decadal scale. The rainy season comes earlier in the early 18th century, later in the 19th century and earlier again in the 20th century. This reflects to a certain degree the gradual change of the summer monsoon in Yunnan. There exists an obvious quasi-3 years cycle, which is related to El-Nino’s quasi-3 years cycle, and a 11.3-year cycle which is notably related to the 11-year cycle of the solar activity of starting date of the rainy seasons in Yunnan. Meanwhile, the dissertation finds that the El-Nino is very important to the starting date of the rainy seasons in Yunnan. The starting date of the rainy seasons in Yunnan often comes later or normally in the year of El-Nino. However, there is an obvious imperfect period in such influence, which in turn may mean that there is a certain fluctuation in the effect of ENSO on Asian summer monsoon.

Niche theory is one of the most important ecological theories. It is widely applied to analyzing such phenomena as competition among, and evolution of, urban ecosystem func-tional modules. This paper describes a study concerning different functional modules of Kaifeng city urban ecosystem. Niche theory and techniques were used to analyze the changes of these functional modules in the period 1994–2003. The results showed that, in the period 1994–2003: (1) Niche value of the atmospheric environment and urban virescence modules increased, while niche value of the water environment and sound environment modules decreased; (2) niche value of the tertiary industry module increased, niche value of the secondary industry module decreased, while niche value of the primary industry module showed little change; and (3) niche value of the infrastructure, resource distribution, and production & social security modules increased, while niche value of the population module decreased. This study may contribute to macroscopic planning of urban functional modules, economic development, and environmental protection.

In several LUCC studies, statistical methods are being used to analyze land use data. A problem using conventional statistical methods in land use analysis is that these methods assume the data to be statistically independent. But in fact, they have the tendency to be dependent, a phenomenon known as multicollinearity, especially in the cases of few observations. In this paper, a Partial Least-Squares (PLS) regression approach is developed to study relationships between land use and its influencing factors through a case study of the Suzhou-Wuxi-Changzhou region in China. Multicollinearity exists in the dataset and the number of variables is high compared to the number of observations. Four PLS factors are selected through a preliminary analysis. The correlation analyses between land use and in-fluencing factors demonstrate the land use character of rural industrialization and urbaniza-tion in the Suzhou-Wuxi-Changzhou region, meanwhile illustrate that the first PLS factor has enough ability to best describe land use patterns quantitatively, and most of the statistical relations derived from it accord with the fact. By the decreasing capacity of the PLS factors, the reliability of model outcome decreases correspondingly.

Comparative study of LUCC between Fujian and Taiwan provinces could be a good case for study because of their geographical proximities and historical, cultural similarities. Fujian and Taiwan had gone through and currently are in different economic development stages. Taiwan is in the stage of post-industrialization and Fujian is in the intermediate stage of industrialization. By using the official statistics, changes of built-land in Fujian and Taiwan were analyzed in details. The results showed that these two provinces seemed to have the same characteristics of built-land changes, i.e., accelerating development, and concentrated distribution on both sides of the Taiwan Straits, forming a pattern with the economic layout of two sides acting in cooperation with eath other. If comparing different industrialized areas in Fujian with industrialized stages in Taiwan, it is clear that these two provinces seemed to have the same characteristics of synthesized index of built-land change (Lc), i.e., which is from stabilization or comparative stabilization at the initial stages of industrialization to high ex-pansion at the intermediate stages of industrialization, then followed by low consumption at later stages of industrialization, but the Lc of the initial and the later stages of industrialization in Taiwan were slightly higher than those in Fujian. The results from comparison on relevant indexes have shown: The industrial structure changing rate of Fujian is actually higher than that of built-land in Taiwan, but its using efficiency of regional built-land is also obviously lower than that in Taiwan in the intermediate and later stages of industrialization of Fujian. The major driving forces of the built-land changes in both provinces were analyzed in Causal Models of Path Analysis, and its result indicated that the difference in built-land changes of the two provinces is closely related to their economic development stages and industrial structure. Countermeasure for the realization of sustainable utilization of built-land in Fujian put forward in this article is to strengthen its intension and tap the latent power.

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.

The Yarlung Zangbo River (YR) is the highest great river in the world, and its basin is one of the centers of human economic activity in Tibet. Using 10 meteorological stations over the YR basin in 1961–2005, the spatial and temporal characteristics of temperature and precipitation as well as potential evapotranspiration are analyzed. The results are as follows. (1) The annual and four seasonal mean air temperature shows statistically significant in-creasing trend, the tendency is more significant in winter and fall. The warming in Lhasa river basin is most significant. (2) The precipitation is decreasing from the 1960s to the 1980s and increasing since the 1980s. From 1961 to 2005, the annual and four seasonal mean precipi-tation is increasing but not statistically significant, especially in fall and spring. The increasing precipitation rates are more pronounced in Niyangqu and Palong Zangbo river basins, the closer to the upper YR is, the less precipitation increasing rate would be. (3) The annual and four seasonal mean potential evapotranspiration has decreased, especially after the 1980s, and most of it happens in winter and spring. The decreasing trend is most significant in the middle YR and Nianchu river basin. (4) Compared with the Mt. Qomolangma region, Tibetan Plateau, China and global average, the magnitudes of warming trend over the YR basin since the 1970s exceed those areas in the same period, and compared with the Tibetan Plateau, the magnitudes of precipitation increasing and potential evapotranspiration decreasing are larger, suggesting that the YR basin is one of the most sensitive areas to global warming.

Based on non-radiance-calibrated DMSP/OLS nighttime light imagery from 1992 to 2003, urban land area statistical data, meteorological data and land surface temperature data retrieved by MODIS and NOAA/AVHRR data, the influence of urbanization on regional cli-matic trend of temperature in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) was analyzed. Conclusions are as follows: 1) There is a significant urbanization process from 1992 to 2003 in the YRD. Four city clusters of Nanjing–Zhenjiang–Yangzhou, Suzhou–Wuxi–Changzhou, Shanghai and Hangzhou Bay form a zigzag city belt. The increase rate of annual mean air temperature in city-belt is 0.28–0.44℃/10a from 1991 to 2005, which is far larger than that of non-city-belt. 2) The urban heat island (UHI) effect on regional mean air temperature in different seasons is summer>autumn>spring>winter. 3) The UHI intensity and the urban total population logarithm are creditably correlated. 4) The UHI effect made the regional annual mean air temperature increased 0.072℃ from 1961 to 2005, of which 0.047℃ from 1991 to 2005, and the annual maximum air temperature increased 0.162℃, of which 0.083℃ from 1991 to 2005. All these indicating that the urban expansion in the YRD from 1991 to 2005 may be regarded as a serious climate signal.

In mountainous area, spatial interpolation is the traditional method to calculate air temperature by use of observed temperature data. Due to lack of sufficient observation data in mountainous areas many precise interpolation methods could give only coarse result which could not meet the demand of precision agriculture and local climate exploration. Based on DEMs of 25 m resolution, a reversed model is constructed, with which temperature is simu-lated to the corresponding slope unit from the solar radiation. Taking Yaoxian county as a test area, and mean monthly temperature data as basic information sources, which are collected from 15 weather stations around Yaoxian county in Shaanxi province from the year of 1970 to 2000, a simulation for the solar radiation cell by cell is completed. By simulating solar radia-tion at each slope and flat cell unit, the terrain revised temperature model could be realized. A comparison between the simulated temperature and the radiation temperature from TM6 thermal infrared image shows that the terrain improved model gets a finer temperature dis-tribution at local level. The accuracy of simulated temperature in mountainous area is higher than it is in flat area.

Due to the difficult logistics in the extreme high elevation regions over the Himala-yas and Tibetan Plateau, the observational meteorological data are very few. In 2003, an automatic weather station was deployed at the northeastern saddle of Mt. Nyainqentanglha (NQ) (30°24′44.3″ N, 90°34′13.1″ E, 5850 m a.s.l.), the southern Tibetan Plateau. In 2005, another station was operated at the East Rongbuk Glacier Col (28°01′0.95″ N, 86°57′48.4″ E, 6523 m a.s.l.) of Mt. Qomolangma. Observational data from the two sites have been com-pared with the reanalysis data from the National Centers for Environmental Predic-tion/National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCEP/NCAR), reliability of NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data has been investigated in the Himalayas/Tibetan Plateau region. The reanaly-sis data can capture much of the synoptic-scale variability in temperature and pressure, al-though the reanalysis values are systematically lower than the observation. Furthermore, most of the variability magnitude is, to some degree, underestimated. In addition, the weather event extracted from the NCEP/NCAR reanalyzed pressure and temperature prominently appears one day ahead of the observational data on Mt. Qomolangma, while on Mt. NQ it occurs basically in the same day.

A 70-year history of precipitation δ¹⁸O record has been retrieved using an ice core drilled from a plat portion of the firn area in the Guoqu Glacier (33o34′37.8″ N, 91o10′35.3″ E, 5720 m a.s.l.) on Mt. Geladaindong (the source region of Yangtze River) during October and November, 2005. Based on the seasonality of δ¹⁸O records and the significant positive rela-tionships between monsoon/non-monsoon δ¹⁸O values and summer/spring air temperature from the nearby meteorological stations, the history of summer and spring air temperature have been reconstructed for the last 70 years. The results show that both summer and spring air temperature variations present similar trends during the last 70 years. Regression analysis indicates that the slope of the temperature-δ¹⁸O relationship is 1.3℃/‰ for non-monsoon δ¹⁸O values and spring air temperature, and 0.4℃/‰ for monsoon δ¹⁸O values and summer air temperature. Variation of air temperature recorded in the ice core is consistent with that in the Northern Hemisphere (NH), however, the warming trend in the Geladaindong region is more intense than that in the NH, reflecting a higher sensitivity to global warming in the high elevation regions. In addition, warming trend is greater in spring than in summer.

Quantitative analysis was performed on the filling-scouring process for the river reach within Makou and Tianjiazhen, the middle Yangtze River with the help of GIS and DEM techniques. The research results indicate that the river reach between Makou and Tianjiaz-hen was dominated by the scouring process, and the magnitude of scouring is increasing over time. The intensity of scouring process is more in the deep and narrower river reach than shallower and wider ones. The river reach in the Makou and Tianjiazhen river knot is in fre-quent scouring and filling process, however the river reach upper to the Makou and lower to the Tianjiazhen river knot is in moderate scouring and filling process. The river reach just upstream or downstream to the river knot (e.g. Makou and Tianjiazhen river knot in this re-search) is dominated by filling process and the river reach in the river knot is dominated by the scouring process. Research results indicate no changes in the boundary of the river but the scouring and the filling magnitude in specific river channel is strong. The filling and the scouring process of the study river reach is greatly impacted by the sediments and water from the upstream of the study river reach. The construction of the Three Gorges Dam just up-stream to Yichang will cause further decrease of the release of the sediment load to the mid-dle and the lower Yangtze River basin, which will further intensify the scouring process of the river channel in the study river reach.

The western coast of Hainan Island exhibits a savanna landscape. Many types of sand dunes, including transverse dune ridges, longitudinal dune ridges, elliptical dunes, coppice dunes, and climbing dunes, are widely distributed in the coastal zone. In winter, high-frequency and high-energy NE winds (dominant winds) are prevalent, with a resultant drift direction (RDD) of S35.6°W. In spring, low-frequency and low-energy SW secondary winds prevail, with a RDD of N25.1°E. Wind tunnel simulations revealed that the airflow over the dune surface is the main factor controlling the erosion and deposition patterns of dune surfaces and the morphological development of dunes. In the region's bidirectional wind en-vironment, with two seasonally distinct energy levels, the airflow over the surface of elliptical dunes, barchan dunes, and transverse dune ridges will exhibit a transverse pattern, whereas the airflow over longitudinal dunes ridges exhibits a lateral pattern and that over climbing dunes exhibits a climbing-circumfluent pattern. These patterns represent different dynamic processes. The coastal dunes on the western coast of Hainan Island are influenced by factors such as onshore winds, sand sources, coastal slopes, rivers, and forest shelter belts. The source of the sand that supplements these dunes particularly influences the development pattern: when there is more sand, the pattern shows positive equilibrium deposition between dune ridges and dunes; otherwise, it shows negative equilibrium deposition. The presence or absence of forest shelter belts also influences deposition and dune development patterns and transformation of dune forms. Coastal dunes and inland desert dunes experience similar dynamic processes, but the former have more diversified shapes and more complex forma-tion mechanisms.

Concerning about the rapid urban growth in recent China, this study takes Beijing as a case and puts forward that urban sprawl can be measured from spatial configuration, urban growth efficiency and external impacts, and then develops a geo-spatial indices system for measuring sprawl, a total of 13 indicators. In order to calculate these indices, different sources data are selected, including land use maps, former land use planning, land price and floor-area-ratio samples, digitized map of the highways and city centers, population and GDP statistical data, etc. Various GIS spatial analysis methods are used to spatialize these indices into 100m×100m cells. Besides, an integrated urban sprawl index is calculated by weight sum of these 13 indices. The application result indicates that geo-spatial indices system can capture most of the typical features and interior differentia of urban sprawl. Construction land in Beijing has kept fast growing with large amount, low efficiency and disordered spatial con-figuration, indicating a typical sprawling tendency. The following specific sprawl features are identified by each indicator: (1) typical spatial configuration of sprawling: obvious fragmenta-tion and irregularity of landscape due to unsuccessful enforcement of land use planning, unadvisable pattern of typical discontinuous development, strip development and leapfrog development; (2) low efficiency of sprawl: low development density, low population density and economic output in newly developed area; and (3) negative impacts on agriculture, en-vironment and city life. According to the integrated sprawl index, the sprawling amount in the northern part is larger than that in the southern, but the sprawling extent is in converse case; most sprawling area include the marginal area of the near suburbs and the area between highways, etc. Four sprawling patterns are identified: randomly expansion at urban fringe, strip development along or between highways, scattered development of industrial land, leapfrog development of urban residence and industrial area.

In this study, we attempt to put forward a conception of landscape ecological niche, enlightened by international scholars on extending the ecological niche theory from spatial niche to functional niche. That is helpful for comprehensively appraising landscape spatial patterns and ecological functions, also, presents a new method for analyzing landscape fea-tures from multidimensional aspects. The practice process is demonstrated by taking Yan’an region in northwestern China as a case. Firstly, the indices system including spatial attribute and functional attribute is established for assessing landscape ecological niche. Additionally, two-dimensional figures are drawn for comparing the spatio-temporal features of landscape ecological niche in 1987 and 2000 among the 13 administrative counties. The results show that from 1987 to 2000, towards Yan’an region, spatial attribute value of landscape ecological niche changes from 1.000 to 1.178 with an obvious increment, and functional attribute value changes from 0.989 to 1.069 with a little increment, both of which enhance the regional landscape ecological niche. Towards each county, spatial attribute value of landscape eco-logical niche increases to different extent while functional attribute value changes dissimilarly with an increment or a decrement.