1961-2008年中国西南地区极端气候变化幅度的海拔效应(英文)

A total of 12 indices of temperature extremes and 11 indices of precipitation ex-tremes at 111 stations in southwestern China at altitudes of 285-4700 m were examined for the period 1961-2008. Significant correlations of temperature extremes and elevation in-cluded the trends of diurnal temperature range, frost days, ice days, cold night frequency and cold day frequency. Regional trends of growing season length, warm night frequency, coldest night and warmest night displayed a statistically significant positive correlation with altitude. These characteristics indicated the obvious warming with altitude. For precipitation extreme indices, only the trends of consecutive dry days, consecutive wet days, wet day precipitation and the number of heavy precipitation days had significant correlations with increasing alti-tude owing to the complex influence of atmospheric circulation. It also indicated the increased precipitation mainly at higher altitude areas, whereas the increase of extreme precipitation events mainly at lowers altitude. In addition, the clearly local influences are also crucial on climate extremes. The analysis revealed an enhanced sensitivity of climate extremes to ele-vation in southwestern China in the context of recent warming.     

中国近代北方极端干湿事件的演变规律

Using monthly precipitation and monthly mean temperature, a surface humid index was proposed. According to the index, the distributed characteristics of extreme dryness has been fully analyzed. The results indicated that there is an obvious increasing trend of extreme dryness in the central part of northern China and northeastern China in the last 10 years, which shows a high frequency period of extreme dryness; while a low frequency period in the regions during the last 100 years. Compared with variation trend of the temperature in these regions, the region of high frequent extreme dryness is consistent with the warming trend in the same region.     

基于GIS的中国人口重心的密度分级与曲线特征

In this paper, with the spatial analysis functions in ArcGIS and the county-level census data of 2000 in China, the population density map was divided and shown by classes, meanwhile, the map system of population distribution and a curve of population centers were formed; in accordance with the geographical proximity principle, the classes of population densities were reclassified and a population density map was obtained which had the spatial clustering characteristic. The multi-layer superposition based on the population density classification shows that the population densities become denser from the Northwest to the Southeast; the multi-layer clustering phenomenon of the Chinese population distribution is obvious, the populations have a water-based characteristic gathering towards the rivers and coastlines. The curve of population centers shows the population densities transit from the high density region to the low one on the whole, while in low-density areas there are relatively dense areas, and in high-density areas there are relatively sparse areas. The reclassification research on the population density map based on the curve of population centers shows that the Chinese population densities can be divided into 9 classes, hereby, the geographical distribution of Chinese population can be divided into 9 type regions: the concentration core zone, high concentration zone, moderate concentration zone, low concentration zone, general transitional zone, relatively sparse area, absolute sparse area, extreme sparse area, and basic no-man's land. More than 3/4 of the population of China is concentrated in less than 1/5 of the land area, and more than half of the land area is inhabited by less than 2% of the population, the result reveals a better space law of China’s population distribution.     

2001-2010年中国地表比辐射率的时空变化(英文)

Land surface emissivity is one of the important parameters in temperature inversion from thermal infrared remote sensing. Using MOD11C3 of Terra-MODIS L3 level products, spatio-temporal data sets of land surface emissivity in China for 10 years from 2001 to 2010 are obtained. The results show that the land surface emissivity in the northwest desert region is the lowest in China, with little seasonal variations. In contrast, there are significant seasonal variations in land surface emissivity in northeast China and northern Xinjiang, the Qing-hai-Tibet Plateau, the Yangtze River Valley and the eastern and southern China. In winter, the land surface emissivity in the northeast China and northern Xinjiang is relatively high. The land surface emissivity of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau region is maintained at low value from November to March, while it becomes higher in other months. The land surface emissivity of the Yangtze River Valley, eastern and southern China, and Sichuan Basin varies from July to October, and peaks in August. Land surface emissivity values could be divided into five levels: low emissivity (0.6163-0.9638), moderate-low emissivity (0.9639-0.9709), moderate emis-sivity (0.9710-0.9724), moderate-high emissivity (0.9725-0.9738), and high emissivity (0.9739-0.9999). The percentages of areas with low emissivity, moderate-low emissivity and moderate emissivity are, respectively, about 20%, 10% and 20%. The moderate-high emis-sivity region makes up 40%-50% of China’s land surface area. The inter-annual variation of moderate-high emissivity region is also very clear, with two peaks (in spring and autumn) and two troughs (in summer and winter). The inter-annual variation of the high emissivity region is very significant, with a peak in winter (10%), while only 1% or 2% in other seasons. There is a clear association between the spatio-temporal distribution of China’s land surface emissivity and temperature: the higher the emissivity, the lower the temperature, and vice versa. Emis-sivity is an inherent property of any object, but the precise value of its emissivity depends very much on its surrounding environmental factors.     

1958-2017年长江流域气候变化的时空特征与热点区域

The Yangtze River Watershed in China is a climate change hotspot featuring strong spatial and temporal variability;hence, it poses a certain threat to social development. Identifying the characteristics of and regions vulnerable to climate change is significantly important for formulating adaptive countermeasures. However, with regard to the Yangtze River Watershed, there is currently a lack of research on these aspects from the perspective of natural and anthropogenic factors. To address this issue, in this study, based on the temperature and precipitation records from 717 meteorological stations, the RClim Dex and random forest models were used to assess the spatiotemporal characteristics of climate change and identify mainly the natural and anthropogenic factors influencing climate change hotspots in the Yangtze River Watershed for the period 1958-2017. The results indicated a significant increasing trend in temperature, a trend of wet and dry polarization in the annual precipitation, and that the number of temperature indices with significant variations was 2.8 times greater than that of precipitation indices. Significant differences were also noted in the responses of the climate change characteristics of the sub-basins to anthropogenic and natural factors;the delta plain of the Yangtze River estuary exhibited the most significant climate changes, where 88.89% of the extreme climate indices varied considerably. Furthermore, the characteristics that were similar among the identified hotpots, including human activities(higher Gross Domestic Product and construction land proportions) and natural factors(high altitudes and large proportions of grassland and water bodies), were positively correlated with the rapid climate warming.     

Effect of farmland expansion on drought over the past century in Songnen Plain,Northeast China

The effects of human activities on climate change are a significant area of research in the field of global environmental change. Land use and land cover change(LUCC) has a greater effect on climate than greenhouse gases, and the effect of farmland expansion on regional drought is particularly important. From the 1910 s to the 2010 s, cultivated land in Songnen Plain increased by 2.67 times, the area of cultivated land increased from 4.92×10~4 km~2 to 13.14×10~4 km~2, and its percentage of all land increased from 25% to 70%. This provides an opportunity to study the effects of the conversion of natural grassland to farmland on climate. In this study, the drought indices in Songnen Plain were evaluated from the 1910 s to the 2010 s, and the effect of farmland expansion on drought was investigated using statistical methods and the Weather Research and Forecasting Model based on UK's Climatic Research Unit data. The resulting dryness index, Palmer drought severity index, and standardized precipitation index values indicated a significant drying trend in the study area from 1981 to 2010. This trend can be attributed to increases in maximum temperature and diurnal temperature range, which increased the degree of drought. Based on statistical analysis and simulation, the maximum temperature, diurnal temperature range, and sensible heat flux increased during the growing season in Songnen Plain over the past 100 years, while the minimum temperature and latent heat flux decreased. The findings indicate that farmland expansion caused a drying trend in Songnen Plain during the study period.     

Climate change and multi-dimensional sustainable urbanization

Global large-scale urbanization and climate change have become indisputable scientific facts yet are unresolved issues, and are a common concern for mankind. The relationship between these two topics is unclear and it is not known how to deal appropriately at the scientific level with climate change in the process of urbanization. Further exploration of the science, management and practice, are needed to achieve global and regional sustainadevelopment. This paper first considers the basic facts concerning mass urbanization and climate change and summarizes the interactions and possible mechanisms of urbanization and climate change. Urbanization leads to the heat island effect, an uneven distribution of precipitation and extreme weather, together with a local-regional-global multi-scale superposition effect, which aggravates the consequences of global climate change. The impact of climate change on urbanization is mainly manifested in aspects such as changes of energy consumption, mortality, and the spread of infectious diseases, sea level rise, extreme weather damage to infrastructure, and water shortages. This paper also briefly reviews relevant international research programs and action coalitions and puts forward an analysis framework multi-dimensional sustainable urbanization which can adapt to and mitigate climate change, from the perspective of the four key dimensions—population, land use, economy, and society. It is imperative that we strengthen the interdisciplinary activities involving the natural and social sciences, take urbanization and other human activities into consideration of the land-atmosphere system, and explore the human-land-atmosphere coupling process. The adaptation and mitigation from the perspective of human activities, as represented by urbanization, might be the most critical and realistic way to deal with climate change.     

基于国际谷物贸易的全球虚土流动与节约（英文）

With intense urbanization and sustained population growth, securing food production with limited land sources has increasingly become a pressing issue. Based on an analysis of international cereal(i.e., barley, buckwheat, maize, oats, rice, rye, sorghum, soybean, and wheat) trade and differences in yields of the cereal between export and import countries over the period of 2007 to 2011, we explore the great potential of land saving through the international cereal trade. By ‘land saving', we refer to the reduced global total of lands required to produce a necessary amount of cereal when cereal is exported from a country with relatively large yield of the cereal to a country with relatively small yield of the cereal. Our scenario analysis suggests that international cereal trade would help mitigate the shortage of domestic arable land for many island countries(e.g., Japan) and countries in the arid Middle East and North Africa(e.g., Syria and Morocco). Furthermore, international cereal trade has the potential to generate ‘land saving' of 50,092,284 ha of land per year, which is roughly the size of Spain. Drawing upon the definition of a similar concept – virtual water(Hoekstra and Hung 2002), we define virtual land as the area of land resources used for the production of goods. Through introducing the concept of virtual land, we believe land resources that are traditionally considered as stationary resources can flow with anthropogenic socioeconomic activities. The largest virtual-land flows( 3,000,000 ha/year) exist between the United States(US) to China, Brazil to China, the US to Japan, the US to Mexico, and Argentina to China. However, not all virtual-land flows necessarily result in land saving. Thus, more endeavors are needed to plan the virtual-land flows for a larger land saving at the global scale.     

基于InVEST生境质量模型与景观格局指数的山地植物多样性变化研究——以甘肃白龙江流域为例（英文）

Mountains in western China, hosted rich biodiversity and millions of people and inhabitant with vital ecosystem services, had experienced the most serious biodiversity loss with fragile ecological problems. Even though increasing attentions had been paid to this issue, we still lacked efficient methods to assess the change of plant biodiversity at medium/large scale due to the poor data and co-existing multiple habitat types. This study proposed an integrated method combining InVEST-habitat quality model, NPP and landscape pattern indexes to analyze the spatial heterogeneity of plant biodiversity and its spatiotemporal change on raster cell scale. The results indicated that plant biodiversity service was high in Bailongjiang watershed with obvious spatial pattern variations. The land area containing higher plant biodiversity were 3161 km2, which mainly distributed in the National Nature Reserve and forestry area. While the areas with lower plant biodiversity accounted for 37.67% and mainly distributed in the valleys between Zhouqu-Wudu-Wenxian County, the valley of Minjiang in Tanchang County and alpine mountain snow-covered regions. During 1990–2010, plant biodiversity level tended to increase and the higher plant biodiversity area increased from 14.13% to 17.15% due to ecological restoration and afforestation, while plant biodiversity decreased in the area with intensive human activities, such as cultivated land, urban and rural land. The results showed that combining InVEST-habitat quality model, NPP and landscape pattern indexes can effective reveal mountain plant biodiversity change. The study was useful for plant biodiversity conservation policy-making and human activity management for the disaster-impacted mountainous areas in China.     

通过气温和降水极值追踪中亚地区的气候变化（英文）

Under the impacts of climate change and human activities, great uncertainties still exist in the response of climate extremes, especially in Central Asia(CA). In this study, we investigated spatial-temporal variation trends and abrupt changes in 17 indices of climate extremes, based on daily climate observations from 55 meteorological stations in CA during 1957–2005. We also speculated as to which atmospheric circulation factors had the greatest impacts on climate extremes. Our results indicated that the annual mean temperature(Tav), mean maximum and minimum temperature significantly increased at a rate of 0.32℃/10 a, 0.24℃/10 a and 0.41℃/10 a, respectively, which was far higher than the increasing rates either globally or across the Northern Hemisphere. Other temperature extremes showed widespread significant warming trends, especially for those indices derived from daily minimum temperature. All temperature extremes exhibited spatially widespread rising trends. Compared to temperature changes, precipitation extremes showed higher spatial and temporal variabilities. The annual total precipitation significantly increased at a rate of 4.76 mm/10 a, and all precipitation extremes showed rising trends except for annual maximum consecutive dry days(CDD), which significantly decreased at a rate of –3.17 days/10 a. On the whole, precipitation extremes experienced slight wetter trends in the Tianshan Mountains, Kazakhskiy Melkosopochnik(Hill), the Kyzylkum Desert and most of Xinjiang. The results of Cumulative Deviation showed that Tav and Txav had a significant abrupt change around 1987, and all precipitation indices experienced abrupt changes in 1986. Spearman's correlation analysis pointed to Siberian High and Tibetan Plateau Index_B as possibly being the most important atmospheric circulation factors affecting climate extremes in CA. A full quantitative understanding of these changes is crucial for the management and mitigation of natural hazards in this region.     

东北地区未来气候变化对农业气候资源的影响（英文）

In this study, the spatial distribution and changing trends of agricultural heat and precipitation resources in Northeast China were analyzed to explore the impacts of future climate changes on agroclimatic resources in the region. This research is based on the output meteorological data from the regional climate model system for Northeast China from 2005 to 2099, under low and high radiative forcing scenarios RCP4.5(low emission scenario) and RCP8.5(high emission scenario) as proposed in IPCC AR5. Model outputs under the baseline scenario, and RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios were assimilated with observed data from 91 meteorological stations in Northeast China from 1961 to 2010 to perform the analyses. The results indicate that:(1) The spatial distribution of temperature decreases from south to north, and the temperature is projected to increase in all regions, especially under a high emission scenario. The average annual temperature under the baseline scenario is 7.70°C, and the average annual temperatures under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 are 9.67°C and 10.66°C, respectively. Other agricultural heat resources change in accordance with temperature changes. Specifically, the first day with temperatures ≥10°C arrives 3 to 4 d earlier, the first frost date is delayed by 2 to 6 d, and the duration of the growing season is lengthened by 4 to 10 d, and the accumulated temperature increases by 400 to 700°C·d. Water resources exhibit slight but not significant increases.(2) While the historical temperature increase rate is 0.35°C/10 a, the rate of future temperature increase is the highest under the RCP8.5 scenario at 0.48°C/10 a, compared to 0.19°C/10 a under the RCP4.5 scenario. In the later part of this century, the trend of temperature increase is significantly faster under the RCP8.5 scenario than under the RCP4.5 scenario, with faster increases in the northern region. Other agricultural heat resources exhibit similar trends as temperature, but with different specific spatial distributions. Precipitation in the growing season generally shows an increasing but insignificant trend in the future, with relatively large yearly fluctuations. Precipitation in the eastern region is projected to increase, while a decrease is expected in the western region. The future climate in Northeast China will change towards higher temperature and humidity. The heat resource will increase globally, however its disparity with the change in precipitation may negatively affect agricultural activities.     

气候变化和人类活动在沙漠化过程中相对作用评价综述(英文)

Climate change and human activities are the two kinds of driving forces in desertification,and assessing their relative role in desertification is of great significance to deeply understanding the driving mechanisms and preventing desertification expansion.This paper has systematically reviewed the progress of the researches on assessing the relative role of climate change and human activities in desertification from qualitative,semi-quantitative and quantitative aspects respectively.The authors found that there were still some problems in the previous researches.For example,the subjectivity in assessment was obvious,the assessment cannot be easily repeated,and the assessment and its results were always based on administrative regions and less taken and expressed in a continuous space.According to the progress of previous researches and the works conducted by the authors recently,we put forward a quantitative approach by selecting NPP as a common indicator to measure the relative role of climate change and human activities in desertification and dividing the ecological process of "driving force effect-dynamic response of desertified land" into several scenarios.Meanwhile,validation and scale of assessment should be taken into account when quantitative assessment of the relative role of climate change and human activities in desertification are carried out.     

未来情境下中国高温的人口暴露度变化及影响因素研究（英文）

Overall population exposure is measured by multiplying the annual average number of extremely hot days by the number of people exposed to the resultant heat. Extreme heat is also subdivided into high temperature(HT) and extremely high temperature(EHT) in cases where daily maximum temperature exceeds 35℃ and 40℃, respectively. Chinese population exposure to HT and EHT over four periods in the future(i.e., 2021–2040, 2041–2060, 2060–2081 and 2081–2100) were projected at the grid cell level in this study using daily maximum temperature based on an ensemble mean of 21 global climate models under the RCP8.5 scenario and with a population projection based on the A2 r socio-economic scenario. The relative importance of population and climate as drivers of population exposure was evaluated at different spatial scales including national and meteorological geographical divisions. Results show that, compared with population exposure seen during 1981–2010, the base period, exposure to HT in China is likely to increase by 1.3, 2.0, 3.6, and 5.9 times, respectively, over the four periods, while concomitant exposure to EHT is likely to increase by 2.0, 8.3, 24.2, and 82.7 times, respectively. Data show that population exposure to HT is likely to increase significantly in Jianghuai region, Southwest China and Jianghan region, in particular in North China, Huanghuai region, South China and Jiangnan region. Population exposure to EHT is also likely to increase significantly in Southwest China and Jianghan region, especially in North China, Huanghuai, Jiangnan, and Jianghuai regions. Results reveal that climate is the most important factor driving the level of population exposure in Huanghuai, Jianghuai, Jianghan, and Jiangnan regions, as well as in South and Southwest China, followed by the interactive effect between population and climate. Data show that the climatic factor is also most significant at the national level, followed by the interactive effect between population and climate. The rate of contribution of climate to national-level projected changes in exposure is likely to decrease gradually from ca. 70% to ca. 60%, while the rate of contribution of concurrent changes in both population and climate is likely to increase gradually from ca. 20% to ca. 40% over the four future periods in this analysis.     

中国2010-2015年土地利用变化的时空格局与新特征（英文）

Land use/cover change is an important theme on the impacts of human activities on the earth systems and global environmental change. National land-use changes of China during 2010–2015 were acquired by the digital interpretation method using the high-resolution remotely sensed images, e.g. the Landsat 8 OLI, GF-2 remote sensing images. The spatiotemporal characteristics of land-use changes across China during 2010–2015 were revealed by the indexes of dynamic degree model, annual land-use changes ratio etc. The results indicated that the built-up land increased by 24.6×10~3 km~2 while the cropland decreased by 4.9×10~3 km~2, and the total area of woodland and grassland decreased by 16.4×10~3 km~2. The spatial pattern of land-use changes in China during 2010–2015 was concordant with that of the period 2000–2010. Specially, new characteristics of land-use changes emerged in different regions of China in 2010–2015. The built-up land in eastern China expanded continually, and the total area of cropland decreased, both at decreasing rates. The rates of built-up land expansion and cropland shrinkage were accelerated in central China. The rates of built-up land expansion and cropland growth increased in western China, while the decreasing rate of woodland and grassland accelerated. In northeastern China, built-up land expansion slowed continually, and cropland area increased slightly accompanied by the conversions between paddy land and dry land. Besides, woodland and grassland area decreased in northeastern China. The characteristics of land-use changes in eastern China were essentially consistent with the spatial govern and control requirements of the optimal development zones and key development zones according to the Major Function-oriented Zones Planning implemented during the 12 th Five-Year Plan(2011–2015). It was a serious challenge for the central government of China to effectively protect the reasonable layout of land use types dominated with the key ecological function zones and agricultural production zones in centraland western China. Furthermore, the local governments should take effective measures to strengthen the management of territorial development in future.     

Lake evolution and its implication for environmental changes in China during 1950–2000

Lakes in China have undergone considerable environmental changes during the past 50 years, e.g. lake level, water area changes, as did in the past several thousands years. The enhanced human activities, such as land reclamation, application of chemical fertilizer, land use and cover, irrigation and industrialization in the catchment etc., have played an important role on the recent decades＇ changes of these lakes, although constrained to a great extent by the natural impact. Comparative study on variations of lake volume （water level, depth and area） in the eastern and western lake regions of China during 1950-2000 indicated that, lake volume in the eastern region had approximately undergone a two-stage change, i.e. a dramatic decrease from the 1950s to 1970s, and a continuous increase between the 1980s and 1990s; while, in the western region, lake volume had been decreasing nearly all the time. Further studies on some typical lakes concluded that, climatic change was a primary factor for the variations of lake volume during the past 50 years, although human activities showed important effect.     

环京津贫困带土地利用变化多情景模拟与景观格局动态变化——以河北省张家口市为例（英文）

Land use/cover change has been recognized as a key component in global change and has attracted increasing attention in recent decades. Scenario simulation of land use change is an important issue in the study of land use/cover change, and plays a key role in land use prediction and policy decision. Based on the remote sensing data of Landsat TM images in 1989, 2000 and 2010, scenario simulation and landscape pattern analysis of land use change driven by socio-economic development and ecological protection policies were reported in Zhangjiakou city, a representative area of the Poverty Belt around Beijing and Tianjin. Using a CLUE-S model, along with socio-economic and geographic data, the land use simulation of four scenarios–namely, land use planning scenario, natural development scenario, ecological-oriented scenario and farmland protection scenario–were explored according to the actual conditions of Zhangjiakou city, and the landscape pattern characteristics under different land use scenarios were analyzed. The results revealed the following:(1) Farmland, grassland, water body and unused land decreased significantly during 1989–2010, with a decrease of 11.09%, 2.82%, 18.20% and 31.27%, respectively, while garden land, forestland and construction land increased over the same period, with an increase of 5.71%, 20.91% and 38.54%, respectively. The change rate and intensity of land use improved in general from 1989 to 2010. The integrated dynamic degree of land use increased from 2.21% during 1989–2000 to 3.96% during 2000–2010.(2) Land use changed significantly throughout 1989–2010. The total area that underwent land use change was 4759.14 km2, accounting for 12.53% of the study area. Land use transformation was characterized by grassland to forestland, and by farmland to forestland and grassland.(3) Under the land use planning scenario, farmland, grassland, water body and unused land shrank significantly, while garden land, forestland and construction land increased. Under the natural development scenario, construction land and forestland increased in 2020 compared with 2010, while farmland and unused land decreased. Under the ecological-oriented scenario, forestland increased dra-matically, which mainly derived from farmland, grassland and unused land. Under the farmland protection scenario, farmland was well protected and stable, while construction land expansion was restricted.(4) The landscape patterns of the four scenarios in 2020, compared with those in 2010, were more reasonable. Under the land use planning scenario, the landscape pattern tended to be more optimized. The landscape became less fragmented and heterogeneous with the natural development scenarios. However, under the ecological-oriented scenario and farmland protection scenario, landscape was characterized by fragmentation, and spatial heterogeneity of landscape was significant. Spatial differences in landscape patterns in Zhangjiakou city also existed.(5) The spatial distribution of land use could be explained, to a large extent, by the driving factors, and the simulation results tallied with the local situations, which provided useful information for decision-makers and planners to take appropriate land management measures in the area. The application of the combined Markov model, CLUE-S model and landscape metrics in Zhangjiakou city suggests that this methodology has the capacity to reflect the complex changes in land use at a scale of 300 m×300 m and can serve as a useful tool for analyzing complex land use driving factors.     

中全新世黄河流域耕地格局重建及对原生植被的影响(英文)

Yangshao culture is the most important mid-Holocene Neolithic culture in the Yellow River catchment,and thus,a study on the impact of human activities on the environment is important.In the current study,the distribution pattern of the cultivated land in late Yangshao culture is reconstructed using GIS tool and site domain analysis(SDA).The results show that the cultivated land during 5.5-5.0 ka BP was mainly distributed in the Weihe River valley,Luohe River valley,northwestern Henan Plain,Fenhe River valley and eastern Gansu region,especially concentrated in the Xi’an-Baoji line of the Weihe River valley.At that time,at least 37,000 km 2 of lands were reclaimed in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River,and 132,000 km 2 of lands were affected by agricultural activities.Human activities had become the driving force of land use/land coverage.Charcoal records indicate that the ancestors of Yangshao culture burnt forests for reclamation,leading to the decrease of arbor pollen at 5 ka BP in core areas of the Yangshao culture.The areas that were significantly affected by human activities accounted for 3.2% of the Yangshao culture influenced area,while the moderately affected areas accounted for 20.1% of Yangshao culture influenced area.Meanwhile,92% of the land areas on the edge and outside of the Yangshao culture influenced area were not affected by human activities.The arbor pollen in these areas did not decrease until 4.0 ka BP.     

华北地下水超采区冬小麦退耕的生态补偿（英文）

The land fallow policy was adopted by central and local governments to encourage the abandonment of water-intensive crops, such as winter wheat, in groundwater over-exploited areas. At the same time, since the 1990 s, many households in the North China Plain(NCP) have chosen to replace the winter wheat and summer maize double-cropping system with the spring maize single-cropping system. Therefore, it is crucial to identify target land parcels for winter wheat abandonment and to design reasonable and proper standards for ecological compensation prior to the implementation of the land fallow policy in the NCP. In this study, multi-level logit models were used with household survey data in order to detect determinants across land parcel, household and village levels on household cropping system decisions; the opportunity costs for winter wheat abandonment were also calculated using cost–benefit analysis. The results show that:(1) land quality and irrigation condition at parcel level are two essential elements influencing household cropping system decisions. Nearly 70% of the total area of poor land and more than 90% of the total area of unirrigated land has suffered winter wheat abandonment. Target land parcels for the land fallow policy should be those that are irrigated and of high quality.(2) There were no significant differences between net profits from spring maize and summer maize under similar farming conditions, and the opportunity cost for winter wheat abandonment should be equal to the net profit of winter wheat.(3) The primary purpose of the land fallow policy is to induce groundwater recovery and restoration as a preliminary stage. A higher level of 350 yuan/mu is recommended as subsidy for ecological compensation at this stage. Later, the primary purpose of the policy should be a transition to a balance between exploitation and supplementation of water resources, and a lower level of 280 yuan/mu is recommended as a subsidy at this stage.     

Evaluating the reliability of global historical land use scenarios for forest data in China

Global historical land use scenarios are widely used to simulate the climatic and ecological effects of changes in land cover; however, reliability evaluation of these scenarios for data on China's forests is missing. By using a historical document-derived Chinese forest dataset(CHFD) for the years 1700–2000, we evaluated the reliability of data on forests in China over three global scenarios—SAGE(Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment), PJ(Pongratz Julia), and KK10(Kaplan and Krumhardt 2010)—through trend-related, quantitative, and spatial comparisons. The results show the following:(1) Although the area occupied by forests in China in the SAGE, PJ, KK10, and CHFD datasets decreased over the past 300 years, there were large differences between global scenarios and CHFD. The area occupied by forests in China in the SAGE scenario for 1700–1990 was 20%–40% more than that according to CHFD, and that occupied by forests in the KK10 from 1700 to 1850 was 32%–46% greater than that in CHFD. The difference between the PJ and CHFD was lower than 20% for most years.(2) Large differences were detected at the provincial and grid cell scales, where the PJ scenario was closer to CHFD in terms of total forested area. Provinces with large differences in terms of trend and quantity were 84% and 92% of all provinces, respectively. Grid cells with relative differences greater than 70% accounted for 60%–80% of all grids.(3) These global historical land use scenarios do not accurately reveal the spatiotemporal pattern of Chinese forests due to differences in the data sources, methods of reconstruction, and spatial scales.     

亚洲季风气候边缘区毛乌素沙地南部晚第四纪降水定量重建初探(英文)

We present the first quantitative estimation of monsoon precipitation during the late glacial–Holocene in the sandy land of northern China, based on organic carbon isotopic composition data from a loess-sand sequence at margin of the Mu Us sandy land. We use the relationship between monsoon precipitation and the carbon isotopic composition of modern soils as an analogue, with a minor modification, to reconstruct precipitation back to c. 47 ka ago. The preliminary results indicate that annual monsoon precipitation was high after 8 ka, with an average of 435 mm; and it decreased during 18 and 8 ka with a mean value of 194 mm. The precipitation value of 47-18 ka varied between the two. We compare the reconstructed precipitation with other records and paleoclimatic modeling results, showing that our record agrees with reconstructions of the monsoon precipitation from other sources, even capturing short climatic events such as the Younger Dryas. We suggest that solar irradiance, high-latitude temperature/ice volume and local evaporation have together modified moistures in the sandy land.