Assessment of changes in the area of the water conservation forest in the Qilian Mountains of China’s Gansu province, and the effects on water conservation

The Qilian Mountains water conservation forest in Gansu province is an important ecological barrier surrounding the oasis in China’s Hexi Corridor. The water they provide is the basis for the existence and sustainable socioeconomic development of those oases. As a result of unsustainable use of the water conservation forest until the 1980s, the oasis ecosystems of the Hexi region were seriously damaged, and the oasis areas experienced deterioration of their ecological environment. In this paper, Landsat images were used to monitor the temporal and spatial changes in area of water conservation in Qilian Mountains of China’s Gansu province and to assess the effect on water conservation by analyzed relationship between water conservation forest area, climatic data and hydrological data. The results showed that the forest covered 15.1% of the study area in 2007 and has followed different trends during the study period. From 1978 to 1990, the forest area decreased; however, from 1990 to 2007, the forest area increased, with a faster rate of increase from 1990 to 2000, and the rate of increase averaged 2,733.89 ha per year since 1990. The water conservation forest appears to play an important role in flood control, runoff regulation, the prevention of soil erosion, and water conservation; and these benefits increase with an increasing area of forest.     

Effect of a native forest canopy on rainfall chemistry in China’s Qinling Mountains

This study investigated the effect of a pine/oak forest canopy on rainfall chemistry in the Qinling Mountains. The area is an important water source for China’s North-to-South Water Transfer Project. Rainfall and throughfall samples were collected at the Huoditang Natural Forest in 1999, 2004, and 2009. Analyses of the samples indicated that the forest canopy had several important effects on rainfall chemistry. Rainfall pH generally increased as water passed through the canopy. On average, the rainfall pH increased by 0.54 pH units. The canopy’s effect declined after deciduous trees lost their leaves late in the sampling season. Rainfall NO₃ ^? concentrations generally declined as water passed through the forest canopy, but PO₄ ^3? concentrations generally increased. On average, rainfall NO₃ ^? concentration declined by 0.135 mg/L as it passed though the forest canopy and PO₄ ^3? increased by 0.85 mg/L. The forest canopy had a mitigating effect on the base cation content of throughfall. Specifically, K⁺, Na⁺, Ca²⁺ and Mg²⁺ were leached from the canopy when the concentration of these cations in rainfall was low. In contrast, K⁺, Na⁺, Ca²⁺ and Mg²⁺ were absorbed by the canopy when the concentration of these cations in rainfall was high. The pH of rainfall, as well as its K⁺, Ca²⁺ and Mg⁺ concentration, influenced the effect of the forest canopy on the base cation content of throughfall. The concentration of Cd, Pb, and Zn in rainfall generally decreased as water passed through the forest canopy, but the concentration of Fe in rainfall generally increased. The Cd concentration decreased by an average of 3.938 μg/L, the Pb concentration decreased by an average of 8.457 μg/L, and the Zn concentration decreased by an average of 0.986 mg/L. The Fe concentration increased by an average of 0.009 mg/L. The canopy’s ability to absorb Cd declined after several rainfall events in which rainfall Cd concentrations were relatively high.     

Neighbourhood redevelopment and the making of a housing middle class: Can gentrification explain China’s spatial and social changes?

GeoJournal - This paper addresses the relationship between spatial change and social process in China. Studies in Anglo-American and European cities usually suggest middle classes move into a...     

Steel Scrap’s Discovery and Utilization: Based on China

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Investment’s rituals: “Grassroots” extractivism and the making of an indigenous gold mine in the Peruvian Andes

What happens when an Andean family finds gold on its land? As mining corporations rapidly claim surrounding properties on rugged terrain near Mount Mismi, a water-supplying deity overlooking Peru’s Colca Valley, the Flores family is springing into action to beat the Buenaventura mining company to the gold that might be hidden within. The global land rush has been pronounced in Peru, whose mineral resources have largely been responsible for rapid economic growth but whose profits remain restricted to a relative few. The Flores family, many of its members underemployed, are engaged in a costly race against time to constitute themselves as an enterprise, rent equipment, formalize their title, and fulfill other rituals necessary for legitimating their own effort to access what they see as their small share of Peru’s mineral wealth, against the specter of state subsoil rights and corporate power. They are simultaneously racing to seek the land’s permission, via rituals like the pago a la tierra (offering to the earth) and the provision of spiritually infused chicha (fermented maize and barley). Through an ethnographic focus on the exemplary case of the Flores property and the diverse rituals essential to extracting its prosperity, this article asks how the Peruvian state’s categories of legitimate land use articulate with a perspective acknowledging land as a powerful non-human agent with its own requirements for becoming investable. I argue that beyond a simple dichotomy between official and indigenous rituals of legitimation, the Flores’ urgent race to render land investable puts multivalent ontologies and ethics to work together. In doing so, I further argue, family members draw on years of engagement with development projects and non-governmental organizations focused on promoting explicitly indigenous entrepreneurship. They are thus forging new interpretations of identity-based empowerment that complicate any stereotypical relationship between environmental sustainability and indigeneity.     

Borders on the move: Cross-strait tourists’ material moments on ‘the other side’ in the midst of rapprochement between China and Taiwan

This paper forms part of an endeavour to elicit the cultural-geo-politics of rapprochement tourism between China and Taiwan from a grounded approach. It seeks to examine cross-strait tourists’ travel experiences on ‘the other side’ through the lens of ‘border’, ‘materiality’ and ‘identity’ in an attempt to move beyond the often state-centric analyses of cross-strait ties. Discussion shows that travel documents that are close to the personal or those that are part and parcel of a touring experience are far from inert; they participate in the social and political lives of their owners, feature in bordering practices between the Chinese and the Taiwanese, and are often platforms through which identities are performed. Importantly too, as the various travel narratives reveal, the ubiquitous border certainly does not exist only in its physical form; imagined and perceived social borders are equally potent in (re)shaping cross-strait relations. A study that captures the often neglected field of comparative tourists’ travel experiences is timely in the advent of a warming relationship between China and Taiwan and the unprecedented increase in tourism exchanges that ensues.     

Informality and the state’s ambivalence in the regulation of street vending in transforming Guangzhou,China

Street vending faces uncertain state responses in contemporary Chinese cities, though it plays an important role in sustaining the livelihood of urban migrants. Building on the critical perspective that understands informality as a production of the state, this paper explores the nature of the regulation of street vending in Guangzhou since 1949. The state’s regulatory practices are characterized by what we call historical ambivalence and geographical ambivalence, which refer to the inconsistency in policies, which fluctuate between soft and hard approaches over time, and the mix of contradictory regulatory measures applied in different urban spaces, respectively. Ambivalence is generated because the state addresses street vending in ways that attain the overarching objective of urban policies. In particular, the exclusion of street vendors in present-day China is not historically natural but driven and sustained by the government’s pursuit of a good city image favorable for attracting capital in the context of intensifying inter-urban competition. The definition of informality is not a neutral classification. Rather, declaring when and to what extent an informal practice is tolerable depends on what the state desires in a specific historical circumstance.     

Development and Utilization of the World’s and China’s Bulk Mineral Resources and their Supply and Demand Situation in the Next Twenty Years

Bulk mineral resources of iron ores, copper ores, bauxite, lead ores, zinc ores and potassium salt play a pivotal role on the world’s and China’s economic development. This study analyzed and predicted their resources base and potential, development and utilization and their world’s and China’s supply and demand situation in the future 20 years. The supply and demand of these six bulk mineral products are generally balanced, with a slight surplus, which will guarantee the stability of the international mineral commodity market supply. The six mineral resources(especially iron ores and copper ores) are abundant and have a great potential, and their development and utilization scale will gradually increase. Till the end of 2014, the reserveproduction ratio of iron, copper, bauxite, lead, zinc ores and potassium salt was 95 years, 42 years, 100 years, 17 years, 37 years and 170 years, respectively. Except lead ores, the other five types all have reserve-production ratio exceeding 20 years, indicative of a high resources guarantee degree. If the utilization of recycled metals is counted in, the supply of the world’s six mineral products will exceed the demand in the future twenty years. In 2015–2035, the supply of iron ores, refined copper, primary aluminum, refined lead, zinc and potassium salt will exceed their demand by 0.4–0.7 billion tons(Gt), 5.0–6.0 million tons(Mt), 1.1–8.9 Mt, 1.0–2.0 Mt, 1.2–2.0 Mt and 4.8–5.6 Mt, respectively. It is predicted that there is no problem with the supply side of bulk mineral products such as iron ores, but local or structural shortage may occur because of geopolitics, monopoly control, resources nationalism and trade friction. Affected by China’s compressed industrialized development model, the demand of iron ores(crude steel), potassium salt, refined lead, refined copper, bauxite(primary aluminum) and zinc will gradually reach their peak in advance. The demand peak of iron ores(crude steel) will reach around 2015, 2016 for potassium salt, 2020 for refined lead, 2021 for bauxite(primary aluminum), 2022 for refined copper and 2023 for zinc. China’s demand for iron ores(crude steel), bauxite(primary aluminum) and zinc in the future 20 years will decline among the world’s demand, while that for refined copper, refined lead and potassium salt will slightly increase. The demand for bulk mineral products still remains high. In 2015–2035, China’s accumulative demand for iron ores(crude steel) will be 20.313 Gt(13.429 Gt), 0.304 Gt for refined copper, 2.466 Gt(0.616 Gt) of bauxite(primary aluminum), 0.102 Gt of refined lead, 0.138 Gt of zinc and 0.157 Gt of potassium salt, and they account for the world’s YOY(YOY) accumulative demand of 35.17%, 51.09%, 48.47%, 46.62%, 43.95% and 21.84%, respectively. This proportion is 49.40%, 102.52%, 87.44%, 105.65%, 93.62% and 106.49% of that in 2014, respectively. From the supply side of China’s bulk mineral resources, it is forecasted that the accumulative supply of primary(mine) mineral products in 2015–2035 is 4.046 Gt of iron ores, 0.591 Gt of copper,1.129 Gt of bauxite, 63.661 Mt of(mine) lead, 0.109 Gt of(mine) zinc and 0.128 Gt of potassium salt, which accounts for 8.82%, 13.92%, 26.67%, 47.09%, 33.04% and 15.56% of the world’s predicted YOY production, respectively. With the rapid increase in the smelting capacity of iron and steel and alumina, the rate of capacity utilization for crude steel, refined copper, alumina, primary aluminum and refined lead in 2014 was 72.13%, 83.63%, 74.45%, 70.76% and 72.22%, respectively. During 2000–2014, the rate of capacity utilization for China’s crude steel and refined copper showed a generally fluctuating decrease, which leads to an insufficient supply of primary mineral products. It is forecasted that the supply insufficiency of iron ores in 2015–2035 is 17.44 Gt, 0.245 Gt of copper in copper concentrates, 1.337 Gt of bauxite, 38.44 Mt of lead in lead concentrates and 29.19 Mt of zinc in zinc concentrates. China has gradually raised the utilization of recycled metals, which has mitigated the insufficient supply of primary metal products to some extent. It is forecasted that in 2015–2035 the accumulative utilization amount of steel scrap(iron ores) is 3.27 Gt(5.08 Gt), 70.312 Mt of recycled copper, 0.2 Gt of recycled aluminum, 48 Mt of recycled lead and 7.7 Mt of recycled zinc. The analysis on the supply and demand situation of China’s bulk mineral resources in 2015–2035 suggests that the supply-demand contradiction for these six types of mineral products will decrease, indicative of a generally declining external dependency. If the use of recycled metal amount is counted in, the external dependency of China’s iron, copper, bauxite, lead, zinc and potassium salt will be 79%, 65%, 26%, 8%, 16% and 18% in 2014, respectively. It is predicted that this external dependency will decrease to 62%, 64%, 20%,-0.93%, 16% and 14% in 2020, respectively, showing an overall decreasing trend. We propose the following suggestions correspondingly.(1) The demand peak of China’s crude steel and potassium salt will reach during 2015–2023 in succession. Mining transformation should be planned and deployed in advance to deal with the arrival of this demand peak.(2) The supply-demand contradiction of China’s bulk mineral resources will mitigate in the future 20 years, and the external dependency will decrease accordingly. It is suggested to adjust the mineral resources management policies according to different minerals and regions, and regulate the exploration and development activities.(3) China should further establish and improve the forced mechanism of resolving the smelting overcapacity of steel, refined copper, primary aluminum, lead and zinc to really achieve the goal of "reducing excess production capacity".(4) In accordance with the national strategic deployment of "One Belt One Road", China should encourage the excess capacity of steel, copper, alumina and primary aluminum enterprises to transfer to those countries or areas with abundant resources, high energy matching degree and relatively excellent infrastructure. Based on the national conditions, mining condition and geopolitics of the resources countries, we will gradually build steel, copper, aluminum and lead-zinc smelting bases, and potash processing and production bases, which will promote the excess capacity to transfer to the overseas orderly.(5) It is proposed to strengthen the planning and management of renewable resources recycling and to construct industrial base of renewable metal recycling.(6) China should promote the comprehensive development and utilization of paragenetic and associated mineral species to further improve the comprehensive utilization of bulk mineral resources.     

Salts in the clay playas of China’s arid regions: gone with the wind

In China’s arid regions, aeolian salts are transported along with dust aerosols, but their contents and the emission rates are poorly understood. Using samples with undisturbed surfaces and artificially disrupted surfaces (to simulate human disturbances such as reclamation, planting, trampling by animals, and other activities), the transport rates for windblown material and the salt contents of clay playa surfaces were investigated in a wind tunnel. The results showed that under wind velocities ranging from 8 to 22 m/s, wind erosion rates ranged between 0.009 and 0.066 g/m²/s for the undisturbed surfaces and between 0.011 and 0.048 g/m²/s for the artificially disrupted playa surfaces. Although the amount of wind-transported material that was captured was too small to allow an analysis of individual salt contents using the available equipment, electrical conductivity measurements and correlation analysis revealed mean total salt contents of 9.59 g/kg in the transported materials collected above the sealed playa surfaces versus 3.38 g/kg in materials from the same surfaces that were artificially cracked after testing the sealed surfaces. Given the large areas containing clay playas in China’s arid regions, these results will improve our understanding of aeolian salt transport in arid China and will facilitate interpretation of the sources of aeolian salts.     

Distribution and Collection of China’s Dinosaurs

<正>It is estimated that the world has discovered more than1000 species and 800 genera of dinosaurs.Chinese scientists have named more than 170 species of dinosaurs,with 17 genera and 44 species of dinosaur egg fossils,35genera and 39 species of dinosaur footprints,since their first discovery in China in 1902.China has dinosaur occurrences from the Upper Triassic to the Upper     

Distribution Characteristics of Sulfur and the Main Harmful Trace Elements in China’s Coal

To promote the rational development and use of clean coal resources in China, data on the regional and age distribution of sulfur, arsenic and other harmful elements in Chinese coal was broadly collected, tested for content, and analyzed. Coal in northwestern China is characterized by low to extremely low levels of sulfur; the coal of the Taiyuan Formation in northern China mainly has high-sulfur content; that of the Shanxi Formation is mainly characterized by low sulfur coal; and the Late Permian coal in southern China has overall higher sulfur content; other regions have low sulfur coal. The average content of harmful trace elements in the bulk of China＇s coal is similar to the corresponding content in the coal of the North America and the rest of the world, whereas the content of various elements （Hg, Sb and Se） is different in magnitude to the corresponding percentage in the crust. The average content of the elements Cr, Se, Co, Be, U, Br in Late Permian coal in S China ranks first in the country whereas the average content of Hg and CI in the coals of Late Carboniferous to Early Permian age in N China are the highest. The average content of Mn in Early and Middle Jurassic coal is higher in NW China. The high content of harmful elements in some coal should cause particular concern both in the development and utilization of coal.     

Study on temporal and spatial evolution of China’s oil supply and consumption

To begin with, energy flow chart is used to analyze the status of China’s oil supply and consumption. Moreover, the temporal and spatial evolution of the oil production and oil products consumption in China is studied based on the gravity model. Finally, the decoupling index combined with the log mean Divisia index method is used to explore the contribution of the factors which influence terminal oil product consumption in China over the period 1991–2010. This paper draws the following results: (1) China’s net oil import dependency soared from 7.5 % in 1993 to 58.63 % in 2010. (2) The center of gravity for crude oil production and oil products consumption is an overall movement toward the southwest. (3) The economic activity effect is the critical factor in the growth of oil products consumption in China. However, industrial energy intensity effect plays the dominant role in decreasing oil products consumption. (4) The value of the decoupling index represented a re-coupling effect in 1996–1997 and 2003–2004. The other time interval showed weak decoupling effect.     

Origin and recharge estimates of groundwater in the ordos plateau,People’s Republic of China

Groundwater is a valuable resource in the semiarid Ordos Plateau region where abundant mineral resources, such as coal, natural gas, and halite, are present. With resources development, groundwater demand will increase dramatically. The origin identification and recharge estimates of groundwater are significant components of sustainable groundwater development in the Ordos Plateau. Groundwater and precipitation samples were taken and the isotopic compositions δ²H, δ¹⁸O, and chloride were analyzed to identify groundwater origins and to estimate recharge rates. The δ²H and δ¹⁸O of the groundwater show that the groundwater recharge is of meteoric origin. The chloride mass balance (CMB) method was used to quantify recharge rates of groundwater in the Ordos Plateau, which varies from 2.93 to 22.11% of the effective annual rainfall. Recharge rates estimated by CMB were compared with values obtained from other methods and were found to be in good agreement. This study can be used to develop effective programs for groundwater management and development.     

The governance and evolution of local production networks in a cluster: the case of Taiwan’s machine tool industry

The competitive advantages of spatially concentrated and networked production systems, in terms of flexibility and adaptivity, have been well documented. This paper contributes to this literature by improving our understanding regarding the underlying mechanisms behind the governance and evolution of such a production system. By using the case of Taiwan’s machine tool (MT) industry, this paper demonstrates how lead firms depend on their relational capabilities or relation-building skills, nurtured greatly by cluster embeddedness, to effectively govern their suppliers in the production networks. While the production systems constantly evolve, this paper also discusses the ongoing reconfiguration of Taiwan’s MT production networks stimulated by lead firms’ efforts to tackle the cluster’s emerging diseconomies so as to sustain their competitiveness. This paper concludes that a cure to deal with the cluster’s diseconomies would be the reinforcement of industrial clustering.     

Toward vegetal political ecology: Kyrgyzstan’s walnut–fruit forest and the politics of graftability

As part of their long-running project to get beyond the nature–culture dualism, political ecologists have increasingly explored the active contributions of nonhumans to environmental politics. Upon decentering humans, however, too often posthumanist political ecologies have recentered humans and animals, indexing the enlarged category of “political actor” to narrowly shared traits like mobility or intentionality. Among other consequences, this tendency in political ecology’s posthumanism leaves the political agency of plants largely neglected. Political ecology suffers from this neglect, but the field can benefit from an integration of the insights of vegetal politics, a literature that traces the consequences of plant capabilities in more-than-human geographies. In this article, I model this integration—a vegetal political ecology—by examining human–plant partnerships in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan's walnut–fruit forest, an ecosystem distinguished by the number of its trees that can be modified by horticultural techniques like grafting. I argue that the forest’s “graftability” incrementally undermines two different hierarchies, one typifying people–plant relationships and another that characterizes state-centered regimes of post-Soviet forest governance. Graftability thus allows Kyrgyzstani villagers and trees to act with more autonomy than they otherwise would. This antihierarchical effect is a small biological determinism conferred by the capacities of the graftable tree, and it has political consequences. Vegetal political ecology aims to similarly connect plant performances to their broader political effects; by doing so, it can help political ecologists escape the residual humanism that still characterizes their efforts at posthumanism and better illuminate the political possibilities of partnering with plants.     

Internet spaces and the (re)making of democratic politics: the case of Singapore’s 2011 General Election

The 2011 Singapore General Election (GE2011) has often been hailed as an ‘Internet Election’, highlighting the role of networked technologies in enabling democratization practices/processes for the unprecedented consolidation of oppositional politics in the city-state. Building on theorizations that broach the interface between social media and digital democracy, this paper critically examines Singaporeans’ myriad engagements with the internet during GE2011 in order to tease out the constructions of social and political debates within these online communities and the extent to which they facilitate democratic discussions. These computer-mediated colliding and emerging of perspectives related to Singapore’s (electoral) politics can in turn set the scene for the (re)production and negotiations of the multifarious meanings of democracy in place. Hence, in addressing these research inquiries, this paper goes beyond GE2011 to reflect on the ways in which web technologies and social media can make a difference to political debates, deliberation and representation in societies where there are limited public avenues for citizenry to articulate their voices/concerns. It also enables documentation of ordinary people’s aspirations and hopes for political change and the sort of democracy they want to see progressively initiated in the Singaporean society.     

Status of China’s Geological Survey and Geological Environments in 2013

正With the approach of the 45th World Earth Day,China’s Ministry of Land and Resources issued the status of the Chinese geological survey and environments on 22nd April 2013.Regional geological survey in 2013 achieved new results—(why was oceanic in twice?)polar and oceanic expedition were fully completed,a national census of geography was begun,and