Damage and recovery of the Gurbantunggut Desert vegetation following engineering activities

The fragile ecological environment of the Gurbantunggut Desert is damaged/disturbed by human activities relating to the development of oil-gas resources and the constructions of desert road and great engineering in the Jungger Basin. It was mainly represented: soil compaction, vegetation cleaning, burial of vegetation, oil polluting, and soil disturbance. With investigation and experiment, we found that when the way and intensity of engineering activities disturbing the eco-environment does not make its ecological stability disintegrated, the desert vegetation has a capacity of natural recovery. To speed and strengthen the process of vegetation recovery efficient assistant measurements, including stabilizing mobile sands promptly and sowing seeds of shrub and herb plants in good time will be needed.     

Expansion and contraction of Chinese deserts during the Quaternary

Episodic dune formations during the Quaternary are found in many deserts of China. The causes of desert expansions on different time scales are not the same. Desert extension at about 1.1 and 0.9 Ma ago were the response to the active tectonic movements, whereas the desert evolutions on the ten-thousand years time scale were the response to the orbital scale climatic changes. Spatial scale studies on desert evolution indicate that desert margins shifted greatly during the last glacial maximum (LGM) and the Holocene optimum, its changing from 125°E of the LGM to 105°E of the climatic optimum. Historical desertification in the semiarid China is not a response to climate drought but largely associated with the human impacts (mainly over-cultivation) since about 2300 years ago, which leads to the reworking of the underlying LGM sands.     

Utilization of water resources,ecological balance and land desertification in the Tarim Basin,Xinjiang

Because of the human exploitation and utilization of water resources in the Tarim Basin, the water resources consumption has changed from mainly natural ecosystem to artificial oasis ecosystem, and the environment has changed correspondingly. The basic changes are: desertification and oasis development coexist, both “the human being advance and the desert retreat” and “the desert advance and the human being retreat” coexist, but the latter is dominant. In the upper reaches, water volume drawing to irrigated agricultural areas has increased, artificial oases have been enlarging and moving from the deltas in the lower reaches of many rivers to the piedmont plains. In the middle and lower reaches of the Tarim River, the stream flow has decreased, old oases have declined, natural vegetations have been degenerating, desertification has been enlarging, and the environment has deteriorated. The transition regions, which consist of forestlands, grasslands and waters between the desert and the oases, have been decreasing continuously, their shelter function to the oases has been weakened, and the desert is threatening the oases seriously.     

Getting ‘holistic’ about land rehabilitation in hot arid regions

The paper describes Western Australian examples and causes of land degradation. It outlines shortcomings in the methodologies used to rehabilitate these areas. From this a protocol is suggested for an ‘holistic’ approach to land rehabilitation.     

地震前兆时空非均匀性指标Cv值的实验检验

在双向加载条件下，对两种构造和介质不同的岩石标本进行变形实验，测量了标本表面不同部位的应变．在此基础上，利用王晓青和陈学忠等提出的描述地震前兆非均匀分布的参量————Cv值，分析了标本变形失稳过程中应变异常的分布，以期从实验角度检验Cv值方法并探讨其物理意义．研究表明，Cv值的变化与岩石变形特征的变化有关，是描述前兆分布非均匀性的一种有效指标；Cv值在失稳发生前先异常上升，然后下降，并在Cv值恢复过程中或恢复后伴随着失稳事件的发生．因此，Cv值是一种有效的预报指标．      

Focal Fault of the 1999 Datong Ms5.6 Earthquake in Shanxi Province

Several earthquakes with Ms≥5.0 occurred in the Datong seismic region in 1989,1991 and 1999,The precise focus location of the earthquake sequence was made by the records of the remote sensing seismic station network in Datong.Using that data together with macro-intensity distribution and focal mechanism solutions,we analyze the difference among three subsequences.The results show that the focal fault of the 1999 Ms 5.6 earthquake was a NWW-trending left-lateral strike-slip fault.It is 16km long and 12km wide.It developed at the depth of 5km and is nearly vertical in dip.The two previous earthquake subsequences,however,were generated by activity along NNE-trending right-lateral strike-slip fault.It can be found that the rupture directioin of the 1999 earthquake has changed.It is generally found that a rupture zone has more than two directions and has different strength along these two directions.The complicate degree of focal circumstance is related to the type of earthquake sequences.There is the NE-trending Dawangcun fault and the NW-trending Tuanbu fault in the seismic region,but no proof indicates a connection between focal faults and these two tectonic faults.The feature that focal faults of three subsequences are strike-slip is different from that of the two tectonic faults.It is suggested that the 1999 earthquake subsequence was possibly generated by a new rupture.     

On crustal movement in Mt. Qomolangma area

Mt. Qomolangma lies in the collision zone between the fringe of Eurasia plate and Indian plate. The crustal movement there is still very active so far. In the past three decades China carried out five geodetic campaigns in Mt. Qomolangma and its north vicinal area, independently or cooperatively with other countries, including triangulation, leveling, GPS positioning, atmospheric, astronomical and gravity measurements. On the basis of the observation results achieved in the campaigns the crustal movements in the area were studied and explored. A non-stationary phenomenon both in time and space of the crustal vertical movement in the area is found. There seems to be some relevance between the phenomenon of non-stationary in time and seismic episode in China. The phenomenon of non-stationary in space is possibly relevant to the no-homo- geneity of crustal medium and non-uniform absorption of terrestrial stress. The horizontal crustal movement in the area is in the direction of NEE at a speed of 6–7 cm per year, and the trend of strike slip movement is manifested evidently in the collision fringe of Indian plate and Qinghai-Xizang block.     

阿拉尔灌区棉田蒸散量计算模型

根据2000年阿克苏水平衡站有底测坑试验资料，分析了土壤水分有效性函数与土壤相对有效含水率，作物生物学特性函数，与群体叶面积指数的关系，结果表明：（1）土壤水分有效性函数与土壤相对有效含水率呈直线函数关系；（2）作物生物学特性函数与群体叶面积指数呈指数函数关系。选用20cm蒸发器水面蒸发量、作物生物学特性函数和土壤水分有效性函数，应用数理统计方法建立了阿拉尔灌区棉田蒸散量计算模型。该模式仅需常规气象与土壤湿度资料，计算简便，精度较高，便于在缺乏实测资料的地区使用。