Groundwater Sustainability in Arid and Semi-arid Environments: A Review2

Groundwater is an important part of the global hydrological cycle. Sustainable utilization of groundwater is related to regional ecological security and food security, especially in arid and semi-arid environments. This paper reviewed the important achievements of the research on groundwater sustainability in arid and semi-arid environments during the past 30 years, and summarized the research progress in groundwater sustainability of arid and semi-arid environments from the conception evolution of groundwater sustainability, evaluation methods, influencing factors, sustainable management, and research frontiers. Our analysis suggests that groundwater in water limited environments around the world has shown unsustainable characteristics both in terms of quantity and quality. However, the existing research focuses more on the quantitative characteristics than the quality characteristics of groundwater, and thus the seriousness of the decline in groundwater sustainability is potentially underestimated. It is pointed out that more research efforts need to be done in the future in balancing the groundwater resources for human and nature, clarifying the impacts of human disturbance and climate change on groundwater sustainability, and strengthening groundwater sustainability through transboundary watershed management. We argued that the difficulty remains how to quantify the sustainable yield of a groundwater basin, and how to assess the groundwater sustainability. Further investigations are required in improving the theoretical framework of groundwater sustainability, modeling the impacts of the various alternative groundwater development scenarios, developing more flexible and efficient indicator frameworks for sustainability evaluation of groundwater system, and deploying more sophisticated groundwater monitoring network for real-time data acquisition. Finally, awareness should also be raised towards ground water sustainability both at the legal level and in the sphere of political action.     

Mapping global land system archetypes

Land use is a key driver of global environmental change. Unless major shifts in consumptive behaviours occur, land-based production will have to increase drastically to meet future demands for food and other commodities. One approach to better understand the drivers and impacts of agricultural intensification is the identification of global, archetypical patterns of land systems. Current approaches focus on broad-scale representations of dominant land cover with limited consideration of land-use intensity. In this study, we derived a new global representation of land systems based on more than 30 high-resolution datasets on land-use intensity, environmental conditions and socioeconomic indicators. Using a self-organizing map algorithm, we identified and mapped twelve archetypes of land systems for the year 2005. Our analysis reveals similarities in land systems across the globe but the diverse pattern at sub-national scales implies that there are no ‘one-size-fits-all’ solutions to sustainable land management. Our results help to identify generic patterns of land pressures and environmental threats and provide means to target regionalized strategies to cope with the challenges of global change. Mapping global archetypes of land systems represents a first step towards better understanding the global patterns of human–environment interactions and the environmental and social outcomes of land system dynamics.     

西北欧全新世中期的Elm Decline研究新进展

在５０００ａ ＢＰ西北欧发生的Ｅｌｍ Ｄｅｃｌｉｎｅ，是全新世突发性环境事件或灾变过程的表现。它在６０年来一直是欧洲环境变迁，考古和＾１４Ｃ年代学界关心的热点论题，对其研究进展作了系统的评述，以了解其研究现状，促进我国全新世环境变迁和人地关系演变科学研究。     

黄河水沙变化趋势及成因分析

自2000年以来,黄河中上游河道非汛期出现变清趋势,黄河呈现"枯水枯沙"的新水沙特征。本文依据黄河干、支流24个主要水文控制站1950-2016年实测水沙资料,采用数理统计法和趋势分析法,分析了60多年来黄河干、支流水沙变化趋势及其影响因素。结果表明:(1) 1950-2016年黄河干、支流各站年均径流量、年均输沙量和年均含沙量随时间总体呈减小趋势,其中2000-2016年(Ⅲ时段)各站年均输沙量和年均含沙量降幅最大。(2) 1950-2016年黄河中游流域干、支流各站年均中数粒径随时间呈减小趋势,黄河水沙状况枯丰期差异显著,但随时间呈减弱趋势。(3)黄河水沙变化是自然因素和人类活动综合作用的结果,近年来黄河中游河道变清是泥沙锐减造成的,其中水保措施、水库工程、河道采砂及流域调水调沙引水引沙是主因,且人类活动影响的比重逐渐增大。     

人类活动与海河平原水资源关系研究

海河平原是华北地区的主要平原。随着山前拦蓄地表水工程的实施,地下水资源已成为该地区的主要供水水源,在开采量增加和气候变化的影响下,水资源问题制约着该地区的发展。特别是近些年来降水量减少、气温呈上升趋势,使本来就少的水资源更削弱了补给资源。通过对降水、蒸发、地表径流、地下水流场变化、地下水资源的系列变化性分析,认为降水量减少、气温升高而引起的蒸散发量增大,人类治水工程和开采地下水等因素是造成本地区水资源减少的重要条件。     

耦合魔方——一个分析人地系统耦合机理的多维框架

Understanding the interactions between humans and nature in the Anthropocene is central to the quest for both human wellbeing and global sustainability.However,the time-space compression,long range interactions,and reconstruction of socio-economic structures at the global scale all pose great challenges to the traditional analytical frameworks of human-nature systems.In this paper,we extend the connotation of coupled human and natural systems(CHANS)and their four dimensions—space,time,appearance,and organization,and propose a novel framework:“Coupled Human and Natural Cube”(CHNC)to explain the coupling mechanism between humans and the natural environment.Our proposition is inspired by theories based on the human-earth areal system,telecoupling framework,planetary urbanization,and perspectives from complexity science.We systematically introduce the concept,connotation,evolution rules,and analytical dimensions of the CHNC.Notably there exist various“coupling lines”in the CHNC,connecting different systems and elements at multiple scales and forming a large,nested,interconnected,organic system.The rotation of the CHNC represents spatiotemporal nonlinear fluctuations in CHANS in different regions.As a system continually exchanges energy with the environment,a critical phase transition occurs when fluctuations reach a certain threshold,leading to emergent behavior of the system.The CHNC has four dimensions—pericoupling and telecoupling,syncoupling and lagcoupling,apparent coupling and hidden coupling,and intra-organization coupling and inter-organizational coupling.We mainly focus on the theoretical connotation,research methods,and typical cases of telecoupling,lagcoupling,hidden coupling,and inter-organizational coupling,and put forward a human-nature coupling matrix to integrate multiple dimensions.In summary,the CHNC provides a more comprehensive and systematic research paradigm for understanding the evolution and coupling mechanism of the human-nature system,which expands the analytical dimension of CHANS.The CHNC also provides a theoretical support for formulating regional,sustainable development policies for human wellbeing.     

Response of small mid-mountain rivers to human impact with particular reference to the last 200 years; Eastern Sudetes, Central Europe

In the mid-mountains of Central Europe relict forms of periglacial morphogenesis occur, including debris slope covers. However, the Holocene forest succession limited sediment transfer towards valley systems.The eastern, mid-mountain part of the Sudetes, characterised by a dense stream network and by the local occurrence of metallic and gold ores, was already settled by humans in early medieval times. Timber from the forested slopes was used to produce charcoal and streams acted as energy sources for smelting plants and smithies. Agriculture developed on less inclined slopes. Temporal clearances on steep slopes and replacement of primeval beech forest by spruce trees, influenced water circulation on slopes. The exposed slope covers were transferred to valley floors during high precipitation events. Consequently, they were selectively redeposited within the floodplain, changing the former channel pattern, especially at confluences. The introduction of cultivation on slopes triggered intense soil erosion so that agricultural terraces were built in order to prevent surface wash. The terraces are often strengthened with stone walls up to 4.5 m high. Terraces acted as ‘sediment traps’, storing the washed material within the slope. The layers of fine-grained colluvial sediments, which can be linked with agriculture, cover the older, debris slope covers. The colluvium is especially thick at the terrace edges. Despite the protective role of terracing, part of the washed material was transferred to valleys, often becoming overbank deposits, covering older gravel and boulder alluvium. The decline of iron ore exploitation and processing, at the beginning of the 19th century, together with agricultural withdrawal, which was especially radical after the 2nd World War, resulted in successive renaturalisation of the environment being followed by slope stabilisation and deepening of bigger river channels.The results led to the conclusion that a strong human impact on the slope–valley system in the mid-mountain part of the Eastern Sudetes influenced changes in the dynamics and morphology of small rivers to a much higher extent than the climate variations, especially during the Little Ice Age.     

人类干扰对洪泽湖湿地植被分布格局的影响

洪泽湖具有防洪、调蓄、灌溉、水产、航运、发电等多个功能,人类干扰对洪泽湖湿地植被的影响对湿地管理具有重要意义。分析了人工水位调控、渔业生产及水质恶化等人类干扰对湿地植被分布格局的影响。结果表明:在长期且密集的人类干扰下,洪泽湖水位表现出春低、夏高、秋冬平稳的格局,使得洪泽湖湿地植被表现出明显的年际和年内波动;洪泽湖的水位每年5-6月达全年最低,这使得一些耐涝性较强的湿生植物在挺水植被分布区广泛分布;受渔业生产和水质恶化的影响,洪泽湖湿地植被分布总体呈下降的趋势,随着南水北调东线工程的竣工,还将面临新的挑战。     

The Runoff Declining Process and Water Quality in Songhuajiang River Catchment,China under Global Climatic Change

The runoff in Songhuajiang River catchment has experienced a decreasing trend during the second half of the 20th century. Serially complete daily rainfall data of 42 rainfall stations from 1959 to 2002 and daily runoff data of five meteorological stations from 1953 to 2005 were obtained. The Mann–Kendall trend test and the sequential version of Mann–Kendall test were employed in this study to test the monthly and annual trends for both rainfall and runoff, to determine the start point of abrupt runoff declining, and to identify the main driving factors of runoff decline. The results showed an insignificant increasing trend in rainfall but a significant decreasing trend in runoff in the catchment. For the five meteorological stations, abrupt runoff decline occurred during 1957–1963 and the middle 1990s. Through Mann–Kendall comparisons for the area‐rainfall and runoff for the two decreasing periods, human activity, rather than climatic change, is identified as the main driving factor of runoff decline. Analysis of land use/cover shows that farmland is most related with runoff decline among all the land use/cover change in Nenjiang catchment. From 1986 to 1995, the area of farmland increased rapidly from 6.99 to 7.61 million hm². Hydraulic engineering has a significant influence on the runoff decline in the second Songhuajiang catchment. Many large‐scale reservoirs and hydropower stations have been built in the upstream of the Second Songhuajiang and lead to the runoff decline. Nenjiang and the Second Songhuajiang are the two sources of mainstream of Songhuajiang. Decreased runoff in these two sub‐catchments then results in runoff decrease in mainstream of Songhuajiang catchment. It is, therefore, concluded that high percent agricultural land and hydraulic engineering are the most probable driving factors of runoff decline in Songhuajiang River catchment, China.