Analysis of ecosystem degradation factors in Yuanmou arid-hot valleys based on interpretative structural model

For ecological restoration and reconstruction of the degraded area, it is an important premise to correctly understand the degradation factors of the ecosystem in the arid-hot valleys. The factors including vegetation degradation, land degradation, arid climate, policy failure, forest fire, rapid population growth, excessive deforestation, overgrazing, steep slope reclamation, economic poverty, engineering construction, lithology, slope, low cultural level, geological hazards, biological disaster, soil properties etc, were selected to study the Yuanmou arid-hot valleys. Based on the interpretative structural model （ISM）, it has found out that the degradation factors of the Yuanmou arid-hot valleys were not at the same level but in a multilevel hierarchical system with internal relations, which pointed out that the degradation mode of the arid-hot valleys was ＂straight （appearance）-penetrating-background＂. Such researches have important directive significance for the restoration and reconstruction of the arid-hot valleys ecosystem.     

Characteristics of wetland functional degradation and its ecological water requirement for restoration in Yilong Lake of Yunnan Plateau

The wetland functional degradation can be described as the weakening or unbalance of the wetland functions under natural interference or active jamming, which makes the wetland unable to perform its unique functions or causes the weakening of these functions. By using fuzzing mathematics, this paper studied the grades the wetland functions and calculated their index values. By this quantitative method and based on the function index values, we analyzed the wetland function degradation and calculated the water quantity required to meet different functional needs in each season... Here we put forth three graded restoration schemes by integrating the ecological water requirement of different grades with the ecological restoration including water replenishing, water consumption and water pollution. According to the calculated model, the water level and water quantity for the low scheme are 1414.53 m and 1.30×10^8 m^3 respectively; 1415.38 m and 1.78×10^8 m^3 for the middle sheme, and 416.87 m and 2.14×10^8 m^3 for the high scheme.     

Ecosystem vulnerability of China under B2 climate scenario in the 21st century

This paper applies climate change scenarios in China based on the SRES assumptions with the help of RCMs projections by PRECIS （providing regional climates for impacts studies） system introduced to China from.the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research at a high-resolution （50 kmx50 km） over China. This research focuses on B2 scenario of SRES. A biogeochemical model ＂Atmosphere Vegetation Integrated Model （AVIM2）＂ was applied to simulating ecosystem status in the 21st century. Then vulnerability of ecosystems was assessed based on a set of index of mainly net primary production （NPP） of vegetation. Results show that climate change would affect ecosystem of China severely and there would be a worse trend with the lapse of time. The regions where having vulnerable ecological background would have heavier impacts while some regions with better ecological background would also receive serious impacts. Extreme climate even would bring about worse impact on the ecosystems. Open shrub and desert steppe would be the two most affected types. When the extreme events happen, vulnerable ecosystem would extend to part of defoliate broad-leaved forest, woody grassland and evergreen conifer forest. Climate change would not always be negative. It could be of some benefit to cold region during the near-term. However, in view of mid-term to long-term negative impact on ecosystem vulnerability would be enormously.     

Evaluating the influences of measurement time and frequency on soil respiration in a semiarid temperate grassland

Soil respiration(Soil R)is one of the largest CO2fluxes from terrestrial ecosystems to the atmosphere.The largely seasonal and daily patterns of Soil R in semiarid grassland ecosystems indicate that measurement time and frequency would have significant influences on the assessment of seasonal soil carbon release.Based on a three-year continuous measurement of Soil R in a semiarid grassland,we found that the Soil R value measured at around 10:00 o’clock local time was the closest to its daily mean,while the value at 14:00 o’clock was found to be the highest daily rate.A measurement frequency higher than every 10 days was necessary for estimating the seasonal Soil R and its temperature sensitivity(Q10)reasonably.Our study would be useful as guidelines for manual Soil R measurements and model data selection in semiarid temperate grasslands.     

Peat molecular fossils recording paleoclimatic change and organism replacement

The occurrence of the dominant C₂₃ n-alkane derived from bryophyte was demonstrated to be related to the cold climate, based on the GC and GC/MS analyses on a 40-cm long peat core, in which this compound exponentially varies in abundance with the depth corresponding to the well-known second Little Ice Age. Both the variation of the chemical components of modern bryophyte resulted from climatic change and the ecological data about the biological growth influenced by climate shed light on the point that the variation of this compound in the peat was related to the cold climate. This was also evidenced by the previously-reported lacustrine data. In addition, the variations of the ratios of ketones/esters and C₂₄ n-alkene/n-alkane (C_24︰1/C_24︰0) display the trend identical with that of organisms, implicating the replacement between bryophyte and monocotyledon occurring in the peat core.     

Using 137Cs tracing technique to estimate wind erosion rates in the typical steppe region,northern Mongolian Plateau

Wind erosion is one of the major factors of land degradation in the typical steppe region, northern Mongolian Plateau. Using ^137Cs tracing technique, we estimated the wind erosion rates of different pastures and abandoned farmland at Bayannur and Karakorum in Mongolia. The pastures and cutting grassland at Bayannur were slightly eroded by wind, with the rates of 64.58-169.07 t·km^-2.a^-1. The abandoned farmland in Karakorum, however, was strongly eroded by wind, with annual surface soil loss of 4.05 mm. a^-1, and wind erosion rates up to 6723.06 t· km^-2. a^-1. The total loss of surface soil due to wind erosion has been 17.4 cm since the cultivation of the steppe land in the 1960s. The wind ero- sion rate at the abandoned farmland was much higher than that at the typical steppe sites, showing that the cultivation led to serious wind erosion in the typical steppe region, northern Mongolian Plateau. By contrast, traditional livestock grazing resulted in less disturbance to the surface soil, and did not induce to devastating wind erosion, which plays an important role in maintaining the stability of the steppe ecosystem in the northern Mongolian Plateau.     

Building a high-resolution regional climate model for the Heihe River Basin and simulating precipitation over this region

Based on the Regional Integrated Environmental Model System （RIEMS 2.0） developed by START TEA-COM RRC and Department of Atmospheric Science of Nanjing University, a dataset of observation and remote sensing over the Heihe River Basin （HRB） was used to recalibrate the model＇s parameters, including topography elevation, land cover type, saturated soil water po- tential, saturated soil hydraulic conductivity, field moisture capacity, wilting point moisture, soil porosity, and parameter b of soil hydraulic conductivity, to build a high-resolution regional climate model for the HRB. Continuous simulation for the period from January 1 to December 31, 2000 was conducted using the regional climate model, with NCEP-FNL reanalysis data as the driving fields. The study focused on the ability of the model to simulate precipitation in the HRB. The analysis results showed the following： （1） For precipitation, the model could reproduce well the spatial pattern and seasonal cycle in different regions of the HRB, simulated precipitation was overestimated in the upper reaches of the HRB and underestimated in the lower reaches of the HRB, and seasonal precipitation biases were mostly in the range of -39.9%-9.6% of observations, which is mostly consistent with the IPCC report （2001）. （2） The model could reproduce reasonably temporal evolution of pentad precipitation in different regions. Correlation coefficients between the simulated and observed pentad precipitation were 0.8123, 0.5064, and 0.7033 in the upper, middle, and lower reaches of the HRB, respectively. They reached a significance level of 1%. （3） Dynamical downscaling of a high-resolution regional climate model was used to overcome the deficiency of long-term, high-temporal/spatial-resolution meteorological dataset in the HRB, and to drive directly the integrated model that coupled ecological-hydrological and socioeco- nomic processes in the HRB.     

Paleoceanographic records in the sedimentary cores from the middle Okinawa Trough

Two gravity piston cores (Cores 155 and 180) involved in this study were collected from the middle Okinawa Trough. Stratigraphy of the two cores was divided and classified based on the features of planktonic foraminifera oxygen isotope changes together with depositional sequence,millennium-scale climatic event comparison, carbonate cycles and AMS^14C dating. Some paleoclimatic information contained in sediments of these cores was extracted to discuss the paleoclimatic change rules and the short-time scale events presented in interglacial period. Analysis on the variation of oxygen isotope values in stage two shows that the middle part of the Okinawa Trough may have been affected by fresh water from the Yellow River and the Yangtze River during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). The oxygen isotope value oscillating ranges of the cores have verified that the marginal sea has an amplifying effect on climate changes.The δ^13C of benthic foraminifera Uvigerina was lighter in the glacial period than that in the interglacial period, which indicates that the Paleo-Kuroshio‘s main stream moved eastward and its influence area decreased. According to the temperature difference during the “YD” period existing in Core 180 and other data, we can reach the conclusion that the climatic changes in the middle Okinawa Trough area were controlled by global climatic changes, but some regional factors had also considerable influence on the climatechanges. Some results in this paper support Fairbanks‘s point that the “YD” event was a brief stagnation of sea level rising during the global warming up procession. Moreover,the falling of sea level in the glacial period weakened the exchange between the bottom water of the Okinawa Trough and the deep water of the northwestern Pacific Ocean and resulted in low oxygen state of bottom water in this area.These procedures are the reasons for carbonate cycle in the Okinawa Trough area being consistent with the “Atlantic type”carbonate cycle.     

Vegetation Restoration Technique System and Its Ecological Functions of the Degraded Ecosystem in the Arid-Hot Valleys —— Taking the Example of Typical Mode in Small Watershed of Yuanmou

This paper concluded the vegetation restoration technique system in the arid-hot valleys and studied the anti-erosion function, environmental function and biological diversity effects of vegetation restoration on the ecosystem in the arid-hot valleys. The results showed that the soil erodibility decreased significantly after the vegetation restoration. The climate environment of the small watershed had a great improvement after the vegetation restoration, of which the temperature decreased, the humidity increased, the harsh environment of dry and hot in this region changed. The studies of the ecosystem biodiversity were mainly on the analysis of the relations between biodiversity and ecological function of the artificial ecological forest pattern and the natural enclosed treatment mode on the severely of degraded land. It could conclude that the natural enclosed treatment mode is helpful to the biodiversity of the ecosystem and the improvement and stability of the ecosystem, and Leucaena artificial forest restoration pattern reduced the species diversity but optimized the ecological function. Therefore, as to the severely and extremely severely degraded ecosystem in the arid-hot valleys, Leucaena pattern of gully control and natural enclosed treatment mode are the relatively optimal choices.     

landscape Changes in Wenchuan—A Mountainous County in Sichuan, China

Based on the collection of land use maps of three repre sentative years (1972, 1986 and 1995) with a scale of 1 = 100 000, which were derived from interpreted aerial photographs and field surveys, landscape pattern were studied in Wenchuan County of Aba Prefecture, northwest of Sichuan Province, China, Six land use categories were classified according to the actuality of the study area and digitized by manual with the assistance of Geographic Information System (GIS). Landscape spatial and temporal changes were analyzed quanti ficationally by a series of structure, shape, pattern indices, which indicated that grassland dominates in number of patch while both grassland and shrub-land dominate in total area of patch over time. During the last 23 years, the fractal dimension of grassland and shrub-land were decreased while the other types were increased. Highest dominance and fragmentation and lowest diversity characterized the landscape of 1972. In 1986, the landscape pattern had the highest diversity and lowest dominance and fragmentation, which is contrary to the pattern in 1972, Slight change of diversity, dominance and fragmentation has been displayed from 1986 to 1995.     

Analysis on the Spatio-Temporal Changes of Sustainable Land Use in Tibet

By constructing evaluation indicator system of sustainable land use of Tibet from three aspects of ecological environment, economic development, resources and social advancement, this article studies the following contents respectively in two dimensions of time and space： the changes of sustainable land use of Tibet in recent 20 years and spatial characteristics of sustainable land use of Tibet in 2002. The following conclusions can be drawn from evaluation results .① With regard to com- prehensive evaluation value of sustainable land use, the trend of Tibet sustainable land use evaluation values from 1983 to 2002 are very close to the comprehensive evaluation values of ecological environment, which is up trend; ② sustainable utilization degree of land use in eastern region of Tibet is much higher than that of western region. ③ the sustainable land use evaluation value of Nyingtri County is the highest, and the counties with relatively higher land sustainable use values include Lhasa, Lhoka, Chamdo. While Nakchu, Ngari, Shigatse counties have the relatively lower evaluation values; ④ By analyzing each evaluation indicator＇s weight on sustainable land use, it can be concluded that the key limiting factors of sustainable Tibet land resource utilization are land desertification, grassland degradation and low economic level.     

Dynamic of Grassland Biomass in Different Degenerative Stages

The dynamics of plant community and above- and belowground biomass of the different degenerative stages was researched of Kobresia hurnlis meadows of Nakchu prefecture in Tibet Autonomous Region. The results indicated that the aggravation of the degree of deterioration of alpine meadow is, the lower the vegetation coverage, percentage of excellent forage, and biodiversity are. The total aboveground biomass is highest in the lightly degraded stages while it is lowest in the extremely degraded stages. With the aggravation of degradation, the aboveground biomass of forbs increases while that of Cyperaceae decreases. We found that the belowground biomass was mostly distributed in the 0-10 cm soil depth in the alpine meadow with a ＂T＂-shape distribution feature, and with the acceleration of deterioration, the numbers of roots becomes less and less. Meanwhile, the above- and belowground biomass of the different degraded communities was significantly correlated（r= 0. 963）. There is an obvious positive correlation with the above- and belowground biomass in different degenerative stages, and their ratio increased with the aggravation of degradation.     

Diversity of Plant Species of Alpine Grassland in Nakchu of Tibet, China

0Introduction Biologicaldiversityconcernedwiththesumofvariouslivingbeingsandtheirprocesses,aswellasthebasisofharmonious coexistencebetweenmanandnatureplaysanimportantroleinecology,economy,esthetics,ethics,etc.Duetodeteriorationofglobal environment,acceler…     

Ecological Carrying Capacity of Tibet China——Variety of Ecological Footprints from 1978 to 2002

Ecological footprint‘ s theory and method are used to calculate and analysis the ecological carrying capacity in Tibet. The results indicate: Tibet ecological footprint (2.1 hm^2) keeps higher than countrywide average level( 1.5hm^2 ), and lower than global average level (2.4hm^2 ) the result show that Tibet pasture ecological footprint is the most different with other area, and woodland is the second; Tibet ecological footprint grows from 1. 25 hm2 in 1978 to 2.09 hm^2 in 2002, which states that life level is improvingcontinuously; GDP (per RMB 104 Yuan) ecological footprint reduces from 61.9 hm2 in 1978 to 4.54 hm^2 in 2002, which states resources utilized ratio is increasing continuously.     

Quantitative Assessment on Endangerment Degree of Rare Animal and Plant Species in Tibet, China

It is of profound theoretical and practical significance to study endangerment status of rare species in Tibet. Index system is firstly set down for quantitative assessment of rare animal and plant species, then endangerment degree of wildlife under special state protection are calculated, which is expressed by value E. The results reveal that Yunnan snub-nosed monkey （Rhinopithecus bieti）, Himalayan tahr （Hemitragus jemlahicus） and Gigantic Cypress （Cupressus gigantea） have the highest E respectively in animals and plants. According to value E, all species are categorized into 4 ranks： critically endangered（0.6-0.8）, endangered （0.4- 0.6）, vulnerable （0.2-0.4） and lower risk （ E ≤ 0.2）. By comparison of the first five animals and plants of the highest E, each sub-ecozone bears a distinct identity.     

防城港东湾纳潮量减弱及其影响分析

【目的】研究防城港东湾水交换改变状况,分析其变化的原因,并探讨造成的影响。【方法】采用传统方法计算防城港东湾2008年和2012年的纳潮量。【结果】2008年防城港东湾纳潮量为1.8443×108 m3,2012年纳潮量为1.7436×108 m3,仅4年时间防城港东湾纳潮减少量占总纳潮量的5.5%。纳潮量减少后海水交换能力明显减弱。【结论】港口码头工程填海和岸线及滩涂资源的大量利用减少了湾内海域空间面积,造成海水交换能力减弱,使湾内海洋生态环境出现退化现象。     

Spatial and Temporal Distributions of Soil Organic Matter in the Mixed Plantations of Alder and Cypress in the Hilly Areas of Central Sichuan Basin

The investigation was conducted on the spatial and temporal distributions of soil organic mater （SOM） in the mixed plantations of alder （Aluns crernastogyne） and cypress （Cupressus funebris ） （MPAC）, which distributed in the hilly areas of central Sichuan Basin （HACSB）. The results show that： （1） the spatial distribution of SOM among different sites at the same age are not significant before 15-year-old, but significant at 20-year-old, and not significant again after 25-year-old; （2） the SOM contents in 0-15 cm and 15-30 cm layers increase sharply from 10- to 15-year-old, and decline gradually from 15- to 30- year-old; the SOM contents of the 30-year-old PCP were 80. 38% and 78.42% higher than that of the 10-year-old, but 29.16% and 53.37% lower than that of 15-year-old in the 0-15 cm and 15-30 cm layers, respectively. The decrease of SOM contents would lead to the degradation of soil fertility and the decline of forest productivity.     

Population Characteristics and Future Population Countermeasures for the Studied Counties in Tibet, China

Focusing on the 18 counties along ““““One River and Two Tributaries““““ region, and based on the data from China 3^nd , 4th and 5^th population censuses, this article has analyzed the time and spatial changing patterns of the population in this region, The analyses show that since the 3^al population census, total population, average age and total birth rate have all changed considerably: ① Total population has grown fast, with most counties‘ annual average growth rate of more than 10. ② In terms of the region‘s average age, in 2000 the age inthe 18 counties is younger than 30 years old. ③ Compared with the 3^rd population census, labor force by the 5^th census is much younger. ④ Countermeasures are proposed to control population by controlling birth rate as the result of the local resident‘s quality improvement by education.