Vulnerability of natural ecosystems has become a key issue both in assessing the impact of climate change and in planning the adaptation to climate change. In the paper, we elucidated the concepts of vulnerability, sensibility and threshold, analyzed distributions of the ecolble for global warming will change. The productivity and carbon flux of terrestrial ecosystems are also highly sensitive to climate change. The Net Primary Productivity （NPP） of terrestrial vegetation has been increasing since the 1980s in China. Annual Net Ecosystem Productivity （NEP） varies between 0.32 and 0.25 Gt C a～-1, wit h a mean value of 0.07 Gt C a～-1. Terrestrial ecosystems in China are cur rently a carbon sink, but the carbon uptake rate ogical sensitive zones, vulnerability of natural ecosystems and adaptation to climate and ecosystem changes in China. Numerous studies show that natural ecosystems are high sensitivity to climate change, particularly in the transitional zones （i.e. ecotones）. The first-class sensitive zone in China is the region be tween the east of Inner Mongolia and the southeast of Tibetan Plateau. The climate zones and vegetation zones will produce a northward or westward shift, and the proportion of vegetations is one of the factors responsimay diminish as anticipated with the rapid warming of climate in this century. Seven regions vulnerable to climate change in China account for 20% of the whole country, in which five are in the west of China. The natural hazards are associated with climate change such as drought, fire, pest infestationetc. Excessive use of resources will increase the vulnerability of ecosystems. Applications of some measures are helpful to the adaptation to the climate change and mitigation of the vulnerability. However, there are still high uncertainties in assessing the vulnerability of natural ecosystems, many issues warrant further studies.

According to 6-year investigations in the south of China and available recordation,the geographical distribution maps of P.vittata in China were compiled,and the ecological adaptabilities of P.vittata,including sunlight,thermal condition,precipitation and soil pH,were summarized.It was found that P.vittata were distributed within the tropical and the subtropical regions south of Qinling Mountains.Mean annual temperature above 10℃,mean monthly temperature of January above 0℃,mean monthly temperature of July above 20℃,the accumulated temperature ≥10℃more than 3800℃,annual frost-free periods more than 200 days and annual precipitation more than 500 mm are the ideal water and heat conditions needed for P.vittata growth.Among them,mean monthly temperature of January and annual frost-free periods seemed to be the main limiting factors that restricted distribution of P.vittata further up to the high latitude area.A wide range of soil pH was found within the distribution areas of P.vittata,indicated that it had little restriction to the distribution of P.vittata.It can be concluded that P.vittata could not only be used to phytoremediate arsenic contaminated soils within its natural distribution area,but also in the North China Plain north of its natural distribution area,with proper agricultural measure to ensure the underground part of P.vittata against low temperature and frost in winter.According to the distribution area and the habitat characters of P.vittata,it can also be concluded that P.vittata could be used for phytoremediation with little ecological risk.

The contradiction between economic development and cultural heritage conservation is common everywhere. On the one hand, tourism can not be developed at the cost of destroying rare cultural relics while on the other , we shouldn't stop developing tourism for the sake of cultural heritage conservation.Here we reiterated the "China Policy", which is the requirement for fulfilling human culture succession and sustainable development. In grotto culture protection, some problems have been solved, such as the harm of crowded people to fresco and painted sculpture, wind and sand erosion, etc. But there are many other social and natural environmental problems, one of which is the erosion of flood to the base of grotto. Ancient city sites are helpful for paleo-environmental reconstruction. The abundant information from archeological excavation, together with natural environmental change and culture spreading, might contribute to a new way to explain and demonstrate ancient cultures. Explaining the enigmas of many ancient city sites also need to start with virtual paleo-environment. The reconstruction of old buildings should follow the principle of "repair as their origins". Besides, adapting the old buildings to modern environmental and ecological functions should also be considered. New technology and material can be used in some cases. There are several successful examples of applications of remote sensing monitoring to archeological excavation and cultural heritage conservation. We suggested that grid technology used in the field of archeology should be further popularized. And multi-level grid management information systems should be built up to improve cultural heritage conservation and development.

The modern regionalization in China has attained plentiful and substantial achievements in recent 50 years and has made important contributions to the socio-economic construction. Meanwhile, great changes have taken place in the natural and socio-economic patterns in China. So it is indispensiable to develop comprehensive regionalization as the basis of the sustainable socio-economic development for China. The main scientific issues to be discussed are as follows: 1) the target of service and the mission of research; 2) the theory and system of comprehensive regionalization; 3) the changing processes, patterns and their interactions of the main elements in regional system; 4) the identification of the boundaries between the regional systems in China; 5) the identification of typical regions and the analysis on their characteristics; 6) the interaction between the global geographical patterns and the comprehensive regional system in China; 7) data mining, processing and dimensioning; 8) the integrative methodology of comprehensive regionalization; 9) scenario analysis for the future evolution of regional system in China; and 10) the dynamic demonstration system for the comprehensive regionalization.

Recent geo-researches display two significant features. First, most research projects are centered on revealing the implications for regional sustainable development and ecological security; and second, these projects try to employ an integrated approach to taking both physical and socio-economic factors into consideration. Indeed, the implementation of sustainable development strategy demands a classification of territorial systems based on such an integrated approach. To be integrated, a key scientific issue is how to synthesize the physical and socio-economic factors in the process of classification. Based on a new indicator system, which involves mainly physical indicators at the macro level and socio-economic indicators at micro level while employing both at the middle level, this paper tries to develop a new integrated approach to the classification of territorial systems to reveal the features of human-nature relationship at various spatial levels. The new system of classification is a hierarchy consisting of five levels: class zero realm; class one ecological zone (and/or) sub-zone; class two land-human region; class three eco-economic division; and class four economic districts. The classification at the first three levels is a "top-down" process; that at the fifth level is a "bottom-up" process; and that at the fourth level is a matching process from both the top and the bottom. The paper further tests the new approach of classification via a case study of the Tibetan Plateau. By the approach, the Plateau is divided into 3 zones, 15 regions, 22 divisions and 29 districts. Such classification results have profound implications for regional sustainable development.

Flood hazard is one of the most harmful disasters in the world for over 40% of the natural hazard damage are caused by flood hazard every year. With the developments of socio-economy, people come to realize that they should not only depend on engineering measures but also use non-structural measures such as flood forecasting, damage evaluation and flood regulation to reduce flood damage. At the same time, along with deepening and broadening of research content on flood control and multi-disciplinary infiltration, people pay increasingly more attention to the studies of multi-disciplinary integrated flood control measures. Meanwhile it is possible to apply computer simulation, remote sensing and GIS technologies to the research field of flood control as well as to the analysis of flood-inundated simulation by GIS on floodplain based on the research of flood prevention and reduction. In southeast China coastal areas there are many size medium or small rivers that flow into the sea separately. Because the flood regulation and storage capacities are low with short flow concentration duration, flood hazard is grave. Besides these basins are situated in the China's developed region, especially in recent years, with rapid growth of economy, enlargement of industrial and city scale, as well as expansion of population, flood losses have also drastically increased. So research on flood hazard prevention and reduction has become an urgency. As floods occur mainly on flood plain in this region, this paper, taking the lower reaches of the Fenghua river in Yongjiang basin of Southeast China as an example, discusses the application of the approaches and methods of remote sensing and GIS to flood-simulation in floodplain. It firstly explores the rainfall runoff characteristics in this basin and floodplain flood routing rules. Supported by remote sensing and GIS the rainfall runoff and two-dimension flood routing models are built, the parameters of models and coefficients of two-dimension numerical calculation models are determined with GIS. Meanwhile the evaluating model of flood submerged area and the damage assessment models are built supported by digital elevation models (DEM) as well as socioeconomic database. Finally a satisfactory calculating result of actual simulated verification is obtained by using remote sensing, telemetering and GIS information. The research indicates that geographic information system and remote sensing create favorable condition for flood-inundated simulation on floodplain. There will be great promise for the application of GIS to the studies of flood prevention and reduction. This research will also provide valuable experience for the flood preventioll and reduction decision-making studies of this region.

Susceptibility spatial analysis of debris flows is to evaluate triggering factors for debris flow occurrence and divide the land surface into zones of varying degrees of susceptibility, based on spatial analysis technology. For the purposes of assessing debris flow susceptibility, a GIS spatial analysis combined with condition probability model of susceptibility analysis can estimate the probability of possible occurrence of debris flows. This paper discusses the potential of combining GIS technology with susceptibility modeling in debris flow analysis and also outlines the special advantage of GIS application for susceptibility mapping. The study area is located in the Nujiang River Basin of Yunnan, where is seriously suffering from debris flow hazards. Seven factors impacting debris flow susceptibility are analyzed: slope angle, rock and soil type, rainstorm distribution, trainage density, land use, seismic acceleration and human activities. According to the susceptibility spatial analysis of these factors,the susceptibility evaluation map was generated using GIS to conduct factor integration analysis. Then we classified each factor into three grades based on results of susceptibility calculation. With regard to debris flow susceptibility index, the study area is divided in to three susceptibility zones. The debris flow susceptibility zona-tion map shows that the high susceptibility zone covers an area of 4147 km2 or 12. 8% of the total study area; the middle susceptibility zone covers an area of 13931 km2 or 42. 9% and the low has an area of 13931 km2or 44. 3%. The susceptibility zonation map can help planners or engineers to choose the optimum construction locations for implemen-ting land development schemes in order to reduce the impact of debris flow on the study area.

Based upon a review on foreign regionalization work, this paper summarized the characteristics of the regionalization work in different stages, gave a brief introduction to the methodology in the regionalization of China, and discussed some issues on the regionalization work. Since the latter half of the 20th century, the regionalization in China has entered a stage of systematic research and all-around development. The main characteristics of the regionalization work in this stage are as follows. First, the various regionalization schemes are based on their historical background respectively. They are the scientific work closely related to the economic development and social demands at the time. Roughly speaking, research on the regionalization in China had mainly served agricultural production since the 1950s. Since the 1980s, the research had been concentrated on economic development. Since the 1990s, the regionalization work has been focused on sustainable development. Second, the work was mostly static and was not able to reflect the dynamics of the changing natural and social factors. And several important boundaries were identified with some assumption and presumption. In recent years, some trends of overemphasizing models and quantification have appeared in regionalization studies. Third, the regionalization studies were inclined to physical geography. The economic geographical regionalization studies were relatively weak. Moreover, current physical and economic regionalization studies are not well related, which has become a limitation to the research of regional sustainable development. Fourth, current regionalization studies focus on terrestrial system, and haven't paid enough attention to marine system. Fifth, the confirmation of regionalization schemes is not institutionally assured yet. So the research results have not been well absorbed by the economic planning of local governments, and the purpose of serving the sustainable socio-economic development has not been realized. Finally, the necessity and importance of carrying out comprehensive regionalization in China was analyzed, and some key scientific issues related with the comprehensive regionalization of China were discussed. The paper pointed out that as a new growing point of regionalization researches, comprehensive regionalization with an integration of natural and social factors will be an important contribution of the human-earthsystem research to the sustainable development.

The paper investigates the distribution depth of cesium-137 and erosion rate of black soil using cesium-137 tracer, discusses the influence of soil erosion on the contents of particle size, organic matter, specific gravity and water quantity, nitrogen and phosphorus in the tillage layer of 0～20 cm on a typical slope. Cesium-137 activities in the profile, mainly distributed in the layer of 0～25 cm deep, are in the range of 1246.05±85.90 Bq/m² to 1499.45±101.73 Bq/m² .So,the annual soil erosion rates can reach 3033.6-3940.3 t/km² within the last 40 years,which have reached the moderate erosion level. It is the right time to pay enough attention to the black soil erosion. Also, it is completely feasible to investigate the erosion rate of black soil using cesium-137 tracer method. The slope length and gradient have distinctly effects on soil erosion intensity. The trend that the soil particles are becoming increasingly coarser is also obvious. The percentage of sand and clay declines gradually, and silty sand increases from top down to bottom of the slope. Moreover, organic matter （OM） is also in the trend of increase from top to bottom of the slope, but the contents of OM in both erosion and sedimentation profile （2.56～3.10%） are markedly lower than that in original black soil. The specific gravity increases and water content declines in the erosion profile. Furthermore, the phenomenon that the contents of nitrogen and phosphorus decline is clear. Both of the quick degradation of black soil quality and agricultural non-point source pollution should be paid attention to by all circles. Due to the geographical location of black soil belt and its relative location to Pacific and Eurasia, both of frequency and intensity of wind taking place in spring every year are high. So, the above-mentioned soil erosion intensity is the result of wind erosion and water erosion. The percentage of soil quality degradation induced by water erosion and flux of main agricultural non-point source pollutants should be further studied.

More and more importance has been attached to the extreme weather and climate events related to climate warming and their impacts. Changes of extreme events are directly related to climate change, while the impact of the extreme events is as well as depended on the adaptation behavior of human being.A case study is made in this paper on change of cool summer hazard under an adaptation behavior to the climate warming in Heilongjiang Province, Northeast China. Heilongjiang Province in Northeast China located in the highest latitudes of China is one of theriod (1990-1999), almost no cool summer hazard happened. Theoretically the risk of crops planting impacted by the cool summer hazard will be decreased accordingly. However, it does not mean that the frequency and intensity of the cool summer hazard rea lly decreased. Because farmers may change the variety of the crop or the crop's structure to adapt to the climate warming in order to obtain more economicbene fits. In fact, human regions where agriculture is most sensitive to temperature variations in China. The impact of climate warming and adaptation behavior to the cold summer hazard in Heilongjiang Province is analyzed in this paper. It is found that the growth period mean temperature increased and the standard deviation of the temperature decreased. In theory, the probability of extreme low summer temperature would decrease accordingly. If the planting mode was kept unchanged, that is, the criterion of cool summer hazard was not changed, the frequency of cool summer hazard would be reduced to about 10% in the warm period (1980-1999) and about 30% in the cold period (1960-1979) in most parts of Heilongjiang Province. In the intensive warming pe being's adaptation interfered the impact of climate warming on the probability of cool summer hazard. In general, people seek for maximal economic benefits instead of the minimal risk. When climate warms up, people would select plant varieties more suitable to warmer climate to obtain more economic benefits, but the probability and intensity of cool summer hazard might not always decrease as climate warms.

Tianjin is situated in the northeastern part of the North China Plain, with the Yanshan Mountains on the north and Bohai Sea on the east. It is the largest opening coastal city of North China and the economic center of the Bohai Coastal Region. Since 1978, the Tianjin's economy has grown substantially. In the 24 years from 1978 to 2003, China's e-conomy grew at an annual rate of 10. 6%. With the rapid development of economy, the ecological environment bears great stress. In recent years, there has been contradiction between economic growth and environmental protection, although the policies of environmental protection have been adopted. Guided by the principle of sustainable development and based on the theories and methods of economic-environment, the author analyzed the dynamic relationship between economic growth and environmental deterioration of Tianjin through EKCs. From the examination of the EKC for Tianjin, the relationship between e-conomic growth and environmental degradation presents a U + inverted-U pattern, which is different from traditional EKC.The results show that the curve conforms to the three periods' function,including before 1992, from 1992 to 1998 and after 1998. The curve descended from 1985 to 1992, and the environmental deterioration trend had been held back through improving environmental protection realization and strengthening waste treatment capacities. But from 1992 to 1998, as for industrialization of Tianjin, the industrial structure took heavy industry in lead, resulting in more serious solid and gas pollution. Therefore, the urban condition became worsened. After 1998, the environmental quality was gradually improved, depending mainly on the adoption of comprehensive treatment measures.From the further examination of the EKC, the relationships between economic growth and waste water, waste gas and waste solids of industries present weak inverted-U, U + inverted-U and weak inverted-U patterns respectively.Based on the research, it is considered that environmental policy, environmental awareness of residents and the spread of environmental technology are the main factors which lead to the environment improvement in Tianjin city.

The spatial distribution of marine economy in China includes 11 provinces having littoral zones, islands and vast expanse of sea areas. China has taken marine resources development as an important content in the national development strategies and regarded marine economic development as a great action to revitalize the national economy since the 1990s. China has proposed the plan of forming several marine economically strong provinces by 2010,which can provide relevant conditions not only for building China into a well-to-do society, accommodating workforce, alleviating the employment problems but also for developing western regions and revitalizing old industrial base in Northeast so as to promote overall development of the national economy and quicken the pace of economic growth. In the research, some quantitiative methods and models for analysing regional space differentiations are used to analyse the spatial agglomeration and diffusion degree of marine industry and marine tertiary industrial structure of various provinces for the purpose of revealing the mechanisms and laws for the formation of the marine economy of every province. Countermeasures for building marine economically strong provinces in China are put forward.

Stone forest is a kind of rarely-seen karst landscape, which has its own unique e-volution process. Based on the analysis of stone pillar-the individual component of stone forest, this paper, by discussing different combinations of the rates of edaphic corrosion, soil erosion and aerial erosion, puts forward the model of "triplex erosion" to explain the development of stone forest and studies the current development stage and evolutional prospect of the Lunan Stone Forest. The research reveals that the scope of edaphic corrosion, which is the basic driving force for the heightening of stone pillars, is limited within about 10 m below ground surface, and the depth best for the development of stone forest is observed to be usually less than 1.5m under the current natural conditions in the area. Since the top of stone pillars is lowering at a rate of 10. 4 mm/ka, and the bottom deepening 26. 17 mm/ka, therefore, the actual height increase of stone pillars is 15. 77 mm/ka; considering that the soil erosion rate in the area of Lunan Stone Forest is 650 mm/ka, the visible height of stone forest is increasing at a rate of 639. 6 mm/ka, and soil, an extremely significant factor for the heightening of stone pillars, is rapidly becoming thinner and thinner at a rate of 623. 83 mm/ka. All this shows that the best time for the development of Lunan Stone Forest has gone, though the visible height of stone forest is still increasing at present. The study result of the paper attaches great importance to the reduction of soil erosion in Shilin area. Therefore, it is necessary for the local people to take effective measures to prevent soil from being rapid eroded, especially, considering the stone forest in Lunan area a precious natural heritage owned by all human beings as well as local people.

More and more attention is paid to the combination of global and regional issues in the sutdy of global environmental change (GEC). The GEC research emphasizes that the global environmental problems should be probed through regional studies. Resources and environmental problems have become one important issues of GEC research. The geographical environment of China has significantly changed during the past 50 years due to the intense anthropogenic activities and the global environmental changes. The main changes of the physical processes and environment elements are as follows: 1) the shift of climate zones in response to global warming; 2) the uneven precipitation changes inducing more floods in southern China and more severe droughts in northern China; 3) serious pollution and enormous demand on materials and energy; and 4) the significant changes in natural hydrological process. As to the geographical patterns, the economic geographical pattern has changed in the process of industrialization, which brought changes as well to the patterns of population, urban system, and supply-demand of natural resources. As a result, the land cover pattern has been greatly modified. The urban and transportation area has expanded quickly and occupied a great deal of farmland, causing farmland reduction in core agricultural area and cultivation increase in marginal agricultural area. The natural forest area is reducing while the forest plantation is expanding. The grassland is shrinking and has seriously degraded. The area of lakes and wetland has decreased, and the sea farming area has remarkably increased. The above-mentioned remarkable environmental changes indicated that some irreversible changes on environmental elements have taken place, and the resources and environment have become key limiting factors to national security. The future development of China is facing critical challenges from various risks on resource and environment issues, e.g. climate risk under the global warming, the risk of farmland and food supplies, the risk of water resources, the risk of energy, the risk of mineral resources, the risk of environmental quality, and the potential risk of some great projects. The geographical environment of China should be studied from the global views.

Since the 1950s large-scale reclamation of the wetlands has been carried out in Nongjiang and Bielahong River Region of the northern Sanjiang plain. Cultivated land instead of wetland has become the main landscape after large-scale reclamation since 1954. Great changes have taken place in ecological feature of wetlands in the study area. Nongjiang and Bielahong River Region is an important part of Sanjiang Plain. Wetland changes can seriously affect the sustainable development of this region. From 1954, the area of wetlands reduced greatly. At the same time, the area of cultivated land expanded substantially. Wetland environment was badly disturbed and destroyed. Using theory and methods of landscape ecology, land use and land cover change in 1954,1967,1976,1986 and 2000 are analyzed based on RS and GIS. The data sources mainly come from the Landsat TM digital images, topographic maps and statistical data. The processes of land reclamation and wetland shrinkage are also analyzed. Comparative studies of the landscapes between 1954 and 2000 and 1976 and 1986 are mainly conducted. The percentage of the area of wetlands is 64.83% of the total area in 1954, while that of the cultivated land, 0.68%. Wetland, grassland and forestland are the main landscape types in 1954. The percentage of cultivated land increased from 0.68% to 2.26% during the time from 1954 to 1967. The percentage of wetland was separately 50.30%, 19.96% and 16.22% in 1976, 1986 and 2000, and the cultivated land, 9.7%, 29.16% and 39.38% accordingly. The area of wetlands decreases rapidly while that of the cultivated land increases greatly. In 1954, wetland was the main landscape type and was evenly distributed. In 2000, cultivated land became the main landscape type, accounting for 39.38% of the whole area. And its distribution was even while the distribution of wetland was fragmentized. From the transformation of land use types, from 1954 to 2000, 41.79% of the wetlands was converted into cultivated land, indicating that 68.8% of the cultivated land came from wetland.Based on the analysis of the spatial and time variations of wetlands, the causes of wetland shrinkage are further analyzed. Wetlands are distributed in the region with favorable climate and the water-heat arrangement is favorable to the crops. So wetlands are most suitable to crops and easily to be reclaimed into cultivated land. In 1954, the population was only 4,300, but in 2000, the population in the study area increased to 230,700. The increasing population is the main driving force for land use and land cover change in the study area. The reclamation activity has been the main reason for wetland shrinkage since 1954 in this region.

Based on the snow and rainfall archives in the Qing Dynasty, the seasonal precipitation grade series of 6 prefectures in Jiangsu province from 1736 to 1908 were established. Then the temporal and spatial patterns of the precipitation in Jiangsu province were analyzed and the extreme events in Jiangsu province from 1736 to 1908 were also identified. The results can be summarized as follows: (1) Although the interannual variations of precipitation for 6 prefectures are different, the interdecadal variations are similar except in a few decades. In Jiangsu province, it was rainy in spring and summer during the 1750s, 1790s, 1830s-1840s and 1880s, whereas it was rainless in the 1770s-1780s, 1810s and 1870s. The autumn precipitation in Jiangsu province was higher than the normal in the 1750s, 1840s-1850s and 1860s, but lower in the 1770s, 1810s and 1890s. The winter precipitation in the 1830s-1840s, and 1890s was relatively high, but it was relatively low in the 1820s, 1850s and 1870s. (2) From 1736 to 1908, there were 15 extreme events of flood or drought in Jiangsu province. In which 1755, 1823, 1840, 1849, 1883, 1885 and 1906 were extreme flood years; and 1768, 1778, 1785, 1814, 1856, 1873, 1876 and 1891 were extreme drought years. (3) There was probably an abrupt change of climate around 1830 in Jiangsu province. From 1736 to 1830, the climate was stable and the variation of precipitation was moderate. Whereas after 1830 the climate showed the instability, and the rainy and droughty periods alternated frequently with ano maly increased extreme events of flood or drought. A comparative analysis showed that the instability of climate was correspondent with the high frequency of E lNino after 1830. These results are not only important reference for the preci pitation projection in the future in Jiangsu province, but also great significance for the study on the long-term variations of East Asian Monsoon.

The vulnerability assessment in this paper is based on the following points: 1) The vulnerable eco-environment is that with unstable structure,therefore it is sensitive to outside interfere factor sensitive and is easy to develop deterioration under external interference,and the self-restoring force of the eco-environment is worse.2) The type of vulnerability in the research area belongs to that being liable to be degradated caused by erosion,so the authors choose the key element and major indicator which are easy to cause erosion as the assessment indices.3) The vulnerability of ecosystem includes the potential vulnerability before influenced by human activity and the realistic vulnerability after influenced by human activity.This paper chooses altitude,gradient,soil erosion index K,annual rainfall,the proportion of rainfall in rainy period and the drought index of rainless period as an evaluation system of potential ecological vulnerability.In addition to the above factors,two other factors-forest coverage and sloping land index are added to denote the comprehensive effects of regional human-earth relation,economic development and managing level.The revised system indicates the realistic vulnerability. This paper takes Hengyang Basin as a case to study the evaluated potential vulnerability degree of the relevant counties and the realistic vulnerability degree of the same counties respectively in 1984 and 2000.The calculation results show that the potential environmental vulnerability in most parts of Hengyang Basin is at light degree,among them the vulnerable degree of Hengnan County in the central part of the basin is the biggest and Hengyang County comes second.Either in 1984 or 2000,the realistic ecological the vulnerability degree is the biggest in Hengnan County and Qidong County comes next.Comparing the realistic vulnerability degree in 1984 with that in 2000,the latter of all the counties reduces to various degree,among them,Hengyang County reduces the most and the least is Hengnan County.The assessment results show that the eco-logical vulnerability of Hengyang Basin is relatively low before the environment is destroyed by human activity,tending to be absolute degradation and relative restoration.Among all of the counties,the ecosystem of Hengnan County located in the middle part of the Hengyang Basin is most vulnerable,so the degradation here is serious and the restoration is very difficult.

By using the multi-stage nested Theil decomposition method and the wavelet analysis of the Theil index sequence, this paper studies the spatial and temporal scales of regional economic disparities in China from 1952 to 2000. The main conclusions are: (1) the regional economic disparities in China, including the disparities within-province, between-provinces, within-region (the eastern, central and western regions) and between-regions, have existed since 1952. (2) The first stage decomposition of Theil index shows that the dynamic trend of disparity in the eastern region is consistent with that of whole China. The disparity in the central and western regions remains small, and the evolution is rather slow. The disparity between the three regions has been continuously increasing. (3) The second stage decomposition of Theil index reveals that the within-province disparities is the most significant component of all in the overall regional inequalities, which is more significant than that of the between-province and between-region disparities components, constituting the important part of the overall regional inequalities. In addition, the influence of within-province disparities in the eastern region on the overall regional inequalities is more significant than that of in the other two regions, and, the influence in the western region is more significant than that of in the central region. (4) Based on the decomposition and approximation of Theil index sequence using wavelets by different time scales, we elicit a conclusion that the evolutionary process of regional economic disparity in China is not a simple inverted U-shaped pattern but a compound of several U-shaped patterns. The result tells us the evolutionary process of regional economic disparity in China does follow the inverted U-shaped patterns a time scale of 16 years. That is to say that the regional inequality tends to rise in the first stage of economic development, and falls slowly over the peak in the second stage of economic development. However, if we shorten the time scale to 8 or 4 years, then a link of several U shaped patterns will appear.

By applying the isotopic technique on the water circulation study arisen in the middle of the 20th century, which is a new technology through the study on macroscopic changes of water molecules in the water circulation to achieve the combining study of macroscopic and microscopic water circulation mechanism. It is of very interest theoretically and practically for the study on the water resources characteristics in the basin to investigate the temporal and spatial variable rules of isotopes in the precipitation and the correla-tivity of the precipitation elements. Because stable isotopic technologies are being used all over the world to provide better links between the water cycle elements and the water resources characteristics. Much work has been done world-wide on δ¹⁸O and δD in rainfall, the best famous work is the precipitation sampling and stable isotope analyzing contribution of IAEA, which offers valid theory basis and practicing experiences to isotopic hydrology study. This paper takes Dongtaigou experimental basin at Tanghekou town Huairou district Beijing city in North China as study object, analyses the spatial and temporal change of the oxygen isotope in the precipitation from July to August in 2003, and then illustrates the correlativity between oxygen isotope ratio δ¹⁸O and rainfall, and the correla-tivity between oxygen isotope ratio δ¹⁸O and altitude. At last, this study evaluates the influence and effect of rainfall and altitude factors on the precipitation processes, illuminates the spatial and temporal distribution of δ¹⁸O in the precipitation during the sampling period, and offer basis for the later on study of water cycle in basin in the study area. This study draw some conclusions as follows: the δ¹⁸O spatial gradient in the basin is 0. 58‰/ 100m, the direction of the water vapor moving in the study period of time is from the south-east to the north-west.

Though the Bohai Sea hydrodynamic processes have been investigated and researched for a long period, because of its transpositional meteorological forces, its natural environment and the nonlinear interaction within the water column, it is impossible to thoroughly understanding of the hydrodynamic characteristics, especially those related to the sediment transport, i.e., the Lagrangian residual circulation （LRC hereafter） in the Bohai Sea, which is the key hydrodynamic processes we concern. By using the three-dimensional baroclinic model-ECOM, driven by the monthly-mean wind stresses calculated by Helleman and Rosenstein, the general circulation patterns and spatial-temporal variations are simulated, in which, three possible states, i.e., net wind-driven LRC, net tide-induced LRC and the coupling result of the above two factors, are considered. The tide-induced LRC of M₂ constituent bears an identical pattern in four seasons in the Bohai Sea: the amplitude of the surface one is weak, and non-directional; however, there exists a southeast current from the Bohai strait to the Laizhou Bay, and a weak anticlockwise gyre in the south of the Bohai strait for the bottom constituent. The amplitude of bottom tide-induced LRC is larger than the surface one, and moreover, it bears a significant contribution in the whole LRC in the Bohai Sea. Unlike the identical structure of the tide-induced LRC, the wind-driven LRC varies seasonally under the controlling wind field. It forms a distinct circulation under the summer and winter monsoons in January and July respectively, but it seems weak and non-directional in April and September. The amplitude and direction of the wind-driven and tide-induced coupling LRCs are controlled by monsoon, which is one of the most significant factors in the Bohai Sea. There exists an anticlockwise gyre from the west coast of the Bohai Sea to the Laizhou Bay, a clockwise gyre within the Liaodong Bay, and a weak clockwise circulation in the middle of the Bohai Sea in winter. And there is a clockwise circulation along the shelf of the Bohai Sea, and an anticlockwise gyre in the Liaodong Bay in summer. Furthermore, the tide-induced LRCs, whose bottom component is the dominant one, plays an important role in local LRCs, especially at the Laotieshan waterway, east of the Liaodong Bay, top of the Bohai Bay and the estuary of Huanghe River.

An extremely severe weather process happened in the southern Shaanxi province during 8-9 June 2002 which is rare in history causing flashflood, landslide and a death of more than 450 people.The MM 5 model, successfully simulated the weather systems and related mesoscale convec tive complex, that caused the severe heavy rain in the southern Shaanxi province during 8-9 June 2002.The simulated precipitation is quite similar to the obse rvations at three extremely heavy centers at Ningqiang, Foping and Ningshan of southern Shaanxi. On the basis of successful control simulations(CTRL), two sens itivity experiments about surface sensible and latent flux are done. By analyzing the results of the sensitivity experiments about surface sensible and latent flux which is important for extremely heavy rainfall in the southern Shaanxi proince during 8-9 June 2002, it is found that the distributions of surface tempe rature, surface sensible and latent flux are highly correlated with special topo graphy of eastern Tibetan Plateau, with isolines of surface temperature and heat flux parallel to the isohypse of terrain, with obvious features between plains and mountains which indicate that orographic thermal forcing plays a key role in heavy rainfall; and that simulations with no surface latent flux are much less than observations especially in Foping and Ningshan counties on the southeastern slope of Qinling mountains where precipitation decreased by over 100 mm, and su rface latent flux is more important than surface sensible flux which makes preci pitation reduction in the mountainous areas and increment in plains and valleys because of mountain-valley wind circulation. The effect of surface flux on rai nfall is realized by increasing surface convergence and vorticity over the south eastern slope of Qinling mountains, forming lee vortex, furthermore causing seco ndary vertical circulation by topographic mechanical and thermal forcing.

The S/L (sea-level and land surface) system change plays a very important role in the evolution course of natural and human history in coastal area, so it may be an effective solution to study the environmental evolution and human-land relationship development in the Yangtze delta region by performing a virtual experiment on the platform, which relates to the consolidation of the S/L system integrated study and the construction of a digital and visual S/L system model. From the visual angle of the S/L System, this paper introduces the basic framework about the S/L System model, which is composed of four modules: the sliding bottom boundary calculating, segmentation rate of sedimentation calculating, the ancient land surface elevation calculating and simulated result validating, and throws light on the model's data classification system, as well as the model's basic function aims and on the model realized technology system. Using the DEM and GIS technology, through regulating the variable multi-parameters of sea level changes, sedimentation, crust movements and so on, sorts of maps can be automatically created by the preparatory system model, such as 2D or 3D paleotopographic maps, which are compiled respectively according to the control conditions of the randomly designated time or time intervals. Hence this can be used to dynamically demonstrate the delta plain's paleogeomorphology and sea-land relationship evolution history, besides providing the professionals with a new platform in the delta paleoenvironmental reconstruction and virtual experimental study. Based on the existing data of the Yangtze delta region, a preparatory simulative experiment was done by the model on the sea-land change course in the Yangtze delta region since 10000aBP. The good simulative effect is obvious from the hypsometric paleotopographic map and 3D color shaded-relief map, both the output of the model. This provides a visual scene to analyze and discuss the Yangtze delta evolution, coastline shifting, even the relationship between the ancient civilizations migration and environments.

Gansu province located in northwest China has an arid and semi-arid climate with an annual mean precipitation of 40800mm.Deficiency of water resources has become the major factors restricting the agricultural development in Gansu province.Using field water balance model,monthly field wheat water balance has been estimated for 80 counties in the province for a period of 1960-2001.Deficit ratio and frequency were adopted to analyze spatial-temporal distribution of field water resources balance.The results show that under normal precipitation condition,rainfall cannot meet water demand for wheat,and that water deficit is the main character of field water resources balance in Gansu.Deficit of field water resources tends to increase from southeast to northwest,and from mountains to basins,varying significantly among the counties studied.Results show that water demand for winter wheat is 464.47 mm,the corresponding water deficit is 144.42 mm and the surplus water is 3.75 mm.As for spring wheat,water demand is 443.83 mm,the corresponding water deficit is 262.87 mm and the surplus water is zero mm.Water deficit of spring wheat is higher than that of winter wheat.Deficit water reaches the largest amount in May and July for both types,but the stability of water deficit for winter wheat is lower than spring wheat.For winter wheat,the highest frequency of water deficit is media,while it is more severely for spring wheat.

As a concept based on greenway development, heritage corridor, which combined recreation and tourism development with ecological restoration and cultural conservation, has come into being in the United States since the 1980s. With rapid development in the study of greenway network, plans of heritage greenway network were proposed for heritage conservation as part of ecological infrastructure in regional scale in recent years worldwide. As many cases have shown, suitability analysis is the key in greenway planning study. Some approaches of greenway suitability analysis given in the former cases were too complicated and too much data dependent to be applicable in the Chinese condition. With GIS (geographic information system) technology and MCR (minimum cumulative resistance) model being used, a new approach of heritage corridor suitability analysis is designed to analyse and identify the suitability of potential areas for heritage corridors. This approach is featured in the following aspects: 1) A heritage corridor is defined as a linear landscape element that combines the function of recreational activities, heritage protection and ecological processes. 2) In addition to the physical faccors of heritages, the process of recreational use is the major concern in the definition of the suitability of a heritage corridor. 3) Recreational activities associated with heritages are considered as a horizontal process going across the landscape. This process is taken as an active process which overcomes the cumulative landscape resistance affected by land uses and covers. The less accumulative resistance a user is going to experience across the landscape, the more suitable the landscape is designated as heritage corridors. 4) The suitability of a landscape for a heritage corridor is therefore represented through the relative accumulative resistance in the process that a user experiences across the landscape towards or between heritage sites. 5) The calculation of accumulative landscape resistance is based on the cost-distance from the sources (heritage sites) to any points in the landscape.Different land uses and covers contribute differently to the resistance, and their weights are based on the evaluation by experts and inquiry of the local people. A case study in a rapidly urbanizing region, Taizhou City of Zhejiang Province, is presented.

Based on remote sensing imageries of 1967,1987 and 2000, and a digital elevation model with a scale of 1:250000, the key forces driving land use change and controlling land use pattern in the upper reaches of the Dadu river are found out from such biophysical and socioeconomic factors as terrain, elevation, roads, water system, urban and rural residential areas, and then the probability maps for each land use type are created by using Logistic stepwise regression, of which the goodness of fit is evaluated for all equations with the ROC (Relative Operating Characteristics) method. In this study, CLUE-S model which has the capability of modeling changes in quantity and location simultaneously, is applied to simulate temporal and spatial changes in land use from 1967 to 1987 and from 1987 to 2000 for an area of 18665 km2 which covers the counties of Rangtang, Jinchuan and Barkam. Comparisons for validation between simulated land use maps and actual land use maps of 1987 and 2000 find that Kappa index reaches to 0. 86 and 0. 89 respectively, indicating a successful simulation. For a better understanding of the future land use changes in the region, the same model is further put into application to predict spatial distribution of land use changes in 2010 for three scenarios associating with current governmental policy of "grain to green". The results of scenario analysis demonstrate that CLUE-S model can play key roles in land use planning and ecological construction, and is also a key part of decision-support system. In the scenario analysis, the changes in quantity are specified on purpose, and thus the simulation is focused on land use changes in location. This is because land use and cover changes in the upper reaches of the Dadu river are mainly driven by policies, especially for forest land and cultivated land, and changes in area are usually determined by government. Therefore, such an application of CLUE-S model is more suitable to regions characterized by policy-driven land use change, in which once the changes in quantity, such as areas of forest cutting, afforestation, grazing-forbidden, or planned reserves, are specified, then their changes in locations can be predicted with the same model. Furthermore, the spatial resolution of modeling can reach to a level of single grid cell.

Karst rocky desertification is a kind of land degradation which has happened in fragile karst mountain ecosystem in Southwest China. The unsuited matching at vertical direction and unreasonable special distribution at horizontal direction of landscape use make the landscape degradation a major problem in karst mountain areas. But little is being understood about the interrelation between the spatial distribution of rocky desertified land and the rocky desertification processes. This paper analyzes the ecological conditions of 5 special peak cluster-depressions which are at different desertification degrees on the southern slope of Huajiang karst gorge based on field investigation, the change of landscape pattern indexes and their ecological significance, in order to understand the ecological spatial character and evolving procedure of karst mountains from landscape ecological viewpoint. Results indicate that the diversity index, dominance index and evenness index relate closely to the landscape matrix of peak cluster-depressions, and show different ecological significance in different rocky desertified peak cluster-depressions. With the increase of rocky desertification intensity, the diversity index is in a decreasing trend while dominance index in an increasing trend significantly, the evenness index decreases firstly and then increases when rocky desertification develops further, the isolation and patch area of naked rock increase gradually but isolation of grasslands, shrub and woodlands increases while their patches area in a reduction. The landscape of potential rocky desertified peak cluster-depressions is even more seriously fragmentized than light and moderate rocky desertified peak cluster-depressions, and fragmentation is most in all peak cluster-depressions. The landscape patterns and development modes of potential rocky desertified and strong rocky desertified peak cluster-depressions represent two typical types of rocky desertification in southwest karst mountain areas. This paper shows that the processes of karst ecosystem rocky desertification depends on the distribution, fragmentation and conjunction, not merely the absolute quantity scale of naked rocks and vegetation. The analysis of landscape pattern emphasizes not only area, but also the relations and influence among rocky desertification processes, the spacial pattern of rocky desertification and landscape element character, therefore, landscape should not be neglected in the studies of rocky desertification degree and indexes, landscape patterns, landscape diversity and patches closely correlating with rocky desertification process must be taken into account in the assessment of the karst rock desertification degrees.

The protection and rational use of coastal resources are keys to sustainable development in coastal zones, which are influenced by many natural and social factors such as coastal location and management policies. To realize sustainable development of coastal zones, the influence mechanism of impact factors on landuse changes must be studied and rational policies are made based on the study. To learn the effects of coastal location and management policies of coastal zone on their landuse changes, as a case study, the pattern of landuse changes from 1985 to 2000 in Golden Coastal Region of Changli county, Hebei province was studied in this paper. The landuse change in near-coastal and far-coastal zones shows that coastal location has great effect on landuse changes in coastal zone, and landuse change degree of near-coastal zone is greater than that of far-coastal zone and their main change types are different-the main change types in near-coastal zone are the conversions of beaches, lagoons, sand dunes, grasslands and farmlands into fishponds and sand dunes into grasslands and forestlands, while the main change types of far-coastal zone are the conversions of farmlands into rural residential areas and sand dunes, and saline-alkali lands into farmlands, fishponds and grasslands. The comparison of landuse changes between protected area and development area, which are both in near-coastal zone, was made and the results prove that management policies of coastal zones have great effects on landuse changes, too. Landuse change degree in protected area is smaller than that of development area, and the main change types in protected area are sand dunes into forestlands and grasslands and lagoon into fishponds, while the main change types in development area are affected by different development policies, the main change types of tourist area are forest into lands for tourism and recreation purpose and residential areas, and those of fishery culture area are grasslands and beaches into fishponds. The analysis also shows that the protected area has played its positive roles in protection of lagoons, sand dunes and forests after its construction, but the area of the Qilihai lagoon is about 3.5km² now because of cultured fishponds around the lagoon before the construction of protected area, therefore we must protect the lagoon actively and forbid its continuous culturing and return the fishponds back to the lagoon.

A transitional zone in landscape has a character of high spatial heterogeneity, from which demarcation lines are usually needed to be drawn for delineating various categories of landscapes and their extents. According to distinct differences of landscapes on both sides of the demarcation lines, and using GRID in ARCGIS, this paper provides a simpler and easier method based on cell-by-cell neighborhood processing. First it divides all the cells alternatively into two classes by an attribute, and then deduces which category the processed continuous or dispersive cells should belong to at random directions. And it sets a critical value according to location characteri stics of borderlines and double-handed attributes on classification. Then grid sclose to the demarcation line are selected by their short distance, because af ter neighboring processing, the closer grids have a higher attributive degree than the farther ones, and the discontinuous and lonely grids are abandoned so that the continuously distributed cells near the demarcation line can begot. After vectorization of grid layer, the line coverage can be used to select the demar cation line with the help of reference maps, such as hillshade or land use distribution maps. Taking the regions near the Capital, China, this paper gives defi nite mechanics of neighborhood processing, draws morphological boundaries out of landforms, checks accuracy of the method, and briefly discusses its meanings and availability. Also, it applies this method to other fields of landscape analy sis for application and validation. The neighborhood processing can trace the borderline between two classes of landscapes which are distributed complicatedly on two-dimensional space, and can be used to search the demarcation lines of agro-pastoral transitional zone, geomorphological demarcation line, or shoulder line of valleys on the Loess Plateau, etc.

Urban housing spatial structure can be viewed as the substantial expression of urban development history. The housing spatial structure of Guangzhou city is typical in that it lies on the front of opening zone and, furthermore, it is one of the three largest cities in China. Basing on the housing data of Guangzhou's 5th Census, the paper employs factor and cluster methods to analyze 5 key factors taking from 40 variables of 77 sub-districts (F>70%). They are housing constructed years, housing sources, kitchen equipments, toilet equipments and housing floors. The results of the factor scores help to divide the houses in urban built-up area of Guangzhou city into four types with different features: Ⅰ) Pre-establishment Housing Area (in which houses constructed before the founding of P. R. China); Ⅱ) Government Welfare Housing Area (Ⅱa: in which houses constructed for public servant from the time of the founding of P. R. China to the Reform and Opening) and Enterprise Welfare Housing Area (Ⅱb: in which houses constructed for people serving public owned enterprises from the time of the founding of P. R. China to the Reform and Opening); Ⅲ) 1980s Housing Area (houses with relatively rough equipment constructed during the 1980s); Ⅳ) 1990s Housing Area, in which Commercial Houses (Ⅳa) and Privately Constructed Houses (Ⅳb) centralized. The results can be used to explain the formation mechanism of Guangzhou's housing spatial structure. 1) As a result of Guangzhou's development, housing spatial structure turns on concentric circles from inside to outside. The quality of houses in the former urban area (inside circles) is poorer than that in the outer because they are the origin of the city. Some underdeveloped villages were surrounded by built-up area with urban expansion, while some of them were developed apart from the urban. 2) City planning distorted the concentric circle structure. 3) City reconstruction changed the homogeneous situation of the former urban area. 4) Although the housing reform institute changed houses' tenure, their public-owned attribute has not been broken. 5) Outskirts of the city become the hot area of real estate development, which result in the highest ratio of commercial housing in the outside of the built-up area. As a conclusion, the paper deduces the structure mode of housing spatial structure in the large cities of China: The Pre-establishment Housing Area normally lies in the inner circle. The second circle is the Welfare Housing Area. The Commercial Housing Area mainly centralized in the 3rd circle, which surrounds those relatively underdeveloped villages originally far from urban built-up area and some special function area constructed in the culture and education areas in the 1980s. The broad suburban housing area and industrial area together formed the 4th circle.

Based on the land use survey maps and data of 1984,1992,1995-2001,and assisted by spatial analysis techniques of GIS and statistic analysis methods,the spatial-temporal process and differentiation of land use change since 1984 in Fengtai district of Beijing were analyzed.Using the data of land use and economic output,the benefit differentiation of economic output between different land use types was calculated in 1999.And according to the data from 1992 to 2001,a correlative model between non-agricultural land use and fixed asset investment,population,secondary and tertiary industries was set up.As a result,this paper found: （1） The total area of agricultural land-use decreased continually,and the decreased area was 8968.76 hm²,with 527.57 hm² of annual average and 3.91% of annual average decreased rate from 1984 to 2001,of which the decreased area of farmland and grassland was much larger.But that of non-agricultural land-use increased speedily with years,and the annual increased area and rate were respectively 569.34 hm² and 4.4% in 1984 to 2001,of which the main increase types were urban & town land and industrial & mining areas. （2） During 1984 to 1999,the spatial different features of land-use change in the district was very remarkable.Along with temporal process,the peak areas of land-use change composed of agricultural land decrease and non-agricultural land increase have been transferred away from center city since 1984.The peak areas of land-use change were between circle-road 2 and 3 in 1984-1992 and between circle-road 3 and 4 in 1992-1999.And predictably,the peak areas will be between circle-road 4 and 5 in the coming 10 years. （3） The comparative analysis of economic output benefits between different land-use types shows that the distinct differences of economic output benefits are pivotal powers of driving land use conversion from agricultural land in nonagricultural land.During 1992 to 2001,the total asset investment,population growth and secondary industrial development are three key factors enlarging non-agricultural land area.