“区域可持续发展”学术研讨会暨自然地理、人文地理专业委员工作议在郑州召开由中国地理学会自然地理、经济地理、人文地理三个专业委员会联合召开,河南省科学院地理研究所承办、河南省地理学会及河南大学地理系协办的“区域可持续发展”学术研讨会于1996年11月6日至10日在我国中原大地名城郑州市高山饭店举行。来自全国80多个单位230余名代表出席会议,是我国地理学会第1次以三个专业委员会联合召开,自然、经济、人文地理学家共聚一堂,共同研讨一个命题—区域可持续发展的大型学术会议。

中国地理学会第二届编辑出版工作委员会议在桂林召开中国地理学会第二届编辑出版工作委员会于1996年11月15日至17日在广西挂林召开了工作会议。出席会议的代表,来自全国30多个出版社和地理刊物的编辑,共计35人。

Restructuring and internationalization have been two major characteristics of the development of Chinese automobile industry after China's open-door policy of 1978.The authors firstly analyze the industry's features shaped by restructuring in the last two decades in terms of corporate structure, production capacity and structure, scale economy, and spatial organization.They then examine its degree of internationalization and position in the world automobile industry with reference to foreign investments and technology transfers.Finally they outline the problems encountered by the Chinese automobile industry.China's first auto assembly plant was imported from the former USSR in 1953.However.the government closed its door to technology import in the 1960s and early 1970s.During these two decades, the automobile assembly plants proliferated disorderly because of the high production profit resulted from the shortage of automobile supply.This led to an over-diffused spatial pattern of the industry.China readopted technology import policy after 1978, and utilized actively technological transfers from developed countries.Now most of China's automobile production technologies are transferred from big automobile countries such as Japan, US, German and France, and almost all its car producers are joint-ventures.However, the Chinese government limits the foreign equity in assembly and engine joint-ventures to not more than 50%.The take-overs by and transplants of MNCs do not seem possible in the near future.At the same time, China began to restructure the industry in order to achieve economies of scale.The corporate structure of the industry is now being shaped towards dominance by state and province owned corporation groups.More and more small and medium factories are being taken over by, merging with or making alliance with these corporation groups.Yet, the improvement of economies of scale is far from satisfactory.The over-diffused locational pattern has not changed much either.Small passenger car (sedan) is still a minor part of automobile production in China, accounting for only 22.4 percent of total output in 1995.As the government is cautious in encouraging private cars, the car percentage will not increase quickly as has been expected by the Ministry of Machinery Building, i.e.to reach 50 percent of the total auto production by the year of 2000.ln short, the Chinese automobile industry in the last decade has increased volume of production, but not overall efficiency, quality and economy.This is because there is neither market force nor the former strong planning drive behind it.lt is now in a critical growth period confronted both by pressures from MNCs, entry and competition, and by the still irrational corporate structure and an over-diffused location pattern.

Sustainable development, one of the basic national policies of China, will direct the great scale of exploitation of Northwest China (NC) in the coming 20-30 years.lmportant problems that influence sustainable development of NC in the acrossing century were analysised thoroughly in the paper.Countermeasures were put forward.They are followign: (1) Current opportunity that will speed up regional economic development should be taken to narrow disparity between NC and coastal area.For this purpose, some countermeasures were suggested.(2) Based on its low level of regional industrial structures, obvious duality structure, unbalanced proportion between light and heavy industries, slow development of town and township enterprises, NC should expand exploitation scale of superior resources, and should depend on scientific and technic progress to strenghen processing ability of energy and raw materials, to extend industrial chain and raise additional value of resources and related degree within industries.(3) lnfrastructure construction should be fastened and developed in advance, especially in railway construction, highway construction, energy supply and communication construction.lnvestment environment should be improved.Special attention should be paid to soft investment environment.(4) According to NC's situation, it is better to select pointaxis developmental model to develop NC.lmportant developmental areas should be Guanzhong Area around Xi'an, Upper Reaches Area of the Yellow River around Lanzhou, North Foot Area of the Tianshan Mountains around Wulumuqi, Hexi Corridor and Chaidamu Basin.(5) lnadeqate water resources and weak ecological environment are limiting factors for NC's sustainable development; therefore, rational water utilization, ecological environment protection and administer should be taken serionusly.

Based on analyzing the cartographic communication theory and the symbol dimensions, the paper advanced from the symbolic constitution elements, such as position, form, hue, size, texture, direction and notation to map design.The designing models of symbolic constitution elements are some methods, such as selection, coverture, cooperation, strengthening, weakening, extension and condesing.The process of designing symbolic constitution elements for thematic mapping is presented.The design of symbolic constitution elements is to express thematic factors, and it has a very important theoretical and practical significance to promote the development of computer-assisted cartography and GIS and to increase designing level of thematic mapping.

After the economic reform and open-door, the quantity of foreign direct investment (FDI) in China increased very quickly.FDI has become a more important factor to promote the economic growth.Most of FDI spreaded in the coastal belt of the east China, which caused the different economics growth rate in different areas, the goverment has paid more attention to the problem.ln the paper, the qualitative and quantitative research methods were both used.First, the author analysed the condition and characteristics of the distribution of FDI.Secondly, the dynamic development process of regional distribution of FDI was reviewed.Thirdly, according to the above-mentioned conclusions of research, the author put forword measures to improve the regional structure of FDI.

The reservoir of the river with high concentration has influences on fluvial process.There were seven natural cut-offs occurred in the lower Wei River from 196l to 1975.After the reconstruction of the Sanmenxia Project the natural cut-offs in the lower Wei River did not occur from 1976 to 1996.By the analyses of the field observed data it is found that the above-mentioned phenomenon is caused by the following factors, (1) The bed elevation of Tongguan serves as a local base level to the lower Wei river.The natural cut-offs occurred after a rise of the bed elevation of Tongguan.2) After the construction of the Sanmenxia Reservoir, the river slope of the lower Wei River became gentle.meanwhile the bend coefficient was getting large.After the reconstruction of the Sanmenxia Project, the river slope became steeper, the bend coefficient became small.3) After the construction of the Sanmenxia Reservoir, the bed material of the new.flood-plain became loose, incoherent and easy to be eroded.The natural cut-offs occurred with small ratio of cut-off.The mean ratio of cut-offs was 3.42.(4) After the construction of the Sanmenxia Reservoir, the discharge capacity at the bankfull stage was reduced.The probability of flow over its flood-plain became high.lt provided more chance for the flood inundate its flood-plain.(5) When the kinetic 1ine of over-bank flood with hyperconcentration coincides with the ditch, the ditch may more probably develop into a new main channel and the natural cut-offs Complete finally.After the reconstruction of the Sanmenxia Project, the main channel of the lower Wei River was eroded in depth and widened in width.The discharge capacity at the bankfull stage was recovered and increased.Meanwhile, due to the bed of the river was degraded deeply into old river.bed level, the materials of the river bank consist of two parts.The lower part consists of coherent fine particle sediment;the upper part consists of incoherent coarse particle sediment, so the collapses of the river concave bank slow down.Since the rainfall was rare, from 1976 to 1990, just one flood was over the flood-plain in 1981, and the duration of the flood was short.Therefore, after the reconstruction.of the Sanmenxia Project, the lower Wei River lost the abovementioned essential condition for natural cut-offs.

Estimation of settlement loss is an important part of flood loss estimation, but it is hard to promptly estimate the loss of settlements caused by flood loss.ln this paper, the factors which influence spatial distribution of settlement are discussed firstly.The main factors influencing the distribution of settlements are natural environment, production environment and social and cultural environment.ln floodplains, the factors affecting distribution are topography and farming and transportation conditions.Then spatial distribution of rural settlement in floodplains are analyzed and studied.Using geographic information system (GIS), the author made a quantitative study on the spatial distribution of settlement in different elevation zone.The data about the location and area of any settlement were collected from the 1:10 000 topographic map, which could be statistically analyzed.At first, based on the linear relationship between population and settlement area, the population of villages could be estimated based on its area.Secondly, the grade of the village was determined by the population size.At last, using regional DEM, elevation zones, and settlement grades, the number of settlement in different grades in each elevation zone could be obtained from an overlay operation in GIS, and two indices could be obtainted, which are spatial distribution density of rural settlement and spatial distribution density of population, to describe the relationship between rural settlement distribution and elevation zone.Finally the application of the study to flood damage assessment was discussed.lt was tested in Funan county and Yinshang county in the middle Huaihe valley, and we can draw a conclusion that the spatial distribution density of settlement and that of population can describe the features of settlement distribution and can be used to estimate population distribution in a region.It can satisfy th needs of a prompt Flood Loss Estimation.

The lower reaches of the Lancang River basin is located in the southwest China, bounded by upper Laos and Burma, and includes the Xishuangbanna Dai autonomous Prefecture, Simao Prefecture and Lingcang Prefecture in Yunnan Province.In this location the mountainous environment is abundant in water, tour, mineral and biological resources, but the economy have been rather primitive.In recent years, the government of China takes its development seriously along with the rise of international new development and study on the Lancang-Mekong river.The development planning of the Lower reaches of the Lancang river basin was placed on the priority programme for China's Agenda 21 in 1993.And in 1994, the government of China established the national coordinaion group which coordinates international affairs of the target region to cooperate with Laos, Burma, Thailand and Viet Nam in study and development planning.We think that transportation is the basic industry and the heart to promote the development of the Lower reaches of the Lancang river basin.Therefore, this paper includes some sections BS follows.Firstly, the paper demonstrates the necessity of enhancing water and land transportation construction of the Lower reaches of the Lancang river basin, and analyses the present situations and existing problems of transportation development in the target region.Secondly, the paper forecasts the inernational economic freight volume and goods structure between Yunnan Province of China and the countries of the southeast Asia, and estimates the tourist number to the Xishuangbanna in 2000.Thirdly, the paper demonstrates that the Lower reaches of the Lancang river basin is the strategic passageway of economic cooperation and international trade between the southwest China and the southeast Asia.The transport development includes dredging waterways of the Lancang Mekong river, building the new railroad of Xiangyun-Simao-Jinghong-Mohan, remaking 8 improtant roads, opening up domestic air(4 lines) and international air (5 lines).Lastly, the paper advances and discusses some proposals of accelerating transport system construction of the target region.

The aim of environment gradient analysis is to explain the inter spatial relationships of each kind of environment factors.Although so many methods have been used for the analysis, the shortages of the traditional research, heavy work amount and operation miscellaneous, have not been overcome.On the base of the geographic information system (GIS) and remote sensing technology, a new method and flow-line of environment gradient analysis are set up in this paper.The advantage of the new method lies in simple operation and time-saving.With the remote sensing image processing software, the TM image of the research area was processed, classified, and the vegetation distribution map was produced quickly.The GIS also provides powerful spatial analysis ability such as overlay for multiple thematic maps integration analysis.In this paper, four environment factors, elevation, precipitation, soil and temperature, were selected and their thematic maps were overlaid with vegetation distribution map to analyze the relationships between vegetation distribution and them.In order to benefit statistics, the value of each environment factor was transformed into several gradients under certain condition respectively.On the unit of gradient of each environment factor, the distribution amount of each kind of vegetation is counted up by overlaying the vegetation distribution map and the distribution maps of other physical environment factors.The results show that the distribution of each kind of vegetation related to the environment factors concerned is approximately normal and the peak value of each normal is the best representative of the kind of vegetation.Thus, the vector expression with the normal distribution peak value of each factor can be used to describe the relationship between the environment factors and each kind of vegetation.And, the model of the differentiation of vegetation.community spatial distribution conformed to the environment gradient was built.Four thematic maps of selected environment factors were overlaid together to reclassify the vegetation distribution map depending on the above model and minimum distance classification method.The method was tested in the case study of Helan Mountain, and the results are satisfactory.

Spatial analysis and GIS are both useful tools for spatial information analysis.Under the supporting of computer, remote sensing and other techniques, they have been widely used in the study of social, economic and natural phenomena.The combination of them can offer users with very useful tools in dealing with spatial data.On the one hand, the combination of them can widen the spatial analysis function of GIS, obtaining more useful information from original data.On the other hand, spatial analysis can get strong support from GIS since they are both dealing with spatial data.However, the combination of these two techniques is not quite popular in software market and application fields.More efforts should be made in finding ways to solving this problem.In this paper, the autho discussed the potential of the combination of spatial analysis and GIS, as well as the way of the combination.As pointed in this paper, spatial analysis can offers GIS with strong ability, like spatial structure analysis, spatial autocorrelation analysis, kriging analysis, spatial simulation, etc.At the same time, GIS can help in determining the sampling manner and obtaining large amount of data which are.needed in theoretical study of spatial analysis.GIS is also quite powerful in presenting the analytical results of spatial analysis.The combination of GIS and spatial analysis can be performed in two ways: The first is adding a data exchange interface between GIS and spatial analysis software.The second way is adding the spatial analysis module into GIS software packages.Considering the current situation of software market, the combination of these two techniques should be developed step by step.

Mt. Huangshan is situated in the south part of Anhui province. Its center part-Guangming-top peak is located at E118°10' and N30°10'.The mountain,one of China's most celebrated mountains,is named world-class natural and cultural protection area by UNESCO in 1990.The major part of Mt. Huangshan is granite body fromed in the Yanshan Movement of the Mesozonic era. The fromation age of the granite body was 131.2~123.4MaBP.In geotectonic system,Mt. Huangshan located at the join part between North-China subplate and Sourth-China sub-plate. That made Mt. Huangshan to be affected by mufti-tectonic movements,and structed the mountain mufti-layer landforms. We divide three planation sufaces in Mt. Huangshan before Neogene,and four terraces n the region during Quaternary period.

Shanghai, the largest city of China, is situated at the south bank of Yangtze Esture (30°42'-31°48'N, 120°52'-122°16'E).It covers an area of 6341 square kilometers.The annual average temperature and rainfall are 15.8℃ and 11 45.1mm respectively.There are 919 species of seed plants belonging to 134 families and 510 genera in Shanghai.According to the geographical distribution of spermatophytic genera, tyey may be divided into 15 types of geographical elements, which are mostly Pantropic (27.8%).Northe Temperate (21.6%) and East Asia (11.9%).The nature vegetation of Shanghai consists mainly of evergreen broadleaf forest.mixed broadleaf forest and wetland vegetation.The different types and the distribution pattern reflect the climate.characteristics of the transition area from middle subtropical to north subtropical and the trait of the natural environmemt of Shanghai, meanwhile, its current sitiuation also shows the change of the nature vegetation by human pressure.As the special ecosystem and a nature history heritage of Shanghai, forest vegetation is needed to be protected at Dajinshan Island and She Shan.The vegetation of Shanghai can be divided into two vegetation zones: the middle subtropical evergreen broadleaf forest and north subtropical mixed broadleaf forest.

In this paper, seting in the reginal cooperation of Northeast Asia, and guiding with the.polariable theory of reginal development, the writor analyses the forming conditions of the development area of multinational econimic cooperation in Tumen River, and puts forward the external motive factors and internal potentiacities on which the emergence and development of the new-type transnational development area rely, providing the reference basis for the people who will invest in the area.

The study of mankind as newest geosphere is a great theoretic subject in earth science.Anthroposphere (Human sphere) is a sphere of the earth with human being as the natural substance.It is a self-controllable open system which has incompletely closed circulation function and triple structure with culture predominating.At present anthroposphere is entering the new catastrophic period.The major reasons for our treating the anthroposphere as an independent earth sphere are as follows, (1) Human beings have already become a global integrity: (2) The anthroposphere is the product of the earth differentiation; (3) The strong interaction between the anthroposphere and the earth's natural world;(4) It has some features different form that of the biosphere; (5) It follows the same basic laws of the earth, s evolution as the earth system.The study of the anthroposphere has the following important significance.First it widens our knowledge of the earth system, and brings earth system science to the stage of modern earth system science which combines nature science and social science.Secondly it is advantagous to the study of the sources for global environmental deterioration and the basic conditions for the sustainable development from structural change of modern earth system.

There are three main findings in the paper.(1) On the basis of the theories from the related disciplines and the research results in the topic, three levels are clarified for conducting a study concerning transnational corporations (TNCs) and regional development, impacts of TNCs on the host region, relationships between TNCs and all participants in the host area, and main factors determining the bargaining power of the two sides.(2) Three interaction systems, namely production chains, organizational structure, and the hierarchy of relations of ownership and possession, plus a regional system are used as background for theoretical analysis.Therefore, it is suggested that the power relations between transnational and the host regions be more comprehensively judged by positing them in the systems.(3) Regional impacts of TNCs on the host regions are characterised as extensiveness, gradation, regionalization, multi-sides, differentiation, and timeliness.The relationships between TNCs and the host regions are complementary, compertitive and evolutionary.The main factors determining the relationships are social political background,structures of TNCs and the host economies, and power positions of the two sides.

According to the thoughts of Prof. Huang Bingwei, "Geography will loss the base for its existence without integrated geographic research", and "integrated research is a main developing trend of physical geography, and a most effective approach to run departments of physical geography", integrated geographic research includes modern precesses and historical formation which are related and supplement each other. Therefore, Prof. Huang Bingwei poited out three fields of physico-geographic research in 1960's. In fact, it is an integration of geography on the layer of physical environment. Recently, his proposed research of Land System Science and Regional Sustainable Development Strategies-keeps on and develops integrated geographic research which he holds for a long time. He stresses the importance of integrated research and thinks that only interdisplinary research means integrated research. In order to coordinate man-land relationship, it is not enough if natural sciences are taken into account only, and both integrating socio-economic sciences and integrating natural sciences and human studies are required.

It is very important for rational and economical transportation organization to know the decisions of citizens in transport mode choice. Hong Kong had returned to China. It is an inexorable trend that there are more inland citizens hope to visit Hong Kong in the future, while many inland citizens have visited Hong Kong in the past two decades. The passenger flow between Chinese other regions and Hong Kong, for instance, was 8.46 million people in 1980, but it increased to more than 50 million people in 1995. Our contribution in this paper is divided into three parts. First, we surveyed almost 2500 passengers by random sampling in Beijing Capital Airport, Beijing Train Station, Shanghai Hongqiao Airport, Shanghai Train Station, Guangzhou Baiyun Airport, Guangzhou Train Station. According to the statistical analysis,the results indicated that most passengers, more than three-fourth, hoped to visit Hong Kong in future. If their dreams of visiting Hong Kong could come true in future, the best transport model they would choose is by air, second transport mode is by train. The percentages are 55% and 45% respectively. Especially, direct air transport mode, direct train transport mode and direct air to Shenzhen then to Hong Kong are pleasant trip choices in transport mode choices. Secondly, the influence of key factors in transport mode choice was discussed. The results showed that income level, professions, transport costs are important influential factors in transport mode choice. The professionals of white-collar class, for example, like to travel by air in transport mode choice, and think it is important to save time during traveling. According to statistical analysis, over 50% (51.8%~68.2%) of people who works in offices like to travel by air. But workers of blue-collar class chose mostly train transport mode, the percentage is over 60%. Thirdly, the results indicated that the number of potential passengers between Hong Kong and Chinese other regions is very large. According to the forecasting analysis, the potential train passenger traffic volume between Beijing and Hong Kong in short-term period is about 400000 people, and the train passenger traffic volume between Shanghai and Hong Kong in short-term period is about 300000 people.

Neoteconic stress field (NSF), as one geologic agent, plays an important role in zonal slope stability analysis and soil erosion researches. NSF in the Three Gorges reservoir is presented by the Scheidegger method, one of geomorphologic method to identify NSF, in this paper. Principal compressive NSF go in the directions of NE52.1°, NE12.5°and NE45°respectively in the Chongqing area, the reservoir of east Sichuan and the Three Gorges area in the reservoir region, which control obviously the sliding directions of landslides along the banks of the reservoir. Sliding directions of landslides principally tally with the shear belt (Max1) of the NSF region of the reservoir, which is NE52.1° Then we discover that the dominant slide direction of landslides in the area tallies with the shear zone of NSF. Due to the acute angle between the principal compressive stress of the NSF and the Yangtze River valley is about 55°, tectonic stress O_T^- mainly plays roles of O₃^- of the reservoir slope, which can trigger landslides easily.

Field investigations and analyses of sediments, buried paleo-trees, gagatite, sporopollen, granularity, quartz-sand surface feature, oxide and chronology found a natural profile with pluvial characteristics during the Late-boreal phase to Subboreal phase (8 200±126 aBP, 7 822±250 aBP~7 670±160 aBP, 7 562±90 aBP, 4 085±95 aBP~4 090±100 aBP and 3 730±90 aBP). The sporopollen with more thermophilous coniferous-broad plant communities in the profile illustrates that the humid-hot climate should be a major climate during the period from 8 200±126 aBP to 3730±90 aBP. A large number of agatite, buried paleo-trees and sand-gravel with pluvial feature between the third layer and the ninth layer indicate that the period has experienced many times flood environments with megathermal pluvial climate. The investigation shows that the profile is situated in the second terrace on the north bank of the Yangtze River, its pluvial layer should be formed by the Yangtze River swinging and depositing during the paleo-flood period. In addition, the grey-yellow loess layer with thickness of 0.53m in the upper of the profile should be formed by dust transporting and accumulation during the cold period (3000 aBP~2850 aBP) of Subboreal phase by the analyses.

At present, a major problem in site remediation is frequently the lack of appropriate standards for chemicals in soils. While there are a few standards of organic and inorganic materials for exposure routes in waste treatment such as direct ingestion of soil, no standards are applicable to prediction of groundwater contaminated by metals. In this research, the "Equilibrium Partitioning" method is applied to study the adsorption capacity of trace elements (lead and cadmium) to the unsaturated zone in Beijing and Tangshan City. The partition coefficients (K_d) for lead and cadmium are computed from the percentage of metal absorbed K_d=(fraction absorbed)/(1-fraction absorbed)×100, and the maximum levels of metals in soil, for which the equilibrium soluble metals do not exceed the drinking water standard, are calculated from K_d (C_s=K_d×C_w, C_s:the maximum concentration, C_w:drinking water standard). The conclusions are as follows:1. The percentage of lead or cadmium absorbed obviously depends on pH values. The curve, which is S-shaped, can be fitted with the following function:F(x)=a×e^bx/(1+a×e^bx);2. The shapes of the logarithmic maximum metal permissible values in soil depending on pH values are linear, and the maximum metal permissible values in soil at certain pH values can be calculated with the regression formulas;3. Different soils have different "maximum metal permissible values" (criteria), to which the soils' physical and chemical properties are decisive factors;4. Given the same conditions, lead has higher concentration without causing an exceedence of the drinking water standard than cadmium.

Desertification in North and Northeast China has become a commonly concerned problem among environmental scientists. The desertification in the Maowushu and Horqin Sandlands of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region is the most serious in the country. In order to investigate the past human impact on sand dune mobilization and land degradation, we collected two sediment cores in Bakeyao Lake, Southeastern Horqin Sandland, and analyzed the pollen and algae spore from one of them. The result shows that the little lake was formed in 1837, when the first migrates from Shandong and Hebei Provinces arrived in the study area for agriculture production. The original sand dune vegetation was greatly destroyed by the early settlers, and a series of little lakes were formed owing to the reduced plant evapotranspiration. The later changes of the lake and sand land system were controlled by the interaction among human activities, climates and the initial intervention. Since the early ninetieth, human activities have been the dominating factor in the sand land environmental changes. The feedback process within the sand land system may have been of importance.

The authors hold that TEBC-tourist environmental bearing capacity,is a special resource of scarcity which asides by specific laws of distribution and the human should utilize the resource reasonably-but, "overbering" is harmful for the development and protection of the resource;"hyperbearing" means waste and letting idle of the resource. "Tourist capacity" is defined by the author as an inner index of TEBC, it is mainly determined by the tourism activities and contents. Besides this index, two other indexs are involved in the determination of TEBC, that is, economic capacity and psychological capaciy of local people, and accordingly, the authors design the evaluation method by means of mathematics model. On the basis the above method,the authors made quantitative analysis on the TEBC of Mt. Tai and as a result, concluded that the amount of daily TEBC for Mt. Tai is 16 600 people and the annual amount is 4 300 000. And also from the view of time and space, the authors analyse the principles of changing of TEBC resources, and with the statistics in hand, the authors also analyse the utility intensity and developmental potentiality of the main scenic regions of Mt. Tai in different time and space. And finally, directing against the utilization condition of TEBC of Mt. Tai, the authors put forward space-time regulation measurements.

The current fast economic growth is accompanied with rapid urban expansion and great loss of agricultural land in the Pearl River Delta. The lack of information and technology hinders planners and local officers to achieve sustainable development. This paper tries to demonstrate the potential of the integration of remote sensing and GIS for monitoring and analysing of land development in the Pearl River Delta. It is found that wasteful use of land resource exists with ‘blind' development patterns. The fast diffusion of urban areas has caused loss of large amount of agricultural land. Based on GIS analysis, some protection measures can be formulated to curb the tendency of swallowing agricultural land for urban development. The area of urban use rapidly increased from 16234.6 ha to 41087.9 ha. in 1988~1993 in the study area, Dongguan. This means that 10.4% of the total land area was converted to urban use just within this short period. Moreover, most of the conversion only occurred in 1990~1993. It is found that the land loss in Dongguan in 1988~1993 mainly took place within a few kilometers nearby urban (town) centres or roads. Actually, 90 percent of the total land loss occurred within an average distance of 1.38 km from roads and 5.63 km from urban (town) centres. The result is not very surprising given that the proximity is a very important factor for land development. It is very clear that the city proper is under a quick expansion of its urban areas in recent years. A transition period with more land loss occurring in a further distance exists because of the diffusion process. It is interesting to see that there is a strong contrast between the diffusion in 1988~1990 and that in 1990~1993. The diffusion of the urban areas was limited in 1988~1990 while the diffusion was astonishingly strong in 1990~1993. It is because a large amount of agricultural land has been encroached for the development of real estate since 1992. However, the diffusion pattern is not identical as there is obvious variation for each town.

Many private trees have been planted in the house gardens of a low density residential quarter of Huaqiao Xincun of Guangzhou. The study deals with tree composition, structure, spacial pattern, and tree-habitat relationship. A survey was conducted in five main streets of the area. The 165 house gardens with 1409 trees were studied in detail. Some results were compared with those of a previous local street-tree survey. It is shown in study that:species diversity of trees was surprisingly high and tree composition was made up of 114 species. The ratios of local species and fruit trees in the house agrdens were much greater than those in local street tress. At present, most of trees are in range between 3m and 9m. However, potential high of 21 species is more than 20m. Most of trees were cared for and only 15.5% of trees was found in structural damage. In five streets only 4.2% of house gardens had no tree and more than 80% house gardens had 5 or more trees. The gardens had a relatively high species diversity and 45 species occurred as solitary specimen (one tree per garden). In house gardens with trees, 73% of house gardens had solitary specimen and 67.1% of house gardens had five or more species. Space distribution of trees by streets had a relative congregation pattern. The top 10 species of trees occurred in all survey streets and also had a great street aggregation index. This means that they cover most of the study area. Garden size was in important factor for treen growth. It was a key problem that tree density was too high and niches were limited. Trees and landscape in house gardens of Huaqiao Xncun are good examples for the low density residential quarters in other tropical and subtropical areas.

According to the analysis of grain size, mineral compositions and materials corapped by quartz in the suspended and bed loads sampled from the Changjiang River and the Yellow River, this paper reveals the difference of load's compositions between the two rivers. In the Yellow River the sizes of suspended loads are coarser than the Changjiang River, but the bed loads are finer. Among the mineral compositions, the biotite content of the Yellow River's loads in much more than the Changjiang River's, and its monomorillonite content in the clay minerals is over one time more than the Changjiang River's. All this reflects the effects of material sources and the hydraulic conditions on loads characters. The analysis of materials corapped by quartz indicates the environmental difference of material sources between the two rivers. It provides a new method for marking off the loads sources.

The development of market towns in China has important effect on nationwide development of urbannization and rural economy. Based on the findings from an on-the-spot investigation, this thesis makes a summary on the major problems existing as result of the development of market towns along Jingjiu Railway Line, proposes several model types of the development and discussed their respective functions. This thesis also explores the eventual effects on the development of market towns brought by the construction and utilization of Jingjiu Railway Line. As a conclusion from these analyses, the author offers 4 strategies for the development of market towns:a) Developing 4 regional town groups. b) Concentrating rural enterprises and enforcing market construction. c) Distributing and spreading reasonably. d) Property concentrating and focusing on development. Plausible suggestions are finally proposed about market towns development.

There are three theoretical patterns of regional development, namely growing point pattern, point and line pattern and net-developing pattern. On the basis of actual situations of the economic development of border provinces and autonomous regions of China, net-developing pattern can suit Liaoning Procince, growing point pattern can suit Xizang Autonomous Region, and point and line pattern will suit the other provinces and regions, including Jilin, HeilongJiang, Neimenggu, Gansu, Xingjiang, Yunnan and Guangxi. But there is a common defect in these patterns. All of them only pay attention to their inner advantages, and ignore outword development of regional economy. In fact, foreign trade is important for promoting economic development. Therefore it is necessary to adjust the strategy for the economic development of the border provinces and regions, and to increase their outward development. According to this analysis, we must reinforce border region's opening and developing of the border provinces and regions, and do well on constraction of the trafflic lines between the opening districts and the developed districts of the border provinces and regions. The paper plans and draws up the outward regional development strategies for three of six important border provinces and regions, namely, Xinjiang Yunnan and Heilongjiang.

By taking the mountainous region of North China as an examplein, this paper established a zones dividing model of agriculture-forest-animal husbandry. The steps are as follows:First, the calculating equations of annual mean temperature and annual rainfall amount were established. The calculation results indicate that when the height increases by 100 m, the temperature will decrease by 0.59℃~0.70℃ and the rainfall will increase by 20 mm~120 mm, respectively. Second, accordiny to above the caculation results, the vertical distribution of Natural Vegetation Net Primary Productivity (NPP) was calculated, the results indicate that the distribution of NPP with height presents a parabolic curve. The maxmum value of NPP i.e. NPP_(max) appeared at the middle-lower mountain slope and the height of NPP_(max) rises when drought increases. Third, on the basis of biology, the zones dividing indexes were determined by single factor (temperature) and synthetical factors including cumulative temperature (∑≥10℃), annual rainfall amount (R), frost-free season (N), drought index (K) and annual mean temperature (T). Finally, on the basis of above results, the zones dividing model was determined for mountionous regions of North China. In general, the model divides 3~4 zones:No.1~No.2 zones are agriculture-grain crops zones and No.3~No.4 are economic forests and commercial forests zone. The policy should be to sustain the development in the lower zones, to protect the upper zones, and to develop the middle zones.

Desertification is one of the most serious environmental problems in the world and one of the global major problems established by the United Nations. And the matter of desertification pattern is one of the most important aspects in the study of desertification, because it has close relation to the understanding of the essence of desertification and the prevention of desertification. First of all, a new definition of the concept "desertification" is given in the paper. Then three questions are discussed or analysed. First, the situation of the desertification in Sahel is introduced, and a popular viewpoint about the desertification pattern is mentioned and discussed. According to the viewpoint it seems that the desertification is the result of advancing or creeping southwards of the Sahara north of Sahel. It is not correct and doesn't tally with the actual situation. Second, four mechanisms of the desertification in Sahel are put forward, and they are overgrazing, overcultivation, firing and overgathering of firewood. Third, based on the analysis of the four mechanisms mentioned above it is pointed out that the desertification is produced from the Sahel zone itself, basically not from the outside. Obviously, the results of the processes or mechanisms of desertification are the same, that is the formations of deserfication land patches. Ususally serious overgrazing will produce bare land patches in different sizes because it often take place around wells or other water source points and some pasturelands with good grass. Unsuitable cultivation always happens in some places with rich soil and moisture, leading to the formation of bare desertification land patches. Other desertification mechanisms have the same results. With the passage of time these desertification land patches in Sahel gradually increase and enlarge, finally merge together, and join the Sahara, and it looks as if the Sahara advanced southward. In fact the Sahara doesn't move on. Someone with that viewpoint considers that a greenbelt (shelter forests) should be built along the edge of the north part of Sahel to prevent desertification in it. As mentiond above the desertification take place in the zone itself, the greenbelt measure will not reach the goal.