The data for urban land use in Chengdu city was extracted by means of image interpretation based on RS data during 2000－2008. Land surface temperature from TM/ETM+data was retrieved and its spatial distribution was extracted based on Mono-window Algorithm and ERDAS spatial modeling. Urban heat effect of urban land use was analyzed. The result shows that the area of cultivated land and woodland is decreasing and the area of built-up land and water body is increasing within the study period. The spatio-temporal characteristics of urban land use evolvement were the speed of land use change was quick, land use intensity was notable, and the area of cultivated land was invaded due to built-up land occupation. Urban land use change led to the area of low temperature zone a decrease by about 25.927×10⁴ hm², the area of normal temperature zone and high temperature zone increase by about 12.093×10⁴ hm² and by about 5.834×10⁴ hm², respectively. The proportion of built-up land area in high temperature zone dominates absolutely. The average temperature of built-up land is the highest while that of water land and paddy field is the lowest. The spatial distribution pattern of surface temperature of all temperature zones is presented by strip distribution with different shapes. Heat resources in urban districts were densely spotted within the high-tech zone in southern Chengdu, uptown zone in the western, business and trade zone in the central, and industrial base zone in the eastern. The surface temperature of the second ring road was decreased from the downtown region. It is proved that the surface temperature became lower with the increase of distance from the inner city and the impervious surface getting lower at the same time; there is a positive correlation between surface temperature and impervious surface in Chengdu city with a correlation coefficient of 0.73. The spatial distribution of the isotherms with the response of permeable surface is significant. Thus, the built-up land in urban area has a notable heat effect and the heat effect retrieve of water body is huge. The study result has scientific meaning and application value for the evolvement study of urban heat island effect and improvement of human residence environment.

The cultivated land resource has multiple functions and public good characteristics. Its ecological value and social value are usually ignored in the course of public decision-making, which has resulted in over-exploitation, excessive use and inefficient allocation of cultivated land in China. Economic valuation of natural resource or environmental goods that have public good characteristics has become a research frontier and hotspot of natural resource and environmental economics in the world. Choice experiment (CE) is a relatively new method that can be used to value the economic benefits of natural resources or environmental goods that have public good characteristics. This paper attempts to apply the CE method in Wenling city that aimed to understand Wenling residents’ preferences for Wenling cultivated land resources protection programs. A random sample survey of 246 respondents in Wenling was conducted during the summer of 2010. Survey data was analyzed using the multinomial logit models. Results from the 246 in-person interviews indicate that Wenling residents preferred land field facility and land fertility improvement as well as landscape improvement for the protection of cultivated land resources in Wenling city. They would be willing to pay 17.54 yuan/household every month to improve the landscape, and would be willing to pay 37.96 yuan/household every month to improve the land field facility and would be willing to pay 31.43 yuan/household every month to improve the land fertility. Our results show that respondents’ mean willingness to pay is affected by their socioeconomic characteristics. Those who have higher household yearly income, better education level, more knowledge on cultivated land resource protection and its non-market value would more prefer to choose the new alternatives that will have better land fertility, land field facility or landscape. The mean willingness to pay for the cultivated land protection program which will improve the land fertility, land field facility and landscape is 28.43 yuan/household every month. The study concludes that CE is a reliable tool in the analysis of respondents’ preferences for the development of suitable cultivated land protection schemes in Wenling city.

The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of fragmentation on cultivated land use efficiency from meso-scale point of view, to explore factors reducing the level of fragmentation, so as to provide the basis for the formulation of efficient agricultural land use policy. The paper first selects landscape index to quantify the cultivated land fragmentation level, and then evaluates the efficiency of cultivated land using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model, based on this, it can test the impact which fragmentation exerts with econometrics models. The results show that: the average of the overall efficiency, pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency of cultivated land use were 0.9493, 0.9722 and 0.9770 respectively in the study area, so there is a certain room to improve efficiency in most towns; the correlation coefficient between the first principal component and the average area of land, land density, area weighted shape index and area weighted fractal dimension is separately more than 88%, the second principal component and the edge density index is more than 91%; the flexibility affect coefficient between the first and pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency are -0.0027 and -0.08561, between the second and pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency are -0.0011 and -0.0024 respectively. It can be drawn: fragmentation has negative effect both on pure technical efficiency and on scale efficiency, and the impact on scale efficiency is greater than on pure technical efficiency; the level of fragmentation should be reduced from land area, distribution and shape in order to improve cultivated land productivity.

Well-known biomass resources, two kinds of bioenergy grass, switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) and giantreed (Arundo donax L.), were cultivated on a large scale, in abandoned sandpits in Beijing suburb, and the biomass yields and ecological-economic values were investigated in order to research their production potentials in marginal lands. With high biomass yield, of 3.77 t·hm^-2 and 11.45 t·hm^-2 respectively in abandoned sandpits in Beijing suburb, these bioenergy grasses have high ecological values due to their ability to fix carbon dioxide, release oxygen, absorb sulfur dioxide and retard dust, as well as high economic benefits due to the conversion of standard coal and the production of cellulosic ethanol. In conclusion, the two bioenergy grasses have tremendous production potentials in the future in abandoned sandpits in Beijing suburb.

Using continuous flux data, meteorological data and biological data from 2006 to 2008 from Jinzhou agricultural ecosystem research station, dynamic parameterization scheme of surface albedo(α) was investigated. The results show that α has logarithm, logarithm or linear, exponential or linear relationships with solar altitude(h_θ), surface soil water contents(SWC) and leaf area index(LAI), respectively. The model founded considering respectively logarithm and linear relationship between α and h_θ and SWC is better than those considering other relationships and is able to simulate diurnal pattern of α with smaller error in most of the non-growing season except early spring. In the growing season, the simulation precision of the α parametric model founded with statistical regression method considering respectively logarithm, linear and exponential relationships between α and h_θ, SWC and LAI play an important role in α which is higher than those considering other relationships. For the limitation of data, the model underestimates evidently α in most of the period especially in vegetative growth phase of maize. As vegetation coverage (FVEG) introduced and used to bestow weighing to soil and vegetation, the model whose simulation error decreases significantly in total growing season especially in vegetative growth phase is able to reflect seasonal variation of α and has dynamic simulation ability, which changes an untrue hypothesis that vegetation α is only constant in many land surface models and makes the model universal-adapted to simulate dynamic α in different phases of maize field. By this study, land surface process model will be offered dynamic parameter of vegetation α and then whose simulation accuracy will be improved.

Based on ecological carrying capacity and the relationship between ecological carrying capacity and other carrying capacity, the judgment standard and measurement object of ecological carrying capacity in late-developing regions were defined, the conceptual model of ecological carrying capacity in late-developing regions was also built, according to their sensitive eco-environment, relative slowness of socio-economic development, strong aspiration of development and late-developing strategy. The assessment method of ecological carrying capacity in late-developing regions was also established by multi-objective programming, combining with regional ecosystem health assessment. A case study was carried out in the economic zone on the west side of the Straits (called "Haixi Zone" for short), aiming at the sustainable development of key industry. Results showed that the human disturbance index of Haixi Zone was 2.68% in 2007, which is lower than the average level (3.13%) of China in 2006 and human disturbance threshold (5.96%) of Haixi Zone; the human disturbance index of all sub-zones of Haixi Zone was lower than its human disturbance threshold. Current human disturbance carried by ecosystem in Haixi Zone was relative light; human activities and key industrial development haven’t threatened regional ecosystem structure, service and its health status. According to the production rate of construction land in Haixi Zone, Haixi Zone and all sub-zones could sustain the present development of key industry, but Haixi Zone and most sub-zones wouldn’t sustain the medium and long term development of their key industry. As the production rate of construction land in Haixi Zone rises to 75% of the production rate of construction land in Shanghai city in 2007, Haixi Zone and most sub-zones would sustain the medium and long term development of their key industry. Therefore, the production rate of construction land is the key factor that influences ecological carrying capacity, the sustain development of key industry and ecological security of Haixi Zone. Meanwhile, there were spatial differences in carrying capacity and carrying status of ecosystem in Haixi Zone, which is helpful to sound development of social-economic, sustainable usage of ecosystem service and effective maintenance of ecological security.

Metabolism analysis is one of the important perspectives and tools for urban ecosystem research. Conducted in this paper is a critical review on research of urban metabolism with regard to concepts and methods. Currently, the metabolism concept associated with urban ecosystem are consisted of social metabolism, urban metabolism, industrial metabolism, as well as energy metabolism and ecological energetic metabolism, connotation and denotation of which are both overlapped and varied. In addition to the diverse research purpose, the lacking of unified accounting method is the real reason for the varied metabolism concepts and frameworks to some extent. In fact, the available framework of urban metabolism has only paid attentions to physical resource, while ignoring non-physical resources such as solar energy, wind power and information. However, the new developments in resources sciences, i.e., resource flow, network analysis and exergy accounting provide new ideas and methodology assistance for solving the problems in urban metabolism analysis. Therefore, a new concept of resource metabolism was put forward, which extends the research content and systematic boundary, including material resources and non-material resources, energetic resources and non-energetic resources. In definition, the concept of urban resource metabolism can be regarded as the process of resource consumption and waste generation of the cities for some time, and the process of the quality degradation of flows of the material and energy, which is necessary input for maintain the basic urban structures and functions. In addition, the exergy method was suggested to be introduced to solve the unified accounting problem and quantify the availability and scarcity of resources. Furthermore, the resource flow analysis tools as ecological network analysis method can also be incorporated to trace the metabolism route, hoping to change the traditional grey mode commonly used in metabolism analysis. This newly concept of resource metabolism and corresponding method would provide new integrate analyzing framework for urban ecosystem research. Nevertheless, it is just a primary concept and framework on resources metabolism, in-depth analysis and case studies are badly needed in near future to perfect and verify the conceived theory system.

The temperature sensitivity and adaptability of soil respiration are the two key processes in the understanding of terrestrial ecosystem carbon and nitrogen cycle. Recently a growing body of literature sheds new light on the importance of the temperature sensitivity and adaptation of soil respiration in understanding terrestrial carbon cycling. It has been well known that small changes in Q₁₀ value will have great influence on soil CO₂ efflux, due to its nonlinear response to temperature, while the adaptation of soil biological processes could greatly reduce the extend of feedback between temperature and soil CO₂ efflux. In this paper, we reviewed recent advances and hotspots in temperature sensitivity and adaptability of soil respiration and pointed out the limitations in previous studies. The overall studies showed that there are three types of adaptation mechanisms and two kinds of temperature sensitivity theory. The adaptation mechanisms can be defined by combine considering basal respiration and its temperature sensitivity. Soil organic matter, microorganisms and enzyme are factors that have great influence on the temperature sensitivity and adaptability of soil respiration; however, the mechanisms of these effects on the temperature sensitivity and adaptability of soil respiration are different. The temperature sensitivity of soil respiration is mainly related to the state of the above mentioned factors, while the adaptability soil respiration is largely determined by the biological process. For example, mean temperature, enzyme activity, substrate quality and the amount of microbes are the factors determining temperature sensitivity of soil respiration. Whereas, the amplitude of temperature changes, enzyme optimum temperature, substrate quantity, and diversity of microbes control the adaptability of soil respiration. Finally we pointed out that the temperature sensitivity and adaptability of soil respiration are closely related, and both the temperature sensitivity and adaptability of soil respiration are crucial in deeper our understanding on biology process. Both the two processes should be considered in the future research of terrestrial carbon cycle. In the end the future research hotpots are discussed.

This paper, applying econometrics model method, makes an analysis on variable association between energy consumption and CO₂ emissions in material production process in the recent 30 years in China. The result indicates that: 1) The growth of energy consumption of material production departments and the rising movement of CO₂ emissions are affected predominantly by the energy consumption in material production process; 2) the energy consumption equilibrium in material production sector has been at a low level, energy consumption always maintained a high concentration on the specific industries, but the phasic variation also existed, that reflects the phenomenon: imbalance at low level→balance at low level→imbalance at higher level; 3) in material production sector, Tapio indicator of energy-GDP(TIEG) is in a cluster in the weak decoupling range, that indicates the rate of energy consumption growth is lower than the rate of economic growth largely, but the level of energy consumption efficiency still is behind the developed countries; and 4) the Tapio indicator distributions of CO₂-GDP(TICG) and TIEG are very similar, but Tapio indicator of CO₂-GDP(TICG) was more concentrated and decoupled. Finally, the paper puts forward the next direction and priority of the future work.

This paper builds a multi-agents model to study the impact of the agents’ spatial decisions to the urban residential space evolution form and land use efficiency in the process of urban extension which contains one environment agent and three micro intelligent land use agents: residents, property developers and urban government. By the method of PEAS, the model induces the interactions among the three intelligent agents on the basis of the recognitions of their behavior characteristics and concludes that urban residential lands are developed in a priority sequence which is decided by the three intelligent agents’ spatial decisions and interactions. First, residents will choose favorable residential locations according to the law of consumption utility maximization. Then, property developers will choose these locations which can bring the maximized benefits. Residents and property developers’spatial decisions represent market mechanism which indicates the self organization of urban residential space in a degree. Furthermore, urban government agents will adjust the residential land developing priority sequence based on the comprehensive consideration of the social and ecological land use utility. So by adjusting the land use and environmental protection policies of urban government agent the model sets three scenarios which respectively represent the compact, relaxed and controlled modes of urban residential space extension and gets the residential developing priority function in every scenario. By the function, the model can get the preview of the evolution of residential space in every set scenario and provide land use planning policy guidance for urban government in advance. Taking Wuchang and Hongshan districts in Wuhan as the experimental areas, the paper compares the land use structure and land use efficiency in the process of the residential space evolution from 1998 to 2008 among the three scenarios and the actual situation respectively. The comparison indicates that land new development holds a lager proportion in the evolution process of the experimental residential space from 1998 to 2008, that is to say the land redevelopment level of old urban in experimental districts is not enough. In fact the government of Wuhan city had focused on residential new development of the suburban fringe areas before 2004, but the emphasis has been transferred to the old city transformation and land redevelopment after 2004, the point verifies the validity of the model to a certain degree. Compared with the model’s simulating results under different scenarios, the factual residential space evolution always has intersections with the three simulating results respectively, which means urban government may adjust its land use policy, natural environmental protection policy and so on under the influence of macroscopic environment in different periods. This is just one of the characteristics of Chinese real estate market. Excepting this, from the model simulating results, urban residents have attached increasing importance to the rights and interests of themselves, at the same time because of the action of market economic mechanism, the property developer also paid more attention to the favorite choices of urban residents; and the urban government gave more attention to the public willingness and the growth of resident welfare as well.

Critical natural capital performs important environmental function, which supposed that it is not able to be replaced by artificial capital. So identifying critical natural capital is the precondition of achieving national sustainable development. The research consists of panel data calculation, test of critical natural capital, as well as case analysis. The first of which aims to obtain the times series of regional critical natural capital ecological footprint of 27 areas in China, the second of which tests the irreplaceability of certain kinds of natural capital, such as water, cropland and fossil fuels, and the third of which analyzes influence of natural capital on China’s long-term consumption. In the paper, the conception of critical natural capital is introduced and natural capital referred is finally divided into three aspects, i.e., productive solid, water and energy. Then the framework of domestic ecological footprint theory is utilized in classifying and calculating the natural capital of regions. The hypothesis of the econometric test used here followed Ferreira’s research is that broader estimates of capital provide more information about changes in capital stocks and thus more information about future consumption prospects. Regression turns out that its performance is more sensitive to changes in the time horizon than in capital measures, and that the fit is best for the time horizon with 20 years, in which the probability of physical capital’s coefficient for future consumption prospects decline to 0.0009 from 0.0073 of the regression with 10 years and 0.5511 with 5 years, while the probability of natural capital’s coefficient for future consumption prospects is persistently above 0.4. The findings prove the irreplaceability by physical capital of critical natural capital, consisted of productive solid, water and energy. In the 20 years’ model, the negative coefficient of natural capital for future consumption prospects predicts the unsustainable utilization pattern of natural capital in the nation, in that domestic ecological footprint theory emphases on exploration of local resources. Additionally, the South-to-North Water Diversion project has been analyzed according to the findings of the research by operating the 20 years’ regression with the data of changing in water ecological footprint of relative regions. As a result of the South-to-North Water Diversion project, the changed distribution of resource will relieve the burdens of hardships in the development of water-receiving areas, which are at the cost of the decrease in the source area of reservoirs.

CO₂ emissions increased by about 80% from 1991 to 2001, with industrial sectors accounting for 55% of the increased amount. Among all the industrial sectors, iron & steel, petrochemicals, electronics, textiles, pulp & paper and cement account for approximately three quarters of the total industrial CO₂ emissions. As a result, understanding driving factors behind increasing CO₂ emissions in the six sectors is valuable to related policy formation. This paper applies two-tier input-output structural decomposition analysis (I-O) to analyze the sources of change of energy intensive industries’ CO₂ emissions from 2002 to 2008. The result shows that: The net export of embodied carbon and the proportion of total domestic emissions are both increased; the export (import) scale effect of the two stages is both positive; the export (import) structure effect of the two stages is quite different. During the period 2005 to 2008, total export structure effect is 72.02 million tons, while total import structure effect is -31.24 million tons; effect of intermediate inputs has greatly improved. The export (import) intermediate inputs effect is -34.28(-49.42)million tons during the period 2005 to 2008, while it is 0.40(0.32)million tons during the period 2002 to 2005; the effect of carbon emissions per unit output value is also significantly improved, and decided mainly by the energy consumption per unit output value effect; effects of export(import) carbon emissions per unit of energy during the two stages are very small.

In this study, measured data was analyzed deeply and three significant characteristics which were "appeared early", "fierce" and "affected heavily" were summed up for saltwater intrusion in Modaomen channel of the Pearl River Estuary in the dry season during 2009-2010. The factors of the saltwater intrusion were analyzed, and the results showed that: the main factor for the severe saltwater intrusion of Modaomen channel in the dry season during 2009-2010 was that the precipitation was extremely scarce due to climate change and the runoff dropped sharply in the Pearl River Basin after August 2009; tide was an important driven factor of saltwater intrusion in Modaomen channel, stronger tide led to severe saltwater intrusion; sea-level rise was another important factor to the severe saltwater intrusion in Modaomen channel. In the context of global warming and sea level rising, this study is of great significance for understanding rational development and utilization of fresh water resources in the estuary deeply, especially for the security of water supplies in rural and urban areas of estuary.

Induced by population pressure, economic growth, and historic exploitation, a large portion of China’s primary forests and wetland was depleted, and a high percentage of its farmland and grassland was degraded. These ecosystem disturbances caused extensive desertification, flooding, soil erosion, dust storms, elevated levels of greenhouse gas emissions, and severe damage to wildlife habitat. In order to address devastating environmental crises and improve human well-being, China has been undertaking several major ecological restoration efforts, of which the Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP) (also called Grain for Green Project) is the largest land retirement/reforestation program in the developing world, which can alter the land use/cover pattern in a considerably short time period. Here, we characterized the impacts of the SLCP on the land use/cover pattern and their consequences in Ansai County on the Loess Plateau, China, by using Landsat MSS/TM/ETM+images of six periods of 1978, 1990, 1995, 1999, 2006 and 2010. Land use/cover information was obtained using satellite remote sensing techniques. Then the impacts of SLCP on the land use/cover pattern were analyzed by the statistical models. Grassland, cultivated land and woodland were the three dominant land cover categories of the study area, and the land use/cover change was generally in unbalanced status dominated by one-way transition. In the whole research period, cultivated land declined substantially after a small increase, with an overall decreasing rate of 38.4%, woodland decreased first then followed by an increase, with an overall increasing rate of 4.36%, and shrubs together with grasslands decrease while the built-up area increased continuously. SLCP accelerated the decline trend of the cultivated land, and increased the newly forested land substantially. The area of newly forested land had significantly exceeded that of the natural forest. These changes may reduce soil erosion and water yield, restore the soil structure, and increase the soil organic matter. Most farmers support the SLCP because it can increase farmer’s net income. Nevertheless, the potential negative consequences of SLCP can never be ignored. These findings are not only useful for an integrated understanding over the impacts of SLCP, but also for the planning and decision-making of the eco-restoration projects together with the eco-environmental protection.

The Danjiangkou Reservoir is the source of water for the Middle Route Project under the South-to-North Water Transfer Scheme (SNWT) in China. The eco-environment of Danjiangkou Reservoir Area (DRA) plays an important role in water conservation and purification and would have significant implications for the economic prosperity in Hanjiang Basin as well as for the SNWT. In order to analyze the relationships between different land use patterns and eco-environment in the DRA, RS and GIS technologies were adopted, and an environmental numerical model was developed using spatial principal component analysis (SPCA) method. The land use and eco-environmental vulnerability dynamic change in the last 18 years were analyzed and discussed. The general tendency of land use change in the study area was that the proportion of forest, shrub, grassland, urban and rural land increased constantly from 48.76%, 10.13%, 5.32%, 0.35%, 0.47% to 50.41%, 12.43%, 6.91%, 0.8%, 1.49% between 1990 and 2007, and that of cropland and paddy field decreased gradually from 28.26%, 0.64% to 20.90%, 0.55% between 1990 and 2007. During this period, the land use pattern in the DRA was under the tremendous pressure from the conflict between the rapid urbanization, economic development and the eco-environmental protection and recovering. From 1990 to 2007, the average eco-environmental vulnerability synthetic index (EVSI) in the study area decreased from 5.96 to 5.56, which showed that the eco-environment of the DRA had been improved. However, the eco-environment in some areas even went worse despite of large-scale eco-environmental protection and recovering. In the DRA, most of forest, shrub and grassland were at potential or slight vulnerable levels, and the rest of the land use types basically at slight, moderate or heavy vulnerable levels. Land use types were closely correlated with eco-environment. The order of EVSI was: urban land>rural residential land>waste land>cropland>orchard>grassland>paddy field>shrub and forest land, which indicated that measures taken based on forest and shrub are the priority and important means for ecological restoration. Furthermore, the urban and rural residential land and cropland were the essential problems of the eco-environmental protection and recovering.

In order to evaluate the effects of location, soil depth, and land use on the soil light fraction organic carbon (LFOC) and soil heavy fraction organic carbon (HFOC), we investigated the contents and the distribution characteristics of soil LFOC and HFOC of three types (Ust-Sandiic-Entisols at Shenmu, Los-Orthic-Entisol at Yan’an and Eum-Orthic-Anthrosol at Yangling) soils profiles (0－200 cm) sampled along a north-south gradient on the Loess Plateau. The results indicated that the contents of soil LFOC and HFOC decreased significantly (P<0.05) from south to north. The ratios of LFOC in soil organic carbon ranged from 1% to 26%. LFOC content and the ratios of LFOC in soil organic carbon significantly (P<0.05) decreased with soil depth. Both of them were lower than the previous reports in other regions of China. Land use closely (P<0.05) correlated with the contents of LFOC and HFOC fractions in the upper soil layers.Compared with farmland, the contents of soil LFOC and HFOC in grassland were significantly higher at the 0－60 cm layers, but had no significant difference below 60 cm soil layers. Both soil LFOC and HFOC contents positively correlated with soil microbial biomass nitrogen and carbon contents, the former with a correlation coefficient of 0.841 and 0.507, respectively. This suggested that soil LFOC was one of the most important carbon and energy sources for soil microbial growth and thus more liable to the impacts of microbial activities and land use change. Our results also implied that soil LFOC could more effectively reflect the variation of soil organic carbon pools than HFOC.

To clarify the mechanism of plant invasion, based on field investigation and laboratory analysis, taking Minjiang River estuarine wetland as a case, root-shoot ratio, nutrient distribution and nutrient ecological stoichiometry were measured and analyzed. The results showed that seasonal root-shoot ratio of Spartina alterniflora was 0.49－1.64 and the averaged value was 1.11, which was lower than that of native Cyperus malaccensis var. brevifolius (root-shoot ratio was 3.11－7.95 and the averaged value was 5.29). Seasonal averaged nutrient distribution to root, stem and leaf followed the order of leaf>root>stem for Spartina alterniflora, but leaf>stem>root for Cyperus malaccensis var. brevifolius. Spartina alterniflora leaf and stem seasonal averaged C/N and C/P were higher than Cyperus malaccensis var. brevifolius, and the root C/N and C/P were lower, Spartina alterniflora leaf, stem and root seasonal averaged N/P were higher than Cyperus malaccensis var. brevifolius. Successful invasion of Spartina alterniflora was caused by higher allocation of aboveground biomass, assimilation organ (leaf) and reproduction organ (root) nutrients, as well as higher C/N, C/P and N/P ratios.

Based on the temperature, precipitation and annual runoff data of the Tianshan Mountains, the paper studied the changing trend and multi-time scale correlation between the annual runoff and climatic factors by using methods of wavelet transform and nonparametric test. The results show that: 1) the increasing trends of the annual runoff, temperature and precipitation are significant in the Manas River Basin and Tarim River Basin; 2) the primary periods of the temperature are respectively 11, 18 and 22 years, that of precipitation are 10, 20 and 22 years on decadal time scale in the headstream areas of the Tarim River Basin; in addition, the temperature of the Manas River Basin holds the periods of 10 and 22 years and the precipitation represents the periodic variation of 20 and 22 years; meanwhile, both temperature and precipitation show the inter-annual periodic variation of 3-6 years in the headstream areas of the Manas River and Tarim River; 3) the abrupt change points of annual runoff, temperature and precipitation occurred respectively in 1993, 1993 and 1992, however, that of the Manas River are significant in 1995, 1988 and 1996; and 4) the multi time scale correlativity is significant between the annual runoff and climatic factors in the headstream areas of the two basins.

According to the daily precipitation data from 1961 to 2009 and the disaster data from 1998 to 2007 of 141 meteorological stations in Sichuan, by using those methods like climate trend rate, Mann-Kendall check, complex Morlet wave, Gumbel distribution function, information diffusion theory, we analyzed the changing trend, mutation site and cyclicity of five extreme precipitation indices in seven subregions, and the spatial variability of the extreme daily rain and the flood loss risk about 50- and 100-year repeat period, obtained the main conclusions as below: the extreme precipitation was slightly increased and enhanced, and mutations happened at the early 1980s in the mountainous region of southwest Sichuan. They were also increased and enhanced in the northeast of Sichuan Basin and south of Western Sichuan Plateau, but not significant. While the trend in northwest and south of the basin and north of Western Sichuan Plateau was decreased and weakened. The frequency of the extreme precipitation tended to increase but its intensity became weaker in the middle of the basin. The most extreme precipitation indices shown a 25-year a long period and 6-9-year short period in most regions as well. From the 25-year long period, the recent extreme precipitation is being in a process of increasing and enhancing. By Gumbel distribution function, the maximum daily precipitation was fitted, the extreme area of it was in mountain areas around the basin and in the transitional zone of the plateau and basin. Three extreme centers are located in southwest, northwest and northeast of the basin, the daily precipitation with a 50-year return period is above 230 mm. The flood loss rate with a 50-year return period is about 38% in the most regions of the basin, it can reach 45% in northeast of the basin and 60% in the southwest of Guangyuan.

Annual and monthly observed temperature and precipitation data at 64 weather stations in five provinces of North China are used to estimate the areal temperature and precipitation using the Thiessen polygon method. The regression equations between the observed temperature/precipitation at seven stations with long time-series records and areal magnitude from 1961 to 2009 were then built. The areal temperature/precipitation time series was extended back to 1951 through the seven stations with long time-series records. With this extended dataset, the temperature/precipitation trend for 1951-2009 was investigated with Mann-Kendall, Mann-Whitney and the moving average method. The results indicate that: 1) the temperature increased by 1.5 ℃ during the past 59 years and showed a statistically significant increasing trend with the magnitude of about 2.2% per decade; the time series of annual temperature appeared step change around 1993 and the temperature anomalies changed from negative periods to positive periods from 1989. 2) The annual precipitation did not present a statistically significant trend and showed a decline of 1.3% per decade; the precipitation anomaly showed that the year 1976 is the turning point from wet to dry. The result of this paper can be used as a reference for further analysis of climate change and its impacts as well as the responses of water resources to climate change in North China.

Taking Chen Barag Banner (County) of Inner Mongolia, one of the most important spring wheat producing areas as an example, the spring wheat yield (per unit area yield) was estimated by using China’s environmental disaster mitigation satellite data with a resolution of 30 m. The NDVI data of spring wheat at milk ripening period of the satellite on 2009-07-29 were selected, and the relation between NDVI values and wheat yield data was built up. And the estimation model of spring wheat yield was established by using mathematical statistics and regression methods, with the precision validated estimation model by the ground survey spring wheat yield data. The results show that the image extracted NDVI has good singular parabolic line relation, y=cx²+bx+a with measured per hm² yield of spring wheat. NDVI is closesly related with measurement of spring wheat yield, with the correlation coefficient R being 0.87, the yield estimation difference being -160 kg/hm², and the error was -3. 89%. This indicates that the precision of yield estimation of premature spring wheat using the NDVI of China’s environmental disaster mitigation satellite and the model for measuring the yield of spring wheat can also gain the same predicted efficiency by using any foreign remote-sensing satellites.

Based on the concise introduction of the system of integrated environmental and economic accounting (SEEA) proposed by United Nations, the oil development in the Yellow River Delta was studied to explain the compiling procedure of oil resources accounts with oil exploration and refining data from 2003 to 2008. Oil resources accounts include physical account, monetary account and integrated account in this paper. The results show that, in the Yellow River Delta from 2003 to 2008, value depletion of oil resources for exploration estimated by applying "user cost approach" are 15.40 billion yuan, 11.13 billion yuan, 12.16 billion yuan, 10.49 billion yuan, 10.60 billion yuan, 8.30 billion yuan, respectively. Then the adjusted indicators of production by subtracting depletion are less than traditional indicators. Meanwhile according to the integrated account, the ratio of oil industry added value with deduction of depletion to industry added value and local GDP (changes from 80% to 40% and 50% to 30%), and loss percentage of industry GDP and local GDP for depletion (changes from 20% to 5% and 30% to 6%) have reduction tendency during the years from 2003 to 2008. Additionally, the average results are 59.1% and 42.0%, 14.3% and 9.8% within the study years, respectively. From this perspective, although poor sustainability of oil resources utilization can be found by huge depletion value for exploration, it is also revealed that sustainability of local entire economic growth brought about by oil industrial development in the Yellow River Delta is enhanced to some extent. And finally the results are analyzed and discussed.

Condensation water is an important source of water for ecosystem in arid region. Connected and unconnected micro-lysimeters were used to study the variation characteristics of soil condensation amounts, condensation processes and its influencing factors on three underlying surfaces (Populus euphratica forest, Tamarix bosk and bare land) in the lower reaches of the Tarim River. The results showed that the total soil condensation amount on bare land was more than that on Tamarix bosk and Populus euphratica forest, and the value was 2.60, 2.49 and 1.26 mm, respectively. ANOVA analysis results indicated that the average daily soil condensation amounts on different underlying surfaces were significantly different (P<0.01). Condensation water began at 22:00 and ended at 8:00 the next morning, and a continuous condensation water was also observed after sunrise. Diurnal dynamics trend of soil condensation amounts on three underlying surfaces showed a clear double-peak curve, with the first peak value at 2:00-4:00 and the second at 8:00. Condensation amounts in connected micro-lysimeters were significantly more than that in unconnected micro-lysimeters(t<0.01). And condensation water was mainly affected by air temperature, air relative humidity, soil temperature, wind speed and underlying surface. The results may assist in the calculation of rational ecological water demand and ecological restoration in the lower reaches of the Tarim River.

Presently, operating Interconnected River System Network (IRSN) is the new policy and strategy for guiding various water activities and ensuring the water safety in China. Generally speaking, the IRSN is a multi-factor, multi-scale and multi-function system with the prominent feature of extreme complexity and hugeness. While scientific classification of IRSN practices is the foremost and required issue, which aims at providing reliable basis for the researches and practices of IRSN activities. In the present paper, according to the property and essence of the IRSN, we first proposed five criteria for the classification of IRSN, namely scientificalness, systematicness, dominance, direction and maneuverability. Then, by considering the natural, economic and social properties of the IRSN practices, and also followed the above five criteria we comprehensively analyzed various factors concerning the IRSN, including the contention properties, contention functions, contention regions, contention scales, contention objectives, contention duration, contention pattern, and contention direction, and further established an IRSN classification system. Furthermore, based on the IRSN classification system established, we summed up and classed a large number of typical ISRN practices in China. Finally, we selected the connection property-based, connection function-based, and regional water resources character-based classification types, and discussed the contention characteristics, contention objective as well as several other main problems of the three classification types, respectively. The results gained from this paper can provide helpful guide for the researches and policy making about the IRSN activities in China in the future.

Travel Cost Method (TCM) is a revealed preference approach for valuing tourist resources based on observed economic behavior. In TCM research, several problems, including selecting model, measuring travel cost and estimating the demand function, are controversial. Based on the literature review and analysis, this paper discusses the biases in TCM research and puts forward some solutions respectively. After that, the validity, applicability and legality of TCM are discussed and the emphasis and direction of the future research are proposed. The result of literature review shows that: 1) there are six categories of TCM, including ZTCM, TCIA, GTCM, ITCM, HTCM and RUM; 2) the following problems, which include endogenous stratification, sampling errors, opportunity cost of time and multi-destination trip during the measurement of travel cost, and multi-colinearity, endogeneity and the choice of function form during the estimation of recreational demand function, may lead to biases in TCM valuation; 3) although there are various defects in validity in developing countries, and its applicability and legality are controversial, TCM is still an effective method to measure the recreational value of tourist resources; and 4) the development of TCM should shift gradually from case study to bias analysis and validity test, and then, modification and improvement of the TCM model, especially the combination of the TCM and CVM, should be emphasized to establish and perfect the TCM implementation rules that are suitable to developing countries.

Energy is an important production factor. With more energy put into production activities, labor productivity has been increased greatly, which promoted economic and social development in consequence. Industrial structure change is an important factor which affects growth of regional energy efficiency. In modern economic development, industrial structure improvement is closely related to regional energy efficiency and the status of industrial structure and energy efficiency can together reflect one country's development level, sustainable development ability and the direction in which its economy will be heading. This paper aims to discuss the contribution of industrial structure fluctuating to regional energy efficiency growing in spatial perspective. Based on 31 mainland provinces in China, using the statistics of industrial structure and corresponding energy utilized data, adopting mathematic model and spatial analysis approaches, it is found that 31 provinces differed in contribution of industrial structure fluctuating to regional energy efficiency growing. The outcome reflected contribution is obvious in those provinces with appropriate industrial structure and good economic basis and the ones developed late as well as the undeveloped middle and western provinces which were in initial stage of industrial restructuring, but that is obscure in those provinces which have not developed leading industries with weak economic basis as well as the ones with relatively fitting low end industrial structure.

Urban sprawl is a complex problem in national sustainable development and has aroused public concern. Three sticking points are identified as to break the "reasonable limits", approach to "survival red line" and surpass "harmonious theme". Put the "three lines" as the starting point and put forward sacrificial and wasted urban sprawl hypothesis from the perspective of land price equilibrium, this paper conducts an empirical analysis by taking Xuzhou city as an example. First, the results of the theoretical analysis showed that different from foreign countries' welfare-gain sprawl and welfare-loss sprawl, urban sprawl in China can be divided into two types of sacrificial and wasted sprawl, and there are also three boundaries, namely ideal-boundary, moderate-boundary and limit-boundary. Second, the evaluation results show that, the comprehensive value of agricultural resources is 9.58×10⁶yuan/hm², the market value is 5.93×10⁶yuan/hm², the non-market value (the sum of the ecological and social value) accounts for only 38.07%. Third, from the empirical analysis, the scale of sacrificial sprawl is 1.08×10⁴ hm², of which farmland occupation is 4.32×10³ hm². The scale of wasted sprawl is 2.83×10³ hm², of which farmland occupation is 8.81×10² hm². Based on the research conclusions, this article suggests that a two-step adjustment in urban governance and land policy should be formulated in the future. The first step is to change economic development way and government performance appraisal system and effectively check wasted urban sprawl caused by government failure through adjusting moderate-boundary and strengthening basic farmland and other key resources protection. The second step is to improve land market mechanism as soon as possible and to turn agricultural land external cost into internal one. And they can be taken as main basis for decision-making in urban sprawl governance.

Using the conditions of land consolidation, such as its planning scales, increasing areas, investments and effective operations, especially the demands of future economic development for land use patterns, this paper obtains the implementation strategies of land consolidation and its operation in Chongqing, based on the ideas of "decreasing pressure, increasing efficiency". The results showed that the implementation strategies of future land consolidation for "decreasing pressure, increasing efficiency" would focus on cultivated land consolidation, in associating with the potential unit of residential land consolidation in Chongqing. However, over-rely on the development of land consolidation was not in line with the objective reality of Chongqing. The policy inclinations of the state to Chongqing, as the building of new countryside, the transfer of collective land-use right and the pilot area of coordinating urban and rural development, play the highlight role on the implementation strategies of land consolidation. The implementation strategies of growth-promoting cooperation combine the right replacement of government to land consolidation. In this mode, the government leads no longer just the operation of regional land consolidation, while provides a relaxed environment for its operation. Thus, the maximum social resources are used to participate in regional land consolidation, such as main private and on-governmental organizations, including companies, enterprises and individuals, and so on. The objective of "decreasing pressure, increasing efficiency" is paid more attention in the metropolitan area, where old city regeneration and annexation of villages into a larger settlement are carried out. Increasing efficiency is focused on western Chongqing, where increasing the coefficient of cultivated land is emphasized, and in the valley and ridge paralleling northern bank of the Yangtze River of the Three-Gorges Reservoir area, where the increase the output of cultivated land is more interesting for land consolidation. However, in the northeastern and southeastern Chongqing and southern bank of the Yangtze River of the Three-Gorges Reservoir area, decreasing pressure is mainly implemented, in order to increase the distribution of forest areas. Four areas the above-mentioned become the spatial dependence patterns of Chongqing's land consolidation under the new "implementation strategies". Restoring and reconstructing landscape patterns is emphasized mainly in the metropolitan area, northeastern and southeastern Chongqing and southern bank of the Yangtze River of Three-Gorges Reservoir area, while restoring mode is focused primarily on western Chongqing and northern bank of the Yangtze River of Three-Gorges Reservoir area. At the same time, biological fences for every area are built to protect its vegetation naturally recovering. Moreover, ecological flow among single islands/valley and ridge paralleling, or between them are being together through the corridors. Consequently, the conception of natural-artificial ecological experiment economic area is achieved. Our findings contribute to the demand for land and the transfer of economic gradient of economic "great-leap-forward" development of Chengdu-Chongqing pilot area. The understanding and awareness is richened in land consolidation and regional development at the national level.

In the studies of water resources supply and demand, supply and demand balance has received much more attention, but risk between supply and demand is little addressed. In this paper, the index system of risk between supply and demand is established from the viewpoint of threat, exposure and vulnerability. Based on logistic regression and nonlinear fuzzy comprehensive assessment, a model for risk analysis is developed. Considering the randomness of water supply, taking Beijing for example, risks under many different inflow conditions are studied. The results show that, all the inherent risks in 2020 are first grade in the inflow conditions of 1956 to 2007. After taking measures of reclaimed water reuse and South-to-North Water Transfer, the third grade and fourth grade risks accounts for 75%, with 25% of first grade and second grade risk. Therefore, risks are still high in the case of little precipitation.

This paper takes tea production in Xinchang County of Zhejiang as an example, under the principle of disaster risk analysis and requirement for agricultural insurance, combined with characteristics such as huge topographic relief and significant difference in microclimate in southern mountain area of China, carries out risk evaluation and agricultural insurance product design through elaborating frost disaster which affected tea production in March at village & township level. Firstly, the paper confirms tea's economic output changes from time to time in productive life based on tea's daily economic output in normal years of tea planting base; combined with economic loss rate due to frost during/before productive life in previous years to confirm frost weather index—minimum temperature in a period before productive life or after productive life, different minimum temperature is in accordance with tea's economic loss rate. Support Vector Machine (SVM) is used to extend mesoscale automatic weather station's minimum temperature data to 30 years in specific to non-linear relation existing among meteorological data of mesoscale automatic weather station in villages, towns and county; minimum temperature corresponds to tea's economic loss rate, therefore it's possible to calculate different levels of frost risk based on minimum temperature data and confirm tea's economic loss risk, and to solve problems such as tea's short planting period, short accumulation period for mesoscale automatic weather stations and unable to meet risk analysis requirement. There're certain differences between risk results calculated on different risk analysis models. The article applies probability density function fitting distributions such as Beta, Exponential, Gumbel, Gamma, Generalized Extreme Value, Inverse Gaussian, Logistic, Log-Logistic, Lognormal, Lognormal2, Normal, Pareto, Pareto2, Pearson Type V, Pearson Type VI, Student, Weibull to minimum temperature data sequence in every township and street in the study area. Parameter estimation in distribution model applies maximum likelihood method, both of Anderson-Darling and Kolmogorov-Smirnov examination selected from different production periods in different townships and villages passed significance level of 0.05. Almost coincidence distribution of P-P drawing's tailer and diagonal line confirms that Generalized Extreme Value distribution's risk probability estimation as the best theoretical probability distribution function, thus being relatively stable with realistic risk evaluation result. On the basis of quantitative risk analysis and considering actual needs of policy-based agricultural insurance operation, combined with advantages of regional output insurance and weather index, the paper designs tea's frost weather index insurance. It is to confirm insurance rate and compensation agreement in a pre-designated area on the basis of frost caused economic loss rate and occurrence risk in the case that frost happens during tea's production life. Tea's frost weather index is weather index corresponds to pre-determined frost meteorological event, every index value corresponds with certain tea economic loss rate and claim ratio. This paper suggests to carry out compensation according to frost weather index confirmed by meteorological data observed by mesoscale automatic weather stations in every township, village and street, compensation index for rural household and insurance company is measured by representative weather stations closest to rural households, therefore basis risks, adverse selection and moral risk are reduced. And there is no need to use huge human and non-human sources to inspect and judge losses in claim settlement after disaster, and the claim settlement efficiency is high but the claim settlement cost is low, hence this is a positive and effective technological measure to carry out tea insurance and promote sustainable development of agricultural insurance.