As a powerful tool for policy analysis, the Computable General Equilibrium Model has been introduced to study the regulation of water resources in Zhangye City. Based on this model, the study has simulated the changes of the operation of Zhangye economy as the production scale and products exportation of planting sector were controlled in different levels. It is shown that the restriction of the planting sector’s production scale and products exportation under current existing production conditions would be helpful to the allocation of water resources and the development of socio-economy in Zhangye City. However, compared to the restriction of the planting sector’s production scale, restriction of the planting sector’s products exportation could make Zhangye achieve better socio-economic benefits and ecological effects. The calculated results show that the limitation of the products exportation of planting sector would not only increase regional production, Gross Domestic Product and employment, but also save 77.5 million m³ of water from the regional production process, which could be used for the consumption of social life or construction of environment in the middle and lower reaches of the Heihe River Basin.

In order to make Ecological Footprint (EF) model better reflecting regional realities, the article significantly improved the calculating items of EF model. The arable land EF of meat and pollution EF of excreta of poultry, livestock and human were accounted firstly. Three EF categories, namely CO₂ absorption forest, decomposition land and water collection area were established to show the seriousness of agricultural pollution and the multiple ecological functions of arable land and forest. Fossil-fuel land was contained by forest land for absorbing CO₂; grazing land was canceled while the EF of grain used to produce meat was added arable land. The concerning pollution sources were expanded from fossil fuels to chemical-fertilizer, pesticide and excreta of poultry, livestock and human. Furthermore, the EF of pollutants such as CO₂, N, P and pesticide was counted.Fujian’s agricultural EF in 2007 was calculated by using average yields per-unit in recent five years, including the EF of direct inputs, farmers’ consumption and pollutants in agricultural practice. The category comparison between agricultural EF and Fujian’s Ecological Capacity (EC) was used to reflect the agricultural ecological-occupancy in the province. The calculation results indicated that the agricultural EF of forest-land, wetland, built-up area and pollutants-absorption land occupied small proportion of Fujian’s EC in 2007, being respectively 1.4%, 1.2%, 13.4% and 24.6%. This was largely due to high ecological productivity in the province and low consumption in underdevelopment rural areas. However, 94.2% of arable land EC was occupied by agriculture because of less arable land areas per capita and overdevelopment in grain-consumption livestock, which consumed 73.8% of the arable land EC. The EF of water collection area was 2.2 times that of relevant EC, indicating that serious ecological deficit occurred. In water collection area category, chemical fertilizer, excretion and freshwater aquaculture contributed respectively 36.8%, 23.5%, 39.7% in N and 41.8%, 12.9%, 45.4% in P. Some corresponding suggestions were proposed.

The purpose of this paper gives an overview of the development of biotope mapping in nature conservation and urban-rural planning in the developed countries during more than 30 years. The definition and ecological functions of the biotope and two main approaches of the biotope mapping are introduced. Development and applications of biotope mapping in foreign countries during more than 30 years was elaborated. It primarily elaborated on three periods of biotope mapping development in foreign countries during more than 30 years: 1) initial biotope mapping (1974-1986); 2) development of biotope mapping (1986-1997); and 3) extended biotope mapping (1997-present). And three aspects applications of biotope mapping in nature conservation and urban-rural planning were identified: 1) species and habitat conservation; 2) land use planning and management; and 3) landscape planning and management. The problems and deficiencies in current biotope mapping studies were also discussed. The problems mainly focus on subjectivity in biotope investigation, map scales and application of GIS technology. It is found that biotope mapping has been a basic tool for nature conservation and urban-rural planning in foreign countries, because it is capable of offering basic, conservation- or planning-oriented and usable biological and ecological information about research area. Current situation and prospect of application of biotope mapping in nature conservation and urban-rural planning in China were also analyzed.

Taking Chaigou and Hejiagou watersheds of Wuqi County in Shaanxi Province as example, in the small watershed scale, discrepancy of biodiversity, biomass, community features and soil physical properties under approach of rehabilitation and abandonment were analyzed through vegetation and soil investigation of sample plot in ten years after returning farmland to forestry. The results showed that: in approach of rehabilitation and abandonment, structure of the herbal community is similar and the similarity coefficient is 0.925. In rehabilitation areas, summation cover and species of tree, shrub and herb layer is 99.03% and 85; average plant height of herb layer was 0.41 m, with indexes of species richness, diversity index, evenness of herb layer, were higher than in the natural restoration areas. But in rehabilitation areas, average biomass, community density, soil moisture, soil bulk density, capillary porosity were 5.890 t·hm^-2, 8.11×10⁵ ind·hm^-2, 8.8%, 1.251g·cm^-3 and 48.9%, lower than that in natural restoration areas. Change of coefficient of variation about soil indicators in two areas was complicated.

Light use efficiency (LUE, ε is often used to express LUE) impacts on the energy distribution of grassland vegetation and photosynthetic rate directly, and it’s one of the key essential parameters that monitors grassland NPP using remote sensing model. In this article, with the aid of GIS and RS processing software, based on MODIS and in situ meteorological data, we studied the spatial distribution of ε and its spatiotemporal variations in growing season in Inner Mongolia in 2003. The results show that ε varied between 0-0.2929 gC·MJ^-1, and the average ε was 0.2204 gC·MJ^-1 in growing season in Inner Mongolia. The ε spatial distribution rule was gradually declining from northeast to southwest, which is the same as the rainfall spatial distribution. The seasonal variation of average ε was obviously in a single peak, the growth rate of ε declined from May.

Ecological footprint, which quantifies the comprehensive impact of human consumption activities on eco-environment from a standpoint of biological productivity, is the most widely used and concerned method of sustainable development assessment in the world by now. Ecological footprint is excellent in conciseness, understandability, maneuverability and easily being combined with other indicators, but still couldn’t reflect the impact of human consumption activity on eco-environment factually and exactly because of its hyper-pessimistic evaluation results. Based on the review and summary of the main achievements and progress in this research field home and abroad, the shortcomings of ecological footprint theory in energy consumption assessment are analyzed and concluded systematically to solve this problem in the following aspects: Firstly, the parameters, including equivalence factor, yield factor and energy factor, all are in a dilemma; Secondly, the measure standards between ecological footprint and ecological carrying capacity are in contradiction; Thirdly, the assumption that biologically productive land use types are mutually exclusive goes against the objective fact; Fourthly, the studies on the issues are not comprehensive; Lastly, the evaluation results are partly incorrect with the defects of relativity, limitation and ecological deviation. Among these five shortcomings mentioned above, the former three items should be modified as soon as possible, while the latter two items need to be gradually overcome in the future. And there are some pertinent measures and improvement suggestions put forward and discussed to improve ecological footprint theory. Moreover, in order to perfect the systemic project of regional sustainable development assessment, more economic-social indicators should be introduced into the further research on ecological footprint through interdisciplinary collaboration.

The hydrological uncertainty is one of the most important aspects in hydrological science research. This paper focuses on how resolution impacts the hydrological uncertainty using the TOPMODEL model based on the topographic index, which extracts from DEMs of different resolutions in the Hanjiang River. Three geomorphologic areas are selected as test areas, representing different terrain types from smooth to rough. Their DEMs are produced from digitizing contours of 1∶50000 scale topographical maps. Hydrological uncertainty was assessed synthetically by using the multiple-objectives fuzzy optimal method. It is found from the analysis on different spatial resolutions that the topographic characteristics parameters of river basin are affected by DEM resolution remarkably, so as to affect the hydrological uncertainty, but this effect is not very great due to the hydrological complexity, and 200 m should be the more suitable grid size for hydrological uncertainty in this area. The integrated method of assessing hydrological uncertainty is a new throughway to study the various hydrological uncertainties.

Based on the speciality of uncertainty and inaccuracy of precipitation, both simple statistical calculation and Markov chain theory were used together for predicting the precipitation in this paper. The method was characteristic of clear physical concept and simple calculation. Data of precipitation in Hangzhou, from 1956 to 2008, was used as an example. The precipitation can be predicted year by year using the statistical models;starting from the precipitation sequence data (1956—1995) in the last 40 years, the precipitation in 1996 was predicted, then the precipitation data in 1956 was removed and the actual data in 1996 was added to the sequence, and then in accordance with the basic steps of precipitation forecasts, precipitation in 1997 was predicted, and so on for each year of precipitation forecasts. Results show that the error value smaller than ±10％, ±15% and ±20％ was 30.77%, 53.85% and 69.23% respectively in the 13 years of precipitation prediction, and the maximum error value of the prediction was -24.03％. The precipitation can be predicted year by year using the statistical Markonian models;the error value smaller than ±1％ and ±5％ was 37.50% and 62.50% respectively in the 8 years of precipitation prediction, and the maximum error value of the prediction was 8.77％. The accuracy of precipitation prediction of the statistical Markonian models was improved obviously, hence a practicable method for predicting future precipitation was put forward.

Beijing’s energy intensity has decreasing continually in recent years. The quantitative analysis of the factors of energy intensity is precondition of looking for energy saving approach in the future. The paper uses method of complete decomposition model to analyze the influence of structure and efficiency on energy intensity from 1985 to 2007 in Beijing. The result indicates that both structure and efficiency are factors which promote energy intensity decrease during 1985-2007. Energy intensity decreased 6.17 tons of standard coal per ten thousand yuan in 1985-2007, in which contribution rate of structure and efficiency is respectively 24.68% and 75.32%. Further analysis result by stages shows that energy intensity decreased 4.95 tons of standard coal per ten thousand yuan in 1985-2000, in which contribution rate of structure and efficiency is respectively 34.59% and 65.41%; energy intensity decreased 1.22 tons of standard coal per ten thousand yuan in 2000-2007, in which contribution rate of structure and efficiency is respectively 38.29% and 61.71%. Thus, energy saving effect of structure has been strengthened gradually after 2000. Conclusively, efficiency effect for energy saving is good, structure has a little effect for energy saving, but there is still energy saving potential by structure in the future, and the biggest energy saving potential is in industrial departments. Moreover, as a high energy consumption department in the tertiary industry, transportation, storage and posts services’ proportion in total energy consumption is advancing, so its negative effect to energy saving should not be ignored.

Based on surveys about lake-watershed basic idea and management, as well as the idea of land ecological management and its application, this paper discusses the enlightenment of land ecological management to lake-watershed management. Further, the idea of land ecosystem management of lake-watershed are analyzed, combining with the harmonous "human-land-water"relationship, ecological conservation of "point-line-face"network system, sustainable development of "ecosystem-economy-society" and so on, for harmonizing the conflict between human and nature and among different benefit colonies. Four basic goals of land ecological management of lake-watershed were put forward: the land use is sustainable; the ecosystem is sustainable; the ecological economy is sustainable; and the lake-watershed administration is sustainable. In light of previous studies on ecosystem management, it discusses the basic element, main content, system frame, management model and mechanism of ecological management of lake-watershed and analyzes the direct drivers and indirect drivers of LUCC and ecological environment change. Based on the evaluation of the ecosystem, land resource, socio-economy, taking ecosystem developments, the direct and indirect regulation mechanism as core, the major steps and basic approach of the land ecological management of lake-watershed are given in this paper. And the characteristic and development trend of the management approach are discussed.

Energy is the most basic driving force for socio-economic development, and the basis for human survival. With the rapid economic development, energy scarcity has gradually been appeared. Moreover, low energy efficiency is the prominent problem in China. In this paper, the energy intensity of Guangdong, Hunan and Guizhou were analyzed based on Laspeyres decomposition method. We found that: 1)The difference of energy intensity are large obviously among the three provinces, particularly in Guangdong and Guizhou. Nevertheless, the differences of energy intensity will gradually become smaller among the three provinces in the future. 2)The structure share and efficiency share of primary industry are beneficial to reduce energy intensity. The structure share of secondary industry can increase the energy intensity, but the efficiency share of secondary industry can reduce energy intensity. Moreover, the efficiency share of secondary industry plays an strongly import role in reducing energy intensity. The structure share in Guangdong Province is negative. But they are positive in Hunan and Guizhou. The efficiency share of tertiary industry of Guangdong and Hunan is negative or positive during different periods. The reasons need further study. Whereas, the efficiency share of the tertiary industry is negative in Guizhou. 3) The structure share in three provinces is negative to energy intensity. The efficiency share of the three provinces can reduce energy intensity, the roles vary from region to region. In this paper, we suggest the great effort should focus on economic underdevelopment or high energy intensity areas in order to reduce energy consumption by 20% of unit of GDP in the near future and guarantee energy security.

High-speed railway plays an important role in reducing the distance between metropolises and boosting regional economy, but it occupies and destroys a certain amount of land resources inevitably as well. How to control and reduce the negative effects brought by high-speed railway constructions has become a key problem that both the administrative management and project construction department must confront and resolve. According to the features of temporary land, the linear construction characteristics and specific restrictions of service radius determine the unavoidability of occupying cultivated land; engineering characteristics of heavy load and strong quality result in the seriousness of temporary land damage. However, the problems we must face up to now are the shortage of land resources, the hindrance from protecting the cultivated land and the contradiction between supply and demand, which impose our imperative regulatory managements on high-speed railway. Moreover, we should take control of land damage from the fountainhead, reduce occupied area of arable land and lastly carry the protection into practice qualitatively and quantitatively through temporary site selecting and programming. Increasingly advanced science and technology level provides basic possibility for reclamation of the temporary land. Although reclamation is difficult from the technique, there is no technical bottleneck in temporary land reclamation itself. However, the land reclamation effort is not ideal. The economic cost is relatively high from the aspect of the investment estimation for the temporary land reclamation, especially in the field of beam, plate, mixing station and solid foundation and high rigid of temporary facilities. From the perspective of land management policy requirements, recent policy documents should make breakthroughs in compulsory requirement of the land temporarily occupied land reclamation, but it makes only direction guidance, short of clear operation rules and bring some obstacles for the actual practice. Based on summarizing temporary construction land types and features of the land destruction, this study establishes an analytical framework for the use of temporary land reclamation, and takes the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway in Changzhou as an example of the empirical analysis. The results show that affected by soil source, spoil site and other limitations, reclaiming beam field, slab factory and mixing station to cultivated land is quite difficult and the investment is too high. To benefit from a sound regional development planning, good location and infrastructure conditions, the above-mentioned temporary lands development to construction use land is more appropriate. Taking into account the convergence of land management policies, temporary land location analysis and reclamation suitability assessment should be included in the project permanent land use approval review process. Temporary land siting control, planning permission control, engineering damage control and reclamation decision control should be strengthened as well.

Applying two years' panel data, this paper has analyzed the progress, characteristics and determinants of irrigation management in the irrigation districts of the Yellow River Basin. Research results show that since the 1990s, irrigation management reform has made much progress, traditional collective management has been replaced by contracting management and water user associations. Under various management institutions, there are differences in farmers' participation and management transparency. Government's intervention has played an important role in promoting irrigation management reform. In the future, the government should continue to encourage the reform of irrigation management, actively promote farmers' participation and effective development of irrigation management reform.

In this study, the Taihu Lake Watershed and its level I aquatic eco-functional regions were selected as study areas, and the land use classification maps for 2005 and 2008, which were interpreted and obtained using Landsat remote sensing image, were used for further analysis. Change detection methods, e. g. transfer matrix, GIS overlay analysis, comprehensive coefficient of land use type change velocity, landscape ecological risk index and landscape ecological risk effect index of the land-use change, were selected to analyze the spatio-temporal distribution characteristics of land use and landscape as well as their transfer characteristics from 2005 to 2008 in the Taihu Lake Watershed and its level I aquatic eco-functional regions. The values of landscape ecological risk of the Taihu Lake Watershed and its level I aquatic eco-functional regions were calculated, and a comparison analysis of different characteristics of the landscape ecological risk between different level I aquatic eco-functional regions was carried out, and then the effect relationships between the landscape ecological risks and the land use changes was further analyzed. The results showed that the values of landscape ecological risk index in the eastern level I aquatic eco-functional region was bigger than that in the western level I aquatic eco-functional region both in 2005 and 2008. In 2008, compared to 2005, the value of landscape ecological risk index in the western level I aquatic eco-functional region increased by 6.49%, however, the value in eastern level I aquatic eco-functional region had a opposite change direction with a reduction of 2.57%. The comprehensive conversion rate of land use types in the eastern region was significantly 1.66 times faster than that in the western region. However, the landscape eco-risk index in the western region was -4.19 times that in the eastern region, and the response rate of landscape ecological risk to land use change in the western region was significantly higher than that in the eastern region. The reduction of landscape eco-risk index in the eastern region was mainly due to the reduction of area and patch number of lake, rural settlement, paddy field and urban landscape, and the increase of landscape eco-risk index in the western region was mainly due to the increase of area and patch number of lake, forest, urban land and rural residential landscape. Based on the above analysis, it provided a basis for the aquatic ecological protection decision-making of different aquatic eco-functional regions in Taihu Lake Watershed. And it should be focused on the land use change process and trend in the course of economic development in Taihu Lake Watershed, and the land use change direction should be properly controlled and adjusted in the region with a higher landscape eco-risk index. The management of the construction land except for the urban and rural settlements land, beaches, reservoir and pond land should be strengthened in the eastern region, and the management of the forest land, paddy field, urban land and rural residential land should be strengthened in the western region, and the appropriate-scaled land use should be introduced and the direction of land use should be kept from the high fragmentation and vulnerability, so as to reduce the landscape ecology risk and protect the landscape eco-functions in Taihu Lake Watershed.

Sea-level rise caused by climate change poses a great threat on coastal areas. Sea-level rising has become an important global environmental issue that attracts lots of community’s attention. In this study, one-dimensional dynamic tidal current and chlorinate model is established, which can be used to calculate the impact of sea-level rise on salt water intrusion. The results show that the contour of 250 mg/L moves more distance to the upper reaches with the increase of runoff frequency; under certain upstream runoff conditions, the contour of 250 mg/L moves to the upper reaches significantly as sea-level rises. The distance of salt water intrusion from estuaries was calculated exactly in case the sea-level rises 10 cm,30 cm and 60 cm in the future. In delta region, the authors expect that the study can provide theoretical guidance to urban water supply, agricultural irrigation and so on so as to mitigate sea-level rising hazards and to ensure China’s coastal resources, environmental, economic and social sustainable development in the 21st century.

Soil and water resources are important material basis for human life. As an effective means of human intervention, the value of soil and water conservation ecosystem services has been given more and more attention. In this paper, the value of conserving soil and fertilizer and the value of conserving water were selected as the indices of the value of conserving soil and water. Integration of remote sensing data, meteorological data and ground data, the original soil and water conservation service evaluation model is improved. The value of conserving soil includes three types, i.e. conserving soil fertilization, reducing surface soil loss and alleviating sedimentation. As the key point of estimating the value of conserving soil, in this paper, the USLE model was improved to estimate the quantity of soil conservation. The value of conserving water was estimated by the method of shadow engineering through expanse of building reservoir with the same water storage. Utilizing RS and GIS technique, quick estimation can be achieved through IDL programme. There are some uncertainties existing in this estimation. Firstly, the basic data are not completely consistent with the actual land surface. Secondly, some experience models adopted are difficult to reveal the soil erosion physical process.Result shows the value of conserving water and soil of ecosystem in China was 16760.55 billion yuan in 2001, including 9663.50 billion yuan of conserving soil and 7096.55 billion yuan of conserving water. According to spatial distribution, it descended from south to north. According to land cover, evergreen broadleaf trees were the highest of average value, water body less, barren and ice the lowest. According to terrain, with the higher altitude, the value of conserving soil and water showed a downward trend. According to administrative, Guangdong was the highest of average value, Xinjiang the lowest, and provinces in eastern and southern parts of China were higher than others. It is difficult to get the measured data to verify the estimation result and has no comparability to the related research, based on different methods and different indices. In the future research, the verification needs to be strengthened.

Forest fires are frequent in the Greater Hinggan Mountain area and the intensity of these fires determines their impact on soil properties. We compared soil nutrient availability and soil nutrient ratio among three treatments (low-intensity fire, intermediate-intensity fire and high-intensity fire) and a control (intact forest) over a period of 20 years in a Larix gmelini forest in the northern slope of Greater Hinggan Mountains. The result shows: Soil pH value of topsoil (0-10 cm) in high-intensity, intermediate-intensity and low-intensity fire forest was 4.79, 4.76 and 4.63 respectively, higher than that in control forest (pH 4.53); soil pH value of subsoil (10-20 cm) in high-intensity and intermediate-intensity was 4.58 and 4.50 respectively, higher than that in control forest (pH 4.45), it was not the same case for low-intensity fire forest (pH 4.44). C concentration, N concentration, P concentration and K concentration of topsoil (0-10 cm) in high-intensity, intermediate-intensity and low-intensity fire forest was 55.19, 84.63 and 127.91 g·kg^-1; 2.32, 3.97 and 5.27 g·kg^-1; 0.22, 0.21 and 0.25 g·kg^-1; and 31.97, 32.56 and 34.65 g·kg^-1 respectively, lower than that in control forest (137.67, 5.61, 0. 27 and 37.96 g·kg^-1); it was the same case for subsoil (10-20 cm), C concentration, N concentration, P concentration and K concentration of subsoil (10-20 cm) in high-intensity, intermediate-intensity and low-intensity fire forest was 39.46, 42.93 and 56.11 g·kg^-1; 1.24, 1.72 and 2.31 g·kg^-1; 0.19, 0.18 and 0.24 g·kg^-1 ; 31.18, 31.95 and 33.83 g·kg^-1 respectively, lower than that in control forest (63.11, 2.59, 0.25 and 36.16 g·kg^-1); the C/N ratio of topsoil (0-10 cm) in high-intensity, intermediate-intensity and low-intensity fire forest was 23.68, 21.54 and 24.27 respectively, lower than that in control forest (C/N ratio 24.63), it was the same case for C/P and C/K ratio in topsoil, while C/N ratio in subsoil presented a weaker trend. The difference of soil C and soil N in topsoil among low-intensity fire and intermediate-intensity fire, high-intensity fire was obvious. This analysis has demonstrated that after 20 years there are still differences among the four areas of different burnt intensities in soil chemical properties.

Promoting the application of domestic remote sensing satellite in natural resources and environment monitoring is very important to accelerate the development of national space research and reduce scientific activities cost. The recent launched satellite HJ-1A/B has the characteristic of high time resolution and can acquire hyperspectral image. These make it has the prosperous future in terrestrial resources detection. In the summer of 2009, the study obtained three images and corresponding grass dry biomass in Hulunbeier area. They were used to study the feasibility of using HJ-1A/B multispectral image and spectral indices for grassland biomass prediction. The result showed image based on calculation of spectral indices, including NDVI, OSAVI, MSAVI, SAVI, EVI, MTVI2, WDRVI, GNDVI, have good relationship with grass biomass. MTVI2 gained the best result with R² value of 0.61, meanwhile the cross validation result of it was also permissible with R² value of 0.58 and RMSE value of 58.6 g·m^-2. The map of grass biomass in the research area can be produced using MTVI2 and HJ multispectral imagery.

To more vividly and clearly demonstrate the resource utilization and its structure in Tianjin, emergetic ternary diagrams were introduced and analyzed in this paper to support government decision and urban development planning, and were compared with Beijing, Liaoning and other provinces and cities. The resources metabolism process of the eco-economic system can be studied with emergetic analysis, and all the emergetic indicators can be illustrated in a ternary diagram (namely emergetic ternary diagram) which makes them simpler and straighter to understand. The emergetic ternary diagram made the emergetic theory more scientifically significant and made the development characteristics and existing shortages of different regions more obvious. The emergetic ternary diagrams of Tianjin from 1998 to 2005 showed that no great change happened in the total utilization proportion of resources, and the main reason of this change was investment feedback from outside of the system. As for Tianjin itself, its resources distribution structure has been developing in an unreasonable way with emergy sustainability index becoming lower and lower over studied period. Compared with other cities and provinces in China, Tianjin had greater potential in its renewable resources development, remaining a high level in its material and service production. Attention should be attached to the development and exploitation of local resources when absorbing foreign capital, which can be used to drive local resource consumption and to improve economic sustainability of Tianjin.

With EOF, REOF,Mann-Kendall, trend analysis and correlation analysis method, the spatial distribution features and time evolution rule of sunshine duration in the last 47 years in Northwest China are analyzed based on the monthly mean data for the period 1961 to 2007 collected from 135 observational stations. It is shown that sunshine duration of the region decreases from the southeast to the northwest, the value on both sides is low and the center is high. The border area of Gansu, Qinghai and Xinjiang is the high value region in sunshine duration of northwest. The winter sunshine duration is the least, summer is the most, and the spring's is more than the autumn's. Northwest sunshine duration in most part of northwest reduces remarkably, the average reduction rate of the entire region is 19.92 h/10 a; it has a sudden change in 1980. Southwest Xinjiang and southern Qinghai present an obvious increasing tendency, but in Gannan-Central Gansu-southern Ningxia-east Gansu-Central Shaanxi the increase in sunshine duration is not obvious. Using the REOF method we detailedly divide the region into seven subregions, i.e.,the eastern part of northwest, mid-northern Xinjiang, southwest Xinjiang, northwest Qinghai Plateau, Qilian mountainous area, southern Qinghai Plateau and Gansu Corridor. The sunshine duration is a single peak in eastern part and mid-northern Xinjiang, while it is a double peak pattern in Gansu Corridor, Qilian mountainous area and southwest Xinjiang, and a triple peak pattern in Qinghai plateau. Under background of the climate warming the relative humidity increases and the cloud cover increases in Northweat China, a primary cause for the reduction of sunshine duration in most part of the region.

It is the precondition and foundation to explore the impact of climate warming on agricultural climate resources in the Arid Region of Northwest China (ARNC) for researches on the adaptation of agricultural production to climate change. Based on daily homogenization temperatures during 1961 to 2007 from 77 weather stations in the ARNC, the spatio-temporal variation characteristics of various agro-climatic indicators were analyzed by using the methods of five-day sliding average and the linear trend estimation. The results revealed that frost days (FD), warm days (WD), the length of growing season (GSL), the frost-free period (FFP) and the active accumulated temperatures above 0 ℃ and 10 ℃ (CT0, CT10) had changed significantly and exhibited remarkable regional differences. WD, GSL and FFP increased with an obvious upward trend, and the spatial distribution of their multi-year average values revealed higher values in the southern parts than that in the northern ones, which was contrary for FD. During the 47-year study period, CT0 and CT10 was characterized by significant increasing rate at 80.0 ℃·d/10 a and 77.0 ℃·d/10 a, respectively, with six obvious different sub-regions in active accumulated temperatures for the whole ARNC. The agricultural climate resources in the ARNC had changed significantly, which had both positive and negative impacts on agricultural production. On the one hand, the thermal resources improved in the ARNC, resulting in an extending of the crop growing periods, and the increasing of plant climate productivity at a rate of 15.6 g/(m²·10 a). On the other hand, the extreme weather and climate events such as heat and chilling injuries occurred with an accelerating frequency and an enlarging intensity, which would increase the instability of agricultural production. Thus, it is essential to use the agro-climatic resources reasonably in order to cope with and adapt to the impacts of climate change on agricultural production in the ARNC.

The source region of the Yarlung Zangbo River originating from the Chamyungdung glacier on the northern slope of the Himalayas is one of the highest river sources in the world. Its ecological and environmental quality plays an important role in the water conservation function and the ecological security of downstream areas, such as the cities of Shigatse and Lhasa. The aeolian sandy land has developed obviously, as the climate is dry, the soil is poor and the environment is fragile in this region. This paper analyzed the distribution characteristics of aeolian sandy land and its dynamics change in the source region of the Yarlung Zangbo River by interpreting the past 20 years’ Remote Sensing (RS) images of three periods, that is, 1990, 2000 and 2008, and matching it with the DEM data of this region using the technique of RS and GIS technology. The purpose is to illustrate the current situations correctly and find out the evolution tendency of the aeolian sandy land in the source region of the Yarlung Zangbo River. It was shown that: 1)The area of aeolian sandy land in the source region of the Yarlung Zangbo River was 1376.22 km² in 2008, including fixed sandy land which accounted for 36.03%, semi-fixed sandy land which accounted for 28.10%, shifting sandy land which accounted for 9.39%, bare gravel sandy land which accounted for 14.64% and semi-bare gravel sandy land which accounted for 11.84%. 2)The area of aeolian sandy land in the source region of the Yarlung Zangbo River was 1281.78 km² in 1990, 1359.7 km² in 2000 and 1376.22 km² in 2008 respectively. It had increased by 94.44 km² in the nearly 20 years. 3)The aeolian sandy land was mainly distributed at the elevation ranging from 4600 m to 4800 m, or 76.13% of the total. From the view of the aspect, the aeolian sandy land was mainly distributed in the flat area, or 56.97% of the total sandy land, following by the southwest aspect and south aspect, being 11.20% and 8.66% respectively. 4) Abundant sand materials and strong wind blowing are the potential conditions for aeolian sandy land development. The global climate has been getting warmer in the past 20 years, and the higher temperature favored to the further development of aeolian sandy land in the study area.

To fulfill the requirement of wind farm building, a high-resolution non-linear numerical model NLMSFD was used to assessment wind resource of Rongcheng area of Shandong. Experiment was as follows: In the experiment area, one-year average monthly wind speed observation data of different height in two wind towers were selected to drive the model, which simulated wind speed distribution of the experiment area, obtained the wind speed spatial distribution for one year in a pilot area under 100 m×100 m resolution. Through comparing the simulated values with observation values, simulation accuracy was analyzed under the conditions of topography and roughness of testing area and evaluated NLMSFD model’s applicability. The results show that the simulation of NLMSFD can reflect spatial and temporal variation of the average wind speed basically, but the relative error of simulated and observed values will change in the different height and seasons. From the seasonal perspective, the model simulation results are the best in winter, better in spring and autumn, worst in winter; from the point of view of height, most of the relative error is less than 10% except for the height of 10 m. The accuracy of simulation results is also affected by using observation data in different locations to drive model. For example, using observation data of the towers which are away from the coast to drive model, the results are better than the coastal observation data. At the same time, using observation data higher than 10 m to drive are better than using 10 m data. These results indicate that in the fine wind resource assessment and wind farm site choosing, NLMSFD model can be a kind of reference.

The results of the analysis of chemistry and isotope of geothermal waters and cold groundwater in Wushan geothermal field indicate that thermal waters of Wushan geothermal field have outlet temperatures of 18.2-42.1 ℃ and TDS of 238-255 mg/L, belonging to bicarbonate water of low-salinity. Compared to cold groundwater, thermal waters have higher concentration of SiO₂ and F, which indicate thermal waters have experienced deeper circulation than cold groundwater. Chemical characteristics suggest that thermal waters of Wushan are typical of the first stage of interaction between meteoric water and rock. δ¹⁸O and δD values of samples close to north-west meteoric water line of China, which shows that Wushan thermal water is of meteoric origin. Thermal water has lower δD and δ¹⁸O than cold groundwater, which suggests a relatively long subsurface circulation. The temperature of geothermal reservoir of Wushan thermal waters range from 70 to 106 ℃ estimated with various chemical geothermometer, and corresponding reservoir depth is from 1.74 to 2.77 km according to average geothermal gradient of eastern Gausu of 35℃/km, thus leading to the conclusion that Wushan thermal waters belong to low-medium geothermal resource. This study provides scientific basis for sustainable exploitation of geothermal water in Wushan geothermal field.

Based on the precipitation data from 781 sampling points (755 meteorological stations and 26 suppositional stations) in the study area, the formulae used to estimate the annual mean precipitation have been obtained, and the characteristics of the geographic or topographic effects have been presented. The impact factors included longitude, latitude, elevation, terrain aspect and unobstructed factor are significant factors explaining annual mean precipitation spatial variability in China. Detrending of annual precipitation distribution, the residual anomaly for local change was simulated by HASM algorithm. Setting suppositional meteorological stations over regions with no measured data, a new method enabled us to estimate precipitation in regions with sparse measured sites. The results show that the estimated annual precipitation correctly replicates real spatial distribution of precipitation qualitatively and quantitatively.

For simulating the soil moisture responses to global climate change in the Loess Plateau region, Vrsmarty’s Water Balance Model was amended and used in this research. Soil property, vegetation type, altitude, temperature, solar radiation, wind speed and precipitation were taken into consideration in the model. The results, based on the analysis of model output, show that the soil moisture in the Loess Plateau region was decreasing from 1961 to 2000, the average value of the whole region decreased in June from 42.3 mm in the 1960s to 38 mm in the 1990s, while in October from 93.9 mm to 56.7 mm. The main cause for this is the decrease of precipitation, the annual precipitation decreased from 500 mm to 417 mm in the corresponding period. However, the evapotranpiration was also decreasing, the maximum monthly evapotranspiration decreased from 190 mm in the 1960s to 142 mm in the 1990s. Though temperature was increasing, the main reason for the decreasing evapotranspiration was the decreasing solar radiation due to human activity.

Seeking sustainable natural resource use and accelerating sustainable economic growth is one of the main tasks for Chinese government in its coming "12th Five-Year Plan" for national economy. Thus, how to find a way to achieve the goal is quite important for the policy makers. In order to provide some scientific evidence for policy recommendations, this paper tries to assess different performance levels of sustainable resource use among different economies due to the different institutional settings through a comparison of two indicators based on the data sets from 12 countries and regions including China. The two indicators are the Adjusted Net Savings (ANS) and Aggregate Governance Indicators (AGI) surveyed and published by the World Bank. The statistic analysis findings are that better institutional settings lead to better performance of sustainable resource use and economic growth. After that, the paper further sets up an econometric model to verify the findings, i.e., good institutional environment is a positive driving factor for sustainable natural resource use, in which the model eliminates the reverse causality of the two factors by using the two stages linear regression method and GLS method for panel data. The result of the regression verifies that there is a significant effect of institutional environment on sustainable resource use, which provides the necessary evidence for the policy makers, i.e., one unit improvement of good institutional environment can lead to a 8.84 times increase of average value of economic growth and the net savings of the country. According to the findings, the paper concludes that because the current growth of Chinese economy falls into the scope of sustainable ones, and meanwhile there is the space for the improvement of institutional settings, the future Chinese economic growth could maintain sustainablility to a certain extent if the related institutional environment is continuously ameliorated.

Riparian wetland is not only a very important part of wetland resources, but also one of the areas in which the contradictions between economic growth and ecological environment protection are very acute. To understand the willingness of local community residents toward the riparian wetland protection, investigation that will help to develop the best patterns of protection and utilization of wetland should be carried out. Taking the Kouma section of the Mengjin Yellow River National Reserve as an example, the willingness of community residents to wetland protection and utilization has been investigated in this study. The results showed that 71.96% of the investigated residents have already realized the importance of wetland and agreed that it was reasonable to establish the natural wetland reserve. But if the protection areas were strictly lined out and forbidden cultivating, they would not accept because this would impact their basic interests. And these must be the main reasons why the protective measures of nature reserve cannot be effectively executed. 90.53% of the investigated residents thought that the effects of nature reserve on local community mainly focus on land reduction and the birds pecking crops, and the government should compensate for it. But in fact, limited to financial resources, it is impossible. As regards the expectation on the use of wetland, the interviewees hold different views. If the relationship of benefits between the nature reserve and community resident are well improved, more new opportunities for employment are created, and the compensation system and alternative livelihoods for farmers should be implemented as soon as possible, the majority of the community residents have the strong willingness to understand and support to participate in the protection work of nature reserve. Distribution along the river, the pattern of riverbed natural wetland-riverside shelter belt-water plants growing-fish farming-corn planted, and moderate development of eco-tourism are the best pattern of protection and utilization of wetland, which can not only protect the nature reserve but also give consideration to the willingness and vested interest of local community residents.

Resources utilization efficiency is very crucial to natural resource conservation and emission reduction, especially under the policy framework of energy saving and emission reduction nowadays in China. As a supplement to resource curse theory, a hypothesis was put forward with regard to regional resource endowment and resource utilization efficiency. Therefore, the panel data of energy and water resources of 31 provincial-level administrative regions in mainland China (not including Hong Kong and Macao due to no data) in 2008 was adopted to make statistical analysis to verify the negative effects of the regional resource endowment on resource utilization efficiency. The results showed that, there has been obvious negative effect between resources endowment and resources utilization efficiency, i.e., the resource efficiency is relatively lower in resources rich area and vice versa. It can be prudently concluded that, in addition to economic development, the curse effect is applied to resource utilization efficiency associated with resources endowment. In comparison with concentrated resources as mineral resources, dispersed resources as water is more sensitive in utilization efficiency affected by resources endowment, which is much in contrast to the curse associated with economic development. The results obtained in this analysis have much implication to policy making with regard to resources utilization efficiency.

A two-component model is proposed to adjust and optimize the energy resources structure reasonably and scientifically. The energy production and consumption-related coefficients were predicted and estimated by the estimation method for statistical test. The projection results of the energy production and consumption in the year of 2014 are 2426 million and 2715 million tons of standard coal respectively by the data of China’s statistical yearbooks in 2008 quantitatively. Using the predicted energy consumption quantity, structure and the relationship between the carbon emissions (units of energy consumption coefficient of carbon emissions), the projection result of the total carbon emissions of China in the year of 2012 is 2187 million tons of standard coal and it is on the rise. The related measures are also proposed.