Archive

  • Select all
    |
    Earth Surface Processes
  • Earth Surface Processes
    YAO Hua-rong, ZHENG Du, WU Shao-hong
    Download PDF ( )   Knowledge map   Save

    The irrational use of land and water resources in regions around Beijing is the main cause of the environmental deterioration and the sandstorms. Huailai County is one of the six typical sand regions, which is taken as a case in the present study. Based on digital land use map of 2000 and contour map of Resources and Environment Data Center of IGSNRR, CAS, the land and water resources and their utilization status in Huailai were studied and the problems of land and water use was found: the water resource was insufficient to meet the needs for existing land use; both land use structure and land use distribution was irrational.In order to solve these problems,the Grey Linear Programme model was used to allocate the land and water resources optimally. The optimum land allocation modes were obtained under different water-saving levels and agriculturalwater supplies; theoretical base was provided about rational use of the regionalland and water.Four conclusions are drawn:1) In the optimum land allocation modes, tendenciesof each land use type under different water-saving levels are the same on the whole.2) Under three typical water use conditions (normal water use, moderate water-saving and high water-saving ), there is one land use allocation mode that the source of sand is generally controlled, one mode that the source of sand is totally controlled and one mode that the source of sand is totally controlled and the structure of crops is rational, although different amount of agricultural water supply is needed. 3)The characteristic of normal water use condition shows the investment in water-saving facilities is very little, but it needs large amount of water-supply; that of moderate water-saving condition needs certain investment to improve the efficiency of water use and the amount of water supply is lower than the first case; and that of high water-saving condition needs the lowest amount of water supply but considerable investment to improve the efficiency of water use. So the modes under moderate water-saving condition is feasible.4)Under moderate water-saving condition, there are three typical modes of optimum land allocation. When theagricultural water supply is 5.85 billion m 3,land types that are apt to form sandstormsconvert to lands moderately covered by grass, the source of sand is generally controlled and the benefit of land is 1.51 billion yuan. When the amount of agricultural water supply is 6.05 billion m 3,lands that apt to form sandstorms convert to lands highly covered by grass, the source of sand is totally controlled, and the benefit of land is 1.62 billion yuan. When the amount of agricultural water supply is increased to 6.385 billion m 3,not only the source of sand is controlled but also the structure of croplandsis rational, and the benefit of land is 1.72 billion yuan.

  • Earth Surface Processes
    HAIChun-xing, MA Li, WANG Xue-meng, LI Lu
    Download PDF ( )   Knowledge map   Save

    Globalclimate change and increasing intensity of anthropogenic activity are the main restricting factors to the development of agriculture in arid and semi-arid area. Gray relation model was applied to analyzethe main factors of wind erosion and land desertificationin Zhangbei County of Hebei Province in interlock area of farming and pasturing.Climate change and anthropogenic activities are the main factors influencing wind erosion and landdesertification. Climate change factors include monthly mean temperature and rainfall and annual mean temperature and rainfall.Factors of anthropogenic activities include population increase rate, per capital income, change of grassland and cultivated land area, the research result indicates: Wind erosion and landdesertificationare related to changing climate in interlock area of farming and pasturing of northern China, such as mean temperature and its precipitation in winter. There is no distinctiverelationship between the annual mean temperature and its precipitation. Population growth is a social factor and also a very important factor influencing agricultural production. Anthropogenic activity could intensify or mitigate wind erosion and land desertification on the background of mean temperature and precipitation changes in winter. According to changes in mean temperature and rainfall in winter, agricultural production framework and way of production can be adjusted properly by human beings in their production process. If precipitation decreased and temperature rose in winter, cultivated land area must be reduced next year. Stock raising or other ways of production should be increased. On the other hand, if the precipitation increased and temperature fell in winter, cultivated land area could be enlarged, because the soils have enough water and are suitable to be cultivated. Adjustment of agricultural production structure according to changes in mean temperature and precipitation in winter can mitigate wind erosion and land desertification and guarantee sustainable agricultural development

  • Earth Surface Processes
    CAO Jun, ZHANG Yi-li, LIU Yan-hua
    Download PDF ( )   Knowledge map   Save

    Tropical forest plays an important role in global carbon cycle and carbon balance. What function the tropical forest is, carbon sink or carbon source, is still a disputed question among researchers. In this paper, we use an improved estimation method of forest biomass and forest resource inventory in Hainan Island to estimate carbon storage and its dynamic changes between 1979 and 1998. Here, the data of carbon storage includes three parts: carbon content in tree layer, carbon content in understorey, and carbon content in the litter layer. The results suggest that: 1) Carbon storage increased significantly in Hainan forest after 1979 from 30.45 Tg C to 37.74 Tg C by 1998, for the annual average accumulation amount of 0.3645 Tg C,or the annual average accumulation rate of 1.197%, is much higher than that of the national level. The function of carbon sink in Hainan forest is becoming greater and greater. 2) The mean carbon density is 32.59 tC/hm 2 between 1979 and 1993. The carbon density reduced rapidly after 1979 from 38.63 tC/hm 2 to 24.41 tC/hm 2 by 1993. The value of carbon density varies with forest types and forest ages. Generally speaking, carbon density increases with forest ages. So carbon storage potential in Hainan forest will become much greater. 3) With the measures of forest protection such as forbidding cutting, enclosing land and planting trees carrying out, forest areas will expand and the structure of forest ages will change. All these will lead to the improvement of capability of carbon storage. At the condition that the global tropical forest plays a notable role of carbon source in carbon cycle, the function and social value of Hainan forest, a representative region of tropical forest in China, will become increasingly notable in the national and even global carbon cycle. There is great difference in carbon storage among different researchers. This paper also analyses and discusses the uncertainty in calculating carbon storage and points out that it is only by strengthening the study on forest community biomass in different layers and unifying and improving the methods of calculating carbon content, can the precision of carbon storage be improved. At the same time, we should verify data first before using them.

  • Earth Surface Processes
    LI Yong-hua, ZHAO Jun, CUI Zhi-jiu, GAO Quan-zhou
    Download PDF ( )   Knowledge map   Save

    According to a large amount of field measurements and indoor annual measuring data and research on the distribution characteristics of debris flow movement deposits in different stages since the late Cenozoic Era,we believe that the large scale debris flow movement in the east border of the Tibetan Plateau and its surrounding regions since the late Cenozoic Era started from the late Pliocene.Debris flow in the early Pleistocene was fully developed in the east border of the Tibetan Plateau and the debris flow movement was relatively weak in the east piedmont of Taihang Mountains and Beijing in North China.Debris flow movement was most active in the middle Pleistocene.There was still certain debris flow movement around Xiaojiang Valley in the east border of the Tibetan Plateau in the late Pleistocene, while the movement became weaker both in Bailongjiang Valley, south Gansu,and the north piedmont of Qinling,and stronger in Beijing area and the east piedmont of Taihang Mountains.Debris flow movement took on a characteristic of periodicity which had corresponding relationship with the periodic uplifting of the Tibetan Plateau and the establishment of Asian monsoon.Great changes in the strength and influential areas of the Southeast monsoon and the Southwest monsoon which affected China since the late Cenozoic Era had also taken place.As a product of monsoon,debris flow movement history was the same as loess and paleosol and recorded the forming and developing processes of the two monsoons since the late Cenozoic Era.Under the influence of the Tibetan Plateau movement during 3.6~1.7MaBP, typical modern monsoon was formed gradually, and precipitation in the form of torrential rain and a large scale of debris flow movement initiated in the east border of the Tibetan Plateau.The Kun(lun) and Yellow (River) movement during 1.1~0.6MaBP enlarged the rise and fall of terrain and uplifting of the Plateau got to a new critical value, meanwhile the motive power and heating power effect of the Plateau reached a new balance point. Debris flow movement was unusually active in the east border of the Tibetan Plateau. Debris character had also changed from the early Pleistocene when diluted and sub-viscous debris flow movement predominated to the period when viscous debris flow movement predominated. North China then started to enter a debris flow movement stage. Under the influence of Gonghe movement at 0.15MaBP, the influenced area by the Southwest monsoon rapidly decreased, and most parts of eastern China were mainly affected by the Southeast monsoon, and advance and retreat changes of the Southeast monsoon had an absolutely controlling impact on environmental evolution. Debris flow movement weakened in the east border of the Tibetan Plateau.During the last interglacial period, debris flow movement ceased to develop in the inland regions far away from Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean.

  • Earth Surface Processes
    LIU Xi-lin, MO Duo-wen
    Download PDF ( )   Knowledge map   Save

    Debris flow vulnerability is the potential maximum losses in people, property and materials due to potential debris flow damaging phenomenon for a specified area and during a reference period, which is measured on a scale of 0 (0%) to 1 (100%). Debris flow vulnerability is related to the huge and complex socioeconomic and environmental system, which is mainly classified into two categories of property and population. The property index includes the assets of building, transportation infrastructure, lifeline, personal property, and land resources. Site-specific debris flow vulnerability is a complex-function of the property index. The population index includes the age, education level, wealth situation, natural growth rate of population, and population density. Site-specific debris flow vulnerability is a sum-production-function of the property index. Monetary unit is used to measure the property value, while the value of person may not be simply measured by money. Thus the property index and population index with different units cannot be directly added. In this paper, the transformation functions have successfully provided identical scale and dimensionless expression for both the indexes of property and of population, which make the vulnerability possibly to be expressed synthetically as the sum of the values of property and population. Mathematically debris flow vulnerability is computed by the square root of the half sum of the transformed values of property index and population index.

  • Earth Surface Processes
    WEI Hai-yan, ZHANG Ke-li, WANG Jing-yi
    Download PDF ( )   Knowledge map   Save

    Distributed erosion model is one of the effective methods to evaluate soil loss. The land patch is a key componentin establishing adistributed erosion model. Now many researchers prefer rectangle as cellsin the model. However, they had not made an agreement about the cell size. Furthermore, when the rectanglecells are employed, it is somehow difficult to keep a balance between the precision and the load of the model, because both of them are decided from the size of the cell. The larger the cellis, the more laboriousthe work is, but it is not always the case that the model will be more precise. Actually, thecellsize should be determined according tothe uniformity of the land in the region where the model is to be applied and the accuracy of the model needed. However, there is a chance that the user of the model, and even the designer of the model, have no actual image of the region, and then have no idea about what size the cell should be. Similarly, when a cell is chosen, the accuracy is not clearly presented. Zhifanggou catchment is a typical area of the hilly loess region in the Loess Plateau. Supported by GIS and SPSS, the authors got the patches of the catchment which haveuniform characters respectively, and analyzedthe statistic result of the patches' areas. It was indicated that the areas rangedfrom less than 1 m 2to almost 200,000 m 2. On the other hand, nearly 67% of the patches congregate into two groups: either below 500 m 2or between 1,000 m 2to 5,000 m 2. Accordingto the results, one can get anapproximate image of the hilly loess region and then be more reasonable to establish or usea distributed erosion model forthat region.

  • Earth Surface Processes
    JIANG Xiao-bo, LI Ai-nong, ZHOU Wan-cun
    Download PDF ( )   Knowledge map   Save

    Southwest China is a mountainous region. Elevation and landform (e.g.slope) are two key factors to limit the land usemode, furthermore, to influence food variety and yield. Food Yield-Estimation (FYE) by Remote Sensing is an advanced and mature technology. Because of the complicated landform and fragmentary surface of Southwest China and the limitation of Remote Sensing source, the study of FYE lags behind other regions. It is of great significance to the establishment of the FYE model in mountainousareas of SouthwestChinaboth in theoretical value and practical aspect. Anning river basin is a SN-trended intermontane basin,and the second largest food production base in Sichuan province. The authors makeuse of the combination of Remote Sensing, GIS and GPS to place point and line field samples, get the sowed area of winter wheatand establish the winter wheat yield-estimation model. The establishmentof the yield of the winter wheat is decided by factors of two aspects. One is the sowed area;the other is the per unit area yield model of the winter wheat. The acquisition of sowed area of the winter wheat is depended on the agrarian area interpreted by remote sensing and the percentage of the winter wheat. The establishment of the unit yield model is depended on the choice of the formula and the parameters used to make up the formula. There are severalkinds of factors to influence the growth condition and decide the unit yield of the winter wheat, such as climate (include temperature, precipitation, moisture, sun shine etc.), biological factor, planting method, soil potentiality, landform and so on. In these factors, the elevation and the gradient are two factors that can reflect the natural features of the winter wheat in Southwest China. The winter wheat's planting position and yield are influenced by elevation andslope. In fact, the remote sensing factor is not really a factor to decide the yield, but only the compositive reflection of other factors on the sensor. Zone division is anotherkey factor to decide the choice of the parameters of the formula and influencethe precision of the model, because different zones have different major factors to influence the yield. The selection of the formula is dependedon the mathematicmethod, the knowledge of the region's natural and economic conditions and the accumulation of experience. The precision of the model is decided by the representative of the formula and the parameters.

  • Earth Surface Processes
    WU Jian-jun, YANG Qin-ye
    Download PDF ( )   Knowledge map   Save

    It is difficult to monitor growing crops in a large scale. There isn't, up to now, a satisfied method to know what the way a crop is growing and how can get accurate yield estimations of the growing crops, which scientists have been intending to probe into. Remote sensing was used to monitor growing crops in North China and Northeast China. However, in arid land of Xinjiang in Northwest China, this method has not been used because of special geographical environment. In this paper, the researched subject is the winter wheat planted on the northern slope of Tianshan Mountains. A new method to monitor growing crops was experimented supported by modern spatial technology which integrated remote sensing, geographic information system, global positioning system, and other measures such as intensive ground surveys and the analysis for the situation in its history, in order to obtain more exact results. Geographic information system and global positioning system were properly integrated by GVG sampling system for the purpose of monitoring crop growth with the support of GVG system. Field investigations for the growth of winter wheat has been carried out and the database for yield evaluation has been built, which will be not only used to analyse the growth of crops, but also used to estimate the crop yieldmore exactly by contrasting the result from remote sensing imageries with information from intensive ground surveys. Three methods were used in estimating crop yield: remote sensing aided by GIS, field investigation and analysis for historic yield. It was showed that crop growth monitoring and yield estimation using this integratied method is practical, which should be extensively applied in arid land in Northwest China.

  • Earth Surface Processes
    LI Hai-ping, ZHUANG Da-fang, XIONG Li-ya
    Download PDF ( )   Knowledge map   Save

    In recent years, sandstorm weather and its impact on environment and human health has attracted more and more attention. Researches on related domain have shown that desertification of arid and semi-arid regions has provided rich source for the formation of sandstorm weather. For this reason, to protect the large eco-environmental vulnerable area in North China from being desertified or degraded and to slow down the desertification process of the said area have become highly important and meaningful in practice. In order to do this, basic information about soil, vegetation and other features are indispensable for the study of land desertification. Field spectral data as one of these basic data sets can provide some valuable information about land desertification. Along with other data, they are useful in monitoring and classifying land desertification in certain areas. It also can be helpful to the study of the dust source of sandstorm weather. This article focuses on the frequently occurred sandstorm weather since the 1990s and the serious land desertification in North China and Beijing region, taking dry farming area,intertock area of farming and pasturing and pure pastoral area around Beijing as study areas. Fengning in Hebei province, Duolun and Xianghuangqi in Inner Mongolia have been selected as representatives of the above mentioned three areas. Field spectrum data of different land-cover and different desertified land had been measured using the ASD FieldSpec FR instrument in those study areas. Analyses and comparisons of processed field spectrum data of degradations to different degrees and degradations to same degrees in different seasons or with various vegetation cover rates have been done respectively. Farmland with different crops have also been measured and analyzed. According to the analyses of the sampled spectrum data, the spectrum characters and their responding mechanisms had been discussed. The conclusion is that soil water content, types of grass, height of grass, grass coverage and growth period of vegetation are related to the average spectrum characteristics of the desertified land. Spectrum curves vary with changes in environmental factors. Studies of soil and vegetation spectrum characteristics should be taken as further reference for the study of desertified land. Spectrum curves also changed with annual and seasonal vegetation growth. Thus the accumulation of long-term field spectrum data is more important and necessary.

  • Earth Surface Processes
    BAO Ji-gang, XU Hong-gang, DAI Guang-quan
    Download PDF ( )   Knowledge map   Save

    Based on the reviewing the development of Three-Gorges Program, the problem of the Farewell Tour of Three Gorges promotional program has been identified. By applying the event tourism,system dynamics and tourism marketing theories, a systematic and dynamics approach is adopted to analyze the internal structures of the Three Gorges Tourism Development and to explain and to predict the dynamic impacts of the Farewell Tour of Three Gorges. It is expected that the study provides not only an analytical framework to the similar problems but also the cautions to adopt the high risky promotional strategies. A simple model of Three Gorges Tourism Development based on the Bass model of product life cycle was constructed to replicate the basic behavior.The model is composed of four sectors thatare linked by feedback structures: tourist sector, attractionsector, public infrastructure sector and service facility sector. Tourist sector is the most important. It has been identified that tourists of Three Gorges are determined by the potential tourists, increasing rate of potential tourists, potential tourists who have lost interests before making decisions to travel and the tourists who make revisitation decisions. These four variables are governed by the feedback structures which are characterized by the delays and non-linear functions and therefore misconception is prevailing in the tourism management. It has been found out that although Farewell Tour of Three Gorges can induce more potential tourists to make travel decisions within a short time, the revisitation tourists, and the new potential tourists decline. As a result, the potential tourists reduce sharply right after the Farewell Tour of Three Gorges and can only increase very slowly in the long run if remediationactions are taken. Similar patterns are observed to the newly added tourists who visit Three Gorges. Apart from the reduction of tourists, other consequences, such as quick expansion of service capacity, vigorous and non-regulated competition, the damaged investment environment for long term public infrastructure and new attraction projects and delayed government actions accelerate the vicious cycle of the decline of Three Gorges Tourism after the implementation of the Promotional Program. The study concluded that Farewell Tour of Three Gorges is a very risky promotional program. The program in fact only benefits a few in the short term and brings long term negative effect to the tourism industry of Three Gorges Tourism.

  • Earth Surface Processes
    WU Bi-hu, LI Mi-mi, HUANG Guo-ping
    Download PDF ( )   Knowledge map   Save

    It has been recognized for long time that there exists conflict between heritage protection and tourism development, especially in those developing countries where local governments appealed more on economic benefits from heritage tourism. Since China adopted the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Culture and Natural Heritage in 1985, 21 cultural heritages, 3 natural heritages and 4 mixed heritages have been inscribed in the list. Considering the fast development of heritage tourism in China, academic research literature is still less than hoped. What readers could find in this paper is a special relationship between demands on tourism development and need to protect World Heritage Sites (WHSs) in the country. To observe the conflict between the two sides, a comprehensive investigation and study is done with technical support of GIS, quantitative geography and other geographical analysis methods. According to the results of the research, there are many forces that enhance heritage tourism development in this most rapidly growing country of Asia, including densely populated urban market versus limited number of WHSs; closer distance between population centers and WHSs (easy access from major tourism market to WHSs); being at a special stage of industrial transforming of the country (switching from secondary industry to tertiary industry and service-oriented industry); more preferences of potential domestic tourism market; and being in a shortage of financial resources for heritage protection. Therefore, tourism development of WHSs is a natural result in current economic and social situation. Meanwhile, findings of the analysis also demonstrate that heritage protection is the most important consideration while taking them as major tourism attractions, because heavy pressure of tourism development calls for more efforts to preserve those sites. Only a well-balanceddevelopment model could maintain a sustainable development of WHSs and secure the long-term benefits.

  • Earth Surface Processes
    DUAN Han-ming, ZHANG Gang
    Download PDF ( )   Knowledge map   Save

    Through the analysis of the disadvantageous factors in regional spatial development of Xi'an city, the authors put forward the main urban development framework for New Xi'an,i.e., "One core and three inferior cores"pattern which provides new regional space of urban development. This can form a reasonable layout and orderly development. The clustering city structure should be formed, which can take effective measures to protect cultural relics and ruins and can emphasize ecological construction. Xi'an city's development mechanism is discussed from different angles such as the relationships among cities, Guanzhong urban belt, and the northern part of central and west regions of China. Then the author suggeststhat the goal of urban development should be redefined according to the principlesof integrated planning, colligated allocation, division of labor and co-operation for the harmonization of coordinated development, tourism economy, urban construction and environmental protection.Taking tourism and trade, scientific research and education and high-tech industry as dominant factors and the internationalization of urban running mechanism, running modes, and running environment as criterion, the internationalization of urban comprehensive function can be promoted and the goal of leaping over development can be eventually realized.

  • Earth Surface Processes
    FENG Jian
    Download PDF ( )   Knowledge map   Save

    The evolution of urban morphology in the process of urban growth is one of the theoretical frontier issues, while the spatial-temoral structure of the distribution of urban populationdensity is one of the important contents of urban growth. Combining with data of the previous censuses(the second census in 1964, the third one in 1982 and the fourth one in 1990), the author usesdata of the Fifth Census of Hangzhou to study the models of spatial distributionof population density and its evolution in Hangzhou for more than 30 years systematically. First of all, the author transforms data of population census into spatial data by using the map of Hangzhou, and extracts data of urban population density distribution of different years.Then seven kinds of models are tested, including the linear one, the exponential one, the logarithmic one, the power one, the lognormalone, the power-exponential one and the second degree exponentialone. With a viewpoint of the whole tendency, the power-exponential model, as an amended form of the negative exponential model, can describe spatial distribution of urban population density of Hangzhou well. The parameter σreflects the tendency of changes of information entropy of urban geographic system. The parameter σfluctuates, increases and approaches 1, indicating that the power-exponential distribution of urban population density evolves into the ideal Clark (negative exponential) one with the lapse of time. The analysis of urban growth and its spatial dynamics shows that the spatial complexity and the utility of Hangzhou's function unit increase, and that urban spatialstructure tends to be in a new order with the increase of urban ability as a self-organization and the development of suburbanization. As a result of regression, we can't get a model like that of Newling, and there isn't any tidal wave of expansion in the development of spatial distribution of population density in Hangzhou within the past several decades, so it is easy to draw a conclusion that there is a large gap between Chinese cities and western ones in multi-nucleus morphologyand process of suburbanization.

  • Earth Surface Processes
    XU Yong, HAN Guo-yi, GAN Guo-hui
    Download PDF ( )   Knowledge map   Save

    Relieving and de-farming" is identified presently as an important strategic measure for national eco-environmental rehabilitation in the loess hilly-gully region. Based on the issue, the characteristics of relieving and de-farming measure are discussed. The sizes of de-farming slope farmland over 25° and 15° and the quantum of policy allowance of each county are calculated. With the aid of constructed de-farming exponential and policy allowance fund density exponential, 55 counties of the loess hilly-gully region are classified into groups of different levels, and the spatial differentiation characteristics of de-farming sizes and policy allowance are respectively analyzed. It is found out: (1) The area of de-farming slope farmland over 25° is 41.91×10 4hm 2,and the policy allowance is 44.01×10 8yuan(RMB). The area of de-farming slope farmland over 15° is 125.53×10 4hm 2,and the policy allowance is 131.82×10 8yuan. (2) There are two main relieving and de-farming districts in the loess hilly-gully region. The larger district is located in the contiguous areas between Yan, an and Yulin city of northern Shaanxi province, and the smaller one is situated at some counties neighboring on the Liupanshan Mountains in eastern Gansu province and southern Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. (3) The process of relieving and de-farming project should be divided into two phases. De-farming slope farmland over 25° should be regarded as the main task of the first phase, and that between 25° and 15° as second phase task. (4) To formulate regional policies on relieving and de-farming as soon as possible and put the limited fund to the two main relieving and de-farming districts

  • Earth Surface Processes
    ZHANG Xiao-ping
    Download PDF ( )   Knowledge map   Save

    In recent years, growing attention has been devoted to the development areas in China. While most of the researches concern much to the development of research parks in China, the comprehensive researches about the Economic and Technological Development Areas (ETDAs) are very limited. Therefore, the main concern of this paper is first devoted to discussing the characteristics of ETDAs, and then based on the field investigations of main development areas in the coastal zone, the mechanism of development areas is explored. Since 1984, the Chinese central government has authorized 54 state-level ETDAs which are distributed within the whole country. Meanwhile the number of ETDAs planned by the provincial and local governments has increased so fast that the total number amounted to more than 500 by the end of 2000. From the spatial perspective, the developmental period of ETDAs can be divided into three stages: the first 14 ETDAs scattered in several cities along the coastal zone, and then they dispersed to the east and south regions of China; so far, the ETDAs have spread into the middle and western China. Most of the ETDAs has contributed a lot to the regional development, especially in terms of economic growth and use of foreign direct investment (FDI). Some of the ETDAs have become the most important growth poles in places where they are located. However, there are significant regional differences among the development areas. On the whole, the economic performance of development areas located in the coastal zone is better than that in the middle and western China. The main driving forces of the ETDAs' growth, as being argued in this paper, are the special policies for ETDAs, which can be regarded as the original force, the influence of the transnational corporations (TNCs), the market mechanism and the role of social and cultural factors. Moreover, in the long run, the regional learning and innovation ability is even more important for ETDAs' further development. Within China, however, the understanding of ETDAs still rests on the important role of special policies played in the development of the development areas. Accordingly, most regional governments, by increasing the number of ETDAs and providing preferential polices, have tended to accelerate regional economic growth, while ignoring the other driving forces that are in fact the endogenous powers for the development of the ETDAs.