This article aims to examine how the size, connectivity and accessibility of the expressway network have evolved over time on a national scale and further influence the developing potential for a region during the past 25 years and future 15 years. Travel time and the shortest time path model were applied for this purpose. We describe the growth of the expressway network in China and analyze the development features, and evaluate the evolution of expressway network accessibility in each period including connectivity, travel time and location coefficient, and comparatively analyze their differences over time and space. In particular, we analyze the effect of expressways on spatial accessibility and location conditions, and identify which developments are likely to improve or detract from accessibility and location conditions. Furthermore, the composite developing potential for cities is evaluated by considering the population and regional gross domestic product to investigate the influence of expressways on regional development, and their changes before and after expressway construction is analyzed. The results show that the expressway construction has produced the obvious spatio-temporal convergence by reducing the travel time among the cities and brought the peripheral regions closer to the central regions and greatly improved the transport conditions in the western China which produce a continuously shrinking China. The accessibility of cities shows a spatial pattern of core-peripheral concentric circle configuration, and the Huanghe-Huaihe River Plain, the Guanzhong Plain, the middle and lower reaches of the Changjiang River have been the regions with the best accessibility but the worst conditions of accessibility are recorded in the northwestern and northeastern margins in China. The expressway has produced interference on the original accessibility with a certainly steady status established by traditional highways. In the early period, with the initially continuous construction of expressway, this interference was likely to be more obvious. But with the fully interconnected networking of expressway, it setbacks rapidly and the accessibility difference among the nodes also returns to original level, because expressway network becomes a new transport infrastructure increasingly to replace the existing highway. However, the expressways not only could not change the superior/poor level of locational condition for a city in the whole China but also increased the imbalances in development opportunities among cities.
After the reform and opening up, with the rapid development of China's economic and acceleration urbanization, the relationship between urbanization and economic growth in China has received more and more attention. Building up the panel data model based on the panel data of thirty provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions, this article studies the interaction between urbanization and economic growth from 1978 to 2014. At the same time, through comparatively analyzing the relationship between urbanization and economic growth in the different stages of urbanization since 1978, the article tries to reveal the interactive difference between urbanization and economic growth in the different stages of urbanization, and the change of regional pattern stemming from the interaction between urbanization and economic growth. Based on the Mann-Kendall method, the article divides the development of China’s urbanization into two stages of 1978-1995 and 1996-2014. Through the unit root test and cointegration test by the panel data of provinces, the article analyzes the interactive degree of urbanization and economic growth comparatively in the different stages since 1978. The research results show as follows: 1) In 1978-2014, Chinese economic growth promotes urbanization and forms the regional pattern of presentation low in central and high in the north and the south China. At the same time, the role of urbanization for the economic growth has not been confirmed. 2) The interaction between urbanization and economic growth is not confirmed in 1978-1995. 3) In 1996-2014, Chinese urbanization and China’s economic growth are of mutual promotion obviously, and urbanization role in promoting economic growth is greater than the role of economic growth. Regional pattern formed by economic growth promoting urbanization show features of high in Middle East China and low in the inland areas, while the truth is just the reverse about regional pattern formed by urbanization promoting economic growth. All of those show that in the more developed areas economic growth promotes a more significant to urbanization, and in the backward areas urbanization gives a great push to economic growth.
This article provides an overview of international literature on the temporal aspect of the migration process, and a comprehensive and systematic review on progress in the research on the temporal processes of migration and their spatial effects in China. The review suggests that in China’s migration research, some attention has been paid to the temporal processes of migration and their spatial effects, reflected in the fact that the temporal factor has been considered in some research concerning migrants’subsequent migration following their first move to the cities, the stepwise reunion for members of migrant split families and the corresponding evolution of their multi-locational livelihoods, and their intention of return migration or settlement in the cities in the last stage of their migration process. However, the review demonstrates that there is a lack of systematic and integrated investigation into various stages of the migration process and comprehensive examination of the temporal changes in migrants’ livelihood in terms of their employment, housing and household characteristics.The review also suggests that our understanding of factors affecting migrants’ spatial behavior in the lengthy and multi-stage migration process is inadequate, and that the exploration on the temporal dimension of the migration process is constrained by the lack of individual-level event history data. Based on the above review, the article argues that in China’s future migration research, more efforts should be devoted to collect event history data relating to the migration process, divide it into various stages, and systematically examine detailed characteristics of each migration stage and the related temporal and spatial changes in migrants’ employment, housing and families, in order to fill in the gap in understanding the temporal processes of migration. The article further advocates that efforts need to be devoted to integrating the results of research on each specific stage of the migration process into a comprehensive understanding of the regularity in the evolution of the migration process as a whole. The article suggests that research as described above will expand and deepen our understanding of the temporal and spatial patterns of migration and their formulating mechanisms, and contribute to the development of relevant theories.
Life satisfaction, a stable and long felling of life, denotes how well people thrive. In the last decade, scholars from different academic fields including psychology, sociology, geography, economy and so on have contributed a lot of research on the relevant topics. Besides, life satisfaction is also increasingly being seen as an essential element for the quality of urban development and government policy, therefore, followed by the scientific interests is the concern of administrative authorities who believe public policy should be about enhancing life satisfaction of the people. Although the highest rate of growth in GDP in Chinese urban, the economic growth did not promise an equal level of the improvement of residents’ life satisfaction.According to the previous research, there is little study that focus on life satisfaction from the perspective of Human Geography in China, especially lack of research that the influence of geographical unit effect on residents’ life satisfaction. Traditionally, single-level model was used in previous research to analyze the influence, which ignoring the similarity of individuals who living in same geographical unit and the clustering effect of groups. Worse still, single-level models do not fully exploit the hierarchical nature of geography data that are increasingly available and that can be utilized to provide more information about the role of geography at different spatial scales. In this aticle, we use ordered category response multilevel model to analyze that how the characteristics of sub-districts and community affect residents’ life satisfaction. Based on large scale survey in 2013 in case of Beijing, several conclusions are drawn as follows: 1) There are life satisfaction heterogeneity both at sub-district and community level, and the heterogeneity at community level is bigger than sub-district level. 2) Individual attributes also affect subjective well-being(SWB). In general, weak groups, such as low-income families, nonlocal hukou people and old people, are more likely be unsatisfied about their life. 3) Type of community has significant impact on life satisfaction. The closeness of community and high identity of residents in same community should largely responsible for this. Residents living in commercial housing are more likely feel satisfied about life than affordable housing and unit housing. Currently, diverse community is the inevitable choice for the rapid progress of urbanization as it provides more choices for urban families to access housing opportunities. However, community disparity also deeps residents’ SWB gap, implying that it should be given due attention to promote living environment of affordable and unit housing, further improve residents’ sense of well-being. Furthermore, in current metropolitan cities in China, it is the weak groups who are most unsatisfied about their life and always need help and concern from government most urgently. Because of institutional and economic factors, they are always excluded from the preferential policy provided to urban residents, and have few opportunities to access to good life in urban, especially for rural migrant workers.
Bankfull discharge (Qbf) of alluvial rivers reflects the hydro-geomorphic coupling at channel-scale. It is closely related with the drainage basin factors. Based on this concept, we have studied the variation in the Qbf of the Inner Mongolia reach of the upper Huanghe River, and elucidated the causes at channel and drainage basin levels. The results show that the dams’ regulation changes the flow regime, making the downstream flows more even, greatly reducing the high-flow season discharges and therefore, Qbf of the downstream channel decreased. The enhanced channel sedimentation (Sdep) after the Longyangxia Dam construction, especially the sedimentation within the main channel due to the decreased bankfull frequency is also an important factor. The sedimentation has some time-lag or cumulative effect on the variation in Qbf, namely, Qbf correlates not only with the Sdep of the same year, but also with the moving averages of Sdep of the foregoing N-years, and the correlation coefficient (r) reaches the highest at N=4. A multiple regression equation has been established between Qbf and annual discharge, yearly maximum discharge and the foregoing 4-year average Sdep, indicating that Qbf depends not only on the flow conditions at the same year, but also on the cumulative Sdep at a certain time-scale. The existence of a cause-effect chain has been identified, which is generalized as follows: the construction of the Longyangxia Dam→ the increased July-October C/Q (C: suspended sediment concentration; Q: water discharge)→the enhanced Sdep→the decreased Qbf. Thus, by means of increasing the July-October flow release from the Longyangxia Reservoir, the Sdep can be reduced and the Qbf increased. Therefore, the increased flood-risk due to the reduced Qbf may be mitigated. As well, it has been demonstrated that the decrease in Qbf occurs as the outcome of the changing drainage basin factors. A multiple regression equation was established, which indicates that the increased climatic warm and dry trend, the water diversion ratio and the total capacity of the reservoirs and the decreased natural runoff coefficient are the causes for the decreased Qbf in the upper Huanghe River.
The research on the economic interaction among cities is beneficial to understand the spatial organization of regions and urban economy, to clarify the space developing orientation of regions and city entities, and to organize transportation reasonably. It provides references for the guiding and strengthening of regional and urban spatial interactions, and the optimization of spatial structure of urban system. Based on the methods of Gravity Model, Potential Model and Subjection Model which are interacted in space, this research quantitatively analyzes the spatial pattern and evolution of the urban economic links in the northeast region from 1992 to 2012, taking 41 cities in the northeastern China as study objects. It provides references for strengthening the spatial interaction among cities in the northeast region and promoting the economic sustainable development in the cities of the northeast region. The result of the study shows that there is close relationship between the economic relation intensity and regional spatial structure, the more intense the economic relation is, the more complicated the regional spatial structure will be. In the northeastern China, the time-space differences are significant that the economic relation intensity in the south is higher than in the north and it is higher in the middle part than on the two sides. In the recent 20 years, the regional economic development pattern represented by Shenyang, Changchun and Harbin has been formed. There is no change in the cities in the center of the region but the closest linkage among cities changed distinctively. The economic development in the northeastern China presents feature from south to north and from middle to sides. Finally, this article puts forward the concept of River Basin City and its pattern, and makes a concrete analysis.
Based on 2013 survey data for large-scale commercial sites in the central district of Changchun, this article provides a detailed discussion of the spatial characteristics and formation mechanisms of retail businesses using spatial density analysis, nearest neighbor distance, and location entropy analysis. The results show that spatial distribution of retail outlets in Changchun is made up of coexisting areas of concentration in the core area and diffusion in the peripheral areas. The results also show that a spatial pattern of multi-center clustering and a spatial development trend from northeast to southwest among retail sites characterize the overall spatial distribution of retail outlets in Changchun. Different retail formats show different spatial distribution features, and the expansion of emerging formats such as chain supermarkets towards the city periphery has become a trend. The density of retail outlet distribution is higher in the inner district than that in the outer district, but the construction intensity trend is moving in the opposite direction. The hierarchical structure of the capacity size is reasonable, which is mainly reflected in the stage of gathering from the single center to multicenter. Furthermore, different blocks of the retail industry show quite different characteristics: the mature districts generally have high integrated service capacity, while the function pattern of developing districts features a more single-focus approach.
It is of certain significance to explore the new-type tourism-driven rural urbanization for providing valuable reference for underdeveloped rural areas which lack of conditions for industrial development but abundant of tourism resources. The article applies qualitative methodology to revealing the characteristics and mechanism of new-type rural urbanization facilitated by tourism in the cases of two rural villages, i.e. the Yaotang Village and the Duanshi Village in the World Heritage Site, the Danxia Mountain. The result shows that as driven by tourism development, the two villages have achieved the new-type rural urbanization with the core of “people urbanization” that interplayed with plural subjects, namely local government, rural communities and external stakeholders. Local infrastructure construction and tourism enterprises development are well encouraged with governmental support of policies and capital, which prevents effectively the phenomenon of “Tragedy of the Commons” and “fake urbanization” from occurring. Furthermore, the two communities have initiatively participated in community construction and tourism operation by investing land, capital and labor, etc., which have accelerated the conversion of industry, employment and living lifestyle. It is also found that it is the external forces like external capital, tourism immigrants as well as tourists that have provided essential supports of capital, labors, information and culture, which gradually enlarge with the development of tourism market. Finally, the article argues that the tourism-driven rural urbanization does not occur in a traditional way that normally characterized with conversion of living space, career and identity; it is essentially an endogenous urbanization to characterize with in situ conversion mode of production and living lifestyle by peasants participating in tourism development. In this way, it may be possible to cultivate regional urbanization by the way of changing villagers’ registered residence in a near future.
The main purpose of this article is to examine the ways in which popular music (live music) in Guangzhou is implicated in the emotive production of performance venues, and how it is located in Guangzhou. The popular music in Guangzhou can be considered to be a noise that has social and political power to challenge the pre-existing place meanings and norms, rather than simply being sounds that lack aesthetics. According to the previous cultural geographical analysis on popular music, how (popular) music is embodied and performs the space and place is the core issues in recent research. Especially, the non-representational side of music is highlighted in current music studies. However, the geographical research on popular music in China is rare and limited to the discussions on the relations between music and place. This shortcoming limits geographers’ understanding of popular music in contemporary urban China, and obstructs Chinese cultural geographies’ focuses on ‘ways of doing/practice’. Drawing on participant observation and life history interviews with 25 informants (3 owners, 4 organizers, 15 musicians and 4 audience members) in 6 live houses in Guangzhou (T: union; C: union; Musician; SD livehouse; 191 Space; and Tek Kwun), this article analyses the function of popular music in performing the identities of different people, creating the mobilizing and transgressive space/place for the participants to form their embodied identities, and modernising traditional social norms. Building up the theories and results from Wood et al.’s (2007) non-representational music study and Revill’s (2000) politics of popular music, the findings of this research indicate that: firstly, music has ‘cultural authority’ in the organization of the socio-cultural, economic, and political spaces. The performance venues, therefore, can be considered as a kind of material culture which is made by their owners, music events’ organizers, musicians and audiences; Secondly, the performance venues are mobilising. They are made by performing music that is on the move, and are empowered by the musicians who create and perform the music, and people who arrange the performance venues; at the same time, these venues are transgressive, they are seen as pollution in Guangzhou, and evade the ‘formal procedure’ of performance, and distinguish the ‘insiders’ from ‘outsiders’. Conversely, the bodies are shaped and restricted by the socio-political contexts in Guangzhou and the physical venues. These findings not only respond to the previous music geographical studies on lyrics and sounds/voices, but also extend the research areas of Chinese popular music. In addition, though the existed music studies have paid attentions on Chinese popular music, most of them are from western or westernized views. Therefore, this musical research with non-western gaze in non-western society provides a new perspective to Chinese cultural geographers to go further the analysis on ‘the ways of seeing’.
With the research area being the small Sanjiang Plain whose wetland changes have been quite severe and with the source of data being the 1955-2010 topographic map and Landsat TM Remote Sensing Data, the grid analysis method was used to study the rules of spatial-temporal differentiation of the landscape index and the effects of the level of man-made interference on the landscape pattern index under different periods were also analyzed. The results show: 1) Looking at it from the aspect of time, in 1955- 2010 the area of the small Sanjiang Plain marsh wetland and the largest patch decreased gradually, patch accounted for landscape ratio from 52.87% decreased to 10.41%,the largest patch has reduced 47.6%, fragmentation and dispersibility increased gradually, connectivity increased at first then decreased, its trend embodys in connectivity from 1.02% increased to 2.88% then decreased to 0.79%, the shape of the patch changed from being complex to simple and then changed to being complex again, the level of man-made interference gradually increased,from 0.31% increased to 0.6%; 2) Looking at it from the aspect of space, in 1955 the fragmentation from the south-west to the north-east of the marsh wetland landscape of the research area diminished gradually. After 1986, it changed into a pattern where the fragmentation from the south-west to the north-east increased gradually. The high value areas of the marsh wetland with respect to its proportional area of the landscape and connectivity index are distributed in the central and north-eastern parts of the research area. The spatial distribution pattern of the level of man-made interference diminished gradually from the south-west to the north-east; 3) Effect that human interference had on the vicinity and connectivity of the marsh wetland of the small Sanjiang Plain diminished gradually in 1955-2010, but its effect on the marginal density of the marsh wetland increased gradually. The effect that human interference has on the density of the marsh wetland patch is mainly affected by the area of the marsh wetland. The effect that human interference has on the shape of the marsh wetland patch is quite small, the superior landscape controlling force of the marsh wetland declined gradually. Human interference is the main cause of the reduction in the wetland area of the small Sanjiang Plain.
Poyang Lake is the largest fresh water lake in China. The sediments disposition is important in providing medium for wetland vegetation and benthic animals. In this article, the water discharge and sediment content gauged by the hydrostations in the main five tributaries(named as the Ganjiang River, the Fuhe River, the Xinjiang River, the Raohe River and the Xiuhe River) in Poyang Lake Basin were used to investigate the sediment budget in Poyang Lake. The following results was showed: 1) The total sediments loaded into Poyang lake from the five tributaries was about 811.69 Mt during 1955-2010, in which the Ganjiang River accounted for 59.7%, the Xinjiang River accounted for 13.7%, the Xiuhe River accouted for 10.2%, the Fuhe River accounted for 9.7 and the Raohe River accounted for 6.7%; 2) The annual sediments loaded into Poyang lake was mainly decided by water discharged into Poyang Lake. And the inputted sediments were synchronized to the water discharge seasonally. 3) Sediments loaded into Poyang Lake decreased sharply caused by reservoir interception, though forest coverage changes also contribute to the decrease of sediments; 4) The total sediments loaded into the Changjiang River from Poyang Lake was about 560.10 Mt in 1955-2010. And it showed a decreasing trend during 1955-2000, but the trend was interupted by the practice of sand mining in the new century; 5) Affected by the backflow from the Changjiang River in flood period, sediments loaded into the Changjiang River were asynchronous with water discharge seasonally. And the sediments loaded by the backflow from the Changjiang River was reduced dramatically because of the emplacement of Three Gorges Dam; 6) The sediments budget in Poyang Lake was changed by sand mining. Sediments deposit was estimated about 1.41 mm/a during 1955-2000, but outputted sediments showed greater than the inputted sediments during 2001-2010 beceause of the practice of sand mining.
The Inner Mongolia reach of the upper Huanghe River has an alluvial channel, and its flood carrying capacity reduced considerably owing to aggravating siltation in the last decades. This study investigated the processes of sedimentation and channel geometric changes of the river reach based on the data of geometric survey of 28 channel cross sections of the river reach made in 2011-2014. Through correlation analysis of the changes in channel geometric indices with water and sediment conditions, the principal factors inducing the channel changes were determined. The results show that the incessant channel aggradation and shrinkage of channel capacity in the river reach in the last about 20 years of the 20th century did not occur in the past four years but the general trend of channel degradation starting from 2004 was continued with a gradual and slow increase of channel capacity principally through channel deepening. From the end of flood season in 2011 to that in 2014, each of the cross sections was scoured by a mean area of 64 m2 with a decline of 0.16 m in the bed elevation, an increase of 4.4% in the capacity, an increase of 4.9% in the depth, a reduction of 4.8% in the width/depth ratio, and a decrease of only 0.88% in the width of the main channel in the whole reach from the uppermost cross section Sns3 to the downmost cross section at Toudaoguai. Scouring and filling in channel and the adjustments of channel geometry occurred mainly during the period from the end of flood season in 2011 to that in 2012, as a result of the high floods in 2012. The results of correlation between the change rates of channel geometric indices and water and sediment indices show that there were significant relations between the water discharge and the bankfull level, capacity, mean depth, and with/depth ratio of the main channel. The bankfull level, capacity, and mean depth of the main channel increased and the with/depth ratio decreased with the water discharge. In contrast, the area of the whole cross-sections and the width of the main channel did not respond to changes in either water or sediment significantly. Except for the relation between bankfull level and mean sediment concentration, the relations were insignificant between the incoming sediment coefficient (the ratio of sediment concentration to water discharge) or sediment concentration and channel erosion/deposition and channel geometric indices. The relations of changes in channel geometry with water and sediment indexes suggest that scouring and silting in the main channel in the reach studied mainly occurred on the channel bed, and the variation of water discharge was the dominant driver for scouring and filling in the main channel and the adjustment of channel geometry in recent years.
Based on the landsat images and social economical data, the oasis distribution map in 1963-2009 were reconstructed via GIS technology, path analysis, transfer matrix and correlation analysis were used to explore the differences of spatiotemporal change and its impact factors of Jiuquan-Jinta Basin in NW China. In this study, the land covers were divided into two categories: oasis and desert. And the oasis included farmland, woodland, grassland, water and residential area which based on classification criteria; the other one are desert. The results showed that: 1) The oasis area increased gradually from 1 189.04 km2 in 1963 to 1 678.99 km2 in 2009, Jiuquan Oasis increased in its edge area with a relatively stable upward trend, while Jinta Oasis increased in its fringes and both sides of the seasonal river with a fluctuation way. 2) The stability of Jiuquan Oasis is higher than that of Jinta Oasis, the stability of the oasis were determined mostly by the sustainable supply degree of water resource, especially in Jinta Oasis. Regional difference on human activities, the degree of the responding rate to policy, and the economic and development level were the main factors which affected the spatiotemporal change between Jiuquan and Jinta Oasis.
Water resources endowment, economic level, science and technology level and management are influence the sustainable development of water resources. There is different impact for the different indicators on regional water resources sustainability. The subtle differences of the indicators, which is a sensitive indicator of regional water resources sustainability, can lead to a greater difference in regional water resources sustainability. The sensitivity of Regional Water Resources Sustainability provides a more subtle decision support for macro management of water resources, which makes the efficient use of water resources and the purpose of the study. The study on regional water resources sustainable sensitivity, which appears large differences in the sustainability of regional water resources due to the difference in factors, provides more subtle decision support in macro management of water resources; makes more efficient use of water resources. Sensitivity studies can identify the sensitivity factors have important influence on the sustainability of water resources from many uncertainties, Foshan was taken as the research object of the paper, which analysised parameter sensitivity of the sustainability of water resources. This article established sensitivity analysis model (M-YAS), and selected 37 parameters, which affect the water resources sustainable.The results showed that: only 13 parameters from 37 the parameters is sensitive parameters for water resources sustainability target layer. And the domestic water quota is most sensitive for the target layer, followed by forestry, animal husbandry, fishery and livestock water. Another important conclusion was shown as: 13 parameters were from the structure and efficiency on the basis of the water layer. It showed that the goal of the sustainability of water resources and efficiency on the basis of the structure of water layers is more sensitive. The results displayed that the sustainability of water resources in Foshan city is affected by 13 indicators reflecting the structure and efficiency of water.
The Morlet wavelet method was adopted to analyze the periodicities of runoff in three regions (Hekouzhen-Longmen, Longmen-Sanmenxia and Sanmenxia-Huayuankou), and to explore its effects on summer monsoon, Westlies and West Pacific Subtropical High (WPSH) on the changes of runoff. Data collected are cumulative natural runoff of four hydrology stations in the middle Huanghe River, annual summer monsoon index, North Atlantic Oscillation, and strength and west boundary of WPSH. Analysis results indicate that the weaken of summer monsoon intensity leads to decreasing trend of runoff in Hekouzhen-Longmen. More importantly, summer monsoon has periodic change, and it’s the mainly reason to periodic vibrations of runoff. Besides, runoff indicate a 80 year period, and it is coincident with 80 year period of summer monsoon. The periodicities of runoff are in fluenced by both summer monsoon and westerly and WPSH. Additionly, runoffs in all these three regions have a medium scale periodicity with 25 year cycle, except the summer monsoon. The 25 year periodicity of runoff in Hekouzhen-Longmen region and Longmen-Sanmenxia region is caused by Westerlies, while the periodicity of runoff in Sanmenxia-Huayuankou region is caused by the intensity and west boundary of the WPSH. The study has theoretical and practical significance for the prediction of water resources in the Huanghe River Basin in the future.
The CGS3a segment of the Chagelebulu section in the southeastern of Badain Jaran Desert, records five and a half sedimentary cycles consisting of alternations between dune sands or loess and overlying fluviolacustrine during 35 000-25 000 a B.P. Based on the analysis of primary chemical elements (139 samples)—SiO2, Al2O3, TOFE(Fe2O3+FeO), we found that:1) The variation of the primary chemical element content shows five and a half chemical element cycles, which are approximately consistent with the sedimentary cycles. 2) Among SiO2, Al2O3, TOFE, (TOFE+Al2O3)/SiO2 and CIA, SiO2 has the highest content in the CGS3a (range: 44.98％-90.02%, average: 65.96%), followed by Al2O3 (range: 5.17%-15.37%, average: 11.87%), and then TOFE (range: 1.40%-6.90%, average: 4.19%), (TOFE+Al2O3)/SiO2(range: 0.07 -0.47, average:0.27) and CIA(range: 39.66-68.26, average: 58.97). 3) The contents of SiO2, Al2O3, and TOFE significantly differ among the different sedimentary facies. The average SiO2 content is higher in the dune sands than in the fluviolacustrine and loess, whereas the average Al2O3, TOFE, (TOFE+Al2O3)/SiO2 and CIA contents are higher in the fluviolacustrine and loess than in the dune sands. This study suggests that the peaks of SiO2 contents and the valleys of Al2O3, TOFE, (TOFE+Al2O3)/SiO2, and CIA contents in the dune sands and loess represent the dominant periods of East Asian winter monsoon, the valleys of SiO2 contents and the peaks of Al2O3, TOFE, (TOFE+Al2O3)/SiO2, and CIA contents in the fluviolacustrine reflect the dominant periods of East Asian summer monsoon. Therefore, we suggest that the CGS3a segment experienced at least five cold-dry climates and six warm-humid climates during 35 000-25 000 a B.P. Of these, the warm climate fluctuations (23LS, 25LS, 27LS, 29LS, 31LS, 33LS) correspond well to the Dansgaard-Oeschger events (D/O3-D/O8, ie, 25 000 a B.P., 26 000 a B.P., 29 000 a B.P., 31 000 a B.P., 32 000 a B.P., 35 000 a B.P.) recorded in the Greenland Ice Core Project (GRIP). Moreover, the cold period (28D, 30 600 a B.P. ± 2 900 a B.P.) correlates well with the Heinrich Event H3 (approximately between 29 000 a B.P. and 31 000 a B.P.). The abrupt changes of East Asian monsoon recorded in the CGS3a segment correspond well to Dansgaard-Oeschger climate fluctuations and Heinrich events, whicha indicate that the East Asian monsoon was probably affected by the climate changes in the North Atlantic. This study offers significant geological evidence to support the East Asian monsoonal millennial scale climatic fluctuations, which is the regional response to the millennial scale climate changes from the North Hemisphere in China’s deserts during 35 000-25 000 a B.P.
Markedly, our understanding of hazard has changed with history, and the hazard paradigm is also in the process of evolution. Based on different hazard concepts and human reaction, there are five hazard paradigms recognized as following: famine policy paradigm, engineering paradigm, behavioral paradigm, social vulnerability paradigm and sustainable paradigm. Famine policy paradigm originated from the pre-Qin period of China, which of main features are as following: Catastrophes are created by nature; Disaster alleviation is main responsibility of the government represented by the emperor; The policy of benevolence is the principal implementing policy against natural disasters. In the 20th century, engineering paradigm was the mainstream paradigm in the world. This paradigm concerns those issues such as the regularities of natural disasters occurrence; the strength and frequency of the potential natural disasters in different region; and the methods of disasters resistance for protection. In the 1930s, behavioral paradigm appeared in the western developed countries. The main points of this paradigm are as following: human perceptions and behaviors influence the consequences of natural disasters, but disaster is a natural process primarily; The principal goal of disasters management is resistance extreme events through project management control; The basic preventive measures include improving disasters early warning for short-term and preparation better land-use planning for long-term. Social vulnerability paradigm came from experience of some western scholars in the developing countries in the 1970s. They discovered the developing countries suffered enormously from natural disasters. They thought the main cause of disaster is human behavior rather than nature and technology development. According to social vulnerability paradigm, the disasters reduction depends on the social- economic and political reform. Sustainable paradigm was growing up as a new inspiration at end of 20th century. This paradigm examines the essence of disaster from view of complex interaction between human society and natural environment. The basic principles of disaster reduction are to maintain and improve the quality of natural environment and living condition of people, to ensure the justice that the same and different generations have the same right to enjoy the resources and environment and the publicaction based on common; to promote regional sustainable development through integrated capacity-building of regional disaster risk management. The final goal of the paradigm is establishment sustainable society and achievement of human coexistence. The author analyzes the five paradigms’ formation of social and historical background, the principal issues, the main points and measures of disaster reduction, the conclusions are as follows: 1) Recognition and understanding of hazards and disasters is deepening and developing gradually through human history; 2) Development of hazard paradigm and practice of disaster reduction are mutual influence; 3) The generation and transformation of paradigms are impacted by social factors deeply; 4) Individual hazard paradigm often rises to dominance for a period of time, but the impact of other paradigms is still exist.
The Asian monsoon is an important part of the global climatic system. Previous studies have indicated that the formation and change of the Asian monsoon are greatly associated with solar activity, the land-sea thermal difference, global ice volume, the uplift of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and other climatic and geographic elements. The proxies of the climate records are more abundant during the last millennium than those of the other history periods. The studies on the changes of the Asian monsoon during the last millennium can help us explore the monsoon evolution rules and predict tendency ofthe Asian monsoon in the future. In the paper, based on the inversion method and the currently available information and data, a driving model which probably reveals the dynamic mechanism of the Asian monsoon changes during the last millennium is established. According to the actual quantitative values of all the proxies, we can get the coefficients and the corresponding contribution rates of the equation. Through the analyses of the influencing degree of each climate proxy on the Asian monsoon, the following results are obtained: 1) The Asian monsoon is not only linearly affected by the climate elements, but also drived by a complex nonlinear dynamic system. 2) Some climate factors,including the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the Indian Ocean sea surface temperature, the previous monsoon intensity, southern oscillation index, methane content, the temperature of Greenland, the north Atlantic sea surface temperature and the northern hemisphere temperature, play important roles on the Asian monsoon changes during the last millennium. 3) The solar activity, which exhibits extremely important inpact on the Asian monsoon at long timescales, does not significantly affect the change of the Asian monsoon during the last millennium.
Through the analysis of the gravel fabric of terrace gravel layers to the upper Qingyijiang River at Jingxian County, this article tries to discuss the sedimentary environments of terrace gravel layers and its indicative effect on the development of the Qingyijiang River at Jingxian County. The Qingyijiang River Basin is located in southern of Anhui Province, issuing from the northern fringe of Huangshan Mountain, is an important tributary of lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Field investigation focuses on a natural outcrop along the upper reaches of the Qingyijiang River at Jingxian County, where a well-preserved sequence of three gravel layers of river terraces is present. These gravel layers are generally 4-6 m in thickness, overlying by about 2-5 m red clay. The results show that: 1) The gravels are mainly medium and coarse in diameter, and the hydrodynamic conditions are strong in the formation periods of terrace gravel layers when the mean velocity of river is about 2 m/s while the maximum velocity can be up to 3.5 m/s, especially in the formation periods of T3 terrace gravel layer; 2) The gravel orientations in T3 terrace gravel layer and T2 terrace gravel layer are 191° and 250°, pointing to the SSW direction and SWW direction, respectively. The paleocurrent of the Qingyijiang River at Jingxian County shows little change from the formation period of T3 terrace gravel layer to that of T2 terrace gravel layer, being similar to the present current which flows from south to north; 3) The gravels are mainly sub-round or round in shape, and the total content of such gravels is more than 70% in each terrace gravel layer. The roundness of terrace gravel layers is good, implying that these gravels should be transported over a long distance from its provenances; 4) The terrace gravel layers contain mainly quartz sandstone, sandstone, vein quartz and quartzite, and the total content of such gravels is up to 90% in each terrace gravel layer, showing that the change of the provenances is not significant; 5) The gravel layers of T2 terrace and T1 terrace are typical fluvial sediments, while the gravel layer of T3 terrace might be a product of the superimposition between the debris flow deposit and river deposit, and the sedimentary characteristics of the T3 terrace gravel layer might potentially has some indicating functions on the analysis of the development of the Qingyijiang River to some extent.
With increasing environmental problems and a growing shortage of energy resources, wind as a renewable energy source is increasing in attention from various sectors. Currently, China′s energy policies are gradually turning to utilizing wind energy. Although there are many positive environmental benefits that wind energy provides, researchers around the world have recently begun to investigate environmental negative effects of wind energy development, and they are identifying the pros and cons of wind energy. Current investigations largely focus on vegetation, soil and animal disturbance due to wind farm construction, as well as focusing on possible impacts to the surrounding land surface temperature and local climate change. Existing research indicates that in wind farm areas both near-surface air humidity and surface sensible heat flux decrease. These changes can indirectly change meteorological elements, for example cloud cover and precipitation. The construction and operation of wind farms significantly reduces wind speed in the leeward direction which affects local air temperatures (both increasing and decreasing temperatures). These elements could have an impact on the growth state of local vegetation. In this article, remote sensing techniques are used to investigate the scope and impact intensity of the Huitengliang wind farm, Inner Mongolia, on local vegetation. This investigation will provide a reference for wind farm construction, conservation and restoration of vegetation and environmental improvement. Utilizing MOD13Q1-NDVI data in 2000-2014, vegetation change in a 50 km buffer area around the Huitengliang wind farm, Inner Mongolia, was analyzed. Combining meteorological data in this analysis, the impact of wind direction on vegetation growth was discussed. Compared with the construction phase (2000-2008), the operation phase (2008-2014) has a more obvious impact on the growth of vegetation. However, the results showed that vegetation impact was uneven: 1) The influencing mechanisms of a wind farm on vegetation differ within and outside of the farm area. Within the wind farm area, the wind farm is not conducive to vegetation growth, while it is helpful to vegetation growth in windward/leeward area; 2) Compared with the wind farm construction stage, the proportion of vegetation restoration in the buffer area and the farm area during the operational phase of the wind farm increased by 26.66% and 13.14%, respectively. The proportion of vegetation restoration in the windward and leeward areas, however, increased by 51.83% and 41.07%, respectively, over the same time period. This indicates that the proportion of vegetation restoration in the windward/leeward areas, especially in the windward area, is much higher than in the buffer or farm areas; 3) A zone 30-40 km from the center of the wind farm, on the windward side, is likely to be the area of greatest vegetation impact from the wind farm.
