The modern regionalization in China has attained plentiful and substantial achievements in recent 50 years and has made important contributions to the socio-economic construction. Meanwhile, great changes have taken place in the natural and socio-economic patterns in China. So it is indispensiable to develop comprehensive regionalization as the basis of the sustainable socio-economic development for China. The main scientific issues to be discussed are as follows: 1) the target of service and the mission of research; 2) the theory and system of comprehensive regionalization; 3) the changing processes, patterns and their interactions of the main elements in regional system; 4) the identification of the boundaries between the regional systems in China; 5) the identification of typical regions and the analysis on their characteristics; 6) the interaction between the global geographical patterns and the comprehensive regional system in China; 7) data mining, processing and dimensioning; 8) the integrative methodology of comprehensive regionalization; 9) scenario analysis for the future evolution of regional system in China; and 10) the dynamic demonstration system for the comprehensive regionalization.
Based upon a review on foreign regionalization work, this paper summarized the characteristics of the regionalization work in different stages, gave a brief introduction to the methodology in the regionalization of China, and discussed some issues on the regionalization work. Since the latter half of the 20th century, the regionalization in China has entered a stage of systematic research and all-around development. The main characteristics of the regionalization work in this stage are as follows. First, the various regionalization schemes are based on their historical background respectively. They are the scientific work closely related to the economic development and social demands at the time. Roughly speaking, research on the regionalization in China had mainly served agricultural production since the 1950s. Since the 1980s, the research had been concentrated on economic development. Since the 1990s, the regionalization work has been focused on sustainable development. Second, the work was mostly static and was not able to reflect the dynamics of the changing natural and social factors. And several important boundaries were identified with some assumption and presumption. In recent years, some trends of overemphasizing models and quantification have appeared in regionalization studies. Third, the regionalization studies were inclined to physical geography. The economic geographical regionalization studies were relatively weak. Moreover, current physical and economic regionalization studies are not well related, which has become a limitation to the research of regional sustainable development. Fourth, current regionalization studies focus on terrestrial system, and haven't paid enough attention to marine system. Fifth, the confirmation of regionalization schemes is not institutionally assured yet. So the research results have not been well absorbed by the economic planning of local governments, and the purpose of serving the sustainable socio-economic development has not been realized. Finally, the necessity and importance of carrying out comprehensive regionalization in China was analyzed, and some key scientific issues related with the comprehensive regionalization of China were discussed. The paper pointed out that as a new growing point of regionalization researches, comprehensive regionalization with an integration of natural and social factors will be an important contribution of the human-earthsystem research to the sustainable development.
More and more attention is paid to the combination of global and regional issues in the sutdy of global environmental change (GEC). The GEC research emphasizes that the global environmental problems should be probed through regional studies. Resources and environmental problems have become one important issues of GEC research. The geographical environment of China has significantly changed during the past 50 years due to the intense anthropogenic activities and the global environmental changes. The main changes of the physical processes and environment elements are as follows: 1) the shift of climate zones in response to global warming; 2) the uneven precipitation changes inducing more floods in southern China and more severe droughts in northern China; 3) serious pollution and enormous demand on materials and energy; and 4) the significant changes in natural hydrological process. As to the geographical patterns, the economic geographical pattern has changed in the process of industrialization, which brought changes as well to the patterns of population, urban system, and supply-demand of natural resources. As a result, the land cover pattern has been greatly modified. The urban and transportation area has expanded quickly and occupied a great deal of farmland, causing farmland reduction in core agricultural area and cultivation increase in marginal agricultural area. The natural forest area is reducing while the forest plantation is expanding. The grassland is shrinking and has seriously degraded. The area of lakes and wetland has decreased, and the sea farming area has remarkably increased. The above-mentioned remarkable environmental changes indicated that some irreversible changes on environmental elements have taken place, and the resources and environment have become key limiting factors to national security. The future development of China is facing critical challenges from various risks on resource and environment issues, e.g. climate risk under the global warming, the risk of farmland and food supplies, the risk of water resources, the risk of energy, the risk of mineral resources, the risk of environmental quality, and the potential risk of some great projects. The geographical environment of China should be studied from the global views.
Though the Bohai Sea hydrodynamic processes have been investigated and researched for a long period, because of its transpositional meteorological forces, its natural environment and the nonlinear interaction within the water column, it is impossible to thoroughly understanding of the hydrodynamic characteristics, especially those related to the sediment transport, i.e., the Lagrangian residual circulation （LRC hereafter） in the Bohai Sea, which is the key hydrodynamic processes we concern. By using the three-dimensional baroclinic model-ECOM, driven by the monthly-mean wind stresses calculated by Helleman and Rosenstein, the general circulation patterns and spatial-temporal variations are simulated, in which, three possible states, i.e., net wind-driven LRC, net tide-induced LRC and the coupling result of the above two factors, are considered. The tide-induced LRC of M2 constituent bears an identical pattern in four seasons in the Bohai Sea: the amplitude of the surface one is weak, and non-directional; however, there exists a southeast current from the Bohai strait to the Laizhou Bay, and a weak anticlockwise gyre in the south of the Bohai strait for the bottom constituent. The amplitude of bottom tide-induced LRC is larger than the surface one, and moreover, it bears a significant contribution in the whole LRC in the Bohai Sea. Unlike the identical structure of the tide-induced LRC, the wind-driven LRC varies seasonally under the controlling wind field. It forms a distinct circulation under the summer and winter monsoons in January and July respectively, but it seems weak and non-directional in April and September. The amplitude and direction of the wind-driven and tide-induced coupling LRCs are controlled by monsoon, which is one of the most significant factors in the Bohai Sea. There exists an anticlockwise gyre from the west coast of the Bohai Sea to the Laizhou Bay, a clockwise gyre within the Liaodong Bay, and a weak clockwise circulation in the middle of the Bohai Sea in winter. And there is a clockwise circulation along the shelf of the Bohai Sea, and an anticlockwise gyre in the Liaodong Bay in summer. Furthermore, the tide-induced LRCs, whose bottom component is the dominant one, plays an important role in local LRCs, especially at the Laotieshan waterway, east of the Liaodong Bay, top of the Bohai Bay and the estuary of Huanghe River.
Karst rocky desertification is a kind of land degradation which has happened in fragile karst mountain ecosystem in Southwest China. The unsuited matching at vertical direction and unreasonable special distribution at horizontal direction of landscape use make the landscape degradation a major problem in karst mountain areas. But little is being understood about the interrelation between the spatial distribution of rocky desertified land and the rocky desertification processes. This paper analyzes the ecological conditions of 5 special peak cluster-depressions which are at different desertification degrees on the southern slope of Huajiang karst gorge based on field investigation, the change of landscape pattern indexes and their ecological significance, in order to understand the ecological spatial character and evolving procedure of karst mountains from landscape ecological viewpoint. Results indicate that the diversity index, dominance index and evenness index relate closely to the landscape matrix of peak cluster-depressions, and show different ecological significance in different rocky desertified peak cluster-depressions. With the increase of rocky desertification intensity, the diversity index is in a decreasing trend while dominance index in an increasing trend significantly, the evenness index decreases firstly and then increases when rocky desertification develops further, the isolation and patch area of naked rock increase gradually but isolation of grasslands, shrub and woodlands increases while their patches area in a reduction. The landscape of potential rocky desertified peak cluster-depressions is even more seriously fragmentized than light and moderate rocky desertified peak cluster-depressions, and fragmentation is most in all peak cluster-depressions. The landscape patterns and development modes of potential rocky desertified and strong rocky desertified peak cluster-depressions represent two typical types of rocky desertification in southwest karst mountain areas. This paper shows that the processes of karst ecosystem rocky desertification depends on the distribution, fragmentation and conjunction, not merely the absolute quantity scale of naked rocks and vegetation. The analysis of landscape pattern emphasizes not only area, but also the relations and influence among rocky desertification processes, the spacial pattern of rocky desertification and landscape element character, therefore, landscape should not be neglected in the studies of rocky desertification degree and indexes, landscape patterns, landscape diversity and patches closely correlating with rocky desertification process must be taken into account in the assessment of the karst rock desertification degrees.
Fe, Mn and Cu, as elements of the fourth period in the periodic table of elements, are all essential elements for plants and animals in grassland ecosystems. The contents of Fe, Mn and Cu in parts of the grassland vegetation , such as shoots, standing dead, litters and roots, were measured in the initial stage of plant growth and the later stage of plant growth, respectively. The results showed that the contents of Fe, Mn and Cu in shoots were suitable for plant and livestock, and the nutritive value of the Stipa baicalensis grassland community, which belongs to meadow steppe, is higher than those of the Leymus chinensis and Stipa grandis grassland communities, which belong to typical steppe, in point of essential elements Fe, Mn and Cu.Regularities of Fe, Mn and Cu content distribution in shoots, standing dead, litters and roots are as follows: From litters and roots, standing dead, to shoots, their contents gradually decreased; along the precipitation, air temperature and altitude gradient, the contents of Fe and Mn in shoots and litters gradually decreased from Stipa baicalensis grassland community, Leymus chinensis grassland community to Stipa grandis grassland community, and Cu gradually increased in the initial stage of plant growth and decreased in the later stage of plant growth as the same order. The contents of Fe and Mn in standing dead gradually increased in the initial stage and decreased in the later stage, and the contents of Cu gradually increased in the initial stage and the later stage. The contents of the three elements in every part of plant ecosystems were higher in the initial stage of plant growth than the later stage. The more intensely the dead plants aboveground were decomposed, the higher the contents of Fe, Mn and Cu were. Cu is very abundant in roots.
In the paper, the dynamic features of mineral nitrogen （SMN, NH+4-N+NO-3-N） of the 0-30cm Dark Chestnut soil were studied, its seasonal variations during growing season and the SMN content differences among different research points were analyzed. All the samples were taken randomly from three different managed Leymus chinensis grasslands of Xilin River Basin in Inner Mongolia of China. The results showed that in Dark Chestnut soil the prevailing form of SMN was NH+4-N,the plant available nitrogen only takes a very small part of the soil total nitrogen, always below 1%（0.20%～0.92%）.With the increase of grassland grazing intensity, the SMN content changed oppositely. The sequence of SMN content from high to low was: fenced grassland﹥rotational grazing grassland﹥random grazed grassland. During the growing season, the contents of NH+4-N and NO-3-N in different soil layers of three different managed grasslands changed evidently with the changes of soil temperature, moisture and plant absorbance, the trends of seasonal change were similar in different soil layers. The mineral nitrogen content of 0-10cm surface soils fluctuated most significantly, the content of NO-3-N was the highest in April and that of NH+4-N was higher in July and August. The content of NH+4-N was higher than that of NO-3-N in three different soil layers, and their contents decreased with the increase of sampling depth. The SMN content changed just the same order as the soil total nitrogen, organic carbon and soil water content with the increase of the depth, but there were no significant correlations between SMN content and anyone of them.
It is an essential work to survey the relationships between pollen and vegetation for recovering past vegetation and climate from pollen data preserved in sediments. The pollen analysis of 39 sites covering various types of steppe in northern China shows that Artemisia and Chenopodiaceae are the most important pollen types. Artemisia is the dominant taxa of most pollen assemblages, however, the percentages of Gramineae are less than 10% in most steppes. The low Gramineae pollen value may relate with its tillering reproduction. There is no obvious correlation between pollen total concentrations and vegetation covers. The differences between typical steppe and desert steppe are obvious. Chenopodiaceae pollen percentages are usually less than 25% in typical steppes and more than 25% in desert steppes. Detrended Corresponding Analysis (DCA) shows that pollen types of needle trees, Cyperaceae and Caryophyllaceae represent a wetter environmental condition, pollen types of Artemisia, Chenopodiaceae, Caragana, Tamarix and Nitraria represent a drier environmental condition, and pollen types of Gramineae, Compositae, Ranunculaceae, Leguminosae, Labiatae, Ostryopsis+Corylus and Rosaceae represent a transitional environmental condition between the two. DCA is a good method to distinguish different steppe communities in the study of steppe surface pollens.
According to more than 1844 different kinds of chorographies of the Ming and Qing dynasties and other related historical books, 1401 notes which recorded the sand-dust weathers occurring on North China Plan from 1443 to 1913 were collected and sorted out. Based on these historical notes, the temporal distribution curve of the sand-dust weathers during this period was carefully reconstructed and analyzed. Analysis on the temporal distribution shows that the sand-dust weathers happened on North China Plain in historical time mainly concentrated in spring. About 71% of sand-dust weathers occurred in spring, 18 % in winter, 9 % in summer, and 2 % in fall. April had the highest amount of sand-dust weathers in a year, accounting for about 30% of the total. The frequency of the annual sand-dust weather curve fluctuated without obvious upward or downward tendency, but it did show periodicity to some degrees. From the period 1500 to 1700, there existed about 30 year's cycles, and from 1700 to 1913, there existed about 50 year's cycles. This temporal distribution of the sand-dust weathers had little relationship with human action, but controlled by natural factors. Comparson of the temporal distribution curve of sand-dust weathers with the curves of mean 10 years spring-winter temperature and mean annual precipitation in the North China Plain in the same period indicated that the occurrence of the sand-dust weathers had significant negative correlations with the mean annual precipitation curve and the mean spring-winter temperature curves. The time periods which had more precipitation usually respond to descending of the sand-dust weathers, whereas the periods of less precipitation respond to increasing of the sand-dust weathers. The lower temperature periods in spring-winter season, which generally had close relationship with the higher wind occurrence, usually had higher occurrence frequencies of the sand-dust weathers.
The coordination between the levels of urbanization and economic growth is very important to realize rural-urban and regional development as a whole. But China's urbanization level lags behind economic growth level seriously. This paper aims to probe into the economic factors that contribute to the lag and to make quantitative analysis on its force. This topic has been discussed extensively by scholars using the general model with the panel data of cross-country in the world. The empirical growth literature has been documented that the estimate of panel data approach is more robust than that of cross-sectional approach in cross-country studies. First, we divide countries into low-income group, middle-income group and high-income group, then we select 70 countries and data between 1982 and 1997 which are offered by World Bank's World Development Report, and then we construct a world model which will affect urbanization level. By using the standard analysis tool-panel analysis in transnational economic empirical analysis, we found that in the period of low and middle-income, per capita GDP has the greatest effect on urbanization. Since the tertiary industry is the main force of urbanization, the secondary industry should be the original force of urbanization. In the period of high and middle-income, the force of tertiary industry has the greatest effect while in the period of high-income, the force of higher education and international trade becomes outstanding. Based on the world model, we construct a model which includes the factors that will affect China's urbanization level. By using the fourth and fifth census data and other official statistic data, we make a quantitative analysis on the economic factors which contribute to the lag of China's urbanization and found that the elasticities of per capita GDP, secondary industry ratio, tertiary industry ratio, international trade and higher education to urbanization are 0.420, 0.196, 0.197, 0.103 and 0.048 respectively. Finally, through the comparison between different countries, we found that the force of each economic factor in China is the same as that in the world, which means that the evaluation result of the two models is robust on the one hand, and that China's urbanization is in conformity with the general law of world's urbanization on the other hand. However, further analysis shows that the force of economic growth, secondary industry, tertiary industry and higher education are relatively laggard in China. Among them, the difference of tertiary industry's elasticity to urbanization is most evident, being only 43.8% of the world, and the next is secondary industry ratio, higher education level and international trade, which are 56.3%, 56.4% and 71.5% respectively. And the economic growth's elasticity to urbanization is 76.3% of that in the world. The main reason for this phenomenon is the close relationship with China's unique urbanization mode. The bottom-up urbanization,motivated by township enterprises as well as foreign investment results in the decentralization of non-agricultural industries and population. Therefore, China should promote the upgrade of tertiary industry and develop higher education vigorously by improving the agglomeration ability of secondary industry, repeal urbanization system and policy obstacle, thereby realize the coordinated development between urbanization and economic growth.
Based on the previous studies, this paper firstly discussed the methods that were used to measure relative centrality, and according to the goal of the research, perfected the Formula Tietz. And the perfecting model of urban scale effects and regional difference effects was built in order to perfect the analyzing method that was used to deal with the temporal changing process of the relative centricity based on the Formula Tietz. At the same time, the paper developed Neg F method and Sum F method to analyze the changing process of the urban hinterland and the urban system. By using data of the survey on private business in 1955 and population census in 1982 and 2000, the quantified indexes of the population of the commerce including employees in catering trade and the service industry were used to analyze the centricity. And the paper analyzed the distribution of central cities in Shandong Province and changes of both their inseparable hinterlands and loose ones in the last 50 years by means of Neg F & Sum F. Furthermore, the paper recognized the following points. Firstly, Jinan and Qingdao were the cities with the highest centricity in the study period. There are obvious differences between the central cities and other cities. As the cities with the highest centricity, the order of Jinan and Qingdao changed in the study period. Secondly, the foreign serving capacity of Jinan city has been decreasing little by little since 1955. The foreign serving capacity of Qingdao increased from 1955 to 1982, but decreased from 1982 to 2000. Thirdly, the evolvement of urban system in Shandong Province was a complicated and order-oriented process, two sub-systems which were led by Qingdao and Jinan as central cities were evolving to a unitary system led by Qingdao. And during this process, the hierarchy of central cities became obvious.
By theoretical analysis of the external investment and urban development, this article researches the influence of external investment on urban development in backward areas. In addition, taking Lanzhou for example, according to the condition of attracting investment (including external and internal investment) of Lanzhou in recent years, this article makes a demonstrative analysis about the influence of investment on urban development in Lanzhou, and puts forward policy and suggestions about drawing in external investment in Lanzhou. The data shows that the external investment is not the chief impetus to Lanzhou's development. The external investment mainly concentrates on the secondary and the tertiary industries in urban district. The external capital which is attracted by Lanzhou is always lower than the internal capital, and the capital out of Gansu is also lower than the capital from Gansu Province itself among the internal capitals. The external capitals from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan are much higher than those from other continents every year. The total capitals from America and Asia are rising. European capital is the least all the time. But the capital from Hong kong, Macao and Taiwan changes evidently. Generally speaking, the external investment influences urban economic development by intervening its industrial chain from enterprises. Maybe the external investment brings two different consequences. Not only it can promote urban development, but also it can block urban development. Firstly, the dominant industry in Lanzhou is mainly pollutive industry, so the city's industrial structure must be adjusted. Meanwhile, environmental protection must be paid attention to. Secondly, the outside investment mainly concentrates on the secondary and the tertiary industries in urban district will bring more and more urban problems. Finally, the external investment can elevate the industrial agglomeration in Western China. The key is that the city in Western China ought to seize the opportunity to choose the outside investment and industry for virtual progress.
This paper aims to illustrate the changes and the relationship between resource use patterns and state policies in the rural area of Beijing city with viewpoint of political ecology in China's rapid economic growth since reform and opening up. Based on years of fieldwork from 1995, the results of the survey lead to the following conclusions. First, agricultural crop production has changed as the influence of the agricultural production policies has changed. Second, the agricultural land productivity of Beijing city was influenced either by natural conditions or the changes in governmental policies. Third, rural industries in rural areas of Beijing city are centralized in those parts of the plain close to the city proper. Fourth, based on changes of agricultural land productivity and gross income of the township and village enterprises in each township of Beijing city in 1989 and 1999, four changing patterns in rural areas during this period can be defined. These four patterns are formulated under the interaction of natural conditions, social economic conditions, and agricultural production policies. Fifth, The changes in agricultural production among rural regions are diversified in Beijing city. The reason for the diversification is doubtless that, because of varying natural conditions, different agricultural production policies have been applied to each agricultural region, leading to differences in crop production. That is to say, the roles of state and municipal government policies are very important. It can understand from the case villages that, since the reform and opening up to the outside world, the relation between rural reform and the ecological environment of Beijing city is different to the way it appears in existing studies. It appears that it has a regional specialty. Its main feature is that, in general, the regional ecological environment is not damaged by the changes of the state policies, but, on the contrary, is somehow improved. A political ecological perspective should highlight not only the impact of political-economic relationships on resource use patterns, but also the significance of environmental variables and how their interaction with political economic forces influences human – environment relationships.
GIS is a geo-referenced data based system for manipulating digital spatial and thematic data. Because of its unique properties of spatial data (spatial dependence and spatial heterogeneity), there is an urgent need to investigate the mechanisms of spatial processes through exploring spatial data. The techniques of spatial analysis can be categorized into six groups: (1) generation of spatial data and its preliminary treatment; (2) spatialization of attribute data and scale transformation of spatial data; (3) visualization and exploration of spatial data; (4) geo-statistics; (5) analysis of lattice data; and (6) reversing information from complicated spatial data. To meet the real world solutions, a procedural diagram of spatial data analysis is suggested as below: (1) preliminary data treatment; (2) modeling; (3) solution; and (4) interpretation. Various techniques are being employed to investigate spatial processes, the identical study objective and some common characteristics of the study object may lead to the integration and convergence of the various approaches, and further the introduction of a general science: spatial mathematics. A same important issue is to develop robust spatial analysis computer packages for public uses.
This paper analyses the correlations between the biomass of the tropical forest vegetation and LANDSAT TM data, meteorological data and topographical data taking Xishuangbanna of China's Yunnan province as an example. It includes four steps. Firstly, the biomass for each forest sample is calculated by using the field inventory data of each sample. GIS Database is established according to the coordinate of each forest sample. Secondly, the LANDSAT TM images are geometrically corrected by using topographic maps. The derivative data are derived from the LANDSAT TM images by using principal component analysis, tasseled cap transform and vegetation index analysis. Thirdly, the data including Landsat TM data and its derivative data, the topographical data such as DEM and aspect, and the climatic data such as annual mean temperature, annual average accumulative temperature above zero degree, annual average precipitation and humidity are referenced to the same projection and coordination, and interpolated as the grid data with a resolution of 30 m. The Landsat TM data and its derivative data, the topographical data and the climatic data for the samples are achieved by overlay analysis. Finally, the correlation between the LANDSAT TM and its derived data, meteorological data, topographical data and the biomass are analyzed. It is shown that the biomass of the tropical forest vegetation is most obviously correlated with annual average precipitation and the second principal component of the principal component analysis of LANDSAT TM at 0.01 confident level. The correlation coefficients are respectively 0.308 and -0.231. The biomass is obviously correlated with spectral index VI3, Landsat TM5, spectral index such as brightness and humidity of the Tasscap transform, the first principal component at 0.05 confident level. The correlation coefficients are respectively 0.308, -0.231, 0.203 and -0.201.
The means, importance and working flow of data mining, information fusion and map repackage are introduced in brief. As we know, among the above three factors, map repackage is most important in our studies, because we may get new information or produce new maps if we repackage multisource maps which are available. As an example of map repackage, in this paper, three digital maps including land use map, soil erosion map and physiognomy map were repackaged by use of overlay to produce a new map of soil erosion background map. Three steps are involved in compiling soil erosion background map. First, island-like land information is drawn out by mining data from land use map according to the definition of islandlike land. Then the island-like land, which is not influenced by humans, is named the natural island-like land. Second, the erosion background value of natural island-like land is given by overlaying the maps of land use and soil erosion. Since the natural island-like land is the land without being anthropogenically influenced, its soil erosion value is the background value. Finally, soil erosion background value in the entire area will be gotten by overlaying the maps of physiognomy and soil erosion background of natural island-like land. As physiognomy is the most stable and relative basic factor among the factors that influence soil erosion, we suppose that soil erosion value of all land pixels in a kind of physiognomy pixel is a stable value if they are natural. So in this way, the soil erosion background map is worked out by repackaging land use map, soil erosion map and physiognomy map. In the end of the paper, this method was success fully applied in the agro-pastoral ecotone of Inner Mongolia. The success of the model in the ecotone of Inner Mongolia shows that the production of soil erosion background value through repackaging the maps of land use, soil erosion and physiognomy is fessible. Nowadays, with the development of science and technology, more information from multi-sources is easy to be fully used of or be reconstructed through mining, fusion or repackage. In the ecotone of Inner Mongolia, the multi-source information of remote sensing maps or maps compiled based on massive survey makes availability of soil erosion background value. And the more information is used of, the more precision of the result.
