Scientific and effective heritage monitoring can not only realize the conservation of the heritage itself and the maintenance of its values, but it can also realize the sustainable development of the heritage site. In order to promote the conservation and management of Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS), this study proposed a design for the annual report of GIAHS monitoring under the overall framework of the GIAHS monitoring system, and explored the application of the annual report in the first GIAHS site in China: the Qingtian Rice-Fish Culture System. In the design scheme of this study, the GIAHS annual monitoring report is composed of 24 monitoring items, with each of them logically related. It is to be filled in by the bureaus of the heritage site and reported through the GIAHS dynamic monitoring system. The results of an analysis of the annual reports of Qingtian Rice-Fish Culture System for four years showed that Qingtian County has taken a series of conservation and development measures which have reduced the area of abandoned paddy, enhanced the unit benefit of agri-products, and increased the farmers’ income. At the same time, the heritage site is faced with various challenges and threats, such as the weakening of the tourism attraction, the aging of the heritage practitioners, and the limitation of the heritage-themed agri-products and tourism income, which need to be addressed with proper measures. The results can also provide guidance for other GIAHS based on indications that heritage sites should improve the development of cultural products, the construction of social organization and the cultivation of spontaneous publicity, and an exchange and learning mechanism should be established among them in the future. The design and application of the GIAHS annual monitoring reports can not only provide specific guidance for conducting the GIAHS monitoring, but also lay the foundation for evaluating the effectiveness of GIAHS conservation and management. This study is expected to help enrich the theory of GIAHS monitoring, further promote China’s GIAHS monitoring work, and also provide China’s experience for the benefit of international GIAHS monitoring efforts.

Zhejiang Province, located in the Yangtze River Delta region, is representative of China's economically developed areas. It enjoys superior natural conditions and a long history of agriculture, and is a comprehensive agricultural area with integrated development of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery. It has nurtured the farming culture represented by Hemudu culture and Liangzhu culture, which have given rise to numerous precious Agricultural Heritage Systems. At present, Zhejiang Province has three of the world’s Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) and 12 China Nationally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (China-NIAHS), so it not only has the largest number of heritages in China, but it has also attained remarkable achievements in heritage conservation. Taking Zhejiang Province as an example in combination with the rural revitalization strategy, this paper summarizes the achievements in the protection of Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (IAHS) in Zhejiang Province during the past 15 years from the aspects of increasing farmers’ income, cultural Inheritance and industrial upgrading, as well as the conservation experiences in government promotion, community initiative, enterprise participation, technology driving and social linkage. Further, in view of the problems that exist in the current heritage protection,such as imperfect management of heritage sites, low participation of community residents, lack of special protection funds, and imperfect provincial management system,the following countermeasures and suggestions are put forward: (1) Improve the management mechanism for the conservation and development of Agricultural Heritage Systems; (2) Develop regional public branding of agricultural products in Agricultural Heritage System sites; (3) Increase the Agricultural Heritage System science education as well as cultural and creative product development; (4) Carry out the evaluation and recognition of IAHS at the provincial level; and (5) Provide substantial support and input to the conservation and utilization of IAHS. This study can provide some guidance for the conservation of IAHS in Zhejiang Province and it provides important reference for IAHS in the economically developed areas in China.

With the continuous emergence of global development problems, the dynamic conservation and sustainable development of Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (IAHS) have been assigned greater importance. However, due to the complex structure, multi-component, dynamic, and open characteristics of IAHS, there are neglected problems which need to be solved in conservation practice, such as component element ambiguity, obscurity of the conservation redline, etc. This study defined the concept of key elements (KE) of IAHS, put forward a conceptual framework of KE identification, conducted empirical research by taking Honghe County of Honghe Hani Rice Terraces System (HHRTS) as an example and analyzed the level of recognition motivations for different stakeholder groups. The following conclusions were drawn: 1) The KE of HHRTS are grain crops, rice species biodiversity, terrace construction and maintenance technique, Hani traditional festivals, Hani traditional foods, and virgin forest; 2) The reasons behind the KE priorities of farmers, businessmen and tourists were at the micro level, the reasons of officers were at the middle level and the reasons of researchers were at the macro level. The empirical study conducted in HHRTS showed that the proposed conceptual framework could identify KE of IAHS effectively, and provided a theoretical perspective for the structuring of and essential need for IAHS research. Moreover, the KE recognition levels of different stakeholder groups reflected their potential action strategies. We should focus on the coherence of policies and measures in both the microscale and macroscale to balance the diversified demands of stakeholders, and to stimulate their enthusiasm for participation in the conservation in order to improve the management level of IAHS sites.

In the context of climate change, research on extreme climates and disaster risk management has become a crucial component of climate change adaptation. Local communities, which have been facing extreme climates for a long time in their production and daily life, have developed some locally applicable traditional knowledge that has played an important role in their adaptation to extreme climate and disaster risk management. Therefore, this research aims to link Local knowledge (LK) to community extreme climate disaster risk management in order to construct a conceptual model. It then takes the extreme climate adaptation strategy of traditional nomads in a temperate grassland of China as an example to analyze the role of LK in extreme climate adaptation using the proposed theoretical framework. The main research objectives of this study are: (1) To construct a conceptual model to illustrate the relations among extreme climate events, risk management, LK, and farmers' adaptation strategies; (2) To apply the theoretical framework to a field case to reveal context-specific extreme climate adaptation mechanisms with LK as a critical component; (3) To test the framework and provide suggestions for the extreme climates adaptation, and the conservation of LK related to climate change adaptation. The results show that from the perspective of disaster risk management, local communities could manage extreme climates as a disaster risk through adaptation strategies formed from LK, because as a knowledge system, LK contains relevant knowledge covering the whole process of disaster risk management.

With a comparatively mature state of country park development for China, Hong Kong serves as a model that is emulated by many cities in Mainland China. In contrast, Beijing started to establish country parks relatively late, but along with the nascent “Country Park Loop”, achieving scientific and reasonable operation management is now the major challenge facing Beijing. By comparing the differences between Hong Kong and Beijing country park management in terms of positioning, management organization, legal guarantees, supporting facilities and education, this paper explores the factors of social development stage, urban developmental history and planning, the wilderness concept and financial support which are responsible for those differences. In order to achieve sustainable development, this paper shows that Beijing country parks should seek corresponding solutions according to their own characteristics.

Site-specific nutrient management is an important strategy to promote sustainable production of rubber trees in order to obtain high yields of natural rubber. Making effective nutrient management decisions for rubber trees depend on knowing the spatial variations of soil fertility properties in advance. In this study the Kriging geostatistical method was used to examine the spatial variability of soil total nitrogen (TN), organic matter (OM), available phosphorus (AP) and available potassium (AK) in a typical hilly rubber tree plantation in Hainan, China. The spatial variability of the soils was small for the TN and OM and had medium variability for the AP and AK variables. Anisotropic semivariograms of all soil properties revealed that elevation and building contour ledge can profoundly affect the spatial variability of soil properties in the plantation, except for the AK variable. Soil samples had to be collected in alignment with the direction of elevation and perpendicular to the direction of building contour ledges, which was needed to obtain more reliable information within the study area in the rubber tree plantation. In formulating a sample scheme for AK, the distribution features of the soil’s parent material should be considered as the influence factor in the study field. The Kriging method used to guide the soil sampling for spatial variability dertermination of soil properties was about 2-5 times more efficient than the classic statistical method.