Ten Years of the Relative Risk Model and Regional Scale Ecological Risk Assessment

It has been 10 years since the publication of the relative risk model (RRM) for regional scale ecological risk assessment. The approach has since been used successfully for a variety of freshwater, marine, and terrestrial environments in North America, South America, and Australia. During this period the types of stressors have been expanded to include more than contaminants. Invasive species, habitat loss, stream alteration and blockage, temperature, change in land use, and climate have been incorporated into the assessments. Major developments in the RRM have included the extensive use of geographical information systems, uncertainty analysis using Monte Carlo techniques, and its application to retrospective assessments to determine causation. The future uses of the RRM include assessments for forestry and conservation management, an increasing use in invasive species evaluation, and in sustainability. Developments in risk communication, the use of Bayesian approaches, and in uncertainty analyses are on the horizon.

Temperature variation through 2000 years in China: An uncertainty analysis of reconstruction and regional difference

Chinese Academy of Sciences [KZCX2-YW-315, KZCX2-YW-Q1-01]; National Natural Science Foundation of China [40625002, 90502009, 200905006]; Office of Science (BER), U. S. Department of Energy ; EU/FP7 [212250]

Heavy Metals in Soil and Crops of an Intensively Farmed Area: A Case Study in Yucheng City, Shandong Province, China

lThe study was supported by the Knowledge Innovation Foundation of the institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resource, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. 200906002) and Key Directional Project of Knowledge Innovation of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. KSCX2-YW-N-46-01). The authors would like to thank to Luke Driskell for his kind help and hard work on English language polishing of the article.

The regional types of China's floating population: Identification methods and spatial patterns

With the rapid increase of the number and influence of floating population in China, it is urgently needed to understand the regional types of China's floating population and their spatial characteristics. After reviewing the current methods for identifying regional types of floating population, this paper puts forward a new composite-index identification method and its modification version which is consisted of two indexes of the net migration rate and gross migration rate. Then, the traditional single-index and the new composite-index identification methods are empirically tested to explore their spatial patterns and characteristics by using China's 2000 census data at county level. The results show: (1) The composite-index identification method is much better than traditional single-index method because it can measure the migration direction and scale of floating simultaneously, and in particular it can identify the unique regional types of floating population with large scale of immigration and emigration. (2) The modified composite-index identification method, by using the share of a region's certain type of floating population to the total in China as weights, can effectively correct the over- or under-estimated errors due to the rather large or small total population of a region. (3) The spatial patterns of different regional types of China's floating population are closely related to the regional differentiation of their natural environment, population density and socio-economic development level. The three active regional types of floating population are mainly located in the eastern part of China with lower elevation, more than 800 mm precipitation, rather higher population densities and economic development levels.

Studies on the regional feature of organic carbon in sediments off the Huanghe River Estuary waters

Organic carbon (OC) in definitely small area sediments(according to marine dimension)off the Huanghe River Estuary is investigated in order to evaluate the feature of regional difference of physical and chemical properties in marginal sea sediments. The distributions of OC in sediments with natural grain size and the relationship with the pH, Eh,Es and Fe3+/Fe2+ are discussed. In addition,OC decomposition rates in surfacial/subsurfacial sediments are estimated. OC concentrations range from 0.26% to 1.8%(wt)in the study area. Significant differences in OC content and in horizontal distribution as well as various trends in surfacial/subsurfacial sediments exhibit the feature of regional difference remarkably in marginal sea sediments. The complicated distribution of OC in surface sediments is due to the influence of bacterial activity and abundance, bioturbation of benthos and physical disturbance. The OC decomposition rate constant in surfacial/subsurfacial sediments ranges from 0.0097 to 0.076 a(-1) and the relatively high values may be mainly related to bacteria that are mainly responsible for OC mineralization;meio-and macrofauna affect OC degradation both directly, through feeding on it, and indirectly through bioturbation and at the same time coarse sediments are also disadvantageous to OC preservation. In almost all the middle and bottom sediments the contents of OC decrease with the increase of deposition depth, which indicates that mineralization of OC in the middle and bottom sediments has occurred via processes like SO42- reduction and Fe-oxide reduction.

中国粮食生产的区域演进研究

Grain is one of the primary material conditions of the human survival and the grain production concerns the stability and development of the society directly. The regional patterns influence greatly on the grain production and the rational production distribution the regional comparative advantages and promotes grain production. This thesis starts with summarizing of the characteristics of changes and the overall trend of regional pattern of grain production of our country since 1949. Then it carries on network analyses to the factors, which influences the evolvement of regional grain production patterns of our country. And finally it gives some proposals to the grain production distribution in the future. The main content includes: Firstly, Reviewing the regional evolvement of grain production in our country, and analyzing the changes of the regional pattern of grain production of our country on the provincial scale and county scale separately, since 1949, especially since the reform and opening up policy. The main grain production areas are acting an important position in ensuring the national grain security, so this thesis analyses the main matter of the main grain production areas, forecasts the grain production situation in the future, and selects the Northeastern main grain production areas as the typical area to carry on the positive research. Secondly, this thesis analyzes the origin causes from two respects of natural and social economy of the regional evolvement pattern of grain production in China. Thirdly, based on the summarizing to the status of the regional pattern of the grain production, this thesis proposes the precept of the grain production distribution in the future in our country. Therefore, the areas of three major cereal crops, rice, wheat and corn, are confirmed on the basis of the comparative advantages. Finally, this thesis puts forward the security system of guaranteeing the grain production progressing steady in China. According to the above analysis, some conclusions have been achieved as follows: (1) The grain gross production gets on extricating itself from awkward position frequently while fluctuating greatly annually since 1949 in China. (2) Since the reform, its traditional regional pattern of grain production, the most of which was concentrated in the south area, has changed rapidly. China's center of gravity of grain production has shifted from the south to the north, and on the belts of latitude, the grain production has represented a trend of focusing to the middle area in China. (3) The main grain production areas play a very important role in ensuring China's food security. With their relative severe situation of the problems of agriculture, rural area and peasant, China has carried out a series of measures, which aim at improving the food-producing conditions of the main grain production areas, and enhancing the grain yields there. Under this condition, a forecast of the producing amount of the main grain production areas under the nation's self-supplying rate of over 95% shows that the increasing provision production in these areas can meet the demand of the country. (4) The natural and social economic factors influence together on the changes of the grain production regional pattern. Along with the state system transition and progress of agricultural science and technology, the regional pattern of grain production is affected heavier by the agricultural policy and technological elements. (5) The grain production will be concentrated to the middle province in the future, which economic development level being medium-sized; According to crop allocation, although the rice superiority production area located in the South, its comparative advantage index is little in some degree. Meanwhile, the wheat and corn superiority production areas are in the North mainly and its scale superiority and production level advantage are all comparatively obviously.