Altitudinal changes of surface pollen and vegetation on the north slope of the Middle Tianshan Mountains,China

To provide information on vegetation patterns and altitudinal distributions of pollen assemblage in surface soil layers,their complicated relationships in a dryland mountain-basin system in northwestern China and a realistic basis for paleovegetational reconstruction,we investigated 86 vegetation quadrats and analyzed 80 soil samples from the surface soil layers along an altitudinal transect on the north slope of the Middle Tianshan Mountains from alpine cushion vegetation at 3,510 m near glacier to desert vegetation at 460 m in the Gurbantunggut Desert.According to surface pollen assemblages and the results of the detrended correspondence analysis,the transect can be divided into six major altitudinal pollen zones as alpine cushion vegetation,alpine and subalpine meadows,montane Picea forest,forest-steppe ecotone,Artemisia desert and typical desert,which basically reflect the characteristics of the mountainous vegetation patterns on the north slope of the Middle Tianshan Mountains.However,Picea pollen also exists outside the spruce forest,Chenopodiaceae and Artemisia pollen appeared above the elevation of 1,300 m,indicating that most of them might be introduced from lower elevations by upslope winds.Airborne pollen researches from three regions at different elevations further suggest that a high-frequency northwest anabatic wind has a remarkable influence on the transportation and dispersion of surface pollen in the area.

Cosmogenic ^(26)Al/^(10)Be Burial Dating of the Uplift Rate of Southern Qinling Mountains since the Middle Pleistocene

Objective The Qinling Mountains （QM） in Central China is a natural harrier that corresponds to the boundary between the southern and northern climate and environment （Gong Hujun et al., 2017）. Northern QM is relatively steep, and southern QM is in contrast relatively low and gentle. Investigations have shown that the average uplift rate of northern QM since 17.8 Ma is approximately 0.19 mm/a （Yin Gongming et al., 2001）, whereas that of central QM since 0.36 Ma is approximately 0.32 mm/a （Wang Fei et al., 2004）. To date, however, few investigations have yet been conducted on the uplift rate of southern QM. Accordingly, we aim to obtain the uplift rate of southern QM by using the cosmogenic ^26A1/^10 Be burial dating method to determine the age of the highest river terrace on the southern slope of QM.

Landslide susceptibility assessment in Western Henan Province based on a comparison of conventional and ensemble machine learning

Landslide is a serious natural disaster next only to earthquake and flood,which will cause a great threat to people’s lives and property safety.The traditional research of landslide disaster based on experience-driven or statistical model and its assessment results are subjective,difficult to quantify,and no pertinence.As a new research method for landslide susceptibility assessment,machine learning can greatly improve the landslide susceptibility model’s accuracy by constructing statistical models.Taking Western Henan for example,the study selected 16 landslide influencing factors such as topography,geological environment,hydrological conditions,and human activities,and 11 landslide factors with the most significant influence on the landslide were selected by the recursive feature elimination(RFE)method.Five machine learning methods[Support Vector Machines(SVM),Logistic Regression(LR),Random Forest(RF),Extreme Gradient Boosting(XGBoost),and Linear Discriminant Analysis(LDA)]were used to construct the spatial distribution model of landslide susceptibility.The models were evaluated by the receiver operating characteristic curve and statistical index.After analysis and comparison,the XGBoost model(AUC 0.8759)performed the best and was suitable for dealing with regression problems.The model had a high adaptability to landslide data.According to the landslide susceptibility map of the five models,the overall distribution can be observed.The extremely high and high susceptibility areas are distributed in the Funiu Mountain range in the southwest,the Xiaoshan Mountain range in the west,and the Yellow River Basin in the north.These areas have large terrain fluctuations,complicated geological structural environments and frequent human engineering activities.The extremely high and highly prone areas were 12043.3 km^(2)and 3087.45 km^(2),accounting for 47.61%and 12.20%of the total area of the study area,respectively.Our study reflects the distribution of landslide susceptibility in western Henan Province,which provides a scientific basis for regional disaster warning,prediction,and resource protection.The study has important practical significance for subsequent landslide disaster management.

Rapid Shrinking of Glaciers in the Middle Qilian Mountain Region of Northwest China during the Last ～50 Years

During the past five decades, fluctuations of glaciers were reconstructed from historical documents, aerial photographs, and remote sensing data. From 1956 to 2003, 910 glaciers investigated had reduced in area by 21.7% of the 1956 value, with a mean reduction for the individual glacier of 0.10 km2. The relative area reductions of small glaciers were usually higher than those of large ones, which exhibited larger absolute loss, indicating that the small glaciers were more sensitive to climate change than large ones. Over the past -50 years, glacier area decreased by 29.6% in the Heihe （黑河） River basin and 18.7% in the Beidahe （北大河） River basin, which were the two regions investigated in the Middle Qilian （祁连） Mountain region. Compared with other areas of the Qilian Mountain region, the most dramatic glacier shrinkage had occurred in the Middle Qilian Mountain region, mainly resuiting from rapid rising temperatures. Regional differences in glacier area changes are related to local climate conditions, the relative proportion of glaciers in different size classes, and other factors.

348-YEAR PRECIPITATION RECONSTRUCTION FROM TREE-RINGS FOR THE NORTH SLOPE OF THE MIDDLE TIANSHAN MOUNTAINS

Correlation census shows that the correlation between the tree-ring chronologies in the Urumqi River Basin and precipitation during July in the last year to February in the concurrent year is significant,and the best single correlation coefficient is 0.74,with significance level of 0.0001. Using two residual chronologies collected from west Baiyanggou and Boerqingou,precipitation for 348 years can be reconstructed in the North Slope of middle Tianshan Mountains,its explained variance is 62%.According to much verification from independent precipitation data,historical climate records,glacier and other data.it shows that the reconstructed precipitation series of 348 years is reliable.Analysis of precipitation features indicates that there were three wet periods occurring during 1671(?)—1692,1716—1794 and 1825—1866 and three dry periods during 1693 —1715,1795—1824 and 1867—1969.Two wet periods,during 1716—1794 and 1825—1866, correspond to the times of the second and the third glacial terminal moraine formation,which is in front of No.1 glacier in Urumqi River source.According to computation,corresponding annual precipitation amounts are 59mm and 30mm more than now.The reconstructed precipitation series has a significant drying trend from 1716 to 1969.and has better representativeness to the precipitation of Urumqi and Changji Prefecture on the North Slope of Tianshan Mountains.