STATUS, CAUSES AND COMBATING SUGGESTIONS OF SANDY DESERTIFICATION IN QINGHAI-TIBET PLATEAU

The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is one of the major sandy desertification regions of China. Based on the recent investigation on sandy desertification, this paper analyses the status such as the type, area, distribution and damage of sandy land desertification in the plateau. Through the analysis on the factors affecting sandy desertification in the region’s natural and socio-economic systems as well as the processes and their interrelations, it can be concluded that sandy desertification in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau resulted from the combined actions of normal natural sand drift processes, natural sandy desertification processes caused by climatic changes and man-made sandy desertification caused by improper human activities. In addition, it also predicts the possible developmental trend including the increase in desertification area and the enhancement in desertification developmental degree with the exacerbation of the complex processes, and finally puts forward some strategic suggestions to combat sandy desertification in the coming years.

Dry cropland changes in China's Three Gorges Reservoir Region during the period 1990 to 2015

Monitoring and analyzing changes in the extent of cultivated land may inform strategic decisions on issues of environmental and food security.The dry cropland area of 12000 km^2in the Three Gorges Reservoir Region(TGRR)of China is essential for feeding the local population of^20 million,but is highly prone to soil erosion,leading to the delivery of excessive amounts of sediment and associated pollutants to the Three Gorges Reservoir(TGR),and causing serious eco-environmental consequences.Against this background,this paper used Landsat images and a digital elevation model to analyze the altitudinal distribution of,and dynamic changes in,the area of dry cropland during the period 1990 to 2015.The results suggest that dry cropland was mainly distributed in the elevation range of 200-600 m.The dry cropland area decreased from 12525.37 km^2to 11796.27 km^2during the 25-year study period,including a particularly significant decrease in the rate of decrease from 6.93 km^2/yr to 43.99 km^2/yr after 2000.The largest decline in the dry cropland area occurred in the elevation range of 600-900 m.The transformations between dry cropland and forest revealed the impact of the TGR operation on the extent of dry cropland.A total of 528.79 km^2of dry cropland with slopes>25°were converted to forest after 2000,whereas a total of 642 km^2of forest was converted to dry cropland during the study period,and these conversions mainly occurred between the elevation of 200–900 m.These spatiotemporal changes in the dry cropland area are likely to raise new issues concerning food security in the TGRR.

Spatiotemporal Patterns of Urban PM2.5 Pollution in China

Air pollution is one of the top environmental concerns and causes of deaths and variousdiseases worldwide. In this paper, PM2.5 observation data at 1,497 automatic air quality-monitoringstations in 367 cities of China in 2015 were utilized, and the study on spatiotemporal distribution of PM2.5concentration found that the average annual concentration of PM2.5 in urban China in 2015 was 49.74 μg/m3and exceeded the annual average limit in 287 cities. PM2.5 concentrations were highest in winter and lowestin summer in most cities, but it reached the highest in spring in the cities around Taklimakan Desert. Therewere 320 fi ne days in 2015 and the maximum PM2.5 was prone to appear at night, the minimum was usuallyin the afternoon, but in the early morning in Lhasa, and the minimum in winter was even in the earlymorning, midday and afternoon in some cities. Higher concentrations of PM2.5 were found in the EastChina Plain and the cities around Taklimakan Desert, preceded by the Yangtze River Delta economic zone,Chengdu-Chongqing economic zone and Harbin-Changchun megalopolis, while the lower values coveredthe northwestern region of Xinjiang, Heilongjiang Xing’an Mountains region, northeast high latitudes ofInner Mongolia, southwest high altitudes in the border area of Sichuan, Yunnan, Qinghai-Tibet Plateau andthe southeast coastal areas.

Aerosol pollution in a megacity of southwest China inferred from variation characteristics of sulfate-δ^34S and water-soluble inorganic compositions in TSP

Daytime and nighttime aerosol samples for total suspended particles (TSP) were collected in Chengdu from 12 to 23 January 2013 (winter) and 10 to 21 August 2014 (summer). The mass concentrations of TSP, major inorganic ions, and stable sulfur isotope ratios were determined. Clear winter-summer variatio n inT SPwas observed;the mass concentrations ofTSPin summerwere below levels defi ned by the Chinese National Ambient Air Quality Standard (GB3095-2012), whereas winter TSP levels exceeded the standard by 2-4 times. Overall, the sum of SO4^2-, NO3^-, and NH4^+ concentmtions represented the highest contribution to water-soluble ionic components, which showed similar trends to TSP mass. According to correlations among major ions, the major compounds in TSP were likely to be (NH4)2SO4, NH4NO3, CaCl2,and KCl in both sampling times, and CaSO4 and Ca(NO3)2 were also present in summer. The NO3 /SO42^- ratios ranged from 0.57 to 1.28 (average 0.85 ± 0.16) in winter and 0.5 to 0.93 (average 0.66 ±0.11) in summer, indicating stationary source ernissi ons (coal bur ning) were more im porta nt sources than the vehicle exhaust. The relationship between SO4^2- and δ^34S indicated the sulfate sources were affected by the low sulfur isotope value of biogenic sulfur release in summer, and the high sulfur isotope value of coal in winter. As a whole, the mixture of coal burning and vehicle exhaust represent the major TSP sources in Chengdu in the study period, and biogenic sulfur also contributes to TSP in summer.

Vulnerability to Earthquake Hazard:Bucharest Case Study,Romania

Recent seismic events show that urban areas are increasingly vulnerable to seismic damage,which leads to unprecedented levels of risk.Cities are complex systems and as such their analysis requires a good understanding of the interactions between space and the socioeconomic variables characteristic of the inhabitants of urban space.There is a clear need to develop and test detailed models that describe the behavior of these interactions under seismic impact.This article develops an overall vulnerability index to seismic hazard based on a spatial approach applied to Bucharest,Romania,the most earthquake-prone capital in the European Union.The methodology relies on:(1) spatial post-processed socioeconomic data from the2011 Romanian census through multicriteria analysis;and(2) analytical methods(the Improved Displacement Coefficient Method and custom-defined vulnerability functions)for estimating damage patterns,incorporated in a GIS environment.We computed vulnerability indices for the128 census tracts of the city.Model sensitivity assessment tested the robustness of spatially identified patterns of building vulnerability in the face of uncertainty in model inputs.The results show that useful seismic vulnerability indices can be obtained through interdisciplinaryapproaches that enhance less detailed datasets,which leads lead to better targeted mitigation efforts.