Vegetation Coverage Changes in the West Qinling Region from 2000 to 2010:A Case Study of Longnan City

As the main content of terrestrial ecosystem study,vegetation coverage change has gained extensive attention in the process of global climate change and sustainable development recently.Based on MODIS NDVI data from June to October during 2000-2010,taking Longnan City as a case area,this paper develops the calculation method of vegetation coverage(VC) by using Pixel Dichotomy model and analyzes the spatial-temporal variation of vegetation coverage in the West Qinling region by using simple linear regression and standard deviation method.The results show that vegetation coverage remains stable and is significantly correlated with temperature and precipitation during the decade.The vegetation coverage of 90% of study area shows stability with small annual variation and also is consistent with the spatial distribution of forest land;the vegetation coverage in the remaining study areas shows a growing trend with significant variation and also is consistent with the spatial distribution of farmland and grassland,especially in Huicheng Basin,Xili Basin and adret slope of Bailongjiang River Valley,indicating that Project about the Conversion of Degraded Farmland into Forest has made a great contribution to vegetation coverage increase.This paper proves the effect of ecology construction in the West Qinling region since the late 20 th century.All the findings also provide references for local ecological environment construction and sustainable development.

NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF THE INFLUENCE OF O_3,CO_2 AND SPECTRUM VARIATION ON THE PHOTOSYNTHESIS OF CROP CANOPY

Coupled the photosynthesis with transpiration and adjustment of stoma,a dynamic ecological model for simulating the canopy photosynthesis of winter wheat was established by scaling up from the biochemical scale to canopy scale,in which the effects of O3,CO2 and solar spectrum on crop photosynthesis were fully considered.Validation of the model against the data measured with CI-301PS portable photosynthesis analyzer showed that the leaf photosynthesis model passed the correlation significance test and had a fairly high accuracy.Numerical analysis showed that the canopy photosynthesis rate would be reduced by 29% if the O3 concentration increases from 0 ppbv to 200 ppbv,whereas the canopy photosynthesis rate would increase by about 37% while the CO2 concentration increases from 330 ppmv to 660 ppmv,and the canopy photosynthesis rate would be reduced by 27%0 or so under the condition that the spectrum coefficient changed from 0.5 to 0.4.If the O3 concentration reached 200 ppbv at noon on the typical sunny day with higher radiation,the canopy photosynthesis will be reduced slightly in the suburb area where the pollution is serious and the photochemical fog is easy to be formed,contrast with that in the clear region and regardless of the climate change,due to the fact that the positive effect of CO2 on crop photosynthesis can not compensate the negative effect of O3 on crop photosynthesis.The canopy photosynthesis will be reduced by 35% or so than the BASE value at present,when the spectrum of photosynthetic active radiation （PAR） reduces to 0.4 or so.

Estimation of wind erosion rates by using ^(137)Cs tracing technique:A case study in Tariat-Xilin Gol transect, Mongolian Plateau

Wind erosion is one of the major environmental problems in semi-arid and arid regions. Here we es- tablished the Tariat-Xilin Gol transect from northwest to southeast across the Mongolian Plateau, and selected seven sampling sites along the transect. We then estimated the soil wind erosion rates by using the ^(137)Cs tracing technique and examined their spatial dynamics. Our results showed that the ^(137)Cs inventories of sampling sites ranged from 265.63±44.91 to 1279.54±166.53 Bq·m^(-2), and the wind erosion rates varied from 64.58 to 419.63 t·km^(-2)·a^(-1) accordingly. In the Mongolia section of the transect (from Tariat to Sainshand), the wind erosion rate increased gradually with vegetation type and climatic regimes; the wind erosion process was controlled by physical factors such as annual precipitation and vegetation coverage, etc., and the impact of human activities was negligible. While in the China section of the transect (Inner Mongolia), the wind erosion rates of Xilin Hot and Zhengxiangbai Banner were thrice as much as those of Bayannur of Mongolia, although these three sites were all dominated by typical steppe. Besides the physical factors, higher population density and livestock carrying level should be responsible for the higher wind erosion rates in these two regions of Inner Mongolia.

Using ^(137)Cs tracing technique to estimate wind erosion rates in the typical steppe region, northern Mongolian Plateau

Wind erosion is one of the major factors of land degradation in the typical steppe region, northern Mongolian Plateau. Using 137Cs tracing technique, we estimated the wind erosion rates of different pastures and abandoned farmland at Bayannur and Karakorum in Mongolia. The pastures and cutting grassland at Bayannur were slightly eroded by wind, with the rates of 64.58-169.07 t·km?2·a?1. The abandoned farmland in Karakorum, however, was strongly eroded by wind, with annual surface soil loss of 4.05 mm·a?1, and wind erosion rates up to 6723.06 t·km?2·a?1. The total loss of surface soil due to wind erosion has been 17.4 cm since the cultivation of the steppe land in the 1960s. The wind ero- sion rate at the abandoned farmland was much higher than that at the typical steppe sites, showing that the cultivation led to serious wind erosion in the typical steppe region, northern Mongolian Plateau. By contrast, traditional livestock grazing resulted in less disturbance to the surface soil, and did not in- duce to devastating wind erosion, which plays an important role in maintaining the stability of the steppe ecosystem in the northern Mongolian Plateau.