Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Strategies in Northwest China

Climate change resulted in changes in crop growth duration and planting structure,northward movement of planting region,and more severe plant diseases and insect pests in Northwest China.It caused earlier seeding for spring crop,later seeding for autumn crop,accelerated crop growth,and reduced mortality for winter crop.To adapt to climate change,measures such as optimization of agricultural arrangement,adjustment of planting structure,expansion of thermophilic crops,and development of water-saving agriculture have been taken.Damaging consequences of imbalance between grassland and livestock were enhanced.The deterioration trend of grassland was intensified;both grass quantity and quality declined.With overgrazing,proportions of inferior grass,weeds and poisonous weeds increased in plateau pastoral areas.Returning farmland to grazing,returning grazing to grassland,fence enclosure and artificial grassland construction have been implemented to restore the grassland vegetation,to increase the grassland coverage,to reasonably control the livestock carrying capacity,to prevent overgrazing,to keep balance between grassland and livestock,and to develop the ecological animal husbandry.In Northwest China,because the amount of regional water resources had an overall decreasing trend,there was a continuous expansion in the regional land desertification,and soil erosion was very serious.A series of measures,such as development of artificial precipitation(snow),water resources control,regional water diversion,water storage project and so on,were used effectively to respond to water deficit.It had played a certain role in controlling soil erosion by natural forest protection and returning farmland to forest and grassland.In the early21st century,noticeable achievements had been made in prevention and control of desertification in Northwest China.The regional ecological environment has been improved obviously,and the desertification trend has shown sign of under control.

Influence of climate change and human activity on water resources in arid region of Northwest China: An overview

This study reviews the latest progress in research on climate change and water resources in the arid region of Northwest China, analyzes the cause of water resource changes within the region from the perspective of climate change and human activities, and summarizes future likely changes in water resources and associated adaptation strategies. The research shows that the climate in the region has experienced warming and wetting with the most significant warming in winter and the highest increase in summer precipitation since 1961. Areas with the most significant warming trends include the Qaidam Basin, the Yili River Valley, and Tacheng. Spatially, the increasing trend in precipitation becomes increasingly significant from the southeast to the northwest, and northern Xinjiang experienced the highest increase. Studies have shown a decrease in headwater of Shiyang River because runoff is mainly based on precipitation which shows a decrease trend. But an increase in western rivers was observed such as Tarim River and Shule River as well as Heihe River due to rapid glacier shrinkage and snowmelt as well as precipitation increase in mountain area. Meanwhile unreasonable human activities resulted in decrease of runoff in the middle and lower reaches of Haihe River, Shiyang River and Kaidu River. Finally, recommendations for future studies are suggested that include characteristics of changes in extreme weather events and their impacts on water resources, projections of future climate and water resource changes, climate change attribution, the selection of adaptation strategies relating to climate change and social economic activities, and use of scientific methods to quantitatively determine water resource allocation.

Climate Suitability and Vulnerability of Winter Wheat Planting in Gansu under the Background of Global Warming

Winter wheat is the main food crop in China. Gansu Province is a traditional winter wheat growing area, and its planting range is limited by the thermal conditions of winter. The average temperature in Gansu Province increased by 0.28°C per decade, higher than the China’s and global average, and the warming in winter was more obvious. Therefore, it is necessary to study the climate suitability and vulnerability of winter wheat planting in Gansu. In this paper, the maximum entropy model Maxent and Arcgis software are used to select six major climatic factors including annual total radiation, annual precipitation, the warmest monthly average temperature, the coldest monthly average temperature, annual average temperature, and annual extreme minimum temperature, which construct winter wheat planting distribution-climate relationship model that studies the climate suitability and vulnerability of winter wheat during the period 1961-2015. Studies have shown that the average cold weather and annual extreme minimum temperature are the most important climatic factors affecting winter wheat in Gansu, which can reflect the low temperature conditions that winter wheat can tolerate. However, the main winter wheat planting areas in Gansu Province are distributed in arid and semi-arid rain-fed agriculture areas. Precipitation and total annual radiation are also very important constraints. At the same time, climate change has little effect on winter wheat in Gansu Province, and the area of suitable area fluctuates slightly. It shows moderate adaptation in each evaluation period.

Climate Change Characteristics and Return Periods of Heavy Precipitation in the Northeast Side of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

[ Objective] The study aimed to discuss analyze climate change characteristics and return periods of heavy precipitation in the northeast side of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. [ Method] Based on the data of daily precipitation from 1943 to 2008 in 6 representative meteorological stations in Linxia located in the northeast side of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the climate change characteristics of heavy precipitation were analyzed, and the return periods of heavy precipitation were calculated by Pearson-Ill probability distribution method. [ Result] Days of heavy precipitation in Linxia region in- creased conspicuously since the 1990s. The return periods of heavy precipitation in the six stations on August 20, 2008 were consistent with the re- sults of artificial estimation. [ Conclusion] The research could provide scientific references for the reasonable utilization of climate resources, disas- ter prevention and rational arranqement of anricultural plantina svstems in Linxia reaion.

Changing characteristics and spatial differentiation of spring precipitation in Southwest China during 1961-2012

In this study,we analyze spring precipitation from 92 meteorological stations spanning between 1961 and 2012 to understand temporal-spatial variability and change of spring precipitation over Southwest China.Various analysis methods are used for different purposes,including empirical orthogonal function（EOF） analysis and rotated EOF（REOF） for analyzing spatial structure change of precipitation anomaly,and the Mann-Kendall testing method to determine whether there were abrupt changes during the analyzed time span.We find that the first spatial mode of the precipitation has a domain uniform structure;the second is dominated by a spatial dipole;and the third contains five variability centers.The 2000 s is the decade with the largest amount of precipitation while the 1990 s is the decade with the smallest amount of precipitation.The year-to-year difference of that region is large：the amount of the largest precipitation year doubles that of the smallest precipitation year.We also find that spring precipitation in Southwest China experienced a few abrupt changes：a sudden increase at 1966,a sudden decrease at 1979,and a sudden increase at 1995.We speculate that the spring precipitation will increase gradually in the next two decades.

Variation Characteristics of Thermal Resources in East Hexi Corridor in Recent 50 Years

[Objective] The aim was to study variation characteristics of thermal resources in east Hexi Corridor in recent 50 years. [Method] Using the daily average air temperature data from 5 meteorological stations in east Hexi Corridor from 1959 to 2010, the variation of accumulated temperature steadily above 10 and 0 ℃, lasting days, the beginning and ending day were summarized, and then the variation characteristics of thermal resources under the background of climate warming were analyzed. [Result] The air temperature increased continuously in east Hexi Corridor, and the climatic trend rate of the annual average air temperature was 0.34 ℃/10 a, more significant than any other region in China. And it was well correlated with the thermal resource indexes such as the accumulated temperature steadily above 10 and 0 ℃, and their lasting days, and the beginning and ending day. Climate warming had made the accumulated temperature steadily above 10 and 0 ℃ increased significantly in east Hexi Corridor widespread. The accumulated temperature steadily above 10 and 0 ℃ had increased significantly. The lasting days of accumulated temperature steadily above 10 and 0 ℃ increased significantly too. The delay of ending days was more significant than the advancing of beginning days. [Conclusion] These changes in thermal resources were conductive to increase food production and maintain the stability of food production in east Hexi Corridor.

Variation characteristics and prediction of pollutant concentration during winter in Lanzhou New District, China

PM2.5 and PM10 were the main air pollutants during winter in Lanzhou New District,China.In this paper,WRF model output combined with hourly monitoring data of pollutant concentration was used to analyze characteristics of the concentration change and to study the relationship between meteorological elements and PM10/PM2.5 in Lanzhou New District in January,2018.Meanwhile,the concentration changes of PM2.5 and PM10 were predicted by wavelet analysis combined with BP neural network.The results show that:(1)Due to the cold front process in winter,PM2.5 was negatively correlated with the water vapor mixing rate.PM10 was positively correlated with air temperature and negatively correlated with air pressure.(2)There was an inversion layer in the atmosphere near the high value day of PM2.5 and PM10,the surface was controlled by low pressure,low wind speed,and the situation of low value day of PM2.5 was the opposite.On the day of high value of PM10,the air temperature below 600 hPa was higher,and the wind speed near the surface was also higher.(3)Wavelet analysis combined with BP(Back Propagation)neural network had a good prediction effect on PM2.5,which could basically reflect the hourly change of PM2.5 concentration.However,the simulation effect of PM10 was poor,and the input parameters of surrounding pollutants should be added to improve the prediction effect.