The integration of worldwide and nationwide economic regions requires sophisticated and integrated methods in Regional Economic Geography (REG) study. The progress of scientific thinking, especially the modern mathematical and systematical thinking, the technical advancement of information collection, transmission, processing and application, make the possibility of methodology construction of REG into reality. Several principles are required to maintain the harmonization among methodology construction, theory development and practice progress. The scientific thinking methods and the technical methods should be connected closely with each other, and both of them should be applied into the concrete aspects of the subject. The detailed methods should be selected, arranged and organized rationally into the flexible system to tackle different problems encountered during REG study. As a result, the subject study method system and the factors involved are outlined to illustrate the mechanism of methodology construction in REG.

After surveying the overall 100 years' evolving course of the overseas regional development planning, this paper puts forward three creating modes (under the system of the nation's "high instruction+constraint intervention", "unitive leading + collectively correspondance" and "no control+policy priority") of it, and considers the localization of the planning, which is an important function of the government in special times and whose destiny is dominated by the transformation of the national political-economical system, is unavoidable. When China is carrying out its regional development planning, it should emphasize the moderate combination of the plan and market, the organic coordination of the public and political participation, constitute wholesome legislation and management system of the planning and pay great attention to the research of social eco-environment and strategic problem of sustainable development.

Prof. HUANG Bing-wei is one of the founders of modern physical geography in China. The paper summarizes his academic achievements and thoughts in the fields of soil environmental protection, soil erosion, land degradation and land use. Under his guidance and instructions, Chinese geographers contribute a great deal to soil environmental protection and agricultural development.

Soil-wheat-atmosphere continuum is conceptualized as the interface between soil and atmosphere in winter wheat field, with canopy and soil surface being top and bottom boundary respectively. The depth of the interface is defined as the function proportional to (green) leaf area index. Based on the experiments conducting at Luancheng Agro-ecologic Experimental Station, Chinese Academy of Sciences, from April to June, 1996, the effects of soil moisture and soil-atmosphere interface on water-heat transfer in winter wheat field are analyzed. Soil moisture plays an important role in latent and sensible heat transfer. The drier the soil, the higher the sensible heat flux and the smaller the latent heat flux, and vice versa. This feature is especially remarkable when soil is wet. When soil is very dry, the depth of the interface dominates the two ransfers. For soil heat transfer at land surface, the depth of the interface is a more prominent influential factor than soil moisture. The analysis shows that the relationship between leaf water potential and atmosphere potential with the soil moisture matric potential at 60 cm depth is closer than the relationship between the two potentials with the soil moisture matric potentials at the other depths of soil. The soil layer of top 60 cm is a good index to study the effects of soil moisture and soil-atmosphere interface on water-heat transfer. It is also shown that the change of soil moisture potential acts as a macroscope of the variation of the water movement within the interface and above the interface.

Global warming has become a major scientific and political issue during the past 2 decades. Evidences show that the change of surface temperature is not uniform. The temperature is increased dramatically over northern continents in middle and high latitudes, but dropped obviously in northern Atlantic and northern Pacific. So the variation of temperature demonstrate some inherent structure. Atmospheric circulation is the most dominant factor controlling the surface climate changes.Atmospheric oscillations play an important role in the general atmospheric circulation, and affect regional or planetary scale climatic anomaly. Variance contribution of three atmospheric oscillations, say NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation), NPO (North Pacific Oscillation) and SO(Southern Oscillation), to north hemispheric temperature is investigated. Multivariate linear regression analysis show that the contribution is much higher in the tropic region, middle and high latitude continent and north western Pacific. Three atmospheric oscillations account for above 30% temperature variance over continent of north 40°N, and most part of the tropic in winter.During the past century, the contribution of atmospheric oscillations to northern hemispheric surface air temperature is also significant. From 1873 to 1993, temperature variance of the north hemisphere explained by the atmospheric oscillations is about 31-8%, 2-6% and 12-8% for winter, summer and annual respectively. During the last 2 decades the NAO index is increasing impressing, and the El Nino events occur with a much high frequency.Most part of the warming trend after the mid-1970s may be related to the decadal changes of NAO, NPO and SO.

Contradiction between supply and demand of water resources for agricultural development is becoming more and more serious with economic development, spreading urbanization and population increase. Usually, the evaluation of water supply & water demand focuses on whether there is a balance between water supply and water demand and attempts to get this balance by unceasingly increasing water supply even including water transfer to meet water demand. Such conception is definite wrong because water resources are limited. In fact, the relationship between supply and demand is not merely a problem of water amount, but a systematic project related to society-economy, environment, population, resources, science and technique. Therefore, a integrated evaluation model has been accepted to quantitatively analyze the condition of water supply and demand in this paper. First of all, the factors influencing water supply and demand are classified and considered at the first level. Each of the factors is described by using several variables, and these variables are considered at the second level. In this way an indicator system composed of the interrelated factors and variables at different levels will be formed. For each region, the function of each factor or variable can be evaluated by using a criteria system. The function of the factors or variables are weighed by using a marking system in which higher mark for a satisfactory factor or variable, vice versa. The condition of supply and demand can be estimated according to sum of-the marks of the variables considered. The evaluation procedure follows:1.to establish an indicator system for evaluating water supply and demand 2.to analyze and calculate weight for each factor and variable 3.to establish the integrated evaluation model 4.to evaluate the conditions of water supply and demand.

There was a long migration history of overseas Chinese. The largest scale of the migration appeared in the last hundred years. At present the population of ethnic Chinese amounted to over 30,000 thousand. Ethnic Chinese have exerted important impacts on social and economic development of many countries and regions. This paper briefly reviews the migration history of overseas Chinese which emigrated in different patterns, analyzes its distribution pattern in the world and how it came into being. On the basis of revealing the important contribution of ethnic Chinese to the local resources exploitation, economic development, social progress and national independence, research on the following aspects of the ethnic Chinese was done: their Chinese national consciousness, cultural attribute, traditional social structure, their political, racial and cultural identification, their distinctive characteristics in different regions and different patterns of degrees to which ethnic Chinese integrated themselves into the mainstream of local society. The paper emphasizes that at present the position and the role of ethnic Chinese in different regions should be deeply understood, in the process of China's vitalization, the Chinese government should highly appreciate the ability of these ethnic groups.

By means of the method of extension engineering, this article sets up a matter-element model of distinguishing objects. The model can be used to define the most reasonable location of the north boundary to the south subtropical belt in Fujian Province, and to show the various transitional states near the boundary objectively and quantitatively.In the design of the model, some generally recognized temperature indices and typical samples are chosen according to physical geography theory, to guarantee the correctness of the single-index dependent function. In the construction of the multiple-index comprehensive dependent function, the method of principal component analysis(PCA) is employed to determine the weight assignation of related factors, so as to avoid subjectivity and to balance objectively the deviation of the single-index boundaries. The model gives the output with satisfying explanations in physical geography meaning.Finally, the paper discusses the controversies on the east and west sections of the boundary, and points out that it is difficult for traditional qualitative methods and classical mathematics to explain the transitive features of geographic boundary, while the matter-element model has its advantages in this respect.

Modern cartography makes great achievements on application and theories in 90s. Standardized and multi-resource data, interactivity, dynamism and real time, hypermedia, network are its main features in this age. Under the support of new technology, integrated Cartographic Information System (CIS) has been put forward. Several such systems have been built all over the world.So modern cartographers are facing an opportunity and challenge.They must not only continue making maps, but also use and improve CIS.The Institute of Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences,imported INTERGRAPH system for printing atlas and developed EA-World for electronic atlas.The exchanging interface was also developed to combine them as an integrated CIS.Many national atlases including electronic version and printed version have been finished by this system sucessfully. This paper concludes the structure, functions,producing flow and craft and characteristics of CIS through INTERGRAPH system and EA-World system.

For a long time the function planning has been emphasized but the perceptional space planning ingored for cities and villages and small towns in the planning circle. According to the theory of perceptional and behavior geography, a certain perceptional space influences the behavior of the people who live in it. With feudal, conservative and introversion, the numerous traditional Chinese villages and small towns, based on the small-scale peasant economy under the self-contained and self-sufficient society, can not fit in with the needs of the socialist market economy which is flexible, enterprising and opening. The perceptional space of the traditional village and small town in Hunan has a general character. It backs on a certain space scope with some center buildings (clan hall, temple, etc.) and a core place (large tree, public square, etc.) as its psychological field center and thus forms a psychological-life space which is strongly characterized by clan culture and small-scale peasant economy. And this space exerts a subtle influence on the village's idea and behavior by way of interaction. Under the situation of the reform and opening the planning of the traditional village and small town in Hunan should beet the development of the socialist market economy, the construction of the socialist material and spiritual civilizations, and the direction of the people's initiative and progress. Therefore it is expected to: (1) strengthen the principal position of the center building in the perceptional space and form a new cohesive space; (2) further embody the spirit of ground, and enrich the harmonious and intimate communication space; (3) Create an all-out opening perceptional space which oversteps its own village and town and thus come to a comprehensive connection of economy and culture with outside; (4) maintain the local feature and a close relationship between the perceptional space and modern life. In this paper, the Zhangguing Village in Yueyang and the Dehang Village in Jishou city, with the former lying in northern Hunan and the latter in west Hunan, are selected for a concrete analysis and research in order to illustrate how to realize a new planning of perceptional space in the opening situation.

China is a mountainous country with about 70% of its terrestrial land being mountainous. Increasing population pressure and environmental and land degradation have forced farmers to expanded agriculture to steep sloping lands. Mountainous regions in China are rich in natural resources and have been the resources bases for water supply, timber, herbs, and other natural products. Mountain agriculture will become crucial for the food security of China in the coming century considering diminution in agriculatural land and expanding ubanisation. Use of nitrogen fixing plants in soil fertility improvement has a long history in China. But they areusually only used in intercropping or rotation and green manure plantation. Potential use of nitrogen fixing plants and its prospect for a sustainable agricultural development in the mountainous region are discussed, including using nitrogen fixing plants for soil fertility improvement, soil and water conservation, woody fodder, pulp and fuelwood supply. For soil fertility improvement, besides the traditional application, new concept and philosophy of using perennial woody nitrogen plants to improve soil fertility are introduced and discussed in detail. For soil and water conservation, biological terrace (bioterrace) concept, how to establish bioterrace, its advantages over the traditional bench terrace are discussed. Since forage in China mostly means herbaceous grasses only, development of perennial and woody nitrogen fixing plants as fodder as a potential direction in the rehabilitation of degraded mountain ecosystem has also been discussed.

According to the differences in natural conditions, history, cultural and economy of all provinces, China's east and middle area are divided into four regions including the south, the middle south, the middle north, the north. The economic growth rate decreased progressively from the south to the north and the gap of the economic growth rate was expanding. It was resulted in that economic level, that reduced progressively from the north to the south at the beginning of the reforming and opening, decreased progressively from the south to the north at present. Because of differences of the location, policies, investment, primate city, industry structure, rural enterprises and degree of internationalization among these regions, their developing potentials are different under the market economy. During the cross-century, the difference of the economic level from the south to the north will expand. Facing this situation, the government should adopt some measures in order to accelerate the development of the north.

The article stresses two key factors: the characteristics of the physical geography and the population of arid land, with which to analyse the spatial scale structure of the city-town system in the Jiuquan-Jiayuguan region, hoping to obtain some law cognition. The study shows that in the north-west arid land of our country, the area of desert, Gobi and high mountain is vast, but the area of oasis distributes in the desert and Gobi is small. The population in the area is few, and the bearing capacity of eco-environment is limited. Under such a condition, the growth of spatial scale structure of city-town system appears such an orientational feature: "small or middle cities and towns with multipolar centres". Moreover, the north-west arid land is an undeveloped region, the spatial relation of the region is out of harmony: it's on the whole in a state of mutual nonconnection and spatial separation among those different units, cities, towns, cities and surburb's towns, due to the multiple differentiation of administration ownership and profit ownership among those different circles.The study and the plan of spatial scale structure should concentrate efforts on the development of small or middle cities and small towns, the construction of multipolar city-town system in the region, the supplement functions among the key cities or towns in each major part of the region, so as to spur jointly the regional integrated development, impel spatial connection among neighbor cities, cities and units belonging to the region or the periphery, cities and surburb's market towns, expand the population scale and the spatial scale of key city or key town in each major part of the region, push forward regional integrated development and rural-urban integration, construct a resonable, convenient, efficient regional city-town system.

Since 70s, most tropical paleoclimate reconstruction for the Last Glacial Maximum used the sea-surface temperatures provided by CLIMAP that suggested the modest changes (<2℃) in tropical oceans of Asia^[1,2]. According to the palynological evidence from the tropics of Asia, the altitudinal belts of vegetation and the snow line of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) were much lower than those of present day. In New Guinea, a depression of 1 600 m of the forest limit was repported^[19]. The montane forest zone boundaries in Sumatra region was 500 m~800 m lower than today^[7-9]. In Indochina and southeastern China, the boundary between lowland rain forest and montane rain forest was lowered by the amount ranging from 600 m to 1 000 m^[10,11]. Recently, many studies showed that altitudinal zonation changes of vegetation were partly controlled by multi-factors such as CO₂ concentration^[12] and ultraviolet-B light^[7]. In fact, the reduction of CO₂ in the atmosphere during LGM plays an role as important as temperature particularly to the forest limit depression, but modestly to the boundary between rain forests. This explains the problem that amount of altitudinal zone depression of forest limit was much greater than that between montane forests. Using a number of palynological results from tropical Asia, and considering the influence of CO₂ variation specially to the forest limit during LGM, an average 4℃ cooling over the tropics of Asia was estimated (Fig-5). This result is consistent with the paleoclimate inferred from pollen time sequence in intertropical eastern Africa (4℃±2℃)^[26] and the new paleo-temperature (SSTs) estimates from planktonic foraminiferal assemblages in South China Sea^[3] and from the Sr/Ca ratio in Barbados corals of southweastern Pacific^[4]. The recent climate simulations using an AGCM showed that maintaining ocean heat transport at a value close to present day values, but with otherwise glacial boundary conditions, lead to an enhanced cooling, particularly in the tropics (5-5℃ lower)^[25]. All the above evidences suggested that the glacial climatic changes in tropical Asia were larger than those estimated by CLIMAP^[1,2].

Reasearch in GIS interoperability has primarilly focused on specification, heterogeneous software, semantic interoperability, and other key implementation technologies. They are the basic of interoperability of GIS data, GIS systems and organizations. This paper provides an-overview of the interoperabilty and reality of GISs, and gives the avaliability, interoperability and flexibility-of GIS data, systems and organizations. Moreover, this paper focuses on one of the new OpenGIS key technologies, the development of interoperability for data, systems and organizations, as well as summarizes up the reality of interoperable products and services of some famous GIS communities and companies.

Population ageing means the increase trend of elder population over 60 or 65 years in an area or a country.The problem of the population ageing is a severe challenge which every country in the world has to face at present age.The development of the population ageing resulted in the increase of the elder population quantity so that it a the great pressure on the enterprise of providing for the aged.This problem is more severe for China because of: ① The total quantity of elder population over 60 years is very big.It will be up to one hundred and thirty millions by the year of 2000 year.② The development speed of the population ageing is very fast.In genernal, it took 50-80 years for changing from the adult type country of population to the old type country in most western countries.However, it would only need about twenty years to finish this transition in China.③ The development speed of population ageing greatly outstriped the speed of economic development.In China, the level of economic development is still in the stage of developing country, but the speed of the population ageing outstripted that in the developed countries.So, it will bring a heavy pressure on the modernization construction of China.The population ageing of China therefore should be gone deep into study in order to seek the countermeasure of accepting this challenge.This paper would approach the development stages and trend of population ageing and its regional differences.The development of the population ageing in China have experienced three stages: ① In 50's, the coefficient of elder population rose slowly, and paced up and down between the adult type country of population and that of the old type.② In 60's, there was an abviously decrease of the coefficient of elder population because of the influence of economic difficulties during 1960-1962.③ After 70's, the coefficient of elder population rose step by step, and will stride quickly forward into the old type country of population.It is estimated that the speed of the population ageing in China will increase continually untill the 40' s in 21 century.It will be up to the peak in 2040 year.After the 50' s next century it will go down slowly.It can be seen that the population ageing in China will go on for several decades.There are regional differences in the population ageing of China: ① It is different between city and countryside.The speed of the population ageing is faster in city than that in countryside.However the total quantity of elder population is greatly bigger in countryside than that in city.The attention must be therefore paid to both city and countryside in solving the problem of population ageing in China, and do not bias anyone.② It is different between the east and west of China.The degree of population ageing is higher in the east than that in the west of China.③ It is different between the areas of nationalities.Based on the calculation in 1990, the nationalities whose coefficients of elder population were higher (over 4 5%)were Han, Zhuang, Tujia, Buyi, Bai, Zang and Uygur.The nationalities with lower coefficients of elder population (below 4 0%)were Li, Hani, Monggol and Hazak.

Based on field work, dating,mapping, historical literature and predecessors' work, this paper has discussed the influence of the middle and later Holocene relative sealevel change on the coastal geomorphic evolution along the northeastern Shandong peninsula which stretches from Longkou to Shidao.Along the northeastern Shandong Peninsula, many large sized coastal deposition geomorphic bodies were developed, among which the Qimudao tombolo in Longkou city, Zhifudao tombolo in Yantai city and Shidao bay mouth barrier in Rongcheng city are the biggest in size and most typical in form.Among the three barriers above, which were formed in differeent physical geographic and geologic settings, there is not only remarkable difference in genetic type, barrier platform and sediment resource, but also difference in landfrom and deposition features.According to the analysis on the difference above, it is concluded that the coastal deposition geomorphic evolution has been deeply influenced by the middle and later Holocene relative sealevel change.The influencing mechanism is that the relative sealevel change results in the adjusting of the tranverse shore profile and longitudinal river-bed profile, then influences the intensity of beach drift and barrier evolution.Since the middle Holocene, there are five relativel change phases which include a static phase (6000～4000aBP), two rising phases (4000～2300aBP,1500～600aBP)and two falling phases(2300～1500aBP,600aBP～present).For the two rising phases, the average rising rates are 2.35mm/yr and 2.22mm/yr,which approach the low limit of the estimated relative sealevel rising rate during 1990～2100 A.D..Based on the results of this paper, the future global sealevel rise will influence the the coastal geomorphic evolution along the rock mountain coast such as the northeastern Shandong peninsula.

Monimopetalum Rehd.is a monotype genus of Celastraceae.As a rare and endangred as well as endemic plant to China, Monimopetalum Chinense Rehd.is distributed on the south bank of the mid lower Yangtse River extending from 28°30' to 30°10N and 114°30' to 118°10'E.This paper deals with the natural geographical environment and community character, the history of its distribution area and existing state of its distribution pattern, the time and area of its origin as well as the features of floristic geography.The results of investigation indicate that: (1)M.Chinense habituates the warm and humid climate conditions and deviated acid soil (pH5.5-6.5)environment.It is an accompanying element in forest communities, and its distribution can be affected by some dominant elements e.g.Cunninghamia lanceolate, Pinus massoniana, Phyllostachys pubscens, Alniphyllum fortunei etc.(2)The historical evolution of its distribution area can be summarized as: continuous distribution (in the late Tertiary period)→disjunctive distribution (since the end of Tertiary period)→scattered distribution (existing state).It is a new recorded genus (species)in the floristics of Hubei province, which is a relic distribution in Tongshan county.(3)It is an endemic genus to East China with subtopical feature, which is distributed in the transition region from mid subtropics to north subtropics.(4)Monimopetalum might be originated from the conjoint terraes between Jiuling and Huaiyu in the Yangzi Paleoland.It has come into existence since the Miocene (or later), therefore, it is a relatively young genus instead of ancient one.

Based on the analysis on the characteristics of land use change and its related social and economic conditions in the past ten years in some typical counties of Guizhou Province, an index system representing land use change and human driving forces is submitted in this paper.Upon these indices, a relationship between land use change and human driving forces is discussed to reveal the mechanism of land use change under the driving of human forces and the relative weight of the driving forces.The result from factor ananlysis shows that the amount of food of per capita and the ratio of agricultural population are more important in driving the land use change.The correlation coefficients between the indices representing land use and driving forces tell the connection between factors, and population density and grain production are correlated more closely with the land use indices.The contribution of human driving forces to land use change in the study area is studied by the method of multiple regression, from which we can conclude than human driving forces can interprete the land use change at the level of 70%-90%.

In this paper, the origin of China's flower calendar is analyzed, it showed that earliest China's flower calendar is emerge in 6th century in Jingzhou, and the climate of 6th century in China is reconstructed using the data from flower calendar.The result showed it was warmer in the 6th century in winter and spring, and it was similar in summer compare with that of the present.

Regional economic development is closely related to the building of transportation system.Tangshan is one of the hubs of communications in a nation wide network of transport and an important component part of the nation wide land development area.Therefore the building of the communications and transportation system will produce a vital influence on the formation of the regional economic structure for the early 21st century.This paper describes in broad outline the general conditions of the basic transportation facilities in Tangshan and gives an estimate of them as well.Furthermore, the paper shows the advantages and disadvantages of the existing transportation facilities.Meanwhile, by analysis of the relationship between strategic position, economic structure and development of the transportation system, the paper discusses the strategic influence of the major transportation system on Tangshan economic structure in terms of location influence, concentration of the key factors, guaranty conditions of the functions, economic distribution, town system and adjustment of the industrial structure, etc.Finally the author presents constructive suggestions relevant to the building of Tangshan transportation system in light of the location of Tangshan, distribution of resources, together with the allocation of the production factors in the market, the regionalization and individualization of the economic development.

In the Ming Dynasty, there occurred 1 000 odd natural disasters in South China, which exerted adverse influence on the regions society and economy.The writer makes an omnibearing study of the natural disasters in South China of the Ming Dynasty on the basis of abundant materials, emphasizing on its space-time features.There was an imbalance in the time distribution of natural disaster occurrence.The occurring frequency of disasters was relatively lower in the early stage of the Ming Dynasty.In the mid term, there was a steady increase of natural disasters, with became serious and complicated.In the later period of the Ming Dynasty, the number of disasters decreased, but they were rather serious.Neither was it in balsnce in terms of space distribution of the natural disasters.Fujian suffered the most, especially in the area of Fuzhou, Zhangzhou and Quanzhou.The next was Guangdong, chiefly in the area of Guangzhou, Chaozhou, Zhaoqing and Qiongzhou.The disaster frequency in Guangxi was relatively lower except for the area of Taiping, Wuzhouand Liuzhou.This phenomenon was related to the different natural conditions in various regions of South China as well as the social factors.

Multiple Representation of Master Database (MRMD) in Multi-Scale GIS is one of the key problems in GIS realm.In this paper, the authors defined, at first, the intention of the problem, and then related their design to the structure, data updating mode, data consistency of Multiple Representation Database.Finally, some application examples of MRMD were described, including multi scale displaying of electronic maps, spatial hierarchical reasoning for geographic objects.

In the paper,three kinds of fractal dimensions were summed up to characterize spatial structure of urban systems which were respectively named as aggregation dimension, grid dimension, and spatial correlation dimension.Correspondingly, the methods of the determinning of the fractal dimensions were advanced, including gyration radius method,Sandbox method,and density-density correlation function method.

The principles of sustainable tourism are becoming widely accepted, with the prevailing of sustainable development idea.Ecotourism, considered as a specialty product of achieving sustainable tourism, is also attracting a considerable amount of interests among both tourist researchers and governors.This paper aims at the definitions of sustainable tourism and ecotourism, and expounds the relationship between sustainable tourism and ecotourism, then discusses the way of carrying out the strategies of sustainable tourism and ecotourism.This paper provides an introduction of international standard of appraising sustainable tourism and ecotourism,and gives an overview of development in sustainable tourism and ecotourism in other counties.The author points out though many Chinese academics have been spreading the ideas of sustainable tourism and ecotourism, there are some twists about the concepts of sustainable tourism and ecotourism among the public of China.From a different perspective, the author highlights the actual problems of carrying out sustainable tourism and ecotourism strategies in China.A new concept of tourist threshold for estimating environmental effects is founded in this paper.Based on the situation of tourism in China, the author puts forward the goal and plan of carrying out sustainable tourism and ecotourism.Some kinds of regions are elected to test the effects of the plan.

In spite of the scope and depth of GIS application, the relatively weak spatial analysis function is one of the major difficulties in GIS application.In this paper, the basic charact eristics of spatial data and the basic needs of spatial data analysis in GIS were analyzed.The spatial statistics, the exploratory spatial data analysis as well as its flow chart in inter activeuse were presented, and the spatial models of several cat ego ries were introduced.Also the necessity of integrat ionbet ween GIS and spatial models was discussed, the ways to their integration were presented and demonst rated.At the end the problems in the integration between GIS and spatial models were discussed, and some ways to solve them were brieflysug gested.

This paper discussed the feasibility of seawater utilization for industrial and agricultural purposes, and analyzed the main affecting factors on seawater utilization.The study results indicated that seawater desalinization was not only feasible on technology, but also reasonable on cost.It was recommended that seawater be used to substitute for fresh water by the way of directive utilization.In order to ease up the shortage of fresh water in coastal areas of China, it was suggested to develop techniques of seawater desalinization.

The speleothem stability is threatened because it is seriously weathered and broken down as the cave environment is seriously effected by the tourism activities.The speleothem weathering is quite often in the show caves.Based on the laboratory experiments,the calcareous alkaline solution is the best one for the recovering experments.The field experiment work lasted one year.The calcareous alkaline solution was employed for the experiments to be dropped on the strong weathered stalagmite and flowstone with the slope of 45° and sprayed on the vertical column.The changes of conductivity, pH, Ca⁺² contents and alkalinity in the solution were monitored during the experiments.The results demonstrate that 98.9% of Ca⁺² was deposited in the distance of 1.5 m from the dropping point.pH values droped from 12.2 down to 8.5, OH-content decreased from 17.76 mg/l to 0 and the conductivity from 2 160 us/cm to 98.9 us/cm.After the experiments lasting for 3 month, the front side of the stalagmite was completely covered.The new stalactites, leaf pools and stone ears developed like the natural one.The scanning electronic microscope (SEM)is used to observe the crystal of calcite.The natural calcite performs the well trigonal crystals larger than 0.3 mm with perfect rhembohedral cleavage.The crystal of CaCO₃ deposited by the spaying solution is very similar to the natural one.The deposits by dropping are not so good as the spraying one, however, they have developed the trigonal crystals with the size of 15 μ-20μm even 35μm with good rhembohedral cleavage.The CaCO₃ deposit on the stalagmite has been changed to be hard to well protect the weathered speleothem.

City is the main place for human activities to tack place.In some sense, the world will be sustainable if the development of cities is sustainable.This article discusses the main contents of sustainable urban development research in foreign countries, including connotation, resource, environment, economy, society, form and comprehensive assessment, and gives a prospect on sustainable urban development in China.

In this paper, the new progresses on research methodology of evaluating impacts of global Climate change in China are presented.They are experiments of laboratory, farmland field observation; methods of ice core tree-ring and historical writing; Studies of numerical models including static and dynamic model.At last, the indeterminacy and problems of existed and prospects are given.

Zhang Liping's circular mathematical model of theoretical maximum of gully desity is corrected, and there is a larger difference between the corrected model and reality.Therefore, a regular hexagon mathematical model of theoretical maximum (D)of gully density is reckoned.The new model conforms more to the reality.

Since the United Nations Conference on Desertification held in 1977 in Nairobi, much progress has been made abroad on classification and assessment of desertification. Three major steps accompanied with three new definitions of desertification are discussed respectively,which are UNCOD in 1977,“provisional methodology for the assessment and mapping of desertification” in 1984 and the first edition of the World Atlas of Desertification in 1992. Fully representation on type, severity, degree, hazard, indicator of desertification is in the newly released world atlas. Three of them are important, including the global assessment of human-induced soil degradation(GLASOD), the assessment of the status of human-induced soil degradation in South and South-East Asia(ASSOD), and the theory put forward by Moscow State University and Russia Academy of Science. Great differences on the classification and assessment focus chiefly on the evaluation concerning method and indicators. In the GLASOD, severity=degradation degree·extent per polygon, in the ASSOD, severity=productivity change·management level·extent per polygon and RUSSIA=diversity degree·number of main degradation factor. To improve the level of classification and assessment in science and authority, efforts should be taken in establishment of theoretical base of degradation which including determination of temporal and spatial scale.

Based on the summary and analysis of the policy framework and the practice of regional cooperation nationwide in China in the 1990s, this paper aims at evaluating the rationality and prospect of the national policy of promoting regional economic and technical cooperation. Starting from clarifying the national and local policy objective, the author gives an insight comparative analysis of the recent experiences of the regional cooperation organizations in the country, focusing on both their achievements and problems faced. Policy evaluation and policy suggestions are given at last. The author argues that the basic objective of the national policy of promoting regional economic and technical cooperation, that is, to maximize the efficiency of the whole society and diminish the regional disparity is not practical to be released currently.

Rare earth elements and its relation with the mineral fraction in a typical geographic landscape in the REE mining area in Ganxian, southern Jiangxi, were studied. The results showed that the REE content and the distribution are closely related to soil texture and mineral composition. REE are enriched in the 2~63 μm fractton, and the sequence of REE contents in different size fraction is: 20~63 μm≥2~20 μm>-2 μm>0.063~1 mm>+1 mm. Analysis of minerals suggested that quatze and feldspar can dilute REE, secondary minerals (e.g. Kolinite) can enrich REE, and heavy mineral is also one of the factors affecting REE distribution.

This paper gives a general target analysis, a database system and an applied model system for multidisciplinary evaluation of oases, and discusses the evolution and the development of the oases by using GIS. A few case studies showed good and practical results on evaluating resources, adjusting industrial structure and analyzing environmental quality of the oases. The paper also discusses the combination of GIS and economic models and a study method for the sustainable development in Western China.

In this paper, correlation analysis was used to analyse the relationship between the Earth's rotation ration and monthly mean 500hPa atmosphere circulation. The research results show that in the Earth's higher speed years, 500hpa polar vortex and India-Burma trough are filled, the Atlantic high, the North America high and the Atlantic Ocean-North America subtropical high are intensified and the location is inclined to north. In the Earth's lower speed years, 500hpa polar vortex and India-Burma trough are deepened, the Atlantic high, the North America high and the Atlantic Ocean-North America subtropical high are weakened and the location is inclined to south. The mechanism is that the variation of the Earth's rotation ration causes an additional centrifugal force. The force makes the atmosphere move in north-south, up and down directions. The movement of the air causes the general circulation to be changed.

This paper discussed the definition, geographical tradition and technology driven development mechanism of geographical information science, and came to a conclusion that geographical information science is a new paradigm of geography after information revolution, then put forward the theory framework of this new subject. Classical geography is focused on describing the pattern of geographical objects on epigeosphere by field surveying mainly, so it is essentially an information science. With computer and information technology introduced, geographical science system is being reconstructed, and there are three main development directions: one is regional economic research, which emphasizes relations between different benefit groups; one is ecological or environmental research, which emphasizes transference and transformation of material and energy; and the other is geographical information research. The first two directions are about material flow、energy flow and human flow of geographical system, however the last one is focus on information flow, and tries to describe and analogize epigeosphere information transformation mechanism by use of modern information technology. So geographical information science succeeds and resembles classical geography in methodology and theoretics, and is a new paradigm of classical geography. Geographical information science system includes theoretical、technical and applied geographical information science. Its development is dependent on the combination of geographical information researchers and classical geographers.

City is a social-economic-natural complex ecosystem. In this paper,according to the level of the relationships between material flow, energy flow and information flow, also by taking their properties as indexes, Changchun city was divided into 48 land ecotypes and 8 land ecoregion in light of the features of their associations, Each ecoregion has its own characteristics, and the ecoproblems are defferent. On the basis of imitateng the type of nature, each land ecoregion was designed following the principle of making concordant relationship beween human and nature. In the end, we should build up an ideal city which would be in conformity with the human benefits as well as the organization principle of the biosphere.

From the angels of economic location theory, the types of service industry, location features of various service sectors and the theoretical bases of distribution of service industry are studied in this paper. On the basis of above-mentioned theories, distribution features and spatial evolution trend of service industry of metropolitan in developed countries are analyzed. At the same time, the location characteristics, the problems, and the developmental direction of service industry of metropolitan in China are also studied here.