Land safety of urban resident area is threatened by many disaster factors with different evaluation criteria, and the developing of GIS-based multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) method is the key of suitability evaluation for disaster prevention. Ordered weighted averaging (OWA) is a multi-criteria evaluation procedure, which can generate a wide range of decision strategies through calculating order weights and criterion weights. The calculation method of order weights based on rank-order approximation, and the construction method of comparison matrix for criterion weight based on analytical hierarchy program (AHP), are introduced. The difference in decision strategy between OWA and other GIS-based MCE methods, such as Boolean overlay and weighted linear combination (WLC), is analyzed through analyzing OWA evaluation procedure. Furthermore, the method to establish evaluation criteria based on distance is investigated. As an example, GIS-based OWA method is applied to Tangshan City. According to the data of geological disaster in Tangshan City, evaluation criteria for every disaster factor based on distance is constructed, and attribute values of disaster factors are fuzzy quantifiers; comparison matrix is calculated based on AHP, criteria weights and consistency ratio are obtained; order weights based on rank-order approximation are calculated, and land-use suitability affected by geological disaster factors in Tangshan City is calculated with OWA. The differences between OWA results and WLC results are analyzed. Through comparsion with the distribution of floor area ratio of residential areas, some advice is proposed for rational development of land resource in Tangshan City. Residential areas should be developed in the northwestern part of Tangshan City, where the suitability is relatively high, and moderate-low floor area ratio should be suitable for the middle part of the city in order to avoid the disaster-induced loss.

It is a key step to deepen the understandings about the structure, functions and processes of regional resources and environment by using spatial, quantitative, multi-scale and temporal analysis, and there are many obvious advantages to study on the spatial pattern, spatial difference and the related ecological & environment characteristics by using remote sensing technology. As an independent geographic and ecological unit, the status of Mongolia Plateau ecology system and its changes have great effects on the environment of North China and even the whole East Asia, which makes it necessary to develop certain research works in the whole Mongolia Plateau in both theory aspect and practice aspect. In this study, based on GIMMS NDVI dataset of 1982-2003, the new Mongolia Plateau NDVI Dataset using MVC method was constructed and the stability in the time scale was also assessed. Then three spatial statistic methods including Moran coefficient, semi variance function and fractal analysis, were selected to investigate the spatial pattern and spatial differentiation of NDVI in Mongolia Plateau. The results show that: (1) The NDVI in Mongolia Plateau shows positive spatial autocorrelation in the whole region and similar NDVI are apt to aggregate together, which means the vegetation cover of Mongolia Plateau is generally intact and little fragmental. The NDVI distribution pattern is indeed clear; (2) In spite of the effects of both structural factors and random factors, the spatial distribution pattern of NDVI in Mongolia Plateau is mainly controlled by the structural factors which induce 88.7% of the total spatial variations, while only 11.3% of the total spatial variations is induced by the random factors; (3) There exists a clear anisotropy about NDVI distribution pattern in Mongolia Plateau, and there are higher spatial autocorrelation in the Northwest-Southeast direction which means those points with similar NDVI value are mainly distributed along Northwest-Southeast direction. Generally, the radius of NDVI patch is about 1178km, and the length-width ratio of those patches is about 2.4. According to the research, temporal NDVI study based on spatial statistics method could not only explore the NDVI spatial pattern & spatial difference but also indicate the geographic essences of NDVI and the relevant spatial statistics parameters.

The relationship between the residential area extracted from multi-source remote sensing images and the population data at the three levels of city and prefecture, county and village in Sichuan province is discussed in this paper. This includes the following steps. Firstly, the rural and urban residential areas are extracted from Landsat TM images in Sichuan province, and the rural residential area and its building land are extracted from Quickbird Images in Juntun town, Xindu district, Chengdu City. Secondly, the residential areas for each unit of the three levels are obtained by overlaying and statistical analysis. Thirdly, the correlation relationship between the total residential areas and the total population, urban and town residential areas and the non-farm population, and the rural residential area and the farm population are analyzed respectively for city and county levels. The non-farm population strongly relates to the urban and town residential areas for city level with the correlation coefficient of 0.962 and county level with the correlation coefficient of 0.791.The non-farm population estimation models based on the urban and town residential areas are formulated respectively for the city and county levels by using regression analysis, whose judgment coefficients are respectively 0.926 and 0.625. Finally, the correlation relationship between the rural population, rural residential area and its building land are analyzed at the village level, and their correlation coefficients are respectively 0.806 and 0.825. The farm population estimation models based on the rural residential area and its building land are formulated by using regression analysis, whose judgment coefficients are respectively 0.65 and 0.68. It is shown that Landsat TM images are suitable for the estimation of the non-farm populations on a large scale, and Quickbird images are suitable for the estimation of the farm population on a small scale.

Using monthly mean air temperature data from 101 meteorological stations during 1961-2003 in the entire Inner Mongolia and the method of Rotated Empirical Orthogonal Functions (REOF), we implemented a regionalization according to consistency in air temperature variations of the four seasons, and analyzed seasonal and regional differences of air temperature variations. The seasonal air temperature changes indicate an apparent east-west difference in Inner Mongolia. The air temperature fields of spring, autumn and winter could be divided into two regions, namely, the West Region and the East Region, whereas the air temperature field in summer could be classified into three regions, namely, the West Region, the Southeast Region and the Northeast Region. In terms of the interannual variation, the seasonal air temperatures in each region experienced an obvious transition from decrease to increase during the recent 43 years except the Southeast Region in summer, and the turning points appeared either in the middle and late 1980s (in the East Region of spring and summer, and in the East and West Regions in autumn and winter) or in the early and mid-1990s (in the West Region of spring and summer). Dealing with the linear trend, the slope and significance of increased temperature trends in the East Region are larger than in the West Region during spring and summer, whereas the slope and significance of increased temperature trends in the West Region are larger than in the East Region during autumn and winter. Generally speaking, the most significant temperature increase appeared in winter and summer and then in spring, and the slightest temperature increase was shown in autumn.

This paper projects future change in provincial climate-sensitive components of energy consumption of China, which resulted from the anthropogenic climate change and socio-economic development. The climate scenarios for 2020-2029 and 2050-2059 are obtained from seven IPCC AOGCMs simulations. The result shows that, by 2021-2030, the degree-days increase, compared with 1990-1999, in the south of China and decrease in the north of China. The situation for 2050-2059 is very similar to 2020-2029 in spatial patterns but the change magnitude is bigger. To climate-sensitive components of energy consumption, for 2020-2029 the increment is the largest in southern China and eastern coastal region, including the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. For the 2050-2059 scenario, the increase occurs in the south of China and the Bohai Sea Rim, while the decrease occurs in the center of China, part of western China and the north of northeast China. The special change value of climate-sensitive components of energy consumption of provinces in the same climatic province is different because the change of climate-sensitive components of energy consumption depends on not only climate change but also socio-economic development. Compared to the 2020-2029 scenario, provinces with a rising trend in climate-sensitive components of energy consumption increase in number in 2050-2059. Future climate-sensitive components of energy consumption still need further study due to the limit of present data and methods.

Public perception of climate change can support the development of adaptation strategy. By comparing the questionnaire survey results with climate data, this paper revealed the perception difference to the local air temperature and precipitation in the Guanzhong area. The results show that: (1) the local residents' perceptions of temperature and precipitation changes are in accord with, and proportionate to the real data; (2) the residents' perception intensities to the local temperature in the eastern and western Guanzhong area show an increasing trend with the aged becoming small, while the central part is opposite; the perception intensities to the precipitation, the central and western areas are a decreasing trend,while the eastern is opposite; (3) The deviations exist between the resident's perception and the real data changes. In contrast to the real data, the consistent ratings of the residents' perception to temperature changes in the eastern, central and western Guanzhong area are 37.5%, 75%, 37.5%, respectively; to the precipitation changes' consistent ratings is 50% each.

Taking the middle and upper Tao'erhe River Basin as a study area, this paper analyzes variations of runoff, precipitation and temperature, etc. for the period 1961-2000. Time series analysis of characteristic parameters is used to examine the influences of climate change and land use and land cover change (LUCC) on runoff. And the response of runoff to water resources development (extraction for use) is estimated quantitatively based on the comparison between the observed and natural runoff data of Taonan hydrological station during 1961-2000. Some conclusions are drawn as follows: (1) The observed mean annual runoff is 38.2 m3/s for the past four decades, showing a trend of decrease - increase - decrease. The interannual and seasonal variations of runoff are greatly notable and the mean monthly runoff shows an unobvious trend according to the analysis result with the Kendall method. Over the period, annual precipitation has increased slightly to 427 mm. December's mean precipitation has increased significantly by the analysis result with the Kendall method. The mean annual temperature is 5.48℃ with a much greater value in the second half of the period (1986-2000); (2) The annual natural runoff is positively correlated with annual precipitation, and negatively correlated with annual temperature, and these relationships become weaker over time. Therefore, the increase of annual natural runoff coefficient under the same precipitation frequency may have mainly resulted from the decreasing vegetation cover. A wet year would have more impact on runoff than a dry year; (3) Water resources development decrease the annual runoff depth by 21.2 mm during the period 1986-2000, accounting for 37.1% of the mean annual natural runoff over the 40 years.

The SWAT is a physically-based distributed hydrological model. Its runoff generation mechanism is more practical. The methods adopted in the process of runoff including surface runoff, interflow and groundwater flow are applicable to various conditions of climate and underlying surface. In this study, the SWAT (Version 2005) is applied to the Kuye River basin, one of typical watersheds with plentiful and coarse sand in the middle reaches of the Yellow River with arid and semi-arid climate. When the model in the Kuye River basin was developed, automatic calibration method within the SWAT Version 2005 was used to calibrate the model. According to the stream flow hydrograph at Wenjiachuan station, the mouth of the river, the parameters were further adjusted. Then, daily and monthly discharges from 1980 to 1985 have been simulated in the study area, and observed data series of three hydrological stations (Wenjiachuan, Xinmiao and Wangdaohengta) are used to evaluate the simulated discharge series of SWAT. The effects of physical mechanism for streamflow generation processes have been analyzed and discussed. The result shows that the relative error of water budget is about 10%-20%, while the Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency coefficient (Ens) is relatively low, with Ens of daily series being about 0.2 and monthly Ens around 0.6. Preliminary analysis of simulation results showed that the SWAT is not effective to simulate the discharge of interflow, baseflow and spring flood in the Kuye River basin. In addition, it is proposed that the SWAT runoff generation mechanism in arid and semi-arid regions need to be further investigated.

In recent years, regional vegetation water use has been a new and "hot" field in ecology, hydrology and water resources, especially in the arid and semiarid regions. Economic development of the Yellow River Basin is based upon energy, heavy chemical industry, grain and cotton. These activities, combined with climate change, have resulted in a shortage of water resources. In this paper, an eco-hydrological model was constructed to simulate the regional vegetation water use. The patterns of eco-water use by vegetation in Sanmenxia area of the Yellow River were studied using RS and GIS technology, TM data, meteorological data, observed data and vegetation and soil texture information. On the basis of the patterns of regional vegetation water use, the availability of green water are analyzed for different vegetation types. The results are as follows: due to the variation of climate and land cover, the eco-water use of vegetation has had a trend of decreasing-stable-increasing in Sanmenxia area since the 1950s; different vegetation types have different patterns. Forest, shrub, grass and farmland were chosen to compare eco-water amount, indicating forest>corn field>shrub>grass. Among them, the forest has the highest utility of green water, followed by grassland, shrub and farmland. Based on these calculations and analyses, the countermeasures suggested for high-efficiency use of water and land resources are: to adjust vegetation structure and crops structure to realize optimal allocation of water resources.

Residential development is a major driving force in the dynamics of urban land use and ecosystems. The type and rate of land development depend on the complex interaction among the stakeholders and their responses to the environmental consequences after a development decision is made. This paper introduces a framework of a coupled human and natural system and uses a multi-agent model to simulate the complex interactions among land stakeholders with respect to the decision making process for local land development. The human system was built on a multi-agent model, with each class of agents representing different types of landowners, homeowners, municipal government, and commercial developers, respectively. The decision making process of each agent class was modeled using an agent-specific multi-attribute utility function. The complex interactions among different classes of agents as well as among the agents of the same class were simulated with a given time lag in sequence. The natural system was built on a cellular automata platform, where the land cover transition rules were governed by a landscape model (MOSAIC) and a patch model (FACET). The environmental quality indices to be used as feedback to the human system were generated from a hydrological model and a habitat model. In each lifecycle of simulation, human decisions on land development were passed to the natural system, which in turn generated environmental indices to be considered by the concerned agents (such as homeowners and the government) in the land-related decision making in the next cycle. Using a fast-urbanizing region in northern Texas as the study area, the model was run to produce simulations with a 25-year time span. Preliminary results demonstrated the ability of the model in simulating real dynamic situations at the qualitative level. It revealed a cyclic trend of interactions among agents, which was also observed in the real situation, with landowners and homeowners being the most active agent types. In addition, this study tested several land management strategies and revealed that considering landowner values when targeting available open space for preservation may lead to more effective growth management strategies than solely purchasing land based on opportunity or ecological factors. Extensive efforts are also required when applying this modeling framework to different socioeconomic and cultural settings, such as China.

Both rapid urbanization and industry conversion based on the life cycle of resource have great effects on the land use change and pattern of mining cities. So, land use change in mining cities was a special process strongly affected by the human-land relationship. Therefore, based on LANDSAT TM remote sensing images in 1987, 1994, 2000, 2003, 2007, and on maps of urban land use status in 1994 and 2003, database was established on land use of the mining city--Xuzhou urban area. Then features on the process and pattern of land use change were disclosed by using quantitative change models such as dynamic degree, intensity, LUD, LUC and spatial analysis methods including gravity center changes, interpolation analysis, spatial differentiation and fan analysis. Further, the mechanism of land use change was analyzed. Results show that: (1) Farmland keeping reducing and built-up land keeping increasing was the main characteristic of the land use change. Therefore, on one hand, we should meet the need of rapid urban land expansion, on the other hand we should strengthen arable land protection. (2) The spatial distribution of built-up area expansion showed the step character from separated patch increasing, radial infill expansion to allometric expansion and double-center evolution. Further study should be done on the time-space pattern of land use in mining cities. (3) Land use change resulted from several factors. Natural conditions will take effect a long time. Mineral resources were always playing an important role in the shape and the evolution of land use. Economic factors, such as industrialization, urbanization and adjustment of industrial structure, were the leading force of the land use structure evolution. Under this background, city spatial planning, especially the rational planning of the industrial zones, economic development zones and the new city zones were the important force of built-up expansion evolution. Transportation, especially rapid transit network was a strong traction force of land use changes. (4) Land use pattern was affected by the distribution of the mineral resources and spatial pattern evolution of mining city land was affected by the life cycle of mineral resources. Mineral resources together with natural conditions and economic factors always had great effects on mining city land use. As mineral resources exhausted, adjustment of land use structure should be speeded up in mining cities. (5) Methods need to be improved for further study on the characteristics and the mechanisms of mining cities.

In the hilly-mountainous area in central China, agricultural land intensity is decreasing due to seasonal or all-year abandonment. This causes marginalization of agricultural land despite farmer-benefiting policies. By theoretical and empirical analysis, some reasons are found out as follows: 1. During the industrialization and urbanization process, farmers benefit more from urban employment than staying in farming. 2. The agricultural ecological environment of hilly-mountainous area is so bad that the farmland's marginal revenue decreases; 3. The farmer-benefiting policies are not the intended incentives in the hilly-mountainous area; ecological policies does not accord with agricultural policy, which aggravates local marginalization of agricultural land. Marginalization of agricultural land is rational behavior by farmers, but the process is significant to national food security and ecological construction. Marginalization of agricultural land in the hilly-mountainous area is driven by the multiple factors. In order to solve the phenomenon we must commence from the nature, economy, policy and so on to improve the agricultural environment, innovate agricultural organization system and technology, transform traditional farming, develop modern highly-effective characteristic agriculture, and increase marginal revenue of the farmland. In the meantime, national agricultural incentive policy should accord with ecological protection policy. The governments should adopt different subsidy methods in different areas, that is to say, they should adopt more special subsidy policies in the hilly-mountainous area under fragile ecology conditions.

Decomposition of litter plays an important role in carbon turnover and nutrients cycling in wetland ecosystem. Tide is the key feature for the estuarine tidal wetland. The wetlands of the Minjiang River estuary region are one of the major estuarine tidal wetlands in the southeast of China, and the Shanyutan is the largest wetland in the Minjiang River estuary region. Litter decomposition, nutrient dynamics and influencing factors of two native species (Phragmites australis and Cyperus malaccensis) and one exotic invasive species (Phragmites australis) were studied using mesh bag method in two sites under different tidal water submergence conditions. One site was near the tide ditch, and the other is far from the tide ditch in central Shanyutan wetland. The results indicated that: (1) Frequent tidal water submergence had no significant effects on the litter decomposition rates of three plants. (2) Frequent tidal water submergence accelerated the N and P loss of Cyperus malaccensis and Spartina alterniflora, however, it had little effect on Phragmites australis. (3) The order of litter decomposition rate was Cyperus malaccensis＞Spartina alterniflora＞Phragmites australis, with rates of 0.003166-0.005280 d 1, and the time of 95% dry mass of litter loss ranged from 1.56 to 2.61a. (4) C concentrations had only a little change, and the major pathway of C release was mineralization during the 280 days; there was an upward trend in N concentrations, at the end of the experiment, N content had a net loss and the major pathway of loss was mineralization; there was an obvious fluctuating downward trend in P concentrations at the end of the experiment, P content had also a net loss and leaching losses were responsible for much of P loss. (5) Litter quality was a main factor influencing the litter decomposition rates of the three plants. Litter decomposition rate of Cyperus malaccensis with the lowest C/P was the greatest.

Two concepts of ecological footprint component index (EFCI) and bicapacity component index (BCCI) are proposed based on ecological footprint (EF) and entropy methods in this paper. EFCI and BCCI in China 1949-2006 are calculated, and predicted with autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model. The results show that: 1) Over the last 57 years, EFCI in China has constantly increased with fluctuation, being 0.0081 in 1949 and 0.0285 in 2006, respectively. BCCI has slowly decreased with fluctuation, but increased in some years. For example, BCCI is 0.0264 in 1949, 0.0147 in 1983, 0.0169 in 1984, and 0.0132 in 2006, respectively. 2) Many tests (including ADF and PP unit root test of residues, fitting forecast and real series) show that ARIMA (2, 1, 1) model of EFCI, ARIMA (1, 1, 1) model of BCCI are their optimum prediction models, respectively. The forecasts calculated from 2007 to 2010 indicate that EFCI will increase to 0.0293 in 2007 and then fall to 0.0280 in 2010, while BCCI will decrease to 0.0129 in 2010. The relationship between EFCI and each of the selected ten influencing factors with prominent correlative coefficients is analyzed. A model between EFCI and the ten factors is constructed based on partial least-squares regression (PLSR) method in order to explore their sequence of correlation influence. The results show that the positive correlation sequence is urban population, primary industry output value, total population, total value of imports and exports, and tertiary industry output value. The negative correlation sequence is government consumption expenditure, rural population, resident consumption expenditure, per capita GDP, and secondary industry output value. The modeling of the abundance indices is a useful tool for a better understanding of the dynamics of EF component, and enables short-term quantitative recommendations of ecosystem management. The effective approaches which could boost up sustainable development in China may be adjusting population structure, boosting primary industry and international trade development, holding down resident consumption and government consumption expenditures, and moderate growth of GDP including secondary industry.

It is valuable for the harmony between human society and ecosystem to analyze the responses to eco-immigration and their reasons from the viewpoint of herd family according to herd family interviewed data, RS images, physical geographical and socioeconomic data. In this research, we selected Maduo County in the source region of the Yellow River as a case study. Based on rangeland degradation data for the period 1977-2004, meteorological data in the past 28 years, grazing pressure index data between 1988-2004, interviewed data of 144 herd families in two recent years, we obtain the following results: (1) The rangeland degraded extensively over the 28 years, the percentage of degraded area in all rangeland was over 43% and degradation of pasture was more serious in cold season than in warm one. The degradation ratio showed an increasing trend. (2) The degradation was caused by the integration of a dry-warm trend of climate change and rangeland overgrazing. (3) The immigrant families are mainly composed of the aged, or families without livestock, with 48.5% and 68.3% of the immigrant ones respectively, due to the profit difference between the eco-immigration and socioeconomic situations of herd families. The herd families with middle and young ages and more livestock are unwilling to move out of this region. Furthermore, the percentage of immigrant households that share one rangeland certificate with parents or brothers in the immigrant family is 54.5%. Therefore, it is hard to decrease overgrazing through eco-immigration in terms of the eco-immigrants' family structure.

Resource-based cities are of great concern in China. Little literature has been published on the understanding of their functions. This paper attempts to define five functional categories of these cities, most of which are dependent on mining to varying degrees. City function features are composed of four elements, i.e. , to superior function, specialised sectors of the city, functional intensity and functional scale. The first element is defined as a ratio of the number of mining employees to that of industrial employees. The other three are defined after Zhou Yixing and Sun Zexing (1997). The category of samples are modified after Liu Yungang (2006). Five functional types of cities are identified, i.e., super specialized mining cities, multiplex mining cities, super specialized industrial cities, multiplex industrial cities and trade cities. These represent progressive functional diversification of the resource-based city. Although cities have shown a trend towards diversification, most remain within their original categories, and functional transition appears to be a long-term process.

Urban is the engine of economic growth. With the rapid development of urbanization process across the world, the dynamics of city-size distribution has been a hot topic. The heat debates centering on the optimal city size have exerted impacts on the urbanization courses in China. From several different perspectives, this paper investigates the spatio-temporal dynamics of city-size distribution in the Yangtze River Delta during the period 1984-2002. Empirical results show that the evolution of urban system in the Yangtze River Delta has undergone primate, rank-size and primate distribution patterns. The primacy of Shanghai was the lowest in 2002, but the whole pattern of urban system in the Yangtze River Delta shifted to primate distribution pattern again, which to a large extent reflects the corresponding adjustments of urbanization guidelines in China in the 21^st century. In term of the relationship between city size and city growth, the whole urban system takes the form of convergent growth, which means the initial smaller cities grow faster than larger cities. However, the difference in city growth is not significant. From the long-term tendency, the number of cities over two times of the average size will greatly decrease to about 6%, and middle-sized cities will dominate the urban systems in the future. Generally speaking, it will take about 16 years for a non-city area to develop into a city with half of the average size. On the whole, the change of city-size distribution in the Yangtze River Delta is becoming much even, but the tendency of spatial polarization and concentration is not the case. The spatial agglomeration in southern Jiangsu and Hangzhou Bay rim continues to be strengthened with the deepening of the policy opening to the outside world, which contrasts with the relative quiescence in northern Jiangsu and southern Zhejiang.

Urban development has its own spatial and temporal process. It is important to study urban spatial expansion for properly realizing the urbanization process and optimizing the urban distribution as well as increasing economic competitiveness and land use efficiency. Many decision makers and scholars have paid more and more attention to the phenomenon of urban expansion in Western countries since the 1950s and in China since the 1980s. This article aims at the mutual effect of urban expansion and economic competitiveness. Firstly, the article analyzes the inherent correlation between urban expansion and economic competitiveness by agglomeration economy and efficiency of urban land use as well as urban sprawl on the basis of urban geographical theory and new economic geography theory. Secondly, by designing seven indicators, the comprehensive urban expansion index is calculated by drawing lessons from Western countries and the regional disparity of urban expansion in Shandong Province is examined. Thirdly, economic competitiveness and its spatial difference are evaluated by using the statistical data. Fourthly, the inherent correlation between urban expansion and economic competitiveness in Shandong Province are studied by applying method of correlation analysis. Fifthly, some conclusions are drawn: (1) the more developed city has the more compact urban structure and higher population and employment density; the less derdeveloped city has lower population and employment density as well as more unreasonable land use structure. (2) The city needs to expand rapidly when its population and land size are small and the degree of its expansion will have effect on the more economic product and runs more effectively when it reaches the higher urbanization level. This is respectively embodied in the prefecture-level cities and county-level cities in Shandong Province. Finally, some ways to realize urban smart growth in Shandong Province are proposed, which include taking the step of the compact urban development and distribution in varied level cities, optimizing and upgrading of the industrial structure, strengthening industrial cluster in the sprawl of county-level cities and as well as reinforcement of megalopolis construction.

Post and telecommunications have a significant effect on both economic and social development. This paper analyzes its spatial disparities in Guangdong Province based on the data of business and infrastructure of post and telecommunications in every city of Guangdong. It explores the changing trend of business volume from 1980 to 2006 using the Geordie coefficient, and then chooses 1985, 1995 and 2005 as typical years to analyze the spatial patterns of post and telecommunications development level by factor analysis and cluster analysis in SPSS software. The results are expressed in Arc View GIS. Finally, an index P is constructed to show the rate of development of the cities in Guangdong Province. The conclusions are drawn as follows. Firstly, spatial disparities of business volume of post and telecommunications have increased with a core in the Pearl River Delta. There was a single center in Guangzhou in the 1980s, to which Shenzhen was added in the early 1990s. During the mid-1990s, two sub-centers of Foshan and Dongguan emerged. Thus the pattern became multi-polar. Secondly, increasing development was also imbalanced and went through the transition from "equity-inequity-equity" with the Geordie coefficient ranging from 1.574 in 1985, 1.870 in 1990 and down to 1.115 in 2005. At the same time, the core area was sprawling. Similarly, post and telecommunications developed faster in the cities of the Pearl River Delta than in the surrounding area. There were many cities that were developing faster than the average rate of the Pearl River Delta for the province. Furthermore, by multi-regression analysis, the main factors affecting post and telecommunications development in Guangdong Province are foreign investment, tertiary industry development and urbanization as well as policy making. However, population density, transportation infrastructure and fixed assets investment do not exert significant effects on the post and telecommunications development.

As a rising metropolitan region, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Metropolitan Region has an extremely important strategic position in the regional development pattern of China. During the past several decades, the spatial structure of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Metropolitan Region has greatly changed. The research on that can not only help reveal the spatial characteristics of the regional economy, and the trends of their evolution, and determine the regional development stage, but also bear important implications for regional planning. Agglomeration and dispersion of population are the fundamental reasons for the evolution of regional spatial structure. People are the main micro-economic actors, so the authors choose the evolution of the spatial distribution of population as the research focus. This paper analyzes the population growth of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Metropolitan Region from 1990 to 2000. By using three classes of variables, this paper studies the influencing factors on the population growth of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Metropolitan Region and its disparity. Three main conclusions are as follows: (1) The population grows faster in the southern part of the region than in the northern part. The distribution of population densities shows that the agglomeration of population in the region has become more evident. (2) The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Metropolitan region has a polycentric spatial structure. There exist two high-density corridors within the region in 1990 (the Beijing-Tianjin corridor, and the Beijing-Baoding-Shijiazhuang corridor), and three (with the Beijing-Tangshan corridor as the newly added one) in 2000. (3) The econometric analysis indicates that the natural conditions and the economic factors have significant impacts on the population growth. The lower elevation values, the faster growth rates of per capita GDP, the faster development of the tertiary industry and the larger market potentials can lead to the faster population growth. The model also shows that although both the natural conditions and the economic factors have important impacts on the population growth, the influences of the latter are much greater.

This paper analyzes market potential as an indicator of market accessibility and its effects on regional development in Northeast China, based on district-level data. The results indicate that market potential index (MPI) degrades from the southern part to the northern in Northeast China. The market potential index has a significant leap between the Liaodong Peninsula and other parts of the region. Such a geographic distribution of market potential affected the spatial concentration of manufacturing sectors. Then it contributes to the intra-regional disparity of the economic development in Northeast China. A significant spatial correlation between market potential index and intra-regional economic performance has been observed. Such a spatial correlation verified that market accessibility is one of the determinants which affects intra-regional economic development. Contribution share of market potential from exportation and out-northeast areas occupy a large portion of the total market potential index. This result indicates that Northeast China can benefit from its market accessibility. However, now production growth of most industries in Northeast China is induced by local consumption. Such an inconsistency makes it clear that the future development of Northeast should enhance economic cooperation with out-northeast areas and reinforce industrial competitiveness based on its market accessibility. As recently the economic centers have limited effects on leading regional development, it is important to enhance market attraction power of the economic centers in order to promote the economic development of Northeast China.

Along with the rapid development of socioeconomy and the great improvement of people's standard of living, to provide high quality public service and build a harmonious society is a primary task of the government. Fair space is the key principle of public service. It involves spacial accessibility and spacial attainability, and the former is the foundation and precondition. In this paper, based on the public product layout decision support system, we take an example of the hospitals in Yizheng city, analyze the spacial effect of different distribution of them from the aspect of accessibility, and provide powerful support for optimizing the supply of public product. And moreover, it gives a good sample of quantitative analysis on the public product layout. Through the case study of Yizheng city, we think there are two basic indices to measure the fair space of public product. The first is quantity index. For Yizheng city, we choose the accessibility of half an hour as quantitative target to optimize the public product layout. The second is quality index. We choose accessibility's distributing frequency and cumulative frequency of five minutes' interval as quality standard. In other words, for the same accessibility of half an hour but different distribution, it means different fair space. Therefore, it is a further study on the conception and methodology of fair space.

R&D investment motives and location selection by Japan and Korea in China have a strong correlation with their direct investment in China. Early Japanese R&D investment motives were production-based. They have subsequently moved on to resource-seeking, strategy-driven and techniques for market motives and so on. By comparison, Korean firms are mainly motivated by market-orientation and policy making. Japanese firms prefer R&D cooperation with universities, while Korean firms are more inclined towards joint R&D with local firms in China. Spatially, the R&D institutions of Japan and Korea in China are concentrated in the Yangtze River Delta and the Bohai Sea rim with the core cities of Shanghai and Beijing, respectively. Korean R&D investment is still in its infancy, located at particular points, whereas Japanese R&D investment is large scale and widely distributed among major large and medium-sized cities of China. In addition, different from the trend of direct investment in manufacturing, neither Japan nor Korea R&D investment shows an R&D investment trend towards central-western China.

The past two decades has witnessed the considerable strides made in the study of China's tourism carrying capacity. Based on the literature review on the study of China's tourism carrying capacity, this article was designed to make a reflection on its trend and problem: (1) The planning practice in China's tourism carrying capacity needs to be perfect. (2) The method concerning administrative management needs to be improved; in the domestic tourism market tourism carrying capacity is merely treated as a variable used to limit the number of the tourists. Seemingly feasible, this practice actually poses some potential problems, such as ignorance of the dynamic feature of tourism carrying capacity and of tourists' mobility and the drop in tourists' traveling interest. (3) Three misunderstandings occur in the study of tourism carrying capacity in China's academic field. The first misunderstanding is that tourism carrying capacity is always regarded as definite; the second one is that tourism carrying capacity is regarded as a fixed value; and the third misunderstanding is that the study of the number of tourists receives unnecessary emphasis. On the basis of the above discussion, the findings we obtained show that compared with the boom in China's tourism industry the backwardness in the study of China's tourism carrying capacity has exerted negative influence on the maintainable development in tourism destination. In such a context a systematic study of China's tourism carrying capacity is in emergent need. For this purpose the common understandings are to be reached in terms of the study of China's tourism carrying capacity: ① A relationship of carrier and carried, container and contained is to be symbolized in the study of China's tourism carrying capacity. ② The relevant factors concerning the study of China's tourism carrying capacity are in harmony with each other. ③ There is much flexibility in the study of China's tourism carrying capacity. ④ A limiting category can be changed into a regulatory category in the study of China's tourism carrying capacity. ⑤ Systemic indexes need to be established in terms of regulatory management of China's tourism carrying capacity.

The study of the spatial structure of city tourism is receiving increasing attention but methodology so far has used qualitative rather than quantitative methods. This paper applies an accessibility and analysis information system based on calculations of optimal road routes and times to scenic spots in Nanjing. This enabled the construction of time contour, diffusion and service range maps and diagrams. The study found that over 80% of the region had access to Nanjing's scenic spots in less than 40 minutes. However, downtown scenic spots were found to be much more accessible than those on the periphery of the city. At county level, accessibility to the city's downtown scenic spots shows a concentric pattern. Due to the disparities in intra-regional accessibility, the paper suggests the development of scenic spots in a recreational belt around the city to optimize their spatial distribution, particularly in Liuhe, Pukou, and Jiangning districts.

According to the structure of environmental consciousness, we formulate a questionnaire on tourists' environmental consciousness in this study. The main quota systems in the questionnaire include four aspects: intellectual level of tourism environment, attitude towards tourism environment, evaluation on tourism environment and behavior of tourism environment. In view of weighting and bestowing score, we also construct evaluation model of each part in quota systems and overall evaluation model on environmental consciousness to calculate comprehensive score of tourists' level of environmental consciousness. Taking Hohhot region, Baotou region and Erdos area as case studies, we make an investigation on tourists' level of environmental consciousness. And we learn that the pattern of tourists' environmental consciousness is the one restricted by attitude towards environment through counting up and analyzing 480 questionnaires. The study indicates: (1) knowledge about environment is not the key problem which restricts tourists' level of environmental consciousness. Besides, evaluation on environment is not a dominant factor. But attitude towards environment is most important factor and resolves inclination of tourists' environmental behavior. Therefore changing consumers' attitude and training the tourists who are responsible for ecological environment is most critical to change tourists' environmental consciousness. (2) Tourists only know some basic and plain knowledge and viewpoint on environment. But they understand little complicated and abstract knowledge on environment. Especially, it is insufficient that the accuracy of tourists grasping knowledge on environment and degree of gradation increased progressively. (3) In the course of tour, tourists can hardly protect eco-environment conscientiously. And they could not supervise other tourists to maintain the eco-environment. Most tourists mainly think of how to minimize economic cost in the course of tour. They are not ready to serve for environmental protection of prairie tourism. So we can learn that if we can not carry out the guidance towards environmental consciousness properly and the appropriate management to tourist, it is unavoidable that assault on eco-environment. Consequently, we must strengthen that the staff of tour enterprises, including tourist guides, lead to positive consciousness of environmental protection for tourists.

Based on the MA conceptual framework and characteristics of grassland ecosystem in the Three-River Headwaters region, we proposed an integrated assessment index system of grassland ecosystem of the region. In this system, there are 4 indicator groups, of which, 15 indicators at the first level, and 75 indicators at the second level, which are used for assessing grassland ecosystem structure, supporting, regulating and provisioning services. The integrated assessment index system of grassland ecosystem is aimed at characteristics of grassland ecosystem in the Three-River Headwaters region in the eastern Tibetan Plateau and the human demands for this region. This system includes a set of indicators of land cover and grassland degradation for assessing the grassland ecosystem structure, and a set of indicators, for example, primary production and soil formation, etc. , for assessing the ecosystem supporting service, and a set of indicators, for example, carbon, evaporation and transpiration, run-off, etc. , for assessing the ecosystem regulating service, and a set of indicators, such as, water and grassland carrying capacity, etc. , for assessing the ecosystem provisioning service. In this system, we designed remote sensing classification system on grassland degradation in order to make a dynamic analysis on the process of grassland ecosystem degradation in the decade time scale, and remote sensing classification system on grassland degradation trend for assessing ecological effect of the recent ecological restoration project in the year time scale.

The city is the typical artificial landscape system with the characteristics of high fragmentation and low connectivity. Based on the connectivity theory of landscape ecological network, this article discusses the influence, connotation and the characteristics of landscape ecological connectivity and the connection to eco-city construction of China, analyses the typical graphical model of urban landscape ecological network, choosing γ=L/3(V-2),α=L-V+1/2V-5,β=2L/V (in the formula of γ, α and β, L is the number of factual line between knots, V is the number of knots), density of corridor d=L/A and indicator C= L/ξ nA (in formula of indicator d and C, L is the total length of corridor (km), A is area (km²), n is the number of knots, ξ is coefficient) as evaluation indicators and system and tries to evaluate the connectivity of Shanghai urban landscape ecological network in the road network, the green space network, the river system network and the road-river-green space compound network. The characteristics of river network are γ=0.65, α=0.45, β=3.85 and C =1.93. The characteristics of road network are γ=0.7,α=0.54,β=4.16 and C =2.08. The characteristics of green space network are γ=0.49,α=0.34,β=2.88 and C =1.44. The characteristics of road-river-green space compound network are γ=0.44,α=0.16,β=2.63 and C=4.13. Calculation analysis aims at providing a foundation for eco-city development construction and the urban landscape ecological network planning. Results show that, with different connectivity characters individually for each network, all the networks have higher connectivity, but the connectivity degrades sharply to the path-river-green space compound network. The indicators γ,α and β of road network degrade by 37%, 70% and 35% individually, and the indicatorsγ,α and β of river network degrade by 32%, 64% and 138% individually. All this shows fragmentation, isolation and low connection of Shanghai urban landscape eco-network. Finally, the paper gives some suggestions to dealing with the problems of promoting the circle connectivity, increasing the number and scale of network knots, and constructing the eco-bridge between three networks at each knot in order to promote connectivity of the total eco-network.

This paper aims at exploring the urban ecological security level and assessment methods, and providing the scientific basis for the policy of the assessment and management on the urban ecological security. Shenzhen and four municipalities are taken as case studies to contrive an evaluating index system of urban ecological security depending on the Pressure-Status-Response (PSR) model. Firstly, the authors use four kinds of assessment models to simulate urban ecological security levels for those cities in 2006. A comparison is made between these models, based on the optimal method in combination of the subjective preference (Analytic Hierarchy Process) and the objective information (the modified Entropy), so as to identify the weights of all assessment indexes comprehensively. Then the ecological systems of Shenzhen and four municipalities are evaluated by applying the modified Grey Relational Analysis, the Matter-Element extension, the Fuzzy Comprehensive method and Main Constituents Projection method. The results are shown as follows: (1) Shenzhen's ecological security level is the highest, followed by Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai, and Chongqing. Shenzhen, Beijing and Tianjin are labeled as relative safety at ecological security level, Shanghai is critically secure, and Chongqing is unsafe; Shanghai possesses the most developmental potentiality, while less in Shenzhen, Beijing and Tianjin, and still the lowest in Chongqing. From the conclusions above, the differences can be found in terms of ecological environmental pressures, the states of ecological systems and the responses of human beings for different cities. (2) In the studying method of urban ecological security evaluation, every model can obtain a similar result and can reflect the applicability on ecological security assessment. The results of Fuzzy Comprehensive method and Matter-Element Extension method are more comprehensive, and more differentiations can be revealed in Fuzzy Comprehensive method which can analyze the problems and offer the targeted measures than in the Matter-Element Extension. The conclusion of level judgment drawn by the Grey Associative Analysis is not possessed of comparability and cannot reflect the gaps among the cities. The Main Constituents Projection method cannot directly demonstrate the ecological security levels, although it can simplify the data structure, reduce the information loss of the original data and avoid the subjective arbitrariness as well as only showing the high or low level of ecological security. Thus there are some limitations in this method on ecological security assessment.

In the past 20 years, the Environmental Kuznets Curve has been regarded as one of the most powerful tools in studying the relationship between economic growth and environmental pollution. Among the conventional study in Environmental Kuznets Curve, most researchers implicitly assume that regional pollution is not affected by the neighboring regions. So, from analytical viewpoint and empirical behavior, the traditional methods used to examine the Environmental Kuznets Curve are suspected for neglecting spatial dependence among different regions. Consequently, the environmental policies based on the conclusions are hard to be convinced. With a view to the above shortcoming in describing the Environmental Kuznets Curve with the traditional methods, this paper investigates the relationship between environmental pollution and economic growth in China using panel data models which takes the spatial dependence into account. In this study, we select five types of pollution including waste water emission, waste gas emission, sulfur dioxide mission, dust emission and smoke dust emission as the environmental indexes and per capita GDP as the income index with 28 provincial data from 1993 to 2005. The results show that: (1) Pollution has spatial dependence in China and spatial panel data model is more suitable for studying the Environmental Kuznets Curve; (2) Considering spatial effect, the estimate result seems to be more robust than OLS estimate. Because the emissions of pollution are not only effected by the per capita income in the same region, but also largely impacted by the emissions from neighboring regions. (3) Resident environment quality-income is relatively low and does not take up a greater proportion in consumption demand.

This study aims to disclose dynamic relationship among socio-economic development, land use and eco-environment efficiency by proposing a response model of eco-environment to urban expansion. Firstly, we quantitatively describe the changes of land use from urban expansion by using the technology of remote sensing image interpretation. Secondly, dynamic relationship between eco-environment efficiency and socio-economic development is simulated through proposed model which is constructed based on theories of the maximum social welfare and Green GDP (GGDP). The proposed model is applied to Xi'an, China. Our model proves to be efficienct in simulating the dynamic relationship among land use, economic growth and eco-environmental efficiency through the analysis of urban expansion process in Xi'an. Results show that urban expansion will make the social welfare better only if marginal eco-environment cost caused by the urban expansion is less than the average land use; the improved technology and technological innovation can reduce eco-environment cost and increase land use efficiency, thus postpone the terminal of urban expansion. The simulated result shows that the urban expansion of urbanization process in Xi'an should be suspended in 2024 under the current situation.

The famous fossil site of Hulu cave in Tangshan, Nanjing, is yielding Homo erectus fossils. Relative to the whole study of Homo erectus in Hulu cave, it is the weak link to study the cave deposit and its evolution. Combining with the achievements in chronology research, this paper analyzes the records of the oxide of cave clastic deposit and the fossils of phytolith from four sections with statistical methods, and clarifies the facts of the stratum contrastive relativation of each section. Besides, with the ground penetrating radar (GPR) method, the spatial structure and characteristic of the deposits of the eastern cave have been renewed, and on the basis of the characteristics of the cave clastic sediments, the constructive framework of the cave sections and cave embedding clastic sediments has been set up. The cave sediments in Tangshan, Nanjing have been identified into 7 layers from the bottom to the top as follows: (1) the lower breccia layer in the bottom of the cave, (2) the earth layer containing the breccia deposit, (3) the mid breccia layer, (4) the clastic earth layer, (5) the upper breccia layer, (6) the clastic clay layer, and (7) the pyramidal clastic breccia layer. Among them, the strata where the No.1 skull of Nanjing Man existed could be re-correlated with Layer ③. As the result of the evolution of paleo-climate and environment, the change of dynamic system of cave inside and the effect of local adjustment of erosion datum plane, the development of Hulu cave sediments can be divided into five stages as follows: (1) the erosion deposit stage of the northern cave, (2) the erosion deposit stage of the eastern cave, (3) the erosion deposit stage of the southern fissure cave, (4) the pyramidal deposit stage of the central cave, and (5) the erosion deposit stage of the western cave. The cave evolution could change with the space-time, and it is not so fit for living, thus it reflects that Hulu cave is not a good place for the ancient people. Based on the above researches, the paper provides the new visual angle and methods to discuss and analyze the evolution of karst cave, living age and environment of Homo erectus in Nanjing and further archeology.

Severe soil erosion has threatened land resources in Northeast China. Distributed at mid- and high latitudes, soil loss caused by snowmelt runoff plays a main part in soil erosion in this region. But there is little research on it. In this study, the characteristics of snowfall and snow cover were studied by using daily precipitation records from 93 climate stations, and the characteristics of snowmelt runoff and sediment yields were analyzed based on daily runoff and sediment yield data from 27 typical hydrological stations. The results showed that the snow period was 5-8 months and the snow cover period was 3.5-7 months in Northeast China, which prolonged gradually from south to north for both of the periods. The average proportion of snowfall to annual precipitation was 7%-25%, which caused 13.3%-24.9% of snowmelt runoff and 5.8%-27.7% of snowmelt sediment yields over the whole year. Although the snowmelt sediment transport modulus did not have significant relationship with snowfall, the distribution of snowfall and rainfall in a year had great influence on the ratio of snowmelt sediment yields to the year's total. The topography has great impacts on snowmelt sediment transport modulus. The snowfall and snowmelt runoff are less in hilly regions than in mountainous regions, but the sediment transport modulus in hilly regions was 2.9 times higher than that in mountainous regions. The sediment transport modulus (ST) has a good power function with the watershed area (S): ST=797.62S-0.6395. This trend is more apparent in hilly regions, while in the mountainous regions, the relationship between them is complex. The analyzed runoff and sediment yields in this paper were based on the observations in the hydrological stations which did not include deposited part before flowing into the river. It is necessary to strengthen the monitoring of runoff and soil loss during snowmelt season in order to get a better understanding of snowmelt erosion and mechanisms of causing factors.

The hydraulic geometry is an effective tool in quantifying the relationship between channel morphology and hydraulic variables. The research on hydraulic geometry plays an important role in understanding the channel change caused by natural environment change and it can provide some insightful advice in river restoration and channel design. The study area is located in the Wuding River Basin. Using the data measured during the period 1959-1969, the hydraulic geometry relationships are analyzed for 34 cross-sections. The results show that the hydraulic geometry exponents can generally be categorized into three types: b>f & m>f & b+ f>m; bf & b+ f>m; bm. There are similar spatial scale effects for both mean width and mean width to depth ratio exponents, and an inverse relationship exists in mean depth relationship. There is no obvious correlation between mean velocity and drainage area. The differences of the hydraulic geometry exponents can be ascribed to different stream orders and channel functions. The streams of lower order originate from eroded areas, where erosion is the dominant process and thus, the channels are relatively shallow. The streams of higher orders are adjusted to transport imposed sediment, so the channels are narrower and deeper. In addition, the hydraulic geometry of some stream channels does not agree with the power function. The natural logarithm relations or quadratic relations may be good alternatives. This probably implies that the channel scour and fill lead to the instability of channel morphology.

In recent 100 years, global warming is increasing remarkably, and there are even greater uncertainty, changing precipitation trend and regional differences. In this study, a wavelet analysis method of Morlet is used to research the periodical regulations at different time scales of the precipitation time series during the latest nearly 100 years in Northeast China. Based on the monthly and annual precipitation data of Harbin, Shenyang, Changchun and Dalian weather stations covering the period from 1905 to 2005, the periodic oscillation of precipitation and the points of abrupt change at different time scales along the time series are discovered and the main periods of every serial are confirmed. The result shows that the precipitation of Northeast China has a decreasing trend, with rates of -5.2mm/10a, and -12.7mm/10a, -7.1mm/10a, -2.7mm/10a, 1.3mm/10a for Northeast China, Changchun, Harbin, Dalian and Shenyang respectively. There are multi-time scales of periodical change, which present appears different traits at different phases. There are periodic oscillations of 2a-3a, 5a-6a, 10a and 50a for the seasonal and annual precipitation variations. The local characteristics of time-frequency for wavelet analysis can demonstrate the detailed structures of precipitation. The wavelet analysis can be an alternative approach to the analysis of climate multi-time scales characteristics and the forecast of short-term climate variations.

This paper studied the responses of the environment to the climatic changes by using the temperature and precipitation data at Gonghe station covering the period from 1953 to 2005. The results show that: (1) The annual average temperatures in the area showed a marked increasing trend, with a rate of about 0.28℃ per 10 years, higher than the mean values for China and the whole world. The seasonal temperatures and precipitation showed different increasing trends. The temperatures rose more significantly in autumn (from September to November) and winter (from December to next February), while spring (from March to May) and summer (from June to August) witnessed a slower temperature increase. The annual precipitation showed a slight increasing trend. In summer and autumn, the precipitation showed a tendency to decrease year by year, and more marked decrease was recorded in autumn. However, in spring and winter the precipitation shows a tendency to increase year by year. (2) The warmer and drier climate is the key factor leading to the environmental problems such as desertification, grassland degradation, frequent disasters and decreasing runoff, which have had great effects on the socio-economic development and environment in this area. (3) The Gonghe basin is one of the sensitive and vulnerable areas to the climate change on the Tibetan Plateau and even in the world.

Wetlands exist in a transition zone between aquatic and terrestrial environments which can be altered by subtle changes in hydrology. Hydrological process determines the formation, development and succession of wetlands. Taking the Dongting Lake as a study area, this paper studies the hydrological recharge effect of the atmosphere precipitation. According to the meteorological data, remote sensing image and typical underlay feature data, the recharge effectivity of the rainfall on the Dongting Lake wetland is analyzed supported by GIS (geographical information system) technology and SCS (Soil Conservation Service) model. Based on the analysis of spatio-temporal feature of rainfall and modeling of the runoff of precipitation, we obtained ARC (area recharge coefficient) and VRC (volume recharge coefficient). Thus, ARC well explains the acreage relationship of watershed and that of the water area in the lake sometime. It presents not only the wetland hydrology feature depending on the recharge water, but also the recharge effect of the runoff coming from rainfall and its influence on the water area. However, it is difficult to illustrate water fluid in wetland resulting from precipitation recharge in a period. Considering the relationship between flux of rainfall-runoff and volume of lake, VRC is calculated to make up for the shortcoming of ARC. According to the model, the recharge effectivity of rainfall can be computed in a certain period. ARC, together with VRC, can better explain runoff coming from rainfall as well as how it affects Dongting Lake's hydrological process and how it recharges water to the wetland, including the water area and water cycle. Thus it is significant to realize the importance of rainfall to the wetland and to protect and manage Dongting Lake wetland.

It is very important to obtain accurate land use changes data in coal mine area for making land use planning and land reclamation policy. The traits of CA (Cellular automata) such as strong complicated computing capability, inherent parallel computing capability, highly dynamic characteristic and spatial concept, etc. , have made it very strong on spatial-temporal evolution modeling of the complex system. CA is applied to simulate and predict land use spatial structural evolution in mine area because of its characteristics. But it is very different for land use changes in coal mine area in terms of urban growth. Coal area growth can be divided into four stages, whose evolution rules are different from other areas. Traditional CA model cannot satisfy this demand because of its static transition rules. In view of different characteristics of land use changes in every stage of coal mine, an improved CA model based on the lifecycle theory for coal mine area is proposed to simulate and predict the changes of land use in mine area. This improved model allows the users to select appreciate transition rules according to stages. To test the efficiency of the model, the Changcun coal mine in Lu'an mine area is chosen as a study area. By collecting remote images and other data, considering the characteristics of the according stages in Wuyang and Shihejie coal mine, the model is used to simulate and predict the land utilization evolution of mature period and declining period in Changcun mine area. It is demonstrated by the actual case that the model is both feasible and effective, thus its predicted results can be taken as accurate and reliable data for the land use plan of mine area.

Forest resource is the largest and most important natural resource in Lao PDR. Based on the forest cover and land use data of Lao PDR in years of 1982, 1992 and 2002, the concept of Lorenz curve and Gini coefficients (GC) are introduced to make an qualitative and quantitative analysis of the forest cover change in Lao PDR. Moreover, its driving forces and main influencing factors are analyzed. The result indicated that the area proportion and the distributed structure of each type of forest land have changed relatively. In terms of the area, Current Forest (CF) and Other Wooded Areas (OW) decreased most remarkedly, by 3% and 5.3% respectively. While Potential Forest (PF) and Permanent Agriculture (PA) increased by 5.4% and 2.1% separately. Comparatively, the area of Other Non-Forest Areas (NF) did not change much. As for the feature of the forest distribution, Current Forest (CF), and Other Wooded Areas (OW) show discrete, while Potential Forest (PF), Permanent Agriculture (PA) and Other Non-Forest Areas (NF) tend to be balanced. Forest cover of Lao PDR has changed due to its history and level of economic and social development, which is the co-driven result of development of society and economy, population increasing and so on. And the main driving forces are the widespread poverty of Lao PDR and the slash-and-burn cultivation, which has a devastating influence on society and environment.

Biomass on the grassland is the main indicator of balance of livestock carrying capacity, and is also an important reference for the sustainable development and management of the grassland. Based on the progress in this field at home and abroad, this paper aims to conduct research on the grassland monitoring under the guidance of the Ministry of Agriculture of China. Supported by high-precision data sources of grassland, we studied the calculation of grass production and balance of livestock carrying capacity in the rangeland region of Northeast China. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) The index model is the most appropriate one for the calculation of grass production. The accuracy of the yield estimation model is more than 80%. (2) In 2007, the output of fresh grass amounts to 169,160 thousand tons, equivalent to 50,940 thousand tons of hay, and fresh weight per unit area is 4562 kg/ha, equaling 1374 kg/ha of dry weight; (3) In 2007, pastoral areas and semi-pastoral areas are generally overgrazed. The balance rate of livestock carrying capacity of the pastoral areas is 32.23%, and that of the semi-pastoral areas is 48.51%. There are three counties stocking deficiently, 11 counties stocking appropriately, 31 countries stocking avergrazed, 11 counties stocking seriously overgrazed, and one county stocking extremely overgrazed. Among the 57 countries, more than 43 countries are stocking overgrazed or even extremely overgrazed, accounting for 75% of the total. This article can provide a basis for the scientific plan of the development of animal husbandry in the rangeland region of Northeast China.