This PDF file contains the front matter associated with SPIE Proceedings Volume 6679, including the Title Page, Copyright information, Table of Contents, Introduction (if any), and the Conference Committee listing.

Vegetation water content is an important biophysical parameter for estimation of soil moisture from microwave radiometers. One of the objectives of the Soil Moisture Experiments in 2004 (SMEX04) and 2005 (SMEX05) were to develop and test algorithms for a vegetation water content data product using shortwave infrared reflectances. SMEX04 studied native vegetation in Arizona, USA, and Sonora, Mexico, while SMEX05 studied corn and soybean in Iowa, USA. The normalized difference infrared index (NDII) is defined as (R₈₅₀ - R₁₆₅₀)/(R₈₀₀ + R₁₆₅₀), where R₈₅₀ is the reflectance in the near infrared and _R1650 is the reflectance in the shortwave infrared. Simulations using the Scattering by Arbitrarily Inclined Leaves (SAIL) model indicated that NDII is sensitive to surface moisture content. From Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper and other imagery, NDII is linear with respect to foliar water content with R² = 0.81. The regression standard error of the y estimate is 0.094 mm, which is equivalent to about a leaf area index of 0.5 m² m^-2. Based on modeling the dynamic water flow through plants, the requirement for detection of water stress is about 0.01 mm, so detection of water stress may not be possible. However, this standard error is accurate for input into the tau-omega model for soil moisture. Therefore, NDII may be a robust backup algorithm for MODIS as a standard data product.

The relationship between solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation reaching the Earth's surface and geographical parameters is helpful in estimating the spatial distribution of UV radiation, which provides useful information to evaluate the potential impacts of enhanced UV levels on human health, agriculture, environment, and ecosystems for sustainable development. Measurements of erythemally weighted UV radiation at the sites of the United States Department of Agriculture UV-B Monitoring and Research Program (UVBMRP) monitoring network were analyzed to investigate the geographical distribution and seasonal variations. Twenty nine observation sites, which had continuous measurements during the recent six years, are selected for this study; twenty seven of them are distributed in the United States, including one in Hawaii and one in Alaska, and two of them are located in Canada along the United States border. The measurements were taken using the Yankee Environmental Systems Inc. (YES) UVB-1 ultraviolet pyranometer. This work focuses the data from the recent six years of 2001-2006 and the measurements during summer months (June-August) are emphasized. For each day, the measurements are integrated from sunrise to sunset to produce the daily UV dosage, which is then averaged for different seasons or for the whole year over the six years to generate the average daily UV dosage. A multivariable regression technique is exploited to characterize the dependence of UV dosages on geographical parameters, including latitude and altitude. The results show that, although there are many factors, such as clouds, ozone, aerosols, air pollutants, and haze, that affect the UV radiation intensity at a location, the latitude and altitude of the site are the primary factors that regulate the average daily UV dosage. On average over the last six years in the United States, more than 95% of the variability in averaged daily UV dosages can be explained by the latitude and altitude. Longitude is not statistically significant in predicting UV irradiance. Nonlinear relationships can be statistically established between averaged daily UV dosage and latitude and altitude. The effects of latitude on UV radiation are much more significant than the altitude. The average daily UV dosages decrease exponentially with the latitude. While an increase of one degree in latitude may lead to a decrease of more than 350 Jm^-2day^-1 in the averaged daily dosage in the low latitudes, the decrease is around 100 Jm^-2day^-1 in the mid latitudes and less than 50 Jm^-2day^-1 in the high latitudes. The averaged daily UV dosage increases with altitude almost linearly until up to 1500 meters. Then it increases gradually and no significant increases can be detected above 2600 meters. Although the regression against latitude and altitude is statistically highly significant, notable deviations from the regression predictions are observed in the lower and mid latitudes and lower altitudes. These discrepancies are most likely due to the intense anthropogenic activities and natural events occurring in this area, including natural fire, industrial production, driving, and farming. These locally dependent activities will generate more UV absorbers into the air.

Nowadays, it is very common to have readily available remotely-sensed spatial information, at different resolutions, thanks to the different satellite sensors that are acquiring multispectral images at both low and high resolutions. Fusion techniques have then arisen as an alternative to integrate this information, which result in new images that contain better spectral and spatial information in terms of contents and resolution. Several fusion techniques based on the Wavelet transformation have been developed, in which the "à trous" algorithm stands out as one of the most important tool that is able to preserve spectral and spatial properties. As an alternative, we have introduced an algorithm based on an undecimated Hermite transform (HT) that preserves these properties, with better image quality. In this paper, fused images are analyzed in the framework of biophysical-variables such as leaf-area- index and sparse-fractional-vegetation-cover, all of them derived from reflectance values in the visible-red and near-infrared bands, from multi-temporal SPOT-5 images [2005-2007]. Multi-temporal analyses are conducted to test the consistency of these variables for different illumination conditions, and vegetation amount, in order to determine indicators of land-cover-change. Results were used to characterize a change vector analysis, by differentiating land transformation from modifications based on the results with fused and original images. Results also showed how the HT algorithm resulted in the smallest modification of the bi-dimensional space of the vegetation and soil isolines after fusion. This method also preserves the information integrity necessitated to obtain similar biophysical variable values. By improving spatial resolution, while preserving spectral characteristics of the resulting images, the HT-based algorithm is able to better characterize land-cover-change.

The enhanced vegetation index (EVI) has been found useful in improving linearity with biophysical vegetation properties and in reducing saturation effects found in densely vegetated surfaces, commonly encountered in the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). However, EVI requires a blue band and is sensitive to variations in blue band reflectance, which limits consistency of EVI across different sensors. The objectives of this study are to develop a 2-band EVI (EVI2) without a blue band that has the best similarity with the 3-band EVI, and to investigate the crosssensor continuity of the EVI2 from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) and Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR). A linearity-adjustment factor (β) was introduced and coupled with the soil adjustment factor (L) used in the soil-adjusted vegetation index (SAVI) in the development of the EVI2 equation. The similarity between EVI and EVI2 was validated at the global scale. After a linear adjustment, the AVHRR EVI2 was found to be comparable with the MODIS EVI2. The good agreement between the AVHRR and MODIS EVI2 suggests the possibility of extending the current MODIS EVI time series to the historical AVHRR data, providing another longterm vegetation record different from the NDVI counterpart.

Current earth observing satellite sensors have different temporal, spectral and spatial characteristics that present problems in the establishment of long term, time series data records. Vegetation indices (VI's) are commonly used in deriving long term measures of vegetation biophysical properties, which have been shown useful in interannual climate studies and phenology studies. While significant improvements have been made with new sensors, and algorithms, and processing methods, backward compatibility of VI's is desired so that the long term record can extend back and utilize the AVHRR record to 1981. Conversely, any reprocessing of the AVHRR record should consider steps to allow forward compatibility with newer sensors and products. In this study we evaluated the use of sensor-specific enhanced vegetation index (EVI) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) data sets, using a time sequence of Hyperion images over Tapajos National Forest in Brazil over the 2001 and 2002 dry seasons. We computed NDVI, EVI, and a 2-band version of EVI (EVI2) for different sensor systems (AVHRR, MODIS, VIIRS, SPOT-VGT, and SeaWiFS) and evaluated their differences and continuity in the characterization of tropical forest phenology. We also analyzed the influence of different atmosphere correction scenarios to assess noise in the phenology signal. Our analyses show that EVI2 maintains the desirable properties of increased sensitivity in high biomass forests across all sensor systems evaluated in this study. We further conclude that EVI2 can be extended to the AVHRR time series record and compliment that current NDVI time series record.

The MODIS operated on both the Terra and Aqua spacecrafts has 36 bands located on four focal plane assembles (FPAs). Although MODIS band-to-band registration (BBR) was carefully characterized pre-launch, mis-registration between spectral bands and FPAs may still exist or occur during its on-orbit operation. Obviously the mis-registration, or the BBR shift, could impact the quality of MODIS science data products that are produced using multiple spectral bands. Because of the mis-registration, measurements over slightly different areas by different spectral bands, when used together, will cause undesired effects, and consequently, lead to less accurate data products. The spectro-radiometric calibration assembly (SRCA), a unique device within the MODIS instrument, is used to track the sensor on-orbit BBR during its entire mission. On-orbit results show that the mis-registration is typically very small for Terra MODIS but is relatively large for Aqua MODIS between the bands on the warm FPAs and that on the cold FPAs. In this paper we present a theoretical sensitivity analysis of the BBR shift characterization and its impact on MODIS data products. A real case is selected to estimate the impact on L1B data and science products using the BBR shift derived from the SRCA. As expected the mis-registration of Aqua MODIS produces small but potentially non-negligible impact on the science products, particularly at the mixed areas with various surface cover types.

We aim at the discrimination of varieties within a single plant species (Vitis vinifera) by means of airborne hyperspectral imagery collected using a CASI-2 sensor and supervised classification, both under constant and varying within-scene illumination conditions. Varying illumination due to atmospheric conditions (such as clouds) and shadows cause different pixels belonging to the same class to present different spectral vectors, increasing the within class variability and hindering classification. This is specially serious in precision applications such as variety discrimination in precision agriculture, which depends on subtle spectral differences. In this study, we use machine learning techniques for supervised classification, and we also analyze the variability within and among plots and within and among sites, in order to address the generalizability of the results.

The solar electromagnetic radiation flux is one of the important factors to evaluate the energy balance of the planet. It is important in the studies on the properties of the atmosphere and its components as AOD, on the energy requirements for anthropogenic activities as agriculture, industry and so on. The ever-increasing interest about the effects on the biosphere as consequence of anthropogenic activities has contributed to develop further studies about the solar radiation and in particular the UV band, 280-320 nm. The consequence has been a growing of instrumental site and radiometric networks. Many decisions affecting on civil society are taken using the data of these nets and consequently it is very important to study the effect of the environmental factors on the instrument output. The classical electromechanical equipments have good sensibility and resolution but their handicap is the time of the measure, generally some minutes. In this time, the sun is moved and the clouds in the sky too. The new generation of spectrometer based on solid state technology avoid the long time measurements. The paper show a new radiograph (fast spectroradiometer) for solar UV band 250-400 nm. It is based on CCD array and optical fiber. The performance are compared with a Brewer spectrophotometer during a comparison campaign close to Rome, Italy.

Since 1980s of the last century, outbreak of Oriental Migratory Locust (Locusta migratoria manilensis Meyen) has rampantly emerged again in some regions of China. It is extremely important to monitor efficiently the locust damage to vegetation in order to control this kind of insect pest. In this paper, taking Huanghua County of Hebei province, China as the study area and based on the in situ hyper-spectral data, the differences in canopy reflectance spectra and the characteristic parameters of hyper-spectra were analyzed and compared for the reeds at normal growing and for those under encroaching from locusts. In addition, five models were developed to simulate the relations between the characteristic parameters of hyper-spectra and Leaf Area Index (LAI) of reeds. The result showed that among those indices the locust damage spectra index (LDSI) is mostly applicable to reflect the intensity of locust damage in the study area. Finally, a scheme for the intensity distinction of locust damage to reeds was suggested based on LDSI data, i.e., no damage if LDSI is over 62.856, slightly damage if LDSI is between 41.254 and 59.496, and seriously damage if LDSI is less than 41.254.

A social-economic database based on the Governmental Statistical Annals, county-to-county investigation, literature verification, as well as the satellite identification was completed recently by the Remote Sensing and GIS Research Center, Beijing Normal University of China. The GIS Operational System handing this database not only provides details of the social, ecological, and economic information of the Northern China's 13 provinces since earlier 1950s, but also gives out predictions of these information by 2050 with different sceneries concerning the population increase, land use variation, governmental policy adjusting, administrating capability, science and technology development, National GDP increment, as well as world climate change. Aims at further regional climate simulation study, there is a special module nested in the GIS Operational System that interprets the county-level administrative data-units to a 60 × 60 km numerical mesh-grid suitable for climate model. By incorporating the land use dynamics provided by the above database, the new generation of the Regional Integrate Environment Modeling System (RIEMS2.0) was used for climate simulation study. The preliminary simulation studies show that: (1) the regional climate will be affected by the LULC variation because the equilibrium of water and heat transfer in the air-vegetation interface is changed; (2) the integrate impact of the LULC variation on climate (such as temperature, humidity and net long-wave radiation, precipitation) is not only limited to the Northern China where LULC varies, but also to the whole numerical domain where the LULC does not vary at all; (3) the ecological construction engineering implemented in Northern China including the Green-Great Wall construction engineering, the replace farming with forestry and grass movement, and the natural forest conservation etc has shown and will work positively on the eco-environment improvement, particularly shown as the increased precipitation in Northern China.

A time series of SPOT-VEGETATION Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data with 1×1 km² spatial resolution are used to detect the vegetation cover change in west Songnen plain, Northeast China during the period of 1998 to 2006. The MVC (Maximum Value Composites) method and difference value method were used to analyze the inter-annual changes. Principal component analysis (PCA) of the time-series NDVI imageries was performed effectively for discriminating land covers. During the last 9 years, the vegetation degradation is popular in most regions of the study area. Though there are some regions where vegetation cover is increasing, the increasing amplitude is smaller than the decreasing amplitude on the whole.

In the past several decades, land cover in the region underwent dramatic changes and the progressive loss and conversion of wetlands has become a key conservation issue. Based on the theory and methods of landscape and GIS, topographic map in 1954, Landsat MSS in 1976, Landsat TM/ETM imagery in 2000 were used to detect the wetland pattern and its change in middle and lower Wuyu'er River, west Songnen Plain since the mid 1950s. The results showed that area of marsh decreased from 56.04×10⁴ ha to 32.04×10⁴ ha, while the area of cropland increase 24.94×104 ha during 1954- 2000. Calculated from change dynamic model, the annual loss rate of marsh was -1.48% (from 1954 to 1976) and - 0.76% (from 1976 to 2000) respectively. Due to shortage of water supply, marsh land were turned into dry grassland and degraded to saline-alkaline land. The number and size of marsh patch decreased significantly which indicated that the wetland landscape became more fragmental. The grassland decreased by 40.26×104 ha dramatically due to having been opened up to cropland and degraded into hardly-used land. The study indicates that the loss and degradation of wetlands was closely related to warmer and drier regional climate during the past 50 years. Intensive human activities including irrational reclamation, overgrazing, and ditches drainage and road construction accelerated the process.

The measurements of solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation at eighteen observation sites in Henan province, China during 2005-2007 are analyzed to investigate the spatial distribution and temporal variation of UV irradiances. The effects of cloud cover, visibility, and relative humidity on UV radiation are also quantified using regression techniques. Results show that the annual averages of UV irradiances are high in central and southern Henan province. In winter, the seasonal averages are high in northwestern Henan, while there are two high regions in the summer, one is resided in the western part and the other is located in the eastern Henan, where two high centers can be identified. The seasonal averages in summer and spring are higher than in fall and winter. The intensity of UV radiation is highly related to total/low cloud cover, relative humidity, and visibility.

Land surface albedo is one of most important parameters in weather and climate numeric models. The albedo differences between urban and rural land surfaces and the albedo variations due to urbanization have not been well studied. In this study, temporal comparisons of albedoes in the urban, rural and hill regions of the Beijing area in China were analyzed by converting broad albedoes from narrow band reflectances using NASA pathfinder released reflectance and NDVI data. Results showed that with increased urbanization the original albedoes exhibited a decreasing trend and the urban areas had lower albedoes than the rural areas. In the hill area with dense vegetation, there were the lowest albedoes. Monthly measurements of albedo variation in the urban and rural regions showed that the albedoes have obvious seasonal unimodal trends. In the summer the albedoes are the highest while in the winter, the albedoes are lowest. For the hill area, results also showed that the albedoes have obvious seasonal characteristics. The maximal value occurs during May and July. The results can be used to adjust numerical model parameters to improve urban land surface simulation.

Based on 1982-2003 GIMMS NDVI soundings and climate data by use of techniques for the trend, correlation and SVD analysis, this work is devoted to the space/time patterns of the response to climate change of the vegetation activity in the Huan-Huai-Hai area (HHHA). Results suggest that the area shows a more significant warming trend and less distinct aridization, on the whole, with annual mean NDVI displaying a marginally increasing trend. On a yearly basis, NDVI is the most sensitive to climate factors, and annual temperature, rainfall and relative humidity (evaporation) exert positive (negative) effect on the dynamic variation in vegetation NDVI. On a seasonal scale, temperature and rainfall are the most strongly influencing factors, with autumnal climate having heavier impact on yearly mean NDVI. Natural vegetation is predominantly sensitive to rainfall and, to a less degree, to temperature; agricultural vegetation is sensitive dominantly to temperature and, to less extent, to rainfall. April - September vegetation response to climate has the space patterns as follows. The anomaly field of NDVI has 1) the same structure as that of temperature, 2) an anti-correlation structure with anomalies of evaporation, 3) a see-saw distribution with positive (negative) correlation in the north (south) with that of rainfall anomalies, and 4) an opposite distribution with positive (negative) correlations in the south (north) to that of relative humidity.

Ecological capital of an ecosystem is the total value of the direct biological products in the system and the value of ecological service. The assessment of ecological capital is a new research area emerged from the challenge in the interdisciplinary research of ecology and social development. It is fundamental to establish a green national economy accounting system. Scientific evaluation of ecological capital is helpful for considering ecological cost in making the decision for economic development, and it is demanded for sustainable development. In this study, a quantitative assessment model of ecological property has been developed based on the analysis of per unit yield in the conventional ecology together with the utilization of remote sensing data from the Landsat TM, CBERS, MODIS, and NOAA database, land use and land cover data, and field measurements. The study area covers Changji Autonomous District, Xinjiang, China on the northern slope of Tianshan Mountain that is located in a typical arid area. Dynamic monitoring of ecological capital was performed using remote sensing techniques. Spatial distribution and temporal variation of ecological properties were characterized. The effects of land cover and land use as well as climate change on those variation and distribution were analyzed. The results show a significant increase in the ecological capital during 1990-2003. The spatial distribution of ecological properties is characterized by a negative gradient from higher altitudes to lower altitudes (plains) and from oases to deserts, which is consistent with the zonal distribution of vegetation in arid areas. Due to global warming, the climate in Xinjiang has been changed into a warmer and wetter environment during the last 50 years, which improves the plant growing conditions in the alpine regions, piedmont hilly regions, and the oases. On the other hand, the natural environment in the arid and semiarid regions in northwest China becomes more severe, and the stress to the natural ecosystems becomes more and more serious. Human activities affect the quality and the area of ecosystems and change the service functions of ecosystems. Consequently the fluctuation of ecological capital occurs.

The research on snowmelt process is very important to flood and drought calamity monitoring and forecasting, as well as to water resource management. A distributed snowmelt runoff model based on the "3S" technology has been designed and developed in this paper. The distributed snowmelt runoff model is based on energy balance and water quantity balance, which consists of three parts: grid snowmelt model, grid runoff yield model and grid catchments model. Snowmelt and runoff yield process are all based on grid scale, so the model is provided with distributing character and has strict physical mechanism. An important concept of "Unit Period of Time" was put forward in the paper for time scale conversion, and thereby developed "Degree and Cent Snowmelt Runoff Model", and gave some thoughts for the difficult problem of hydrology time scale conversion. Another important concept of "Freezing and Melting Coefficient" had also been brought forward here, which is aimed to explain the repetitive freezing and melting physical mechanism in the snowmelt period, so it has important significance to exactly hold the snowmelt process. Besides, a Snowmelt Runoff Simulating System had been developed, which adopted methods of the combination of B/S and C/S, using a great deal of remote sensing data, weather data and hydrology data, realizing the arithmetic of the model, as well as the distributed stimulation of the discharge of the typical study area, Juntanghu Basin. Validation of this model with the true measured data resulted an average relative error under 0.18, indicating that the model was able to realize simulating the process of the snowmelt well.

The growth of crops is directly related to solar radiation whose variances influence the photosynthesis of crops and the growth momentum thereof. This dissertation has Zhengzhou, which located in the Huanghuai Farmland Ecological System of China, as an example to analyze the rules of variances of total solar radiation, direct radiation and diffusive radiation. With the help of linear trend fitting, it is identified that total radiation (TR) drops as a whole at a rate of 1.6482J/m². Such drop has been particularly apparent in recent years with a period of 7 to 16 years; diffusive radiation (DF) tends to increase at a rate of 15.149 J/m² with a period of 20 years; direct radiation (DR) tends to drop at a rate of 15.843 J/m² without apparent period. The total radiation has been on the decrease ever since 1980 during the growth period of wheat. Having modified relevant Parameter in the Carbon and Nitrogen Biogeochemistry in Agroecosystems Model (DNDC) model and simulated the influence of solar radiation variances on the development phase, leaf area index (LAI), grain weight, etc during the growth period of wheat, it is found that solar radiation is in positive proportion to LAI and grain weight (GRNWT) but not apparently related to development phase (DP). The change of total radiation delays the maximization of wheat LAI, reduces wheat LAI before winter but has no apparent effect in winter and decreases wheat LAI from jointing period to filling period; it has no apparent influence on grain formation at the early stage of grain formation, slows down the weight increase of grains during the filling period and accelerates the weight increase of grains at the end of filling period. Variance of radiations does not affect the DP of wheat much.

It is very important to study on lightning activities in Northeast China since it is the area of lightning fire with the highest frequency. Spatial and temporal distributions of lightning activities were analyzed based on Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS)/ Optical Transient Detector (OTD) data provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Also the reasons of lightning fire were investigated through its spatial and temporal distributions, lightning activities, Digital Elevation Models (DEM), vegetative cover types, and meteorological factors. Results showed that there are more lightning activities in Hulunbeier and Heihe than other places, especially in July. But lightning fire occurred mainly in the area of Daxinganling, Hulunbeier and Heihe, and the most frequencies of lightning fire happened in June. The reason why there were few lightning activities but a lot of lightning fire in Daxinganling could be explained by the widely distributed combustible vegetative cover types and the mountainous areas where easily produce thunderstorm which is affected by atmospheric circulation. Results also suggested that the peak of lightning fire in these areas is in June but the peak of lightning activities in July. This phenomenon could be accounted for by the more precipitation in July but the more droughts in June. Overall, these researches will shed light on the understanding of lightning fire in order to prevent, control, or even utilize it.

Many costal regions in China are confronted with challenging problems of limited land resources and increasing population. Saline lands, tidelands and wetlands have been enclosed for agricultural land uses and urbanization buffer zones under a series of reclamation programs. A combined approach of remote sensing (RS) and geographical information system (GIS) was used in this study to identify the impact on Land Surface Temperature (LST) due to land use/cover change. We analyzed the impacts of LUCC (Land Use and Land Cover Change) on LST in Laizou Bay plain in different years. The results showed that land use types of culturing water increased significantly, correspondingly the area of grass land and salt land have a substantial reduction, and that of urban and rural settlements increased considerably . We retrieved the land surface temperature of two years using the method of Qin Zhihao's mono-windows algorithm. Then we analyzed the temperature change on different kinds of land use. We find different types of land use have different responses on temperature change. To sum up, there are strong correlations between LUC and LST.

The severity of grassland degradation in Shandan County, near the middle and upper reaches of Heihe River basin, western China was assessed through TM imagery in conjunction with in situ sampled grass parameters collected over 55 sampling plots of 1m². The above-ground biomass, vegetation fractional coverage of grassland, and palatable grass percent at each sampling plot was measured in assistance with the sampling method and on-the-spot investigations. The location of these sampling parameters was determined with a GPS receiver. Grassland degradation index (GDI) was developed based on these sampling parameters above. After radiometric calibration, the TM imagery was geometrically rectified. Vegetations indices were derived from TM imagery. Then, a grassland degradation monitoring model was established between TM bands-derived indices and GDI by using RS, GIS, and GPS techniques, field investigation and samples collection. Through the established regression model the TM imagery was converted into maps of grassland degradation. It was concluded that TM imagery, in conjunction with in situ grassland samples data, enabled the accurate assessment of grassland degradation in regional scale, and the integrated approach that allowed us to combine the different kinds of information from field survey records as well as remote sensing is efficient and simple in monitoring grassland degradation in quantity.

Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is a widely used indicator of vegetation status. In this study, Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data was used to calculate NDVI, and then the data from NDVI combined with ground sampling are used to conduct the soil organic carbon (SOC) and nitrogen (N) research, which analyze the SOC and N contents in the surface soil of Huolin River Wetland in northeast China. The results show that NDVI, SOC and N are highly related, and NDVI can be used to study C and N spatial distribution in this wetland. It also demonstrates that herbaceous vegetation is a better indicator of wetland nutrient enrichment.

Taking Kenli County of the Yellow River delta as the study area and using digital satellite remote sensing techniques, this paper explores the cultivated land changes and their correspondent driving forces. An interactive interpretation and manual modification procedure was carried out to acquire cultivated land information. A classification result overlay and the visual change detection method supported by land use map were employed to conduct the cultivated land change detection. Based on the change detection results and a spatial analysis between the cultivated land and the related natural and socio-economic factors, the driving force for the cultivated land changes of the study area were determined. The results show that the cultivated land in Kenli County decreased by 5321.8 ha from 1987 to 1998, i.e. 483.8 ha per year, which occurred mainly in the central paddy field region and the northeast dry land region. Adverse human activities, soil salinization and water deficiency consist the driving force that caused the cultivated land changes.

Diurnal variation of solar radiation at surface is of importance to data assimilation, weather and climate model assessment. However, the shortage of solar radiation data has limited full use of other meteorological data. Solar radiation at surface can not be simply calculated by interpolation in any time interval because it is heavily influenced by solar hour angle, cloud, water vapor and aerosols etc., which brings great troubles to model applications. This paper presents a method to compute mean solar radiation at surface in any time interval and develops a data set of hourly mean solar radiation that can be used to assess models by use of NCEP 6-hourly mean of downward solar radiation flux at surface. Also, while comparing to measured hourly mean of solar radiation, results show that the calculated hourly mean solar radiation agrees closely with observation in numerical value and variation trend, which illuminates that the method is efficient. The calculated hourly-mean solar radiation reflects the diurnal variation all over the world and it can be used as land model forcing, It is helpful to simulation, validation and assessment of the weather and climate model and can make up the shortage of measured solar radiation data.

In this study, a scheme of three-dimensional variational data assimilation (3D-Var) is introduced for a grid-point Atmospheric General Circulation Model, developed by the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IAP/CAS-AGCM). The scheme adopts stream function, unbalanced potential velocity, unbalanced geopotential height and relative humidity as analysis variables which are independent of each other. In order to avoid the complexity of background error covariance (B) and reduce the tremendous cost of minimization, variable transform and Conjugate-Gradient Method are used here. Meanwhile, a relationship among multivariable is considered. To test the validity of system and dynamical constraints between mass field and wind field, many experiments including single observation and continuous assimilation added in model are performed, The results show that the relationship among multivariable is reasonable and improvement because of the assimilation is obvious.

Land surface temperature (LST) is widely thought to closely relate with vegetation cover (often expressed with VI, i.e. vegetation index), and the negative LST/VI relationship is often used to estimate LST. However, this issue hasn't reached academic agreement yet as the LST/VI relation isn't linear, static and independent of other factors. This study examined the temporal variation of LST/VI relation and its link with soil moisture with multi-phase MODIS products. The result indicates that in the regions of high latitude where the condition of thermal energy is among ecologic limiting factors, the negative LST/VI relation doesn't hold true. The study also proves that the LST/VI association depends on soil moisture, which further complicates their relationship. This examination underlines that when the LST/VI slope is used to estimate LST, the uncertainty of LST/VI relation and the influence of soil moisture should both be carefully take into accounts.

Based on NCEP/NCAR reanalysis daily atmosphere data along with 740 stations precipitation data in China, we have choosed two typical strong Meiyu years(1998 and 2003) and analyzed propagation characters of baroclinic waves at upper troposphere during Meiyu period of these years. The results indicate that baroclinic waves of these years have obvious downstream development effect during Meiyu period. These waves develop near entrance of westerly jet about 3 days before rainstorm happens, then propagate downstream from northwest to southeast and reach the valley at the day that rainstorm happens. Energy dispersion associated with these wave packets has significant impact on happening and development of rainstorm. Characters of baroclinic waves during non-Meiyu period are also studied, however, we fail to find distinct downstream development effect in both years.

Using ECMWF ERA40 reanalysis, daily rainfall measurements from 740 stations across China, NOAA monthly sea surface temperature (SST) data, NCEP/NCAR monthly outgoing long wave radiation (OLR) data, China NMC-provided daily positions of the western-Pacific subtropical high's ridge, we defined the regional intensity of East-Asian Summer Monsoon (EASM) and calculated the intensity of EASM in the mid-lower Yangtze valley (MLYV) by the definition. The intensity exhibits stronger inter-annual and inter-decadal variability. Analysis is performed of the difference in the circulation, geopotential height and OLR fields between years of strong, weak and normal EASM in MLYV, with preliminary study on the mechanism for key-region SST impacting the monsoon intensity, discovering the intensity in higher positive (negative) correlation with previous winter SST anomalies (SSTA) over the tropical Indian Ocean, waters off East China, and equatorial eastern Pacific (SSTA over waters east of the Philippines), that is, warmer-than-normal SST in the tropical Indian Ocean, and equatorial eastern Pacific and colder-than-normal SST in the east of the Philippines make the western-Pacific subtropical high's ridge southward of mean, its west stretching point westward of normal and intensity higher in comparison to mean, and meanwhile a blocking high is prone to appear around Lake Balkhash, allowing the cold air to move south frequently, therefore, the cold and warm air flows meet in MLYV, converging and rising, leading to the monsoon intensity stronger and the serious floods occur there and vice versa. The findings can serve as an important criterion for the forecasting of the EASM's intensity in MLYY.

Floods and droughts have been crucial factors for crop yields. Northeast China is one of the staple food-crop bases in this country. During the crop growth intensities of floods and droughts exert innegligible impacts on the growth and hence yield. This paper deals with these disasters based mainly upon data from representative stations over the region, which are treated by the "Binary Time Series" scheme (KecLem, 1980, one sequence for floods and the other for droughts) to investigate their regularity, persistence, turning point and periodicity. Therefrom we try to find some useful results. Customarily, past studies examined floods and droughts by use of a united time series. But, in fact, changes in the disasters are highly complicated and the previous methods leave much to be desired. Hence, a "separate two variables filtering" scheme is employed for 40-year floods and droughts in the study region, together with relations of solar activities to the disasters addressed.

A MCC-caused sudden rainstorm occurred on August 10, 2006 in NE China. Related observations, satellite/radar imagery and automatic stations measurements were employed to investigate detailed evolutions of the MCC-associated large-scale background field, the imagery, the MCC (mesoscale convective complex) meso structure at its mature stage. Consequently, were revealed the MCC environmental features and multi-scale structures. The mature MCC was an elliptical meso cloud mass on the satellite image and a convective cloud line developing into a squall on the radar image, with the same orientation as the major axis of the elliptical MCC. The squall line consisted of multiple meso-β clouds. And the rainstorm hitting the county Tailai was produced by the developing meso-β cloud at the rear right end of the squall, with its prominent characteristic being the quickly intensified meso-γ vorticity produced by shear.

The climate is changing due to higher concentrations of greenhouse gases. If concentrations continue to increase, climate models project climate change will be more severe in this century, and with significant impacts on many human sectors, particularly agriculture. Agriculture is a fundamental production sector for society, especially for highly populated countries such as China. Huang Huai-Hai Plain is regarded as the bread basket of China. With only 7.7% water resources of the whole country, it produces 39.2% of national grain production and 32.4% of gross domestic product. According to government predictions, by 2030 this area will have a net population increase of 104 million, while its urbanization rate will be greater than 50%. The total irrigated area will reach about 20 million ha, with a net increase of 2 million ha/year. In this study, DSSAT a dynamic process crop growth model, has been calibrated and validated for current production at ten sites in the major winter wheat and summer maize-growing region of Huang-Huai-Hai Plain in China The IPCC SRES greenhouse gase emission scenarios A2 and B2 were used in the simulation, combining with the Regional Climate Model (PRICES) which provides long term present and future daily weather data. Using the regional crop model and GIS technologies, the crop productivity changes of two main crops winter wheat and summer maize were for simulated 2020s, 2050s and 2080s under both IPCC SRES A2 and B2 greenhouse gases emission scenarios. Simulation results indicated the possibility of significant impacts of climate change on crop production in this region, with marked differences between rainfed and irrigated production. In conclusion, this exercise successfully tested the applicability of standard climate change impact assessment methodology to an important production region of China.

Based on the meteorological data, land use date from TM images and social statistical data, the evidences of regional temperature change with the elements of mean annual temperature, mean annual maximum and minimum temperature, and extreme high and low temperature from 1959 to 2005, were detected, and the impact of human activities on temperature was analyzed in the Yangtze Delta region. The results indicated an increase in mean annual temperature, mean annual maximum and minimum temperature. Mean annual temperature in all cities in the region increased, and the increase rate in winter was greater than that in spring and autumn. The increase of mean annual maximum and minimum temperature was similar to that of mean annual temperature spatially. In 3 stations of Shanghai, Nanjing and Hangzhou, most hot days, least cold days and the highest mean temperature all appeared in the first 5 years in this century. Land use changed greatly, and a large amount of cropland was replaced with residential and constructional areas (R/C areas) from 1980 to 2000 in the Yangtze Delta region. The change of mean annual temperature was partly corresponding to the change of land use. Total registered population increased rapidly in 16 cities of the Yangtze Delta region, and a good linear correlation between the tendency ratio of total registered population and the mean annual temperature in 16 cities from 1978 to 2005. Total amount of energy consumption and GDP increased in 3 provinces of Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang where the Yangtze Delta located, both the final consumption of energy by industry and GDP had a relatively good linear relationship with the mean annual temperature in Shanghai from 1952 to 2005. This paper will help the understanding and attribution of climate change and simulation of the future response of weather-related disasters under various global change scenarios.

With rapid urbanization and industrialization, urban heat island effect in Shanghai is increasing. Based on the observed data, image data, and statistic data, temporal variation and spatial distribution of urban heat island and its relationship with urbanization factors in Shanghai was analyzed in this study. The results indicated the UHI index between urban and rural area increased with a rate of 0.2°C per 10 years from 1959 to 2005, while that between urban and suburban decreased from 1995, that is to say, the heat island in Shanghai expanded. The increasing UHI index between urban and rural area and the decreasing UHI index between urban and suburb area are related to the increase trend of mean annual temperature among districts. The UHI in Shanghai is stronger in urban area, Minhang, Northeast and middle Songjiang, and South Jinshan. The distribution of UHI is well corresponding with the land use types, both urban area and 9 towns in Shanghai are all heat islands. A good logarithmic relationship was obtained between UHI index and the number of operating buses, area of building completed, area of paved road and gross domestic product, and a good linear relationship was occurred between UHI index and the final consumption of energy by industry, power consumption of industry, total registered population and area of cultivated land.

For the land products retrieved from the remotely sensed datasets better using in the land surface model and weather/climate model, Land Data Assimilation Systems (LDAS) based on EnKF Technology and Community Land Model, has been developed at NSMC/CMA. In the context of numerical weather prediction applications, LDAS can provide optimal estimates of land surface state initial conditions by integrating with an ensemble of land surface models, the available atmospheric forcing data, remotely sensed observations of precipitation, radiation and some land surface parameters such as land cover and leaf area index. The validation from Yucheng comprehensive experiment site indicates that the preliminary results obtained are still inspiring. There are still many detailed work to do for the routine operation of LDAS, such as how to get dynamic P in 3dvar, how to select the spacing interpolation algorithm, etc.

An analysis of correlation coefficients for climatological data covering the period 1978-2005 for six locations in China has been made in order to highlight the relationships between temperature, precipitation (rain and snow) and snow in summer and in winter. The results show that the evolution of snow depth and area is in good agreement with the climatic change studies from other dataset, with an abrupt jump during the year 1990, and with change cycle about 5 year; The colder air mass from the Western-North China and East-North invade the southern China along western-north-eastern-south aisle and eastern-north-western-south aisle, which makes the influence of snow information on the temperature and precipitation extending to the South China; In the sensitive region, the snow information in three regions all has effect on the temperature and precipitation, the real effect of snow information on temperature and precipitation should be the result of competition among these three snow covered regions; The snow information in Tibet region has larger scale effect on the temperature and precipitation than the other two, which is in accordance with its characteristics able to inspire the larger scale atmospheric circulation.

The micrograph and the geographical information system(GIS) technology are combined, and applied into histiocytic anatomy. Through studying histiocytic changes of Cleistogenes squarrosa's vegetation organs, namely leaf and stem, the steppe plants' inherent mechanism of miniaturization is revealed. In the course of restoring succession, Cleistogenes squarrosa's anatomy of leaf and stem demonstrate the same variation trend in the three different sample plots: the longer the resume time is, the more, its cells which make up the organ are. According to opposite course, miniaturization has all taken place in the leaf and stem. However, there is difference in the miniaturization mechanism of the leaf and stem. (1) According to dissection structure of the blade, the reduction of organizing the figure of the mesophyll has caused miniaturization. (2) The miniaturization mechanism of the stem is the reduction of different organization's cell's figure of the stem.

Based on the field investigation, documents and the concept of vulnerability, we developed a set of index system about vulnerability and adaptive capacity which influenced the ecosystem of Heihe River basin because of climate change. The index system mainly included two kinds of factors, climate factors and other factors. The climate indicators include humidity, annual rainfall, yearly temperature, etc; other factors include remote sensing data and socioeconomic materials, such as annual grassland area change, etc. We utilize the method of Analytic Hierarchy Plan (AHP) to distribute the weight of each indicator. We calculated quantitatively the vulnerability and adaptive capacity of the ecosystem to climate change of 9 counties in Heihe River Basin in 2000, this results represent the status quo. According to the GCMs project, the precipitation will rise by 27%, 19% and 30% when the concentration of CO₂ double. The future vulnerability and adaptive capacity to climate change of the ecosystem of 9 counties in Heihe River Basin when CO₂ double were calculated. The results show: (1)The ecological environment of the Heihe River Basin is incredibly vulnerable, on the whole, and in different places in the basin, its vulnerable degree is different to some extent. (2)In the whole basin, the comparatively low vulnerable ecosystem district is the upper reaches of the Heihe River. (3)In 2070, The most vulnerable district is still the lower reaches of the basin.

The development of multi-band remote sensing techniques has facilitated extracting various parameters of water quality and water pollution. This paper analyzes the water quality of Aksu-Tarim River in Xinjiang, China with remotely sensed data from the Landsat TM Satellite. Through the DN (Averaged Pixel digital number) of wave and routine data monitoring, a model of monitoring the pollutants is developed. The model can reflect conditions of water quality. Results from the water quality interpreted with remotely sensed images are closely related to the results of the routine data collected in 2000. The model can be used to predict the water quality of rivers and it provides an efficient and economical alternative to monitor water quality.

In order to get the information of soil moisture change caused by human activities, the influence of the regional dynamic change of land use on soil moisture level was analyzed in this paper. Firstly, the graphs of land use type in two phases were worked out with remote sensing images (collected on 1987-05-07 and 2000-05-02, respectively). On the other hand, the soil moisture in the two days was correspondingly achieved by using the NDVI-LST feature space. Comparing the soil moisture change with the land use change, we can conclude that there was great correlation between changes in the soil moisture and changes in land use. But as the factors which can affect the soil moisture are various, the situation in some areas came up as inconsistent with the common sense which is worth to do some further studies. Besides, with the transforming of saline-alkalized land in this region, not only the cultivated area was increased, but also the vegetation degree of land coverage and the soil moisture level in most regions were enhanced, and moreover the ecological environment was improved.

The issues of urbanization and Land Use / Cover Change (LUCC) are both hot topics in the global change research which are now bound by human survival and development. This article takes the Shandong Jinan City as case study, and analyzing the impact of LUCC on land surface temperature and radiation during the urbanization advancement. This paper uses two periods of multi-temporal Landsat TM/ETM image data, and combining plenty of resources and choosing feasible classification system, and integrating remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS) for detecting land cover change. We obtain the Land Use / Cover (LUC) maps of Jinan by visual interpretation and the LUC transfer matrix through GIS technique. And then we analyze the causes of LUCC. Retrieve out the land surface temperature and the land surface radiation by using single Landsat TM/ETM 6 thermal infrared data and weather data. We obtain the surface temperature and radiation distribution maps. Considering the transform of LUC, we analyze their impacts on land surface temperature and radiation in the region. Analyzing and describing the space pattern and time change of the impacts of land use and urbanization on land surface temperature and radiation during the past 6 years in Jinan. And provide a foundation to the researches of urbanization process mechanism and environment protection.

Based on remote sensing data, we extracted the dynamic land use/cover change, reconstructed the basic landscape process in Beijing during 1975 to 2001, and predicted the layout of Beijing in the next 20 years using CLUS-S model. After analyzing, we found that: (1) While the sprawl rate of the city was accelerating gradually and the urban area increased sharply between 1975 and 2001, the area of plantation was decreased and the problem of land degradation and fragmentation of the ecological environment was more and more serious; (2) Based on all six simulation scenarios, the area of plantation was going to be reduced gradually, and the integrity of landscape of plantation area was going to be further collapsed with the grads of urban-rural ecotone.

The aerosol number concentration data in 31 various bands, which was observed by the apparatus Grimm 180 at Zhengzhou Atmospheric Constituents Station (ZACS) from the beginning of January to the middle of July in 2006, has been classified into 3 typical scales according to 3 different volume concentration peak values each one representing the various sources of aerosols to analyze their temporal variation periods by the morlet-wave method. In addition, seeing the volume concentrations of the various typical scales of aerosols as controlling factors and using the time-serials of them, the dynamics equations of the composed system of various sources of aerosols have been established to explain the volume concentration's varies with the meteorological factors in the Middle China.

In some arid and semi-arid high-altitude mountainous area of the western China, snowmelt water is the most important water resources and snowmelt water supply amount to river is even more than 75%, but there will be flood if the snowmelt water cause spring flood. So it is necessary to comprehend the large-scale snowmelt status. This study describes a snowmelt model based on a physical heat balance method. Using Terra remote sensing data of EOS/MODIS which cover Xinjiang province at midday to inverse some parameters of the model, incorporating meteorological data to get the instantaneous heat balance information, then to calculate daily melt water based on study of B.Sequin, B.ltier and Xianqiong Xie. It improves snowmelt model algorithms. In addition, we use MODIS remote sensing data to monitor snow cover, avoiding the improper estimation to free-snow area.

The ecosystem risk assessment is an essential decision making system for predicting the reconstruction and recovery of a damaged ecosystem after intensive mankind activities. The sustainability of environment and resources of the lake ecosystem in arid districts have been paid close attention to by international communities as well as numerous experts and scholars. The ecological risk assessment offered a scientific foundation for making the decision and execution of ecological risk management. Bosten Lake, the largest inland freshwater lake in China, is the main water source of the industrial and agricultural production as well as the local residence in Yanqi basin, Kuara city and Yuri County in the southern Xinjiang. Bosten Lake also provides a direct water source for emergency transportation in the Lower Reaches of Tarim River. However, with the intensive utilizations of water and soil resources, the environmental condition in the Bosten Lake has become more and more serious. In this study, the theory and method of landscape ecological risk assessment has been practiced using 3S technologies combined with the frontier theory of landscape ecology. Defining the mainly risk resource including flood, drought, water pollution and rich nutrition of water has been evaluated based on the ecosystem risk assessment system. The main process includes five stages: regional natural resources analysis, risk receptor selection, risk sources evaluation, exposure and hazard analysis, and integrated risk assessment. Based on the risk assessment results, the environmental risk management countermeasure has been determined.

The Tarim River basin is an ecologically sensitive area and a key area for biodiversity protection and global-change research. Based on the research on oasis-desert ecosystem, with the frontier theory of landscape ecology, spatial differences of landscape of Yuli oasis are analyzed through the technological train of 3S and statistics. The paper puts forwards some suggestions for landscape ecological construction. Studies on landscape pattern within the research area are important for the sustainable development and conservation of the entire basin.

In this study landsat TM/ETM+ was used to analyze the spatial distribution change of LST and ET in terms of LUCC different from 1987 to 2000. The LST was retrieved by Qin et al.'s algorithm and the daily ET was estimated using SEBAL model. The results show that the LST and ET of 2000 both were completely different from those of 1987 due to the LUCC vary between 13 years. The land use/cover characteristics mainly controlled the spatial distribution of the LST and ET. The analysis indicated that LST possessed evidently negative correlation with the ET for all land cover types. The analysis of LST and ET in response to LUCC would help the decision maker for better future planning to protect ecological environment.

In the context of 1960~2003 summertime rainfall and small-sized pan evaporations from 131 stations distributed over NW China covering Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu, Ningxia, Shaanxi as well as western Nei Mongolia, and Arctic Oscillation Indices (AOI) we define a homogenized index for aridity or wetness feature, with which to examine the relations between AOI and NW China aridity-wetness regime, indicating their noticeable relations on an interdecadal basis. It is found that during the decade of summer Arctic oscillation stronger than mean, the sea level pressure field shows positive (negative) anomalies over Asian landmass, a stronger anticyclonic anomaly circulation appears at 700 hPa over Lake Baikal and to the south, westerly (northerly) departure emerges in the westerly (monsoon) portion of NW China, as well as over NW China there appears a structure with a low in the west and a high in the east at the 500 hPa height field, suggestive of east-Asian summer monsoon weaker than normal such that westerly flows prevail in the westerly zone of NW China, leading to rainfall more than mean for a wetter climate while in its monsoon area the northerly winds are dominant, with precipitation less than normal, resulting in a climate drier in comparison to mean and v.v. for the decade with summer AO weaker than normal.

In Shiyang River Basin, the average temperature since 1951 was sustained upward trend. Which, 1992 is a significant warming of the year, with significant warming ago, the temperature rose by 0.85°C, higher than the national 0.79°C warming of nearly 97 years, but lower than the nearly 51 1.1°C increase in the level. East Qilian Mountains of snow in the area overall decrease, in the basin precipitation generally increasing, runoff from mountain pass is reducing, the groundwater level rapidly declined in Minqin oasis. After temperatures notable warming, annual precipitation increased by 18.2 mm, an increase of 5.8%. runoff reduce 410 million m³, Groundwater dropped by 1-2 times in Minqin oasis. The analysis of water resources changing reasons showed that runoff from mountain pass reducing because of mountain precipitation decrease and Hongyashan Reservoir Inflow to the sustained, rapid decrease is one of reasons which leading to a rapid decline of groundwater in Minqin Oasis. Subject to the effects of climate change, the Shiyang River basin runoff from a mountain pass in advance of the peak, Human activities are seriously affected the middle reaches of the Shiyang River basin runoff and downstream utilization of available volume ratio. Climate change and human activities affect the common, Reducing of vegetation area and the patches number in Shiyang River Basin shows not only changes in vegetation types, there are also sparse vegetation to the bare land into the trend, which is the deterioration of ecological environment tends to the obvious signs.

Terrestrial eco-system in coastal zones is unstable and land-use and Land-cover of its land resource are crucial for its sustainability. Therefore it is necessary to understand distribution of land use/cover changes in those tender areas. This paper was to analyze changes of land use/cover in Yellow River Delta in China during recent ten years, which was its fast development period, by remote sensing monitoring. Two Landsat TM images in October of 1995 and 2004 were processed using ERDAS software and supervised classification method in study for the land use and land cover of those two years. The two land use/cover maps were overlaid to discover the changes. It was showed that lots of land use/cover changes in the Yellow River Delta had taken place in past ten years. Because abundant sand that carried by river water filled up at estuary of the Yellow River, new land increased fleetly. The rates that foreshore were turned into fishery land was high for aquaculture with salt water had been developed quickly. Another important effect of human activity was that part of waste land and grassland had been cultivated for crops. With industry and economy development, land for urbanization had been outspreaded. Although fast exploitation had been carried out in Yellow River Delta going though those years, some human activities on land use were inharmonious for sustainable development of land resource in this area. This must be pay attention to by local government and people.

In this paper, we explored the trends of the summer whole layer moisture budget and precipitation during 1961 to 2005 and possible correlations between them using linear regression method in the Yangtze River basin, China. The results indicate that: 1) the summer moisture budget and precipitation are in significant increasing trend with p<0.05 in the middle and lower Yangtze River basin. The summer moisture budget and precipitation are also increasing, but are not significant at >95% confidence level on the upper Yangtze basin; 2) The annual moisture budget show significant decreasing trend in the Yangtze basin and this decreasing trend is not significant at >95% confidence level with p<0.05. However, the annual precipitation is increased in mid-lower while decreased in the up Yangtze basin, but these trends are not significant at >95% confidence level; 3) This research sheds light on the changing features of summer precipitation and possible correlation with discharge and moisture budget in the Yangtze River basin since that flood hazards mostly occurred to the summer, which will be of great scientific merits in further understanding the changes of the summer precipitation, related impacts on discharge change and possible causes. The research results will be helpful for flood control and fluvial management in the Yangtze River basin under the changing climate.

This is a common practice to use imagery classification method to assess vegetation changes. The accuracy of classification of remote sensing data affects objective assessment of changes, but high accurate classification is difficult to obtain through the use of low spatial resolution and visual interpretation techniques. Once classified, these land use and land cover maps need to be validated to assess how accurate they are using field in-situ survey data. Validation with in-situ data, however, is quite labor intensive and sometimes economically impossible. Therefore, a simple and easy way of estimating classification accuracy of a low spatial resolution map is a still difficult problem. In this paper, we use high spatial resolution data to validate the classification maps derived from low resolution data. Using NOAA AVHRR images and Landsat-TM over the same area acquired in the same year, we developed a method to validate vegetation classification maps from the NOAA image with classification maps derived from high resolution TM images. Once scaled to the same spatial resolution, TM-image derived maps were compared with those from NOAA AVHRR classification data. The results suggested that over two separate areas that we compared; the accuracies of classification images were 0.804 and 0.793, respectively, suggesting that the classification accuracy is nearly as high as 80% from the NOAA AVHRR images. The method presented here is very useful in assessing accuracies of classification maps derived from coarse resolution images such as those from AVHRR data.

GMS and FY-1C satellite data in Summer Season (June to August) during the period of 2001~2006 were used to analyze the spatial and temporal distribution characteristic of convective cloud merger in Yangtze and Huaihe River Basin. The results show that convective cloud merger in Yangtze and Huaihe River Basin occurs frequently in summer season, and has a typical spatial and temporal distribution characteristic, coinciding very well with the thunderstorm days distribution in Yangtze and Huaihe River Basin. a) Cloud mergers in the Yangtze and Huaihe River Basin show a distinct spatial grouping associated to mesoscale topography. Three high frequency centers are Dabieshan mountain area with frequency of 28%, Huangshan mountain area with frequency of 23% and Hongzehu area with frequency of 16%. b) Cloud mergers often occur during late June and early August, with a prominent peak during late July. The diurnal variation of cloud mergers shows a peak at 1400 LST, some two hours after convective cloud initiation. c) Merging has a significant effect on cloud system developing. More than 80% merged clouds have apparent increase with enlarging of intensity and area, and lengthening of lifetime.

Interdecadal features of summer rainfall in North China, East Asia summer monsoon (EASM) and the anomaly of general circulation were explored by using NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data and summer rainfall collected from 20 stations over North China. Results showed that the periods of summer rainfall in North China are not in agreement with those of EASM, interdecadal features are obvious, the former with notable periods of 8a and18a, with an abrupt change occurred in 1960s, the latter 18a and 28a, with abrupt change in 1970s. There is marked correlation between the summer precipitation of North China and EASM, strong/weak summer monsoon with more/less precipitation in North China .Weak EASM is an important factor of the rainfall decreasing, but not the only one, for general circulation anomaly is close related to the rainfall decrease. The decline of air temperature in Tibetan tableland and North China results in less low pressure here; lack of water vapor is another factor for the rainfall decreasing. The weakened southwest monsoon in East Asia leads to the fact that water vapor can't arrive in the region to the north of 30°N. As opposite to the 1950s', the EU teleconnection pattern of 1980s is of the character with Europe(+),Ural(-),and mid-Asia(+) at 500hPa, which means the Ural ridge and Baikal trough weakening, zonal circulation is not good for exchanging cold and warm air. As a result, the activity of cold and warm air and precipitation over North China reduced.

This paper analyzes the position and function of the meteorological work in the whole national economy construction, studies the concept, classification and characteristics of the meteorological service, focuses on the basic thoughts of the benefit valuation of profession meteorological service, determines the basic methods of studying the high meteorology-sensitive industry, analyzes the basic methods of determining the profession annual value ratio of production occupied by the high meteorology-sensitive industry. Based on the above works, the Chinese high meteorology-hypersensitive industry is put forward, the benefit of meteorological service of the typical operation of the high meteorology-sensitive industry is analyzed, the profession annual value ratio of production occupied by the high meteorology-sensitive industry is obtained, and the benefit of the national profession meteorological service is initially assessed through the expert valuation method (Dephi method). At the present level of meteorological service and economic development, the annual mean efficiency of meteorological service is no less than 279 billion 3 million yuan.( The cost is not included.)

Based on the agricultural geophysical classification and the land use and land cover (LULC) type map, the satellite data of multi-time, multi-spatial and multi-spectrum was used to identify the irrigation areas and their geographical locations of crops, plantations and pasture when the up-coming South-to North Water Transfer Engineering (SNWTE) is completed by 2030. The thermal-dynamics of the soil in the irrigated area was figured out depending on not only the satellite data deduction, but also on the on-site field measurements, the data of the nearby agro-meteorological and/or hydrological stations, which was used to calculate the variation regularity of soil moisture, soil temperature, albedo etc during each irrigation procedure. With reference of the methodology of pseudo-hydrodynamics in agro-hydrology, a new model module was designed to calculate the exchange and transfer process of water and heat energy in the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum (SPAC) under the condition of irrigation, which was coupled with the regional climate model RegCM3 and make it to include the irrigation effect. The new climate model was then used to simulate the regional climate change in north China as if SNWTE is completed. The preliminary simulation results show that: The large-scale agriculture irrigation might cause significant regional climate change not only in Northern China where the irrigation is implemented, but in the whole numerical domain as well. During the most possible irrigation time of summer months from June to August, the ground temperature, sensible heat flux in the boundary layer decreased within irrigated region and the adjacent areas; while the low-level air humidity, latent heat flux, and precipitation are all increased. Large-scale agricultural irrigation not only changes the water vapor factors such as soil moisture and air humidity, but also the thermal factors such as temperature and sensible heat flux and the dynamic factors of potential height and wind field in the atmosphere, which cause regional climate change in the whole numerical domain.

The selection of urbanization patterns and its determinants are hot issues in China nowadays. Based on land-use remote sensing data estimated from Landsat Thematic Mapper/Enhanced Thematic Mapper digital images of Chinese Academy of Sciences and a unique set of socioeconomic data collected by the authors, according to the build-up area (BUA), we classified the patterns of urbanization into five scales (rural "villages", small townships, small and medium cities, large, and super large cities). Then an econometric model is developed to empirically estimate the determinants of urbanization patterns. Results indicate that BUA expanded rapidly from late 1980s and the patterns of urbanization are associated with policy factors. At the same time, population and economy growth also help affect the development of urbanization patterns. Two important policy implications can be drawn from this study. First, the process of urbanization could be predictable and to some extent controlled through various government policies as the urbanization is strongly related to policy choices. Second, further study is necessary to evaluate China's past and current urbanization strategy that have been focused on the development of both small townships and super large cities since the middle 1990s. The rapid growth of super large cities is an issue that needs more concerns by policy makers.

A comparative study is made for black carbon aerosol (BC) in this text based on BC and PM₁₀ observations as well as their air pollution indices during January-December 2006 in Beijing and Lhasa regions. BC concentration is considerably higher in Beijing than in Lhasa because of anthropogenic activities, with an annual mean of 9.3 μg/m³ versus 3 μg/m³ from the standard channel of 880 nm (below is the same). It is higher in winter and lower in summer for both of the regions, with the value in a heating season being more than twice as high as in non-heating season in Beijing area. The highest monthly means of 16.8 μg/m3 vs 5.5 μg/m³ occur in January in Beijing and Lhasa regions, respectively; whereas the lowest values of 4.5 μg/m³ vs 2.2 μg/m³ are in July. The daily higher values of BC in Beijing start from 1600 BST (Beijing standard time) and maintain until 0700 BST of the next day, with keeping lower values during other daytime hours, especially around the noon. The daily maximum and minimum values of 30 μg/m³ and 1.4 μg/m³ happens in December and April in Beijing in 2006, respectively. Generally, BC emissions in Lhasa are much smaller than in Beijing, with relative high values observed in the morning and afternoon; the 2006 daily maximum and minimum of 12.4 μg/m³ and 0.8 μg/m³ appear in the December and the March, respectively. The BC in Lhasa mainly comes from the local emission from vehicles to the atmosphere.

In this article, the analytic hierarchy process was used to make evaluation on ecological security in Xinjiang, China , we have calculated the degree of environmental subsystem, social subsystem, economic subsystem and total system of ecological security system in Xinjiang from 1988 to 2010. We have analyzed warning and controlling ecological security of Xinjiang in short-medium range(2004-2010). By using sensitivity factors that influence ecological security system of Xinjiang, which includes environmental subsystem, social subsystem, economic subsystem and total system. The main conclusions as follows: From 2004 to 2010,the ecological security situations of environmental subsystem are rising and economic subsystems are obviously ascendant in Xinjiang; According to the contributions of these three subsystem, the list is successively: Environmental subsystem >Social subsystem >Economic subsystem; proved that the ecological environment structure of Xinjiang is very fragile and unstable from holistic standard of ecological security and quantity.

Surface albedo is widely used in energy balance of the earth surface, weather forecast, global change research and water circulation. The different land surface features and land cover conditions can cause the anisotropy of surface albedo distribution. It is a powerful tool to derive large area of regional surface albedo using remote sensing technique. Based on a topographic and atmospheric correction, different band integration approaches form ETM were attempted to obtain the surface albedo over the upper reaches of Tarim River. The relationship between land surface albedo and land use type is researched by taking account of the particularity of the basin's geography character.