Status of China’s Land Resources in 2013

正On 22nd April 2014,with the approach of the 45th World Earth Day,the Chinese Ministry of Land and Resources announced the status of China’s land resources in 2013,putting forward the implementation of strict farmland protection measures to ensure the 1.8 billion acres of arable land.This laid a solid foundation for achieving a"ten even increase"of     

Status of China’s Mineral Resources in 2013

正On 22nd April 2014,with the approach of the 45th World Earth Day,China’s Ministry of Land and resources issued the status of China’s mineral resources in 2013.The first task of the prospecting breakthrough strategy action implemented in the last five years has been completed,and China’s security capacity for mineral resources has been significantly improved.In the     

Benford’s Law in Time Series Analysis of Seismic Clusters

Benford’s analysis is applied to the recurrence times of approximately 17,000 seismic events in different geological contexts of Italy over the last 6 years, including the Mt. Etna volcanic area and the seismic series associated with the destructive M _w 6.3, 2009 L’Aquila earthquake. A close conformity to Benford’s law and a power-law probability distribution for the recurrence times of consecutive events is found, as typical of random multiplicative processes. The application of Benford’s law to the recurrence event times in seismic series of specific seismogenic regions represents a novel approach, which enlarges the occurrence and relevance of Benford-like asymmetries, with implications on the physics of natural systems approaching a power law behaviour. Moreover, we propose that the shift from a close conformity of Benford’s law to Brownian dynamics, observed for time separations among non-consecutive events in the study seismic series, may be ruled by a periodical noise factor, such as the effects of Earth tides on seismicity tuning.     

Older people’s psychosocial needs in a post-disaster rural community of China: an exploratory study

Older people are arguably one of the most vulnerable groups during a disaster. Existing studies either in China or in other countries predominantly focus on the more Western, pathology-based mental health approach in addressing the impact of disasters on older victims and their needs. However, the concept of ‘psychosocial’ recognises that problems caused by emergencies can simultaneously be of a social nature and a psychological one. This concept emerged from a growing critique on individual oriented mental health approach in disaster contexts. The present study was conducted to explore older people’s needs from a psychosocial perspective. The research site was a Chinese rural community located in the epicentre of ‘5.12’ Wenchuan earthquake (Ms = 8.0) occurred in 2008. The authors conducted content analyses on the qualitative in-depth interviews with 10 (5 males and 5 females) out of 30 older persons from this community. The findings revealed three major psychosocial problems: (1) constant fear of recurring debris flows; (2) sense of helplessness; and (3) disruption to previous social network. Indubitably, the participants reported family members and neighbours as their major sources of social support in emergency situations. This exploratory study argues that older people being exposed to disasters will not only develop psychological problems but also suffer disruption to their social support network and puts forward that empowering family and strengthening community cohesion are important initiatives for helping professionals to promote older people’s psychosocial well-being and enhance their resilience to natural disasters.     

Making a new area in Xiong’an: Incentives and challenges of China’s “Millennium Plan”

On April 1, 2017, China announced to initiate the Xiong’an New Area (XNA) plan, which is a national-level strategy aimed at alleviating the pressures felt by Beijing and promoting the integration of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) city-region. In China, a city-region can be viewed as an outcome of state spatial selectivity that aims to manage crises and maintain governance through strong state involvement. This paper attempts to provide a broad view of the XNA plan by examining it in the context of China’s long-term efforts to coordinate the BTH region, explaining the incentives associated with choosing Xiong’an, and analyzing the challenges the plan has faced. Considering that theoretical insights based on Western experience may not be applicable to China, this paper can contribute to the debate revealing the logics of city-region building in different contexts.     

Lithium Resources in Brine of China’s Sea Salt Field Operations

正Objective With the rapid development of mobile power and electronic vehicles,the application of lithium is in the ascendant,and the contradiction between its supply and demand is prominent.     

Status of China’s Geological Survey and Geological Environments in 2013

正With the approach of the 45th World Earth Day,China’s Ministry of Land and Resources issued the status of the Chinese geological survey and environments on 22nd April 2013.Regional geological survey in 2013 achieved new results—(why was oceanic in twice?)polar and oceanic expedition were fully completed,a national census of geography was begun,and     

Development of Oil and Gas Resources of Russia’s Arctic zone

The article dwells on the problems associated with the development of oil and gas Arctic region of Russia. It also suggests possibilities of their solution based on sociological studies conducted by the authors of representative samples in 2005, 2010 and 2015. Stressing the role and significance of sociological research in the general problem of the circumpolar regions by scientific study, the authors show the need for a sociological diagnosis in the context of different social groups. By doing so, characteristics of social problems inherent to the arctic region and requirements for scientific support of possible technologies is identified.     

Distribution and Collection of China’s Dinosaurs

<正>It is estimated that the world has discovered more than1000 species and 800 genera of dinosaurs.Chinese scientists have named more than 170 species of dinosaurs,with 17 genera and 44 species of dinosaur egg fossils,35genera and 39 species of dinosaur footprints,since their first discovery in China in 1902.China has dinosaur occurrences from the Upper Triassic to the Upper     

A review of advances in China’s flash flood early-warning system

This paper summarizes the main flash flood early-warning systems of America, Europe, Japan, and Taiwan China and discusses their advantages and disadvantages. The latest development in flash flood prevention is also presented. China’s flash flood prevention system involves three stages. Herein, the warning methods and achievements in the first two stages are introduced in detail. Based on the worldwide experience of flash flood early-warning systems, the general research idea of the third stage is proposed from the viewpoint of requirements for flash flood prevention and construction progress of the next stage in China. Real-time dynamic warning systems can be applied to the early-warning platform at four levels (central level, provincial level, municipal level, and county level) . Through this, soil moisture, peak flow, and water level can be calculated in real-time using distributed hydrological models, and then flash flood warning indexes can be computed based on defined thresholds of runoff and water level. A compound warning index (CWI) can be applied to regions where rainfall and water level are measured by simple equipment. In this manner, flash-flood-related factors such as rainfall intensity and antecedent and cumulative rainfall depths can be determined using the CWI method. The proposed methodology for the third stage could support flash flood prevention measures in the 13th 5-Year Plan for Economic and Social Development of the People’s Republic of China (2016–2020). The research achievements will serve as a guidance for flash flood monitoring and warning as well as flood warning in medium and small rivers.     

Saturation states of carbonate minerals in a freshwater-seawater mixing zone of small tropical island’s aquifer

Groundwater is a crucial resource on the Manukan Island as it is the only source of freshwater available on the island. The aquifer has deteriorated to a high degree, during the last decade. Nine domestic wells were sam-pled from March 2006 to January 2007 to probe the hydrochemical components that influence the water quality. Geochemical data on dissolved major constituents in groundwater samples from the Manukan Island revealed the main processes responsible for their geochemical evolution. The results using statistical analyses, graphical method and numerical model output (PHREEQC) showed that the groundwater was chemically highly enriched in Na and Cl, indicative of seawater intrusion into the aquifer as also supported from the Na-Cl signature on the Piper diagram. From the PHREEQC simulation model, calcite, dolomite and aragonite solubility showed positive values of the saturation indices (SI), indicating supersaturation which led to mineral precipitation condition of water by these min-erals.     

Decoupling and decomposing analysis of construction industry’s energy consumption in China

Natural Hazards - The construction industry is one of the key industries for driving energy conservation in China. Decoupling of the construction industry development from energy consumption has...     

Scenario Prediction of China’s Oil Resource Demand in 2020-2030

Oil plays an important role in ensuring national energy security. It is of great significance for China’s energy policy-making to predict the future oil demand scientifically. Combined with the grey correlation analysis and combination model of ARIMA-BP neural network, data on six driving variables of China’s GDP, international oil price, energy consumption per unit GDP, industrial structure, urbanization rate and oil production in 1999-2018 were selected to predict China’s oil demand under different scenarios in 2020-2030. The results show that the selected driving variables are highly correlated with China’s oil demand, and the combined model is more accurate than the single model. From 2020 to 2030, China’s oil demand and import will continue to increase, but the growth rate will gradually slow down. Under the three scenarios, the predicted average oil demand in 2020, 2025 and 2030 will be 675.7703 million tons, 732.2725 million tons and 760.8155 million tons, respectively; the predicted average external dependence in 2020-2030 will be 76.19%, far exceeding the international warning line of 50%. The contradiction between China’s oil supply and demand will be more acute, and accordingly, some policy suggestions were put forward.     

Effects of human activities on mercury in the environment in Xi’an area, China

Effects of mercury on ecosystems and human health are well documented. Human activities have significant impacts on transport, transformation, and fate of mercury in the natural environment. In this study, a gold mining area (Tongchuan), an urban area (Xi…     

State power and environmental initiatives in China: Analyzing China’s green building program through an ecological modernization perspective

This paper applies the ecological modernization (EM) framework to analyze China’s green building program. EM focuses on the effective institutionalization of environmental objectives into respective political and economic systems, and thus provides valuable insights into the roles of the state and other stake holders in environmental regulation. Since the mid-2000s, the Chinese government has advanced an aggressive green building campaign, which is distinguished by its speed, scale, and evolution from one of voluntary participation to a top-down implementation through administrative hierarchies. While this has resulted in a remarkable growth of green building projects, questions remain about the effectiveness and sustainability of such a state-centered approach. Though interviews with officials, planners, architects, real estate developers, and property managers in several Chinese cities, data analysis of the green building stock, and surveys of architects, this paper analyzes Chinese green building patterns and situates such patterns among the contradictory motivations of different levels of government and their relationships to different stake holders. This research finds that the top-down state apparatus is not sufficient to overcome these contradictions and the profit motives of the property developers. However, many under-developed opportunities exist to leverage property developers, building professionals, and the public to engage in green building practices. In the end, I argue that the state must embrace reform to build flexible and collaborative movements with other parties with strong public participation. China’s ecological modernization process may feature a stronger state and faster changes, but it is not exempted from the need of political modernization.