Analysis on Dynamic Characteristics of Landscape Patterns in Hailer and around Areas
This paper analyzed the spatial-temporal dynamic changes of landscape patterns in Hailer and around areas. Firstly, landscape patterns types of research area were divided into water, sand, farmland, city and grassland based on remote sensing images of 1986, 1991, 1996 and 2001 and field investigation. Then the grassland was classified into higher coverage grassland, high coverage grassland, medium coverage grassland and low coverage grassland by Normalized Difference Vegetation Index. Finally, the spatial-temporal dynamic changes of above-mentioned eight kinds of landscape patterns were analyzed using landscape ecology principle. The results indicated that human activities intensified significant from 1986 to 2001in research area. The area of grassland landscape decreased quickly, and the fragmentation extent intensified. The dominant landscape in research area changed from higher-high coverage grassland to medium-low coverage grassland. The expansion of sand landscape is obvious in periphery of road, city and farmland. The grassland vegetation degenerated seriously. Fragmentation of city landscape lightened, and city landscape patches tended to decrease and centralized. Economy development pattern of research area is in a stage that is transforming from extensive pattern to intensive urbanization pattern.
Characteristics of grassland degradation and driving forces in the source region of the Yellow River from 1985 to 2000
The source region of the Yellow River is located in the middle east of the Tibetan Plateau in northwest China. The total area is about 51,700 km2, mainly covered by grassland (79%), unused land (16%) and water (4%). The increasing land utilization in this area has increased the risk of environmental degradation. The land use/cover data (1985 and 2000) provided by the Data Center of Resources and Environment in the Chinese Academy of Sciences were used to analyze the land cover change in the source region of the Yellow River. DEM (1:250,000) data, roads and settlement data were used to analyze the spatial characteristics of grasslands degradation. The ArcGIS 9 software was used to convert data types and do the overlay, reclassification and zonal statistic analysis. Results show that grassland degradation is the most important land cover change in the study area, which occupied 8.24% of the region’s total area. Human activities are the main causes of the grassland degradation in the source region of the Yellow River: 1) the degradation rate is higher on the sunny slope than on the shady slope; 2) the grassland degradation rate decreases with an increase in the elevation, and it has a correlation coefficient of −0.93; 3) the nearer to the settlements the grassland is, the higher the degradation rate. Especially within a distance range of 12 km to the settlements, the grassland degradation rate is highly related with the distance, with a coefficient of −0.99; and 4) in the range of 4 km, the degradation rate decreases with the increase of distance to the roads, with a correlation coefficient of −0.98. Besides some physical factors, human activities have been the most important driving forces of the grassland degradation in the source region of the Yellow River since 1985. To resolve the degradation problems, population control is essential, and therefore, it can reduce the social demand of livestock products from the grassland. To achieve sustainable development, it needs to improve the management of grassland ecosystem.
UV-B radiometry and dosimetry for solar measurements.
Biologically effective irradiance or dose of solar UV radiation was determined using a spectroradiometer, two broadband radiometers and two types of passive UV-dosimeters. The absolute erythema irradiance and the actinic irradiance were calculated from the solar spectrum measured with the spectroradiometer. It was demonstrated that the erythema irradiance is proportional to the actinic irradiance of solar radiation. The erythema irradiance was also determined using the two broadband radiometers which utilize a filter transmitting erythema spectra. Personal UV-dosimeters such as polysulphone and CR-39 were used to determine the erythema dose for a selected period of time. These results were used to estimate the accuracy of the broadband radiometers and UV-dosimeters. It was found that the results obtained from the broadband radiometers deviate from the absolute erythema irradiance by less than 20% during clear days between the hours of 11:00 and 13:00 Eastern Standard Time (EST) in Australia. The assessment of the erythema dose using passive dosimeters such as polysulphone and CR-39 could introduce an error as high as 40% if the calibration was not performed before undertaking experimental measurements.