Currently, many provinces have proposed to build urban agglomeration, and there is a certain degree of “urban agglomeration hot” in the country. Urban agglomeration is not simply formed through administrative kneading, We should focus on the development quality of urban agglomeration, and the development quality of urban agglomeration needs us to focus on the city quality development within the group and the city group internal coordination problems between cities. By building the indicators of economic quality development, social and life development quality and environmental quality, we used Dynamic Factor Analysis to evaluate the quality of 38 cities in the years of 2004-2011 in the Yangtze River City Group, and analyzed the space spillovers of city quality within the urban agglomeration using spatial autocorrelation. From the evaluation of city quality within urban agglomeration,We found the spatial characteristics of Yangtze River City Group development quality were that four capital cities formed four distinct cores, the urban development within urban agglomeration with a clear imprint of administrative divisions. The cities of secondlevel quality surrounded around the good quality cities, clearly led by the good quality cities. The third and the fourthlevel cities partly located in the interprovincial border regions, partly were adjacent to the core area, but the core area “polarization effect” was clear, thereby formed “black light” effect. By analyzing the city quality dynamics figure, many cities of general quality and poor quality were in the regressive development, the city quality gap was widening in the urban agglomerations, and it caused serious polarization. We should strengthen the construction of medium and small cities to improve city quality, to improve the small and medium cities hosting population transfer of the core cities, to achieve the rational functional division of different levels of cities, so that to maximize the effectiveness of regional resources, to improve the overall efficiency of urban agglomerations. From the city coordination between cities within the urban agglomerations, the cities within Yangtze River City Group had little spatial impact, and the urban development of the provinces did not break administrative barriers. Interregional economic, social and environment cooperation had no substantial progress, currently the quality development of the Yangtze River city group was not high. We need to learn more from the successful urban agglomerations such as the Yangtze River Delta city group, the Pearl River Delta city group and Bohai Bay city group, promote the cities economic ties within the group cities, strengthen industrial division of labor and cooperation, promote market integration, develope the cities within the urban agglomerations from the “competition” to “synergy”, promote integrated construction of the infrastructure and social undertakings and public service facilities to highlight the “city effect”, and we also need to avoid falling into the strange circle of “executiveled” urban agglomerations development and prevent from “urban agglomeration disease

Metropolitan area is urban system with high integration trend and close spatial relationship. Metropolitan growth is the coordinate evolution results of the spatial selforganization evolution and regional economic and social factors, its also embodies the law of spatial mapping in human society. Metropolitan spatial evolution by three major mechanisms: selforganization evolution, economic and social development level and regional and the former two coupled together. The existing research focused on the following aspects: the spatial selforganization evolution, spatial structure reasonable, spatial form. At the same time, some researchers focus on how to establish index system for evaluation coordination degree of ecological environment, spatial cooperation crossing regional and its methods. spatial evolution is a synergistic evolution effect with spatial selforganization and economic social development. It is difficult to metric spatial organization level, therefore, the evolution of metropolitan spatial organization and spatial structure evolution are realized by spatial interaction. Spatial interaction can reflect the function of central city field, overall scale of regional economic and social development, spatial organization strength and government role in them. Spatial interaction is realized through traffic network, traffic network construction needs for government guidance and meet the objective demand of spatial organization in China. So we select intensity space connection and reasonable degree of traffic construction to represent metropolitan spatial organization. The authors take Wuhan Metropolitan area as the object of research, doing research into its spatial organizational structure by comparing it with Yangtze River Delta Metropolitan area, Pearl River Delta Metropolitan area and BeijingTianjinHebei Metropolitan area, using spatial interaction intensity, regional traffic accessibility and road network as indexes. It shows that Wuhan Metropolitan area is still in the primary stage of its development, and is at a lower level in terms of its total amount and scale. However, the structural indicators of Wuhan Metropolitan area fare well, its spatial organizational structure develops well and its space is wellstructured. There is little difference with developed urban clusters (metropolitan area) in terms of road networks and traffic accessibility. Some of the indexes even outshine others. This shows that although Wuhan Metropolitan area is in the primary stage of its development, its overall structure and organizational structure evolves in a scientific and sound way

By choosing terrain，land cover, climate and water conditions as the evaluation factors, we used GIS as the main technology platform with 250 m×250 m grid as the basic unit and moving window, evaluated the natural environment suitability of human settlements in Chongqing based on the human settlements environment index (HEI) model. Through the quantitative analysis on GIS, it revealed the geographical characteristics and space model of human settlements natural environment suitability. By adopting the method of natural breaks (Jenks), the sequence of the sample values were divided into five grades：level 5 area that was highly suitable (0821-0681); level 4 area that was moderately suitable; level 3 area that was low suitable; level 2 area that was critically suitable; level 1 area that was unsuitable. It turned out that: (1) From west to east，and also from north to south, the index of nature suitability for human settlement in Chongqing decreased progressively and the index of nature suitability for human settlement in Chongqing was between 0255 and 0821. The suitability of the metropolitan area and the one hour economic circle were generally higher. The suitability of the northeast and southeast of Chongqing were lower. (2) The influence of the hydrological suitability on the nature suitability was not significant, and there was still a part of population distributing in the unsuitable area. In these partitions of nature suitability for human settlement in Chongqing, level 1 and level 2 areas were more limited by nature factors with bigger area proportion, higher hydrological suitability of these regions, yet lower terrain and climate suitability, lower leeward slope precipitation and lower soilvegetation suitability, so they were unsuitable for people to live. However, there was still 1481% of the population distributing in these areas. Critically suitable area ranked first, accounting for about 3453% of the total area of Chongqing; the low suitable area ranked second, about 2252% of the total; the highly suitable area ranked third, about 2114%；the moderately suitable area accounting for about 17.84% of the total area of Chongqing , and the unsuitable area ranked last, only about 396%. (3)On the other hand, the population of the region was concentrated in regions with higher nature suitability, and about 8519% of the population of Chongqing was concentrated in level 1 of common suitable region and above that level, the corresponding area accounted for 615% of the area in study area. The change of the population density in Chongqing went along with the increase of nature suitability for human settlement. Therefore, the spatial pattern of nature suitability for human settlement was reasonable in this paper, and it could better reflect the nature suitability and restrictive characteristics in different areas, and quantitatively reveal the spatial pattern and geographical difference of geographical environment in Chongqing. The research results in the paper could provide a scientific basis for the correct analysis of the spatial distribution of population in Chongqing, the formulation of effective policies, and sustainable development of society and economy

Dianchi Lake basin is the core area of the Kunming City, which accounts for 0.7% of land area and 24% of GDP of Yunnan Province. Cities around the basin are the most developed area of Yunnan Province. Based on the urban growth in Dianchi Lake basin during 1992-2010, urban construction land growth showed two kinds of patterns. One was Boundary Growth which showed sustained growth of the existing urban area. The other pattern was Roadsaffected Growth which showed new urban units came into being along with roads surrounding the Dianchi Lake. According to the remote sensing data of the urban growth of Dianchi Lake basin, calibration model of SLEUTH urban growth simulated three prearranged plans of the Kunming City growth in 30 years (2010-2040). Three kinds of simulation results showed as follows. Arbitrary Growth plan led to unlimited urban sprawl. Population and urban land presented an explosive growth pattern. Great quantity of farm land and forest land were transformed to urban construction land. Dianchi Lake coast was surrounded by urban land, and the construction land area reached to 495 km2 (an increase of 200 km2) in 2040, and the population reached to 5.4 million, which were almost close to the upper limits of admissible capacities of land and population of the Dianchi Lake basin, and would greatly threaten the water environment of the Dianchi Lake. Land Total Quantity Control plan showed that Kunming City growth was controlled by urban master planning, without population and economic factors taken consideration. The construction land area was going to be 411 km2 and the population was 411 million in the year of 2040. South area of the city was the main development direction of Kunming. This kind of plan could not meet the need of the Dianchi Lake environment protection. Dianchi water resource protection was the aim of Ecological Protection plan. The construction land area and population were strictly controlled. Urban growth speed obviously slowed down. Population was 3.17 million in 2030, less than the current amount of the population and 3.92 million in 2040, lower than the upper limit of admissible capacity of population. Ecological Protection plan could effectively control urban construction land growth, and reduce the occupation of the forest land, farm land and wet land, which helped to protect Dianchi Lake environment. According to the prediction, per capita water resources were still in the situation of “critical shortage” in three urban growth plans. In order to improve the water resource situation, measures should be taken to adjust urban system layout and industry distribution, to reduce urban primacy ratio and population, to employ more stringent spatial regulations, which would effectively control urban growth. Diversion works may help to relieve strain on water

The Yangtze estuary is one of the most important stopover sites in East AsianAustralasian flyway for migratory waterbirds. Charadriiformes and Anseriformes are two major waterbird groups in the Yangtze estuary. During the past decades, suitable habitat for waterbirds in the Yangtze estuary has undergone severe changes due to the influences of natural factors (such as sea level rising, flow and sediment changes in the catchment and vegetation succession), as well as anthropic factors (e.g. reclamation, accretion promotion and deepwater channel construction). Based on remotly sensed data and field investigation, we studied the land use changes and applied spatial diversity and hemeroby index to evaluate the changes of habitat suitability for Charadriiformes and Anseriformes during the period of 1980-2010. According to the spatial diversity index, the Yangtze estuary was divided into four types, i.e., core habitat, secondary habitat, edge habitat and unsuitable habitat. The results indicated that the area percentages of core habitats decreased by 55.6% and 18.6% for Charadriiformes and Anseriformes, respectively. The area of core habitats decreased by 133 km2 for Charadriiformes and increased by 235 km2 for Anseriformes. The total area of secondary habitats, edge habitats and unsuitable habitats increased by 679 km2 and 311 km2 for Charadriiformes and Anseriformes, respectively. The comprehensive habitat suitability indices (H) for Charadriiformes were 0.92, 0.67, 0.58 and 0.53 for the years 1980, 1990, 2000 and 2010, respectively, with a decrease of 40% from 1980 to 2010. In addition, the comprehensive habitat suitability indices (H) for Anseriformes were 0.89, 0.72, 0.70 and 0.70 for the years 1980, 1990, 2000 and 2010, respectively, with a decrease of 18% during the last thirty years. Moreover, we found that the suitable habitats for Charadriiformes and Anseriformes both decreased more rapidly in the period of 1980-1990 than later periods. According to the spatial diversity indices of different hemeroby types, human disturbance was negatively correlated with the spatial diversity and had negative impacts on the habitat suitability of both Charadriiformes and Anseriformes. The degree of correlation for Charadriiformes was higher than that for Anseriformes. Moderate intensity of human disturbance increased the area of suitable habitat for Anseriformes. In summary, with intensive reclamation at the Yangtze estuary, habitat suitability for Charadriiformes and Anseriformes both decreased during the last thirty years， and habitat suitability for Charadriiformes decreased more rapidly than that for Anseriformes

Since reform and opening in 1978, southern Jiangsu Province has undergone rapid economic, industrial development and urban expansion. However, what is the spatial and temporal dynamics of construction land from 1980 to 2010? How to distinguishthe types of construction land expansion is important to understand the morphology of urban expansion. Landsat 5 TM imageries within 2010 covering the south of Jiangsu Province were selected and classified for land use with overall accuracy and Kappa coefficient 87.5% and 0.82 respectively, and seven land use types, specifically, woodland, grassland, farmland, wetland, water body, construction land and unused land were considered. The land use maps in 1980 and 2005 were from Chinese Data Sharing Infrastructure of Earth System Science. The two sources of land use maps were georeferenced. The land use maps in the south of Jiangsu Province from 1980 to 2010 were overlaid by ArcGIS 9.3 software. Then the construction land expansion types of infilling, edgeexpansion and outlaying were recognized and extracted using topology theory in ArcGIS 93 software. Finally, the spatial and temporal dynamics of construction land expansion types and driving factors were further analyzed. The results showed that the area of construction land increased by 44582% in the southern Jiangsu Province from 1980 to 2010, with an increase of 163.73% from 1980 to 2005 and 10696% from 2005 to 2010. The construction land expansion rate of Changzhou was the maximum for the period of 1980-2010 with 75286%. The major construction land expansion type in the south of Jiangsu Province was the edgeexpansion type, which occupied approximately 7403% from 1980 to 2010, and the followed were outlaying and infilling types, which owned the area of 41765 km2 and 11759 km2 for the period of 1980-2005. The percentages of construction land expansion types were similar as the period of 1980-2005 but changed dramatically for the period of 2005-2010. From the spatial distribution analysis of construction land expansion types in the south of Jiangsu Province, the infilling type was mainly located in the area nearby the city center in the five cities, while the outlaying type was mainly located in the area far away from the city center. The patch numbers of construction land expansion types were increasing from 1980 to 2010. The shapes of three construction land expansion types became increasingly complicated because of the increasing landscape shape indices for the period of 1980-2010. The fragmentation of three construction land expansion types was more serious due to higher split index. However, they still kept the higher connectivity with the high COHESION values. Construction land expansion in the south of Jiangsu Province had the close relationship with economic rapid development, population booming, industrialization, real estate investment, foreign direct investment and fixed assets investment. The method to distinguish the construction land expansion types based on GIS and remote sensing was a convenient approach in the different regions, especially the developing countries without enough urban monitoring, planning and management datasets

Greenhouse gas emission has been one of the most important environmental issues in the world. After the Kyoto Protocol entered into force in 2005, every Annex I country was required to submit an annual report of inventories of GHG emissions. The GHG emission inventories serve not only as a check of the current status of emission levels but also as a mechanism to monitor progresses toward agreed national emission reduction targets. Reliable emission inventory will provide policymakers with critical information to develop smart strategies and policies for climate change and enable the general public to better understand the sources and trends of GHG emissions. In 2008, the transport sector accounted for 23% of the world greenhouse gas emissions from energy,  but it represented the highest growth in emissions of all sectors. Increasingly serious global warming caused by the greenhouse effect has become an important constraint of the global sustainable economic and social development, which caused worldwide attention. Atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations continue to increase, mostly from the burning of fossil fuels, making the growing greenhouse effect leading to global warming. Total oil consumption of transport sector accounted for 50% of the current global oil consumption, and 25% of the total CO2 emissions. The transport sector depended too much on oil and energy, and was the major important contribution rate of greenhouse gas emissions. Exploring the impact of transportation energy consumption and related carbon emission factors and changes in the contribution rate, for the realization of lowcarbon transport has great significance. By topdown calculation method, transport sector carbon emissions and per capita carbon emission from 1995 to 2010 in Jiangsu Province were calculated and analysed using LMDI decomposition method, combined with the industry own development characteristics and extended Kaya identity. Meanwhile, decoupling relationships between carbon emissions and economic development in Jiangsu Province were analysed using Tapio model . The Results showed as follows. (1) Transport emissions and per capita carbon emission of Jiangsu Province showed a clear upward trend, in which carbon emissions of petroleum products energy consumption performed noticeably. (2) The forward driving factors of transport emissions to increase were economic output, population size and industrial structure, and the negative driving factors were the structure and intensity of transportation energy. Among them, the decisive factor of stimulating the growth of carbon emissions was the expansion of economic output, while the major factor of reducing carbon emissions was reduced transportation energy intensity, and the inhibiting effect on the increase of transport emissions of negative factors was limited compared to forward driving factors. (3) The expansion negative connection, the expansion negative decoupling and weak decoupling were the main decoupling states between transport emission change and transportation industry economic development, and the decoupling relationships tended to be deteriorative first, then ameliorative, but it would go a long way toward fully realizing absolute decoupling

The sea reclamation plays an important role in relieving contradiction between human and lands, increasing food security, expanding development space and promoting economic development in the coastal areas. It was necessary to research on the restriction line of sea reclamation, exploring the suitable sea reclamation scale and development intensity which would comply with the natural evolution tendency and accommodate to the bearing capacity of marine resources and environment. Through the sustainable utilization of the marine spatial resources expected to be realized, 〖JP2〗the restriction line of sea reclamation was the biggest outer enveloping curve on the basis of feasible engineering project, which would not change the ocean dynamic pattern and natural evolution tendency. On the foundation of the characteristics analysis of open coast and the impact on resources and environment of sea reclamation, the controlling factors had been identified from marine environment factors, including important environment sensitive objectives, marine resources and marine hydrodynamic conditions. According to analysis of the interaction mechanism in different controlling factors, the sea reclamation controlling index could be designed and the method of determining the threshold of sea reclamation controlling index had been put forward. In order to analyze different reclamation scheme’s influence on marine geodynamic pattern evolution, the iterative optimization model of sea reclamation restriction line was constructed. The iterative optimization algorithm was put forward by using hierarchical filtering and iterative approximation method. Besides, the tidal current numerical simulation and sediment siltation prediction technique were applied in the iterative optimization model. Taking Yaosha (peninsular shoal in the radial sand ridge of Jiangsu Province) as an example, the sea reclamation scale evaluation was carried out. Distinguishing the sea reclamation controlling factors by analyzing the natural resources and social and economic conditions, the iterative optimization model of sea reclamation restriction line had been constructed. And the Yaosha twodimension tidal current mathematical model and sediment empirical model were used to analyze different sea reclamation restriction line scheme’s influence on the tidal current field and accretionerosion environment in the adjacent sea area. Especial attention had to be paid to the impact on tide flow and flow field characteristics of tidal channel such as Xiaomiaohong, Sanshahong and Wangcanghong, et al. The calculation results showed that the reclamation restriction line was 2.8 m above the theoretical datum plane in Yaosha. The research method and iterative optimization model could not only provide methodology and reference for other coastal provinces, but also provide scientific basis for formulating the total amount control indicators of sea reclamation scale

The spatial distribution of precipitation estimation is the basis of the meteorological service. Inadequate of the rain gauge observation site do influence the precision of the precipitation distribution estimation. In order to minimize the impact, it is necessary to introduce the precipitation factors for auxiliary operation. But due to reasons such as confidentiality, a lot of impact factors are difficult to obtain for ordinary researchers. In this paper, the problem was solved by using the Temporal Sequence coKriging method, which could mine temporal character from the historical precipitation data. This paper chose the precipitation data from 2006 to 2010 in Hubei Province as the research object. Through the analysis of the rainfall data, the value of Variation Function for every rain gauge as the factor that influenced rainfall intensity was introduced to the precipitation distribution estimation of multiple geographic space in statistics, and the Temporal Sequence coKriging method was used to construct a mathematical relationship model between rainfall intensity and the historical precipitations character. First of all, we calculated the Variation Function of each site in time dimension, and analyzed the relationship between the variation function values under different time scales and the distribution of rainfall. Then we estimated the spatial distribution of precipitation by choosing variation function values under different time scales as collaborative variables. At last, we evaluated the accuracy of the Temporal Sequence coKriging model and the Ordinary Kriging model by both the cross validation and the Error comparison of every Rain gauge station. In addition, according to the obvious seasonal trends of precipitation data, this paper studied the change of the Temporal Sequence coKriging models accuracy before and after the temporal decomposition, and then summarized the characteristics of the models time scale. The research results showed that the precision of the precipitation distribution estimation improved obviously by using the Temporal Sequence coKriging method than the Ordinary Kriging method both in the overall accuracy and in the single point accuracy. 〖JP2〗Data after timeseries decomposing could steadily improve the estimation precision than before. It was feasible to use the Temporal Sequence coKriging method for the precipitation distribution estimation under the condition which is full of historical precipitation data and short of other precipitation information. Meanwhile, the calculation of the Variation Function in time dimension was very easy, and could be adjusted dynamically according to the rain gauge observation site realtime data. Because the Temporal Sequence coKriging method had simple, strong timeliness with the characteristics of high precision, it was an effective method for the precipitation distribution estimation based on the rain gauge observation data

Four Holocene palaeoflood slackwater deposits (SWD) were found at Shangjiahe reach in the Yun County of Hubei province in the upper reaches of the Hanjiang River. In the laboratory, the grainsize distribution, magnetic susceptibility and lossonignition were analyzed and compared with modern flood SWD, and the results indicated that four palaeoflood SWDs were typical and recorded four palaeoflood events in the upper reaches of Hanjiang River. The HECRAS software was developed at the Hydrologic Engineering Center (HEC), which is a division of the Institute for Water Resources (IWR), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. HECRAS is an integrated system of software, designed for interactive use in a multitasking, multiuser network environment. The HECRAS system contains four onedimensional river analysis components for steady flow water surface profile computations, unsteady flow simulation, movable boundary sediment transport computations and water quality analysis. A key element is that all four components use a common geometric data representation and common geometric and hydraulic computation routines. In addition to the four river analysis components, the system contains several hydraulic design features that can be invoked once the basic water surface profiles are computed. The system is comprised of a graphical user interface (GUI), separate hydraulic analysis components, data storage and management capabilities, graphics and reporting facilities. The maximum peak discharges of the four palaeoflood events were calculated from 45 550 m3/s to 61 750 m3/s using HECRAS model. These calculated discharges were checked by the reconstructed palaeoflood peak discharges by the slopearea method, and the errors were 1.58%-3.09%. At the same time, the flood peak discharge of July 18, 2010 extraordinary flood was also reconstructed with the same model and hydrographical parameters, and the error between the calculated and gauged discharges was about 4.91%. This result showed that it was reasonable to calculate palaeoflood peak discharges and choose hydrological parameters, and it was simple and easily operable to use HECRAS model to reconstruct palaeoflood peak discharges. Moreover the study results provided a new method on the study of palaeoflood hydrology. Thus, the results effectively extended the upper reaches of the Hanjiang River flood hydrology data sequence and provided a reliable reference for engineering construction, flood control and disaster alleviation in upper reaches of Hanjiang River

Based on stable water isotopes in precipitation events spanning a time period of Jan. 1st, 2010 to Dec. 31st, 2012 in Changsha, meteoric water line (MWL) for different seasons were calculated, combining with stable water isotopes in precipitation events in Guangzhou, and local factors that may affect the MWL were also analyzed. The results showed as follows. (1) The MWL for the entire year was δD=857×δ18O+1855, and this equation was very close to that of the eastern monsoon region of China, especially the south of this area, suggesting same moisture origins for this area. Both slope and intercept for seasonal MWLs were decreasing, and followed the order winter, spring, autumn and summer. The moisture for Changhshas summer precipitation that transported by the southwest and southeast monsoon from Indian Ocean and the Pacific, which was showed by Hysplit in our other study, may cause the MWLs slope lower than 8. (2) The relationship between precipitation and MWL both in Changsha and Guangzhou indicated that there was no necessary linkages between precipitation and MWL, which contradicted the results from other researches. Also, temperature and humidity did not act as their influences on the ratio of fractionation effect. These results suggested that factors which affected MWL are complicated. (3) The differences of MWL between rainfall and snowfall should not be simply attributed to isotope fractionation caused by secondary evaporation under cloud occurring during rainfall was more stronger than that during snowfall. We believed that the differences in the ratio of fractionation effect during the phase transition processes of liquidvapor (precipitation) and solidvapor (snow) should be considered

Taking the landscape pattern of the rural settlement in Fengxian of Jiangsu Province as the research subject, this paper extracted the rural settlement data of Fengxian in Jiangsu Province from the national results of the second land survey data as the main data source by using ArcGIS 9.3 spatial analysis software to find out how the different grinds of administrative center influenced the landscape pattern of land use by using Fragstats 33 as the landscape pattern analysis software, then got twenty kinds of rural settlement landscape pattern based on Rule of Centric Cell. With the help of ArcGIS 9.3 spatial analysis software, we changed the vector data of rural settlement to raster data. By using Fragstats 3.3 as the landscape pattern analysis software, the eight selected landscape indices were calculated. The selected landscape indices could reflect the changes in the characteristics of amounts and scales, the shape, the spatial configuration and the dominance index. According to the results of the calculation, we analysed the effects of changing grain size on landscape indices of rural settlement at county scale, based on which we chose the appropriate grain of landscape pattern analysis. The results showed as follows. (1) Most of the rural settlements in Fengxian were smallscale and the per capita area was large (204.04 m2 per capita), at the same time the shape of landscape was fragmentized and anomalous. The distribution features of rural settlement in Fengxian were “low aggregation, high dispersion” and “small scale, large density”. (2) Apart from the two landscape indices of Total Area and Landscape Division Index, the remaining six landscape indices all had strong scale effect. In other words, the landscape pattern was exposed to the space scale strongly. There was little significance talking about the landscape pattern without the space scale. (3) With the space scale increasing from 10m to 200m, all the five landscape indices of Number of Patches, Patch Density, Landscape Shape Index, Patch Cohesion Index and Aggregation Index had a decrease, while the landscape index of Largest Patch Index increased astatically. The changing in the values of landscape indices showed that the degree of the dominance of the largest patch tended to increase, the degree of fragmentation of the patches was lower, the shape of the patches tended to be inerratic, the degree of cohesion was becoming less and the patches distributed dispersedly. (4) After all the first scale domains of the eight landscape indices were taken into consideration, we got to know the determination of the appropriate grain of landscape pattern analysis for the analysis of the rural settlement at county scale. The appropriate grain of landscape pattern analysis was 50-60 m and 60m was defined as the optimizationscale. Through the analysis, it was found that the changes in the grain size could have a great effect on landscape indices of rural settlement at county scale. We had to take the factor of analysis scale into consideration, when we calculated the landscape indices of rural settlement to research the landscape pattern

With the rapid development of industrialization and urbanization, the rural settlements function has shown an increasingly strong trend towards spatial differentiation and diversification. Though discussion on rural settlements is becoming hot, little special attention has been given to rural settlements function. From the viewpoint of utility theory of value and concept of demand and supply, this paper discussed the meaning, classification and spatial heterogeneity and temporal variability of rural settlements function, then a multifunctionality assessment index system and an index analysis model were set up, later, based on the village scale, this paper evaluated and graded the functions of agricultural production, industrial production and commercial trading, daily life, health services, cultural and educational services, ecological service protection and comprehensive function. The results were as follows. Agricultural productionoriented functional areas were mainly distributed in western and northern areas which were far from the city and highway. Industrial production and commercial tradingoriented areas and culturaleducational servicesoriented indices were gradually weakened from city and towns to remote areas and from areas along the Yangtze River to the north. Ecological and cultural conservation areas were concentrated in the northeastern part. The composite function on the village scale emerged polycentric structure in the Qidong City. With gradually increasing distance from the strong function center, the composite indices became smaller, meanwhile, the function types of strong center were different from each other

Agricultural waste was called the “Misplaced Resources” for its inclusion of enormous energy, and its direct emissions without scientific treatment would cause environment pollution and resource waste. From the perspective of farmers concurrent business, using survey data from rural areas of Hubei, the Logistic regression model was applied into the comparative analysis of willingness to recycle agricultural waste resources and influencing factors among farmers with different types of concurrent business. The results indicated that: (1)785% of the fulltime farmers (farmers whose proportion of nonfarm income to total household income is within 10%) were willing to recycle agricultural waste resources, and nearly the same, that of the type I farmers (farmers whose proportion of nonfarm income to total income is between 10% and 50%) was 798%, and both were higher than that of type II farmers (more than half of their income is from nonfarm business). (2)The perception to the value of agricultural waste resources was the common factor that influenced farmers willingness to recycle with different types of concurrent business. The greater farmers perception to the value of agricultural waste resources was, the higher their willingness to recycle. (3)The factors influencing recycling willingness were quite different among farmers with different types of concurrent business. In details, gender had a positive impact on farmers recycling willingness, especially on type II farmers, namely relative to female, male farmers recycling willingness were much higher. The significant negative effects of age on fulltime and type II farmer recycling willingness were observed, and especially greater on the former. The land management scale influenced farmers recycling willingness positively, and particularly influenced type I farmers willingness. The perception to acquisition of economic income had a positive impact on type I and type II farmers recycling willingnesses, and a greater impact on type I farmers. The perception to their own economic conditions particularly influenced fulltime farmers recycling willingness, which meant that it would be higher if they perceived better economic conditions. In addition, it was noteworthy that household net income had a positive effect on fulltime farmers recycling willingness, and the greater fulltime farmers household net income was, the higher their willingness. And the perception to their own learning ability had a positive impact on type II farmers recycling willingness, that is to say, farmers would have higher willingness if they perceived ease of learning agricultural waste resources recycling concepts and methods. In conclusion, we got the following policy implications. (1) Improve farmers, especially female farmers recycling willingness perceived value of agricultural waste resources through educational training and propaganda, and highlight its economic benefits to attract and encourage more participation of farmers. (2) Promote land reform system and household register system so as to give more land to fulltime and type I farmers. (3) Increase fund input and subsidy to improve farmers economic conditions and their willingness to pay for the recycling of agricultural waste resources. (4) Strengthen political support for the perfection of social security system to improve old farmers living standard and avoid their constraints on agricultural production

As one of the world largest hydropower projects, the impoundment of Three Gorges Dam (TGD) after 2003 and its possible impact on downstream hydrological environment aroused world attention. The present study made an innovative research about the actual impact assessment of TGD impoundment by revealing the multiscale timefrequency characteristics of different hydrosignals upstream and downstream TGD. The daily inflow and outflow data series of TGD, daily runoff series downstream TGD in Yichang and Datong Hydrostations, daily high and low tide level series in north Yangtze River Estuary, and multiscale timefrequency characteristics of different hydrosignals for 8 years (2004-2011) were analyzed by using the improved HilbertHuang Transform (HHT) method, which was based on the Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition (EEMD) algorithm. Results from the improved HHT method were further compared with that from the Continuous Wavelet Transform (CWT) and Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) methods. Results from the improved HHT method showed the dominant 1year periodicities in the TGD daily inflow and outflow series and also in the daily runoff series in Yichang and Datong Hydrostations during years 2004-2011 after TGD impoundment, which indicated that the impact of TGD regulation on the 1year periodic features in river dynamics downstream TGD was not significant. As for the daily high and low tide level series in the north branch of Yangtze River Estuary, the dominant halfmonth periodicities were revealed by the improved HHT method, which indicated that the impact weight of upstream inflow dynamics caused by TGD regulation on estuarine river stage dynamics was lower than the impact weight of estuarine ocean tidal fluctuation. In addition, by comparing with the DWT method, which decomposed signals at the fixed frequency bands, the improved HHT method showed better self adaptability at signal decomposition because of the EEMD algorithm. By comparing with the CWT method, the improved HHT method showed more advantages in revealing signals periodic oscillations at highfrequency scales because of its capacity in avoiding frequency aliasing phenomena involved in the signal decomposition. However, the weak orthogonalities among the intrinsic mode function (IMF) components from the EEMD method would still require attention and need to be solved by further research

Land Use/Cover Change (LUCC) and its hydrological impacts on watershed are the highlighted research issue on the global change, and delving into and quantifying the hydrological effects caused by land use/cover change contribute to an overall assessment of the hydrological cycle and water resources evolution within the watershed. The forcing factors that drive LUCC in watershed are so numerous and the nonlinear relationships between the factors and LUCC are so complicated that it is very difficult to build a simulation model. Intelligent modeling with the capability of nonlinearity and selfadaption provided an efficient route for the simulation of the dynamic evolution of complicated system. In this paper, a coupled CAANN model based on Cellular Automata (CA) and Artificial Neutral Network (ANN) was established for the simulation of LUCC in watershed. The upstream watershed of Hanjiang basin was taken as the case study, with land use in 1980 and 2000 as calibration and validation, respectively, and the transferring area and probability of LUCC were analyzed. The CAANN coupled model was built for the simulation of the transition rules and dynamic evolution of LUCC and the satisfied accuracy in LUCC simulation was obtained. The scenario of land use/cover in 2020s was simulated by using the established CAANN coupled model. The results showed that the paddy field, dry farm, shrubbery and construction land area in 2020 would increase in varying degrees. The woodland, grassland and water body area would decrease. The simulated results corresponded to the trends of LUCC in the upstream watershed of Hanjiang basin, which demonstrated that the coupled CAANN model could simulate the complicated nonlinear dynamic evolving process of LUCC land use/cover change in watershed. On this basis, this study applied the distributed hydrological model (SWAT model) to simulate the hydrological processes in the upstream watershed of the Hanjiang Basin, and analyzed the variation of surface runoff and evapotranspiration in watershed under different LUCC scenarios. The results indicated that the annual average runoff tended to increase and the annual LUCC had more significant impact on runoff than the flood season, average annual evapotranspiration of years showed a upward trend under the LUCC scenarios of 1980s, 2000s and the simulated 2020s

The concept of niche is one of the most important fundamental researches of modem ecology and it has percolated into many fields besides ecology. Niche mainly involves three aspects: niche breadth, niche overlap and niche differentiation. Based on the analysis of dominant periphytic algaes niche in the Gufu River, this paper explored the interactions among periphytic algae and their utilization of resources in mountain river. There were many reports about the niche of algae, which mostly focused on lakes or reservoirs. On the contrary, few reports were found focusing on mountain rivers. The Gufu River chosen as the research subject is a nearnatural river which has little human disturbance and a mountain river located in Shennongjia Forest District. In this paper, 22 dominant species of periphytic algae in spring and summer were firstly figured out by Mcnaughton dominance index in the Gufu River. Next, the niche breadth and niche overlap of these dominant species were respectively determined by using modified Smith and Pianka formulae, and niche differentiation was studied by Redundancy Analysis (RDA). The results showed that the most species of the dominant species were diatom and phytoplankton, but the number of diatom was far less than that of phytoplankton, and green algaes number was the least. The niche breadth and niche overlap of these dominant species were different in different periods. Based on their niche breadth in each month, the dominant species in the Gufu River could be classified into 5 groups, among which, Phormidium foveolarum, Achnanthes linearis and Aphanocapsa rivularis had broadest niche; the broader niche a dominant species had, the more resource it would occupy, conversely one with narrower niche. The niche overlap indices were the biggest between three dominant species above and phytoplankton, followed by diatom and green algae; the niche overlap indices between these three dominant species and the rest dominant species were roughly the same in the spring months, yet that were greater in the summer months which probably was due to the larger amount rainfall in summer. The RDA analysis showed that the spatial distribution of the dominant species was more affected by total nitrogen, pH, ammonia nitrogen and chemical oxygen demand; the first axis of RDA ordination map showed the change in total nitrogen, and the second axis showed the changes in ammonia nitrogen; Lyngbya aestuarii was estranged from its two variants and they had an evident niche differentiation; the most evident niche differentiation of these dominant species was green algae and the least evident was diatom. The following conclusions were drawn through the analysises of niche: Phormidium foveolarum, Achnanthes linearis, Aphanocaps arivularis which had broader niche breadth could reflect the overall water conditions of Gufu River, and those algae, like Pandorina morum, Microspora amoena and Gomphonema angustatum which had narrower niche breadth, could reflect the changes of one or several water factors; the index of niche overlap could judge whether the water of the Gufu River was disturbed by external factor or not; comparing RDA ordination map and the population of dominant periphytic algae, the changes of total nitrogen, ammonia nitrogen and pH could be caught out

The deterioration of the ecological environment caused by soil erosion has become China's important ecological security problems. Comprehensive control of soil erosion is a multidisciplinary, comprehensive systems engineering, which plays an important role in reducing soil erosion and improving the ecological environment. It's important to control the scientific decisionmaking of soil and water loss, identify the implementation effect and promote the technology of soil and water conservation with a scientific and reasonable benefit evaluation. Focusing on the information shield and incompatibility of single index evaluation resulted in the comprehensive benefit evaluation of soil and water conversation, this paper adopted the matterelement extension model to evaluate water and soil conservation projects from World Bank and Europe union in six counties of Hubei Province. The results showed that the projects of ecological benefit above grade Ⅱ level accounted for 83.3% of all evaluated objects, and the proportion of economic benefit above grade Ⅱ level was 50%. The social benefit of all objects was above grade Ⅱ level. This indicated the whole project had better ecological, economic and social benefits. Lichuan's comprehensive benefit of soil and water conservation was grade Ⅰ level. Changyang and Xishui were of grade Ⅰ level trend, but Changyang had more potential than Xishui. Hongan and Macheng had the potential to transfer to grade Ⅲ level. Yiling's comprehensive benefit of soil and water conservation was the lowest. The projects of comprehensive benefit above grade Ⅱ level accounted for 83.3% of the whole evaluation objects. Implementation of the project made good ecological, economic, social benefits, and the overall project implementation effect was good. The evaluation result based on matterelement extension model was consistent with the result of traditional comprehensive index evaluation method, and indicated that this model was reliable. Matterelement extension model to solve the problem of incompatible factor evaluation grade of all the benefits of soil and water conservation had a wide application in the future, but the evaluation of matterelement classical domain and joint domain still needed to be further studied

Chishui River is the only unexplored tributary of the Yangtze River and also the nature reserve of valuable and rare fish of the Yangtze River. Therefore, it is necessary to enhance the research on water environment protection of Chishui River. Because of the smaller water flow and poor selfpurification ability of river during winter period, we chose to sample in winter season. 37 samples covering the whole basin of Chishui River were collected and analyzed during the dry season in this study. We applied the box plot based on STATISTICA 9 to show the distribution of various water quality indicators of the mainstream and the tributaries intuitively and then, the comprehensive water quality identification index was utilized to fully depict the general water quality of the Chishui River. The water quality parameters for all samples were determined, by which we got the variations of spatial distribution and the characteristics of the water quality. The results showed that the Chuishui River water quality was generally good. The comprehensive water quality index of the whole basin was 16 and 15 for the mainstream. For the tributaries, the water quality identification indices of Tongzi River, Gulin River and Xishui River were 15, 17 and 15. But Yanjin River got serious polluted, and the water quality identification index was 32, the concentration of total phosphorus (TP) reached 0.6mg/L especially. The water quality evaluation results of each sampling point were excellent, except for the source. The water quality indices of the sampling points beyond the standard were Yudong Village (TN, DO), Linzhen Village (TP) and Yanjin River (TP). In the whole basin, the overall level of TN was higher, which was a potential index beyond the standard. As the most polluted watershed of the Chishui River Basin, the total nitrogen (TN) and CODcr in Yanjin River decreased significantly, but eutrophication indices such as total phosphorus (TP) and dissolved oxygen (DO) were deteriorating in recent years. The government should focus on the prevention and control, although the water quality of Chishui River basin was still at a relatively good level and the pollution sources were generally under control, and the government also need to pay heed to limit or reduce the emissions of urban sewage. To get how the water quality of Chishui River changes, we need further longterm monitoring

Flood is one of the great threats for regional sustainable development. As the global climate changes, accelerating process of urbanization and agglomeration of population and economic make flood loss become increasingly serious. Based on land use data, digital elevation data, grid size was set (grid size was 30 m×30 m) and the flood loss assessment basic flow was put out in this paper. According to the water level measured data, watershed digital elevation model and GIS spatial analysis technology, flood submerged area and water depth were calculated. GIS grid and socioeconomic attribute data grid superimposed to form flood disaster assessment grid. The grid not only included GIS topology information, but also included floodrelated information (such as water depth, velocity, duration, etc.) and land use information. Flood loss estimation model was built using the grid data. Based on field survey, combined with the facts of the study area and results of previous studies, agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, fishery, household property, industrial and mining enterprises loss rates were determined. Based on spatial grid computing unit and flood monitoring data and GIS spatial analysis technology, flood loss was estimated in Chaohu basin in 2003. The results showed that flooded inundated area was 2 12504 km2 in Chaohu basin in 2003, submergences in the 0-05 m, 05-1 m, 1-2 m, 2-3 m, 3 m above area were 44533 km2, 48744 km2, 38146 km2, 42859 km2, 38222 km2. From the view of land use patterns, flooded area of paddy field was the largest, which was 1 71924 km2; flooded grassland was the smallest, only 1086 km2; flooded area of rural residential land, water, dry land, urban construction land, forest land were 18579 km2, 12609 km2, 471 km2, 2339 km2, 1257 km2, respectively. From the administrative region, flooded area of Wuwei County was the largest,  69785 km2; flooded area of Hefei City was the smallest, 4272 km2. Total value of flood loss was 1 948 280 000 yuan. Compared with the statistical data, the error was 619%. Flood loss was larger in Wuwei County, Hefei City and Lujiang County, 522 700 000 yuan, 284 150 000 yuan and 242 230 000 yuan respectively; less loss of Shucheng County and Feixi County was respectively 67 810 000 yuan and 94 480 000 yuan. Judging from the type of asset, economic losses of agriculture and industrial and mining enterprises were large, 662 790 000 yuan and 477 720 000 yuan respectively; forestry loss was the smallest, only 3 620 000 yuan. The flood loss estimation model was proved to be effective through the verification. The evaluation model could meet regional scale assessment of flood loss. Remote sensing data was broadly applied to carry out multiscale dynamic damage assessment