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To study the influence of resources thresholds on plant growth is a major theme in restoration ecology. Based on the simulation of the natural thresholds of soil moisture, nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P) under drought condition in the arid valley of Mingjiang River, a full factorial experiment was designed to study the dynamics of Bauhinia faberi seedlings survival rate, growth, biomass production, and resources use efficiency across one growth season. High soil moisture (40% field water capacity), high soil P (24 mg P × kg-1), and low N (100 mg N × kg-1) increased the seedlings survival rate, and promoted the seedlings growth, biomass production, and water use efficiency. There was a significant coupling effect between soil N and P, but the interactions between soil moisture and soil N and P were not obvious. High N (240 mg N × kg-1) restrained the seedlings growth markedly, while high P mitigated the negative effects of high N via increasing root area, root length, and root mass to promote the seedlings N and P uptake. The N and P use efficiency across one growth season kept steady, and had significant positive correlation with root/shoot mass ratio. The combination of high soil moisture, low N, and high P promoted the seedlings growth effectively, while that of low soil moisture, low P, and high N inhibited the seedlings growth markedly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vertical gradient of mountain landscape is about 1000 times of its horizontal gradient, and hence, only using landscape pattern index is quite difficult to reflect the landscape regularity along vertical gradient. Mountain altitudinal belt is a kind of classic geographic models representing the vertical differentiation of landscape, being of significance in geographic and ecological researches. However, the discrete expression pattern and the inaccuracy of the borderlines of mountain vertical belts limit the roles of mountain vertical belt in accurately describing landscape pattern in regional scale and in explaining ecological processes. This paper reviewed the research progress and existing problems on mountain altitudinal belt, put forward a suggestion of using modern information technology to establish a comprehensive and continuous mountain landscape information chart, and discussed the framework and prospect of the establishment of the chart, which would have reference value for accurately describing mountain landscape pattern and explaining specific ecological processes, and promote the further improvement of the methodology for mountain ecological research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the land use change data and by using 137Cs tracer technique, this paper studied the change process of soil erosion intensity in Yangjuangou watershed in Loess Hilly Region. Since the 1980's, the land use intensity in the watershed decreased gradually. In 1980-2006, the slope arable land decreased from 94.9 hm2 to 0.2 hmb2, while the forest land, shrub land, orchard land, and grassland increased from 0 to 51.1 hm2, from 0 to 19.2 hm2, from 0 to 18.0 hm2, and from 76.9 hm2 to 80.1 hmb2, respectively. The soil erosion intensity was in the order of slope arable land > shrub land > orchard land > grass land > forest land. In 1980, 1984, 1996, and 2006, the soil erosion intensity was 6408.9, 5362.4, 4903.9, and 3641.4 t · km-2 · a-1, respectively, being changed from intense to moderate. Soil and water conservation and vegetation restoration were the main causes of the decrease of soil erosion intensity in the study area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aimed to explore the effects of different vegetations and of the years of vegetation restoration on soil microbial biomass carbon and nitrogen, a comparative study was conducted, with the 5 year old Robinia pseudoacacia, Hippophae reamnoide and Prunus armeniaca plantations and the 5, 15 and 25 years old R. pseudoacacia plantation in the Yangjuangou catchment of Yanan City of Shaanxi Province, a typical hilly area of the Loess Plateau, as test objects. The results showed that among the three 5-year old plantations, H. reamnoides plantation had the highest soil organic carbon (SOC) and total nitrogen (TN) contents, while R. pseudoacacia plantation had the highest soil microbial biomass carbon (MBC) (99.56 mg·kg-1) and nitrogen (MBN) (28.81 mg·kg-1). The MBC was in the order of R. pseudoacaciaH. reamnoidesP. armeniaca, and that of MBN was of R. pseudoacaciaP. armeniacaH. reamnoides. The MBC/SOC was in the order of R. pseudoacacia>H. reamnoides>P. armeniaca, and that of MBN/TN was of R. pseudoacacia>P. armeniaca H. reamnoides, with the differences being significant (P0.05). With the increasing years of vegetation restoration, the soil pH in R. pseudoacacia plantation decreased, while the SOC, TN, electricity conductance (EC), MBC, and MBN all had an increasing trend, which illustrated that in the hilly area of Loess Plateau, planting R. pseudoacacia was more beneficial to the increase of soil MBC and MBN, and, with the increasing years of this planting, soil MBC, MBN, SOC and TN tended to be increasing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surface waters can be contaminated by human activities in two ways: (1) by point sources, such as sewage treatment discharge and storm-water runoff; and (2) by non-point sources, such as runoff from urban and agricultural areas. With point-source pollution effectively controlled, non-point source pollution has become the most important environmental concern in the world. The formation of non-point source pollution is related to both the sources such as soil nutrient, the amount of fertilizer and pesticide applied, the amount of refuse, and the spatial complex combination of land uses within a heterogeneous landscape. Land-use change, dominated by human activities, has a significant impact on water resources and quality. In this study, fifteen surface water monitoring points in the Yuqiao Reservoir Basin, Zunhua, Hebei Province, northern China, were chosen to study the seasonal variation of nitrogen concentration in the surface water. Water samples were collected in low-flow period (June), high-flow period (July) and mean-flow period (October) from 1999 to 2000. The results indicated that the seasonal variation of nitrogen concentration in the surface water among the fifteen monitoring points in the rainfall-rich year is more complex than that in the rainfall-deficit year. It was found that the land use, the characteristics of the surface river system, rainfall, and human activities play an important role in the seasonal variation of N-concentration in surface water. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to identify the effect of land-use pattern on rainfall-runoff and runoff-sediment relations in Zichang Watershed of the Loess Plateau. From 1986 to 1997, many farmlands changed into grassland or woodland, especially the farmland in steep slope positions or far away from the river. The change of land-use pattern altered the rainfall-runoff and runoff-sediment relationships, and led to higher slope of trend curves(STCs) of annual rainfall-runoff mass curve and runoff-sediment mass curve in 1990s than that in 1980s. It is implied that more soil and water loss yielded in 1990s. In order to reduce soil loss, more attentions should be paid to land-use pattern and some grass or other herbaceous filter strips should be built along rivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a study which examined the effects of land use and its patterns on soil moisture and nutrients in the hilly area of Loess Plateau in China. Description of the study area; Comparisons of soil moisture among land uses for wet and dry years; Effects of landscape position on soil nutrients.

Presents a study which compared the soil qualities of different land uses in Wolong Nature Reserve, Sichuan Province, China using the integrated soil quality index and soil deterioration index. Description of the study area; Soil sampling methods and processing; Calculation of soil deterioration indices; Effects of different land uses on soil properties after deforestation.

Abstract: The spatial variation of soil nutrients in topsoil (0-20cm) was analyzed using semivariogram in the Zunhua County of Hebei Province, China. The effect on semivariogram with randomly deleted data and kriged estimates using various reduced sample sizes was also analyzed. The semivariograms of available N, total N, available P, organic matter were best described by a spherical model, except for available K, which best fitted a complex structure of exponential model and linear with sill model. The ratio of nugget to total sample variance ranged from 34.4% to 68.4%, indicating the spatial correlation of tested soil nutrients on a large scale was moderately dependent. Among five soil nutrients, available nitrogen and available phosphorus had the shortest spatial correlation range (5 km and 5.5 km), available K had the longest range (25.5 km), whereas total nitrogen and organic matter had intermediate spatial correlation range (14.5 km and 8.5 km). The semivariograms of available N, total N, available P, and organic matter were insensitive to a 50%-60% reduction in original sampling density, while for available K, it is up to 70%. The estimated spatial distributions of total N by kriging, under various reduced sample sizes, all correlated significantly (P = 0.001) with those obtained from original data. The results showed that the semivariogram was a relatively robust tool when used in a large region and sufficient spatial variation information could be retained regardless of a higher deletion proportion of the original data. The original sample data could be reduced by kriging and the estimates showed no loss of spatial information, however, the results may be unreliable unless a clearly identified semivariogram model could be obtained. The results may provide useful information for determining the appropriate sampling densities for these scales of soil survey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Sustainable development, as a "hot topic", concerns not only economic development hut also environmental protection. Agriculture, the base of other economic activities, has faced many difficulties that include over-growth population, land decrease, and land degradation and so on. Therefore, how to increase the food supply, to meet the over-growth population demands, is the main task all over the world at present, especially in the developing countries, such as China, but we also must protect agricultural environment for medium- and long-term development simultaneously. Hence, sustainable development in agri culture is the most important estate that we must concern. Its sustainable development determines the sustainability of other economic development to a great extent. Despite Chinese government has paid much attention to develop agricultural production and obtained ggreat successions there are also many shortcomings in Chinese agriculture. Therefore, China must seek new approaches for its development and environmental protection that suit local conditions and are based on local resources. Agro-ecological engineerin g, the application of ecological engineering in agriculture, is very thriving in China in recent decades. In this paper, the ecological, economic and social benefits of agro-ecological engineering are analyzed. The principles are discussed. ,The results indicated that agro-ecological engineering can meet the farmer's short-, medium- and long-term benefits. In the meanwhile, it also concerns not only economic benefits but ecological and social benefits. Therefore, agro-ecological engineering is a way that leads to sust ainable agriculture in the future in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the 2000-2008 MODIS-NDVI images and using dimidiate pixel model, a dynamic evaluation was made on the vegetation coverage in northern Shaanxi Province, one of the ecologically fragile area in China, under the backgrounds of returning farmland to forestland and grassland and of the integrated management of soil and water loss. In 2000-2008, the vegetation coverage in the study area fluctuated within a year, being the highest in August and the lowest in March, and showed an increasing trend from the northwest to the southeast. The annual maximum vegetation coverage had a pronounced increase, but the area of medium and high coverage increased while that of low coverage decreased. The increased area of vegetation coverage occupied more than half of the study area, especially in the northeast. Climate features and human activities were the main causes inducing the pronounced increase of vegetation coverage, reflecting to a certain extent the effectiveness of ecological restoration efforts. The dimidiate pixel model based on the MODIS-NDVI images could well and truly simulate the spatiotemporal variation trend of the vegetation cover in northern Shaanxi, and be applicable to quantitatively estimate and evaluate the effectiveness of vegetation restoration at regional scale.

Sediment gyration sampling was conducted in June 2006 to analyze the profile distribution of sediment particle sizes at a check-dam built in 1954 in a typical small watershed of hilly and gully Loess plateau. There were at least 28 layers of sediment gyration at the check-dam, with the layer depth varied from 2 cm to 60 cm. In the sediment profile, silt (0.05-0.002 mm) occupied > 60%, its particle size being mainly within the range of 0.01-0.05 mm, while coarse sand (> 0.05 mm) accounted for 23.09%. The variation degree of sediment particle sizes increased with increasing depth, and an abrupt change was observed at the depth 2 m. Both longitudinal gradient and hydrodynamic condition caused the variation of sediment particle sizes. There was an accumulated plough layer of 72 cm thickness in the profile, which had indicative role for the sediment erosion environment of check dam.