A national key project entitled "Predictive study of aridification in northern China in association with life-supporting environment changes" has recently passed the appraisal of a panel organized by the Ministry of Science & Technology in Beijing.
Under the support of the National Basic Research Program (dubbed "973 Program"), the five-year research project was joint led by Prof. Fu Zhongbin from the CAS Institute of Atmospheric Physics and Prof. An Zhisheng from the CAS Institute of the Earth Environment.
At the panel meeting, Prof. Fu gave an overall review on issues like the project implementation, its innovative results, and their expected contributions to the country's social and economic development, as well as achievements in talent training, research base development, organizational management and international cooperation. Prof. An and Dr. Wang Shuyu from the key CAS Laboratory for Regional Climate-Environment Research for Temperate East Asia made reports on two representative results of the project respectively.
The aridification in northern China became increasingly serious in recent years. This project, which involves both basic and applied studies, focuses on the regulation and mechanism of aridification. In the light of the theories of global changes, it is designed to analyze the natural regulations of the monsoon environment system composed of water, soil, air and biota, and to understand the processes and mechanisms by which global warming and human activities have impact on the aridification in northern China, by using the multidisciplinary synthetic analysis, ecosystem experiment and numerical simulation.
Under the well-concerted cooperation among the members of the research team, substantial progress has been scored in the following aspects:
1. The correlation between the long-term evolution of the Asian monsoon and northern China's aridification is analyzed, providing a natural background for understanding the developmental trend and formative mechanism of the process.
2. The pattern on the changes of humidity and aridity during the past century in north China is revealed, bringing to light convincing evidence for the aridification over the past 50 years.
3.A regional integrated environmental modeling system (RIEMS) has been developed, which could be used in prediction of aridification and in virtual experiments on orderly human activities
4.An understanding has been obtained regarding the response and adaptation characteristics of northern China's typical ecosystems to the aridification and human encroachment at the levels of the individual, population and ecosystem.
5. A synthetic analysis has been given to the interrelation between the socio-economic development and climate change, land and water exploitation, developing an appraising model for aridity impact, the demand-and-supply system of the water resources and the yield changes of the main crops in the coming 50 years, and offering related countermeasures.
6. Observations, tests for digital simulation and ecological demonstration regions are established in detection of the human's orderly adaptation to aridity.
7. An integrated forecasting system with predicting capability for northern China's aridification has been developed.
Aridification in north China is a complicated and interdisciplinary issue involving the interaction between the ecosystems, environment and human society's socio-economic development, according to the scientists. This research has shown that it is proper to adopt an approach of global change to cope with the issue.
Yet, both the systematic observation and experiments are in their initial stage in probing human influence on the physical, chemical and biological processes in an arid/semi-arid area, said the experts.
"At present, we should further improve and perfect our survey and test systems in a bid to obtain long-time and continuous data so that fundamental materials are provided for making clear the aridification formative mechanism and modeling inspection."
By now, the simulation capacity of the digital model and parameterization of its main processes are in need of further perfection. The quantized degree of the research work in this aspect has to be raised so that it can better offer its service to decision makers for macro-management in governmental departments, note the scientists.
