High-resolution current velocity and suspended sediment concentration (SSC) data were collected by using an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) at two anchor stations and a cross-section in the South Channel of the Changjiang River mouth during meso and neap tides on Nov. 16, 2003. In addition, tidal cycle (13-hour) observation at two stations was carried out with traditional methods during the spring tide. Results indicated that resuspension occurred not only at the flood and ebb maximum, but also in the early phase of ebb in the meso and neap tide. When tidal current transited from high to ebb phase, current speed accelerated. Subsequently, fine-grained sediment with low critical threshold was resuspended and increased concentration. The river mouth area remained in siltation in the meso and neap tidal phase during the observation season, with calculated resuspension flux in the order of magnitude of 10^-4–10^-7 kg·m^-2/s. Suspended sediment transport in the South Channel was dominated by freshwater discharge, but the Storks drift, vertical circulation and vertical shear effect due to tidal oscillation also played an important role in resuspension and associated sediment transport. In contrast, resuspension sediment flux in the spring tide was larger than that in meso and neap tide, especially at the ebb maximum and flood maximum. The present study revealed that intensive resuspension corresponded well with the larger current velocity during winter. In addition, the ‘tidal pumping’ effect and tidal gravity circulation were also vital for forming the turbidity maximum in the Changjiang River estuary.

Power-law relationship between tidal prism (P) and the cross-sectional area of the entrance channel (A) is applicable to assess the equilibrium conditions of a tidal inlet system. The classic method of determining P-A relationships proposed by O’Brien depends on datasets from multi-tidal inlet systems, which has shown some limitations and is unable to assess equilibrium of a single tidal inlet. This paper focuses on establishing a new P-A relationship for a single tidal inlet. Our experimental result shows that in order to maintain the status, power n should be > 1, implying that the inlet width will narrow and current speed within the entrance will increase as tidal prism becomes smaller. A possible explanation for power n < 1.0, as many researchers argued before, is that the influence of tidal prism has been exaggerated. Meanwhile, the magnitude of coefficient C is dependent on many factors such as longshore drift, freshwater discharge, etc, resulting in a wide range of variation of C. It should be pointed out that P-A relationship given by the sediment dynamical approach is still a representative of average status for tidal inlets in equilibrium. As tide, wave, freshwater discharge and tidal inlet morphology change with time, actual P-A relationships will fluctuate also. The problems that need to be solved when applying sediment dynamic methods to P-A relationships include the cross-sectional distribution pattern of tidal current speeds in the entrance channel, the relationship between the tidal current and the tidal water level at the entrance, and the calculation of the ratio of width to depth. This paper will establish a sediment dynamical approach of P-A relationship for a single tidal inlet. The results are tested for P-A relationships of Yuehu Inlet, a small inlet-lagoon system located in Shandong Peninsula, China.

Coastal salt marshes represent an important coastal wetland system. In order to protect coastlines from erosion and rapid increase in accumulation rate, Spartina alterniflora (S. alterniflora) was introduced into the Chinese coast. Two study areas (Wanggang and Quanzhou Bay) were selected that represent the plain type and embayment type of the coastal salt marshes. In situ measurements show that the tidal current velocities are stronger on the intertidal mudflat without S. alterniflora than that with S. alterniflora, and the velocity above the canopy surface is larger than that in the salt marsh canopy. The existence of S. alterniflora also influences the velocity structure above the bare flat during ebb tide. With the decrease in current flow velocity when seawater enters into the S. alterniflora marsh, suspended sediments are largely entrapped on the marsh surface, leading to increase in sedimentation rates and change in physical evolution processes of the coastal salt marshes. The highly developed root system of S. alterniflora induces sediment mixing and exchange between subsurface sediment strata and affects the vertical sediment distribution remarkably. The sedimentation rate of S. alterniflora marsh at the Wanggang area is much higher than the relative sea level rise rate, where rapid progradation of the Wanggang salt marshes that is protecting the coast from sea erosion is observed.

The representative ²¹⁰Pb and ¹³⁷Cs age-depth profiles were selected from more than 100 sites in the Circum Bohai Sea (CBS) coastal region to examine the sedimentation rates and associated environmental changes. There are three unique ²¹⁰Pb_exc distribution patterns: 1) ideal-decaying type, representing relatively constant sediment supply and quieter environmental setting; 2) wiggling type, but with approximately equivalent amplitude, representing coarser sediments and associated stronger flow current environment; and 3) episodic-event-influencing type, each representing typhoon storm- influenced depositional environment. Our results also show that there is a lower sedimentation rate (ca. 0.1 cm/a) in the coastal lowlands, a higher sedimentation rate (ca. 0.5–3 cm/a) in the intertidal flat and an intermediate rate of ca. 0.58 cm/a in the subtidal zone near the Huanghua Harbor. The interbedded silt layer occurring in the core sediment reveals lower ²¹⁰Pb activities, indicating a discontinuous sedimentation mostly due to typhoon events which dwarfs against ²¹⁰Pb and ¹³⁷Cs applicability. Overall, the ²¹⁰Pb and ¹³⁷Cs measurements of the present study provide physical insight into the evaluation of the coastal-marine ecological environment and associated management.

Six bathymetric transect profiles were drawn from the nautical charts of 1942, 1962 and 1992 to show that the nearshore seabed remained unstable during the recent 50 years in the middle channel of the eastern entrance to the Qiongzhou Strait, South China Sea. Our results demonstrate that the multi-year averaged seabed aggradational rate was 25 cm/a and erosion rate was 12.5 cm/a. Lateral migration rate of the sea bedform identified from the historical contours was about 100 m/a in the SE direction. Bedform measurements were made using GPY Shallow Seismic Profiler in 1994 in the study area. The records revealed four types of distinctive bedforms that were composed of fine and medium sands. The average spacing of large and small-scale sand dunes is 416 m and 144 m and the average height remains 8.8 m and 4.9 m. The spatial and temporal equilibrium-range spectra of numerical bedform records were applied to estimate short term celerity of bedform movement. Results indicate that large and small dunes migrated at an average celerity of 0.02 cm/hr eastward and 0.09 cm/hr westward in the calm sea weather, while their celerity can reach 53 cm/hr eastward during typhoon season and is only 0.008 cm/hr westward when NNE winds prevail. The results also show that the larger the temporal and spatial scale is, the smaller the bedform movement celerity appears. On the other hand, the smaller-scale bedform celerity of the present study is much greater than that of flume, empirical and theoretical data, but close to the wind tunnel and field-measured data of similar grain size.

The problem of arsenic (As) poisoning in the upper deltaic plain of the Ganga-Bhagirathi river system in the Bengal Basin of West Bengal, India is an alarming issue. Four blocks (Kaliachak-1, 2, 3 and English Bazar) of Malda district, West Bengal were critically studied. Geomorphologically, the area exhibits three terraces: the present Youngest terrace (T₀-terrace), the Older Shaugaon Surface (T₁-terrace) and the Oldest Baikunthapur Surface (T₂-terrace). On the basis of numerous measurements, including As-content, pH, DO, specific conductivity and salinity, it was observed that maximum As-content beyond the permissible limit (0.05 mg/L, Indian standard) occurs within a depth range of 10–30 m with a non-linear distribution pattern. Variance test also found that a block effect was highly significant in an As-distribution pattern. Mean arsenic level of Kaliachak block-1 is 0.2253 mg/L, followed by Kaliachak-2 with arsenic level 0.1923, Kaliachak-3 with arsenic level 0.1755 and English Bazar with arsenic level 0.1324. The arsenious belt lies mainly within the Older terrace (T₁). The very recent flood plain deposits of silvery white, fine sands lying very close to the Ganga River margin do not contain significant amounts of As. Elevated As-concentration in the ground water was observed in alluvial sands, grayish white to brownish in color and occurring away from the Ganga margin. The Oldest terrace (T₂) further away from the Ganga margin (e.g. English Bazar) and Barind surface contains less arsenic. Barind surface acts as a hard capping with ferruginous sands and lateritic concretions - chocolate, mottled and purple brown in color - occurring northeast of the studied area. Arsenic content of ground water in the same locality within a radius of ∼ 20 m varies within wide limits. Thus, it poses problem to delineate its distribution pattern. Such a patchy occurrence possibly could not be explained satisfactorily solely by geomorphology. Chemical analysis of aquifer clay samples of the cores shows a maximum As-content of up to 3 mg/kg, whereas the bulk samples (sand-clay mixture) of the cores contain a maximum of 17 mg/kg As-value. Therefore, it is not always true that clay contains elevated As-value.

The question of the Yangtze’s origins has been extensively researched by geologists and geomorphologists for more than a century, and a widely-accepted answer is still pending. Evidence of river piracy, diversion and incision in the upper river segment from Shigu town in Yunnan Province to Yichang City has been used to reconstruct the history of the Yangtze drainage system, and constrain the timing of the upper Yangtze diversion from south flowing to east, debouching into the East China Sea. There is much diversity in fluvial deposits and landforms even over small spatio-temporal scales in tectonic highly active regions. They are also liable to latter reworking by external forces, making their paleo-geographical interpretation a more complex and controversial matter. Based on evidence from fluvial strata and landforms, various hypotheses have been proposed with considerable discrepancies for the timing of the Jinsha River diversion from the south flowing into the east, and the timing of the upper Yangtze channeling through the Three Gorges area. The Yangtze was controversially assumed to be: (1) a very old river in existence since the Cretaceous and earlier, (2) a very young river that came into being only during the past several hundred thousand years, or (3) any age in between these two extremes.Techniques in microprobe dating of single crystalline grains have greatly improved, and they have been widely and successfully used in provenance studies, drainage evolution reconstruction, and tectonic history restoration through dating detrital zircon/monazite grains from the onshore/offshore deposits. The timing of the Yangtze formation was estimated at ca. 2.58 Ma based on analyses of time-series variation of EMP (electron microprobe) monazite ages in the late Cenozoic strata of the Yangtze delta. By revisiting fluvial deposits and landforms in the upper Yangtze drainage basin, some references also state the initiation time of the Yangtze at between the late Pliocene and early Pleistocene. This indicates that microprobe dating of single detrital mineral grains is an effective tool to study sedimentary provenance and reconstruct the evolution history of large rivers, like the Yangtze. Laser ablation-ICPMS, a newly-developed microprobe dating technique characterized by minimal sample preparation, low cost and high throughput, and high precision, makes it possible to date large volumes of single detrital mineral grains for provenance studies. Its application is expected to increase the precision of the timing of the Yangtze formation.

We conducted rock magnetic and paleomagnetic research on two deep-sea sediment cores from the west Philippine Sea, located to the east of Benham Rise with the length of 4 m and water depth of over 5000 m. At the bottom of core 146 occurs a reversal of inclination and deflection of relative declination, which is recognized as Brunhes-Matuyama Polarity Boundary (MBPB). No reversal occurs in core 89, which implies a younger bottom age than that of core 146. Rock magnetic results reveal magnetic uniformities in mineralogy, concentration and grain size along the two cores, thus relative paleointensity variations are acquired. The three normalizers-anhysteresis remanent magnetization (ARM), magnetic susceptibility (?) and saturation isothermal remanent magnetization (SIRM) are used for normalization to obtain relative paleointensities. The three normalization results are averaged to indicate the paleoitensity of the cores and are further stacked together to get a synthetic curve for west Philippine Sea (named as WPS800 in this paper). Based on the magnetic correlation between cores and paleointensity to Sint800, we transfer the changes of rock magnetic parameters from depth to time. Furthermore, the astronomically tuned oxygen isotope from ODP site 1143 in the south China Sea is used for the glacial and interglacial indicator. Three concentration proxies (ARM, ? and SIRM) and grain size indicators (?_ARM/SIRM, ?_ARM/?) are examined according to the paleointensity-assisted chronology. The grain size changes in the two cores display a consistent pattern with the climatic changes embodied by oxygen isotope. The magnetic sizes are usually coarser in glacial periods and finer in interglacial times, which may reflect the influence of chemical erosion rather than fining from sea level rising on the source sediment. Furthermore, the sub-peaks and sub-troughs in interglaciations almost correspond with that of oxygen isotope records, which means sedimentation can reflect the subtle changes in interglaciations. This kind of revelation of climatic fluctuation by magnetic size is also found in the South China Sea, which shows a common pattern of magnetic signals to climate at least within East Asia. The concentration of ARM (representing more about fine grain) also shows similar response to glacial and interglacial cycles, that is, high in interglacial cycle and low in glacial cycle; but ? and SIRM (reflecting more about coarse grain) lack the response to the climatic cycles. At the same time, S-ratio lacks the correlation with aeolian dust record and rhythmic changes, indicating the dominant source of main magnetic carrier (low coercivity magnetite) is the suspended matter instead of dust. The decreasing trend of sedimentation rate from west to east also reveals that the sediments are mainly from west Luzon and adjacent land. Grain sizes first became coarse and then stable around 400 ka B.P., and at the same time all the magnetic contents lowered and amplitude of magnetic mineral changes increased. The magnetic transition around 400 ka B.P. is simultaneous with the decreases of carbonate content, reflecting a global carbonate dissolution event, i.e. mid Brunhes event. The synchronization of magnetic content and grain size with climatic cycles of glacials and interglacials imply the validity of paleointesnity-assisted chronology. Also, the response of rock magnetic signals to stable oxygen isotope changes and carbonate variation reveals that rock magnetism method can be an effective tool for paleoclimatic and paleoceanographic research.

Extensive investigations and studies on topography, sedimentary and chronology show new evidence for the formation and evolution of the Ulan Buh desert during early Holocene. Evidence on clay-sand strata and plant roots under interdune lowlands, lake shorelines covered by plenty of Corbicula largillierti and large amounts of dry salt lakes in the central region of the desert prove that many megalakes existed in the hinterland of Ulan Buh desert. Several OSL samples collected from Aeolian sands overlying lacustrine sediments in profiles around Jilantai Salt Lake and interdune lowlands in the southern Ulan Buh desert suggest that the desert began around 7 ka B.P.. The formation of Ulan Buh desert may have resulted from the shrinking of Jilantai megalakes and sands blown from exposed loose sediments.

A nabkha is a vegetated sand mound, which is typical of the aeolian landforms found in the Hotan River basin in Xinjiang, China. This paper compares the results of a series of wind tunnel experiments with an on-site field survey of nabkhas in the Hotan River basin of Xinjiang. Wind tunnel experiments were conducted on semi-spherical and conical sand mounds without vegetation or shadow dunes. Field mounds were 40 times as large as the size of the wind tunnel models. In the wind tunnel experiments, five different velocities from 6 to 14 m/s were selected and used to model the wind flow pattern over individual sand mound using clean air without additional sand. Changes in the flow pattern at different wind speeds resulted in changes to the characteristic structure of the nabkha surface. The results of the experiments for the semi-spherical sand mound at all wind velocities show the formation of a vortex at the bottom of the upwind side of the mound that resulted in scouring and deposition of a crescentic dune upwind of the main mound. The top part of the sand mound is strongly eroded. In the field, these dunes exhibited the same scouring and crescentic dune formation and the eroded upper surface was often topped by a layer of peat within the mound suggesting destroyed vegetation due to river channel migration or by possible anthropogenic forces such as fuel gathering, etc. Experiments for the conical mounds exhibit only a small increase in velocity on the upwind side of the mound and no formation of a vortex at the bottom of the upwind side. Instead, a vortex formed on the leeward side of the mound and overall, no change occurred in the shape of the conical mound. In the field, conical mounds have no crescentic dunes on the upwind side and no erosion at the top exposed below peat beds. Therefore, the field and laboratory experiments show that semi-spherical and conical sand mounds respond differently to similar wind conditions with different surface configuration and development of crescent-shaped upwind deposits when using air devoid of additional sediment.

This paper examines the results of wind tunnel experiments on models of nabkha, based on those studied in the Hotan River basin. Semi-spherical and conical models of nabkhas were constructed at a ratio of 40:1 in light of the on-site observation. Artificial vegetation of simulated Tamarix spp. was put on top of each model. Parameters of the shape, including height, width, and diameter of vegetated semi-spherical and conical nabkha, were measured in the Hotan River basin. Wind tunnel experiments on the semi-spherical and conical nabkha used clean air devoid of additional sediments at five different wind speeds (6–14 m/s) to study the influence of vegetation on airflow patterns. Results of the experiments indicate that vegetation at the top of the nabkhas enhances the surface roughness of the sand mounds, retards airflow over the sand mounds, reduces airflow energy, eliminates erosional pits occurring on the top surface of non-vegetated sand mounds and enhances the range of influence of the vortex that forms on the leeward slope. Vegetation changes the airflow pattern upwind and downwind of the sand mound and reduces the transport of sand away from the nabkha. This entrapment of sediment by the vegetation plays an important role in sustaining the nabkha landscape of the study area. The existence of vegetation makes fine materials in wind-sand flow to possibly deposit, and promotes nabkha formation. The imitative flow patterns of different morphological nabkhas have also been verified by on-site observation in the river basin.

Glaciers, formed by snowfall and characterized by movement and size, are the most sensitive indicators to climate change. The ice formation of glaciers (the processes, mechanisms and results of transformation from snow to ice) can indicate the growth condition, the formation process and the physical characteristics of glaciers. Its spatial variation can also reflect glacier change, and further reveal climate change. Studies on ice formation of glaciers in China were initiated in 1962, when Xie and others studied the ice formation of Glacier No.1 at the Urumqi River head, Tianshan Mountain. Other researchers followed suit and did studies on ice formation of glaciers in Qilian Mountain. As time goes by, the concept of ice formation came into being in China. This paper reviews the development history of glacier zones, and the studies of ice formation of glaciers in China since the 1960s. These studies mainly focus on Qilian Mountain, Tianshan Mountain, Altay Mountain, and the western Kunlun Mountain, Himalaya Mountain, the southeastern Tibetan and Hengduan Mountains. The paper also discusses the significance of ice formation studies, the limitation and deficiency of previous studies, and the prospects and suggestions for future studies.

There has been increasing concern about the lack of involvement by social scientists and humanists in a global change program, although many social scientists are already directly involved in various aspects of research on environmental change, and their research interests are clearly central to a global change research agenda. Based on a historical review, the role of social science disciplines as well as social science institutes in an emerging multi-decadal global change program is discussed. Both “plan of action” and “plan of inaction” are suggested to avoid potential pitfalls due to the rush development of a social science program into the existing global climate change problem.

On the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau there are three super large lakes, the Qinghai Lake, Nam Co and Siling Co, and eleven large lakes, the Zhari Nam Co, Tangra Yumco, Ayakkum Lake, Banggong Co , Har Lake, Ngoring Lake, Yamzho Yumco, Gyaring Lake, Chibuzhang Co, Ulan Ul Lake and the Ngangla Ringco. The authors studied the changes of these major lakes in the past 25 years, based on interpretations of the MSS images obtained during the middle 1970s and ETM⁺ images obtained in the late 1990s or at the beginning of the 21st century. The study shows that: the areas of the Har Lake and Ngoring Lake have remained relatively stable; the areas of the Qinghai Lake, Zhari Nam co, Tangra Yumco, Ayakkum Lake, Gyaring Lake, Ulan Ul Lake and Ngangla Ringco have been reduced to varying degrees, of which the areas of the Qinghai Lake and Ulan Ul Lake have decreased most sharply by 60.60 km² and 59.80 km² respectively; the areas of the Nam Co, Siling Co and Bangong Co have increased more or less, of which the area of the Siling Co has increased most sharply by 140.42 km². The analysis on the changes in areas of major lakes has provided new materials for the study of the lake evolution, climatic change and environmental variation on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.