BACKGROUND Many theoretical researches predicted that the larch species would decrease drastically in China under future climatic changes. However, responses of the structural and compositional changes of Gmelin larch (Larix gmelinii var. gmelinii) forests to climatic changes have rarely been reported. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS Field survey was conducted to examine the structures and com...

Land use/cover in Northeast China went through extensive changes during the 1990s. This report explores the interaction between these changes and the environment, and the implication of these changes for rational allocation of water resources. Two maps of land use/cover produced from 1990 and 2000 Landsat TM satellite images were overlaid in Arc Info to reveal changes in land cover. Results ind...

A new method for grassland vegetation dynamics monitoring was developed based on the linear time trends (LTT) estimation and change vector analysis (CVA) using SPOT-VGT imagery. Firstly, seasonally integrated normalized difference vegetation index (SINDVI) was calculated by using 10-day NDVI. Then by evaluating spatially averaged SINDVI of vegetated areas, the apparent change periods were ident...

Alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) is a primary and widely cultivated forage crop in China. As a perennial leguminous grass, continuous planted alfalfa may influence carbon and nitrogen sequestration in soils. We evaluated the effect of alfalfa, planted for different lengths of time, and temperature and precipitation on soil organic carbon (SOC) and total nitrogen (TN) contents, and estimated soil SO...

Long-term investigations of soil moisture at different precipitation patterns in the black soil in Hailun county, Northeast China were made. This area is an important base for marketable grains production due to a short cultivation history, high soil organic matter content, and high yield potential. In this region, precipitation is the principal water source during the cropping season, hence so...