The Metropolitan region is an international model of the spatial organization for the modern Urban Agglomeration. The first part of this paper focuses on the national and international study about analysis conceptions, development tendencies and characteristics of metropolitan region. The development of research and practice about metropolitan region in the world was recognized. Based on the analysis, we made an analysis of the development of the research and the practice about metropolitan region in China. The author summed up the understanding about Metropolitan Region from Chinese scholars and packed up the practices in China in order to further understand the connotation of this conception. Then, we built up the development theory system of Metropolitan Region, including the conception and standards of Metropolitan Region which is seasoned with the situation of our country and the tendencies of development, the nature of metropolitan region which is a development pattern as well as a phenomenon, the spatial structure which circles from inside to outside, the effect, the phase of metropolitan region development and discussed how to manage this region. Lastly, we summed up the content of the metropolitan region development planning. The importance of incorporation and habitation conception for the development of Metropolitan Region was emphasized. As a kind of urban development model, Metropolitan Region is vital for the construction of urban area which has conditions to develop this model and the development of regional economy.

A comprehensive validation method of remotely sensed Evapotranspiration (ET) based on observation data was proposed to ensure the accuracy of estimated ET. Thus, an observation system was equipped with a large aperture scintillometer, an eddy covariance system and an automatic weather station, and then an observation network was established at Miyun, Guantao, Daxing and Xiaotangshan sites in Hai river  basin, which were set up from 2002 for ET and correlative parameters measurements at different satellite pixel scales. On this basis, rigorous data process and quality control were executed to ensure the high quality of observations. Meanwhile, a validation procedure of remotely sensed ET based on ground measurements was presented, and the method of selecting validation pixels and evaluation index were investigated intensively. According to this method, validation of remote sensing ET was performed in Beijing. Based on the LAS measurements at Miyun and Daxing sites in 2008, regional ET in Beijing area estimated by MODIS data was validated. The results demonstrated  that  the proposed validation method based on LAS observation data was feasible. The RMSE and MRE of estimated monthly and daily ET were  13.75、0.91 mm and 22.79%、18.61% respectively.

Sensible/latent heat fluxes can be obtained by Large Aperture Scintillometer (LAS) over several kilometers, which play an significant role in the analysis  of and application to agricultural and forestry, hydrology and meteorology research. Take LAS observations in Miyun and Guantao stations over Hai River Basin in 2008 as an example. The way of data screening and quality control under unstable conditions as well as the effect of different calculation method on sensible heat flux have been discussed. The results showed: the structure parameter of the refractive index (C²_n) should be calculated with the variance of the voltage of structure parameter of the refractive index; Humidity correction can be done with daily Bowen ratio; The effective height of LAS can be calculated with spatial averaged function;  The Andreas(1988) function is  used to get reliable sensible heat flux. Meanwhile, the nonlinear regression method and dynamic linear  regression method have been used to fill the 30min and daily missing data  while the 30  min missing data under stable conditions can be set to zero. The correlation relationship between daily ET measured by LAS and EC has been constructed to estimate daily ET when daily R_n<50 W/m². Based on the above analysis, a set of LAS data processing scheme has been set up, which ensures continuous and high quality sensible/latent data can be obtained over various surfaces and weather conditions.

       Fluids are aubiquitous transport medium for heat and matter in most geological process. The presence of fluids in rocks may affect the chemical and physical properties, mineral reaction velocity and heat budget of geological systems, Direct sample of geological fluids could be preserved only in fluid inclusions that were trapped during the growth of their host mineral. Fluid inclusions can provide us unique information for the presence and composition of ancient fluids which can not be obtained by other geochemical methods (e.g. the component and evolution of diagenetic fluid; process of fluid-rock interaction; migration of trace elements in fluid). The study of fluid inclusions thus has become one of the “hottest” fields in earth sciences, and plays an important role in studies correlated with geological processes. Starting with a general introduction to the fluid inclusion properties and a summarization about the classification of primary- and secondary-fluid inclusions, this paper reveiws the most recent development in analytical methods in the fluid inclusion research field. We also review the current application of fluid inclusions to various fields in earth sciences (e.g. metamorphic fluid, ore-deposit, petroleum geology and biomarker) in the paper. Finally, we give a short outlook on potential future research topics about fluid inclusion studies.

       With the recent emphasis on understanding the role of clouds in the global radiation budget, cloud detection becomes more and more important. Although there are optical remote sensing techniques (e.g., satellite lidar, ceilometer, etc.) to measure cloud properties, optical signals cannot penetrate into thick cloud to observe the cloud′s horizontal and vertical dimensions and its internal structure. The scope of radar meteorology has expanded to include measurements of cloud properties and structure for radar′s wavelength is close to cloud′s diameter. Millimeter-wavelength radar is recognized as having the potential to provide a more sensitive probe of cloud particles ranging from a few micrometers in diameter to precipitation drops. Since the backscatter cross section of tiny drops (i.e., several tens of micrometers in diameter) increases in proportion to λ^-4, where  λ is the radar wavelength, cloud drops are more easily detected by radars of millimeter rather than centimeter wavelengths. On the other hand, attenuation of millimeter waves is much stronger, and the λ^-4 advantage gained using millimeter waves is offset by the strong attenuation these waves experience. The 10-cm-wavelength radar, used principally for storm warnings, cannot detect weak and no precipitation clouds well, compared with the mm radars. Compared to normal weather radar, millimeter wavelength radar has following superiorities in observing clouds: ①strong capability in detecting small particles like cloud, fog and dust; ②better resolution and precision of Doppler velocity; ③high special resolution result from its narrow beamwidth. In this paper, the status about cloud radar in and abroad about radars′ technology and application on clouds′ micro and macrophysics research, airports safe flight are introduced. Also present is a prospect on millimeter-wavelength radar.

Porphyry copper deposit as the largest source of Cu is one of the most important deposits in the world. Porphyry Copper Deposit not only occured in Circum-Pacific ore-forming region, but also occured in Tethys ore-forming region and Middle-Asian(Paleo-Asian Oceanic) oreforming region. The mineralization materials derived from the deep. Porphyry forms through four stages: “Oceanic Crust-Mantle Lava Flow”,“Original Magma”,“Shallow Ore Magma”,“Crystallization of Magma-Minerali-zation”. In the stage of “Original Magma”, much metallogenic materials and energy gather through the process of “MASH”. Ore-forming fluids are high-grade fliuds of gas-liquid phase, which are of fluid-rich, high temperature, high pressure, high salinity, strong oxidizing, high oxygen fugacity. The characteristics of ore-forming fluids are favorable for metallogenic materials to gather from magmas to fluids in the process of magma-hydrothermal separation. The copper is transported and migrated in form of Cl-complexes. With the ascent of ore-forming fluids, lowering of temperature and pressure is the main factors resulting in copper precipitation. The crystallization of magnetite resulting from lowering temperature and pressure provides much of S^2- and  plays an important role in the formation of porphyry copper ore. From the inner to the outside, the alteration zones,in general,are composed of quartz zone,potassic zone,SCC zone and  argillic zone.The proposed genesis models which are commonly accepted,up to now, include the classical model, the system model and the model of polyphasal overprinting events.

 The current research status of numerical simulations on urban meteorology and boundary layer is reviewed in this paper, including research on urban climate, urban surface energy balance, urban heat island and urban canopy modeling. Based on researchers′ experience, suggestion and discussion are given on some cutting edge problems and opinions. The state-of-art methods used in this field are discussed as well. Recommendations are also suggested in this paper: ①Observations and simulations on urban climate, urban surface energy balance, urban heat island are in great need facing the different climate zone and different cities; ②More and deeper researches on urban observation methods and rules, observation instruments and observation net design are needed; ③Prediction method of urban heat island based on synoptic conditions and urban surface characteristics should be improved; ④Computational fluid dynamic (CFD) models can be used as tools to bridge the gap between mesoscale and microscale numerical modeling, and to evaluate and improve current mesoscale urban climate simulations.

We analyzed the submissions， acceptances， reviews and grant awarding of various projects in environmental geosciences in 2020， pointed out the problems we found in the submission and review processes， and summarized the project conclusions the environmental geosciences at the end of 2019， the completion of the projects and the main research progresses made in this direction.

With the development of mesoscale atmospheric model, the next generation mesoscale Weather Research and Forecast Model is widely used at home and abroad, primarily because of its complete openness, easy portability, and fast update. The application of WRF model in China in recent decade is introduced from three aspects: the physical parameterization scheme, real-time simulation and comparison with MM5, which indicates the usefulness and advantage of WRF model in mesoscale simulation. Furthermore, two main prospects of WRF model in the near future are proposed: one is to develop Climate-Weather Research and Forecasting Model(CWRF), aiming to simulate and predict both weather and climate at mesoscale level, and the other is to couple WRF model with regional ocean model and construct a regional coupled model with high resolution. It is hoped that our summary can provide some necessary helps for the users of WRF model.

More and more researches pay attention to extreme events because of their destructive impacts. Both observing and modeling studies found that extreme temperature and precipitation had significant changes. Further more, there may be more severe extreme events in the future with global warming. Of course, there are still many uncertainties contained in these results. Two main factors contribute to these uncertaintiesne. One is associated with models. There are usually great difference of outputs between different models; the other is the possible difference resulted from the period of different length analyzed. From the definition of extreme events, progresses about the study of extreme events in the last few years are described in detail first for both observing and modeling studies. Then the main progresses are listed, and some problems hanging in doubt are summarized.

Earth's gravity field and its application in geosciences is one of the important contents in the fields of Earth sciences. It plays an irreplaceable role in national basic surveying and mapping， disaster monitoring， resource exploration， surface layer coupling， aerospace and other aspects. In recent years， with the continuous innovation of gravity field observation technology， gravity measurement and the corresponding theory， methods and applications have developed rapidly， and fruitful research results have been achieved. The gravity topics of the annual meeting of Chinese Geoscience Union in 2020 are the concentrated display of these achievements （including 42 oral reports and 10 posters）. Based on the reports on this annual meeting， this paper summarizes the latest research progress in the Earth's gravity field and its geoscience application in China in recent years.

The thermochemical sulphate reduction (TSR) is believed to be the determinative factor for gas reservoirs to generate high content of H₂S (the volume percent of H₂S above 5%), but the main hydrocarbon compounds react with sulphate are still not distinctly made sure. In this paper, based on the contrast analysis of TSR reaction systems ( wet gas and magnesium sulfate, methane and calcium sulphate, heavy hydrocarbon and magnesium sulfate), through the analysis of TSR chemical equations and study of chemical kinetics and chemical thermodynamics, combined with geologic information, it is concluded that methane is believed to be the product of the TSR reaction between heavy hydrocarbon and sulphate, and not main reactant; there is synchroneity between the TSR reaction and the increasing of C₂₊  gaseous Alkane, the TSR reaction rate increase as C₂₊ Gaseous Alkane increase and the volume of H₂S almost not increase till the wet gas cracked to be dry gas and then dry gas with H₂S is generated. According to the analysis of oil and gas evolution stage, it is believed that TSR mainly at the stage of condensate gas generation by thermal cracking. When crude oil being cracked to be natural gas with H₂S, the pressure system is changed and gas with H₂S will be newly accumulated and the natural gas with H₂S will be accumulated again in new traps if the structural environment changes. So, the volume of H₂S in natural gas reservoirs is not only controlled by generation conditions but by other factors, such as migration pathway conditions, reservoirs conditions and preservation conditions.

This paper uses SIR model to back-analyze the parameters of SARS transmission based on the data released by the health authorities of Beijing and Hong Kong, we get the important parameters such as the peak period, the hospitalized cases and the removed parameter. It can be seen that these parameters of the model allow for better understanding of the SARS transmission because the result fits the actual data approximately. As a result, SIR model could be used to fit data, predict trend and simulate process of SARS transmission.

During the last decades, reanalysis of past meteorological observations using modern data assimilation technique and restructure the long-term and consistent gridded data products have been made great progress. Such datasets provide us the most primary research tools to identify the state and evolution of atmosphere, and understand the climate change and variability at different spatial-temporal scales. In this paper, the current research status and advances in the global reanalysis datasets including some of international global atmosphere reanalysis projects and the corresponding reanalyzed products, the important applications of reanalyzed products in some research fields of the atmospheric science, the validation and evaluation of the reanalysis datasets，and some quality problems represented by the reanalyzed products in climate change studies are systematically reviewed. Moreover，the prospects of the studies on atmospheric reanalysis in the future are also discussed in this paper.

]In recent years, global environmental change has more and more affected the survival of human beings. In order to enhance the observation of the landatmospheric-ocean, the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) and Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) have been proposed. Data assimilation, the key connection between observation data and model simulations, also gets rapid development. The most significant signs are the continuous introductions of new mathematical achievements into the data assimilation fields. Under the background of the “National Airborne Remote Sensing System—The Earth Science Data Processing Software System”, we review the development of the data assimilation algorithms so as to determine the technical route and major contents of this project and promote the research on data assimilation theory and the development of the software.

The impact of climate change on water resources security is a challenging issue with widespread concern globally. It is as well the great strategic issue in the national sustainable development of China. Based on a wide review of related research, it is concluded that the research of climate change impact on the water cycle is one of the most exiting research perspectives in the study of relationship of climate change and water science. Due to the serious water resource situation plus climate change influence, the challenge and opportunity of the basic research work in the climate change impact on water resource were given. The climate change and water cycle study is the international forefront in the area of climatology, meteorology and hydrology. The detection and attribution of water cycle components change have become the international challenging problems, as well as the quantitative analysis and prediction of the uncertainties in a hydrological system; the research of water cycle response to climate change is developing from offline hydrologic simulations to coupling climate change with hydrological dynamics; study of the water resources vulnerability has become a key problem to deal with climate change and secure the water resources security. In the circumstances of the climate change, it is necessary to reexamine the hypotheses in traditional hydrological theories, as well as the spatial variability, uncertainty and hydrological extremes in regional hydrological studies. Carrying out the research of climate change impact on water resource and adoption measures is one of the  biggest scientific problems of water sciences and water resource in the 21 century. 

Discovery of numbers of fractured reservoirs in shale around the world and recent great progress of North American shale gas exploration shows the study of the fractures in shale is quite important. On the basis of the literature research of shale fractures research findings around the world, shale reservoir with strong plasticity has common and specificity, compared with other types of rock, on fractures type and origin, identification method, parameter estimation, and distribution prediction. The shale reservoir fractures can de classified into two groups of fracture according to their origin, structural and non-structural fracture, and 12 sub-classes. Different class of fractures has different characteristics and origin. Structural fractures, including high-angle shear fracture, Tensile and shear fractures and low-angle slip fracture, belong to ductile shear fracture. Non-structural fracture in shale, more developed than other types of lithology, such as shrinkage fractures, stylolites, over-pressured fractures and weathered fracture, resulted from diagenesis, drying crack, over-ressure, mineral phase transformation, recrystallization, and pressure-solution. Then we summarize the methods of fracture identification, parameter estimation, fracture reservoir distribution prediction using geological, seismic, drilling and logging and structural stress, and then propose current problems and trend of study on shale fracture reservoir nowadays.

Adaptation of terrestrial ecosystems to global change has become a key issue of global change study and of countermeasures formulation for human being. The adaptation of terrestrial ecosystems to global change would be reviewed in this paper from four aspects, [WTBX]i.e.[WT], (1) changes of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, (2) climatic change, (3) combined changes of CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere and climatic change, and (4) human disturbance, in terms of the definition of global change. Based on the present research, some important tasks related to adaptation of terrestrial ecosystems to global change are suggested. Among them, the threshold assessment of adaptation practices should draw more and more attention in the future.

       Support Vector Machine (SVM) is a state-of-the-art machine learning algorithm based on statistical learning theory. It tries to find the optimal classification hyperplane in high dimensional feature space to handle complicated classification and regression problems by solving optimization problems. With the development of the theory and its applications, SVM has been used in remote sensing community successfully. SVM has been applied to land cover/land use classification for remotely sensed data, change detection for multi-temporal remote sensing data, and information fusion for multiple source data. Moreover, it has become a standard technique for hyperspectral data process. In this paper, the applications of SVM in remote sensing are reviewed. First, we introduced the basic theory of the SVM briefly. Then we reviewed the state of the art in different remote sensing applications. At last, we stated the development of several new SVM algorithms, which were derived from the SVM theory, and applications in remote sensing community.

       Landslides, as a common geo-hazard, can result in huge economic losses and enormous casualties in mountainous regions of the world. Therefore, the assessment of landslide hazard and risk has become a topic of major interest for both geoscientists and engineering professionals. Firstly, the significance of rainfall-induced landslides mechanism, landslides risk assessment and risk mitigation is addressed. Secondly, this paper reviews the recent advances in geo-hazards associated with landslides from the aspects of geomechanics mechanism of rainfall-induced landslides, landslides mechanism, numerical simulation of evolution process of landslides, dynamic risk assessment and risk mitigation associated with landslides. Based on the critical review, problems in the past study of the rainfall-induced landslides are examined, and some challenge issues in rainfall-induced landslides are discussed. Finally, further research directions are suggested. It is recommended that the research on geo-hazards associated with landslides should take the dynamic process of landslides as the main line, take the geomechanics mechanism as the basis, take the landslides mechanism as the key problem, and take the landslides risk assessment as the tool. The final goal is to reduce the landslides risk as low as possible.

Precipitation is a fundamental component of the global water cycle. It is a key hydrologic variable of the water cycle in meteorology, climatology and hydrology. Accurate observation of precipitation and its regional, global distributions has long been a challenging scientific goal. With five-decade development of space-borne sensors, the approaches to retrieving precipitation appear mature. This paper briefly describes the principles and the main types of retrieval algorithms of precipitation using visible/infrared (VIS/IR), passive-microwave (PMW), precipitation radar (PR) data, or their combinations. The VIS/IR algorithms generally had relatively low retrieval accuracy, but it could provide better long-term retrieval due to better temporal sampling of geostationary data. The PMW algorithms were more accurate but more complicated than the VIS/IR algorithms in retrieval of instantaneous precipitation, and the PMW data had low spatial and temporal resolution. Among all the PMW algorithms, the Goddard Profiling Algorithm (GPROF) is the most widely applied one. The PR algorithm enabled capture of three-dimensional precipitation structure over the ocean and land. While the PR retrievals had accuracy on the order of ground-radar data, it had limited coverage of the Earth’s surface. The deficiencies of a single sensor algorithm were alleviated with the combination use of multi-sensors. A number of algorithms have been proposed with a particular combination of VIS/IR, PMW, and/or PR data. The commonly used algorithms include the Climate Prediction Center Morphing (CMORPH) algorithm, the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Multisatellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) algorithm and the Global Satellite Mapping of Precipitation (GSMaP) algorithm. Currently, scientific efforts have been made to compare and evaluate the existing algorithms, for example, the Program to Evaluate High-Resolution Precipitation Products (PEHRPP). With the development of instruments and algorithms of precipitation, there are produced many regional and global data sets dedicated to precipitation monitoring. The widely spread global precipitation datasets include TRMM, GSMaP and Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP). Each data set had its unique features in terms of spatial and temporal resolutions, typically in 3-hour and 0.25 degree. For future development, the launch of the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission will improve and extend the TRMM measurements to higher latitudes, with a more frequent sampling, and a higher sensitivity to light and heavy rainfalls. Furthermore, combination of observations at different wavelengths and from both low and geostationary-orbit satellites is a promising way to produce global precipitation. The International Precipitation Working Group (IPWG) is providing a focus on the study of satellite-based quantitative precipitation measurements. With the international efforts, we are approaching to a unique retrieval of a consistent global precipitation cross multi-sensors. 

Roughness, reflecting the smooth degree of the surface, is a key factor of many land surface processes. There are various methods of parameterization, but questions still exist since the characterization of land surface system has far from been fully understood. This paper reviews the research progress on land surface roughness characterization from three aspects, including land surface measurement techniques, roughness parameters, and remote sensing researches. So far, pin profiler and laser profiler are still main-stream land surface measurement approaches, while 3D laser scan and photogrammetry techniques have shown their potentials. Parameters defined by statistical methods and fractal theories are quite distinct from each other, but it is hard to describe land surface using either category of parameters due to the the complexity of its multi-scaled feature. As for remote sensing researches, both optical and microwave techniques have broad prospects, and the former needs to do better in match with classical parameterization, while the latter has to make improvement on techniques and methods for next generation remote sensing platform. Many key problems encountered in roughness parameterization study, such as comparison and transformation of parameters between different scales, heterogeneity and anisotropy of land surface, as well as roughness parameterization based on 3D surface data, have also been discussed.

Soil moisture is a key variable influencing a variety of land surface processes. Accurate estimation of spatio-temporally distributed soil moisture is one of the challenging issues in quantitative remote sensing. This paper briefly describes the major algorithms for retrieving soil moisture using optical, passive-microwave and active-microwave remote sensing, or their combinations. The optical algorithms have relatively low accuracy of retrieval, but good spatial and temporal resolutions. The typical algorithms include the Index-based approach and the soil thermal inertia-based approach. The passive-microwave algorithms have relative high accuracy but low spatial resolutions. It can be grouped into the retrieval approaches for soil moisture only and the approaches for relevant parameters in addition to soil moisture. The active-microwave algorithms have generally high accuracy with a high spatial resolution. The algorithms can be divided into three classes: empirical, physical and semi-empirical approaches. In addition, a number of algorithms have been proposed, which combines in particular optical, passivemicrowave, or active-microwave data. Because the algorithms often combine the advantages of the multi-sensors, they can achieve a high accuracy with a good spatial resolution. With the achievement of retrieval techniques, several global soil moisture data sets have been generated. The widely used data sets include the European Remote Sensing satellites/ Meteorological Operational satellite programme (ERS/MetOp) data sets, the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E) data sets, and the Soil Moisture and Ocean Salinity (SMOS) data sets. The ERS/MetOp data sets provides global soil moisture data with a spatial resolution of 25-km so far since July, 1991, retrieved from the TU-Wien approach using C-band microwave data. The AMSR-E data sets provides global soil moisture data with a spatial resolution of 25-km for the period from June, 2002 to September, 2011, retrieved from the Land Parameter Retrieval Model (LPRM) using C-band and X-band microwave data. The SMOS data sets provides global soil moisture data with a spatial resolution of 40-km so far since November, 2009, retrieved from the L-band Microwave Emission of the Biosphere model (LMEB) using L-band microwave data. To improve retrieval accuracy of soil moisture, the new satellite sensors are scheduled to be launched into space, for example, the Phased Array type L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar-2 (PALSAR2) in 2013 and the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) in 2014.

This article provides a brief introduction of a new 973 project, entitled “Aerosol over China and their climate effect”.

Aerosol and cloud play important roles in determining the earth's climate. Along with the further knowledge about these important roles, the researches on the interaction between aerosol and cloud became more and more important. A comprehensive review about the research methods and the development in recent twenty years on this field is discussed in this paper. The observation by airplane, satellite and the composite method of observation and model were the main research method in this research. Some data of observation and the model results have given evidences of the influence between aerosol and the other cloud physical characteristics including radiation, cloud drop and precipitation. Aerosol can transform to the cloud condensation nucleus (CCN) in some special situations. Through this process, aerosol influences the cloud characteristics. Therefore, the CCN is an important link in all interaction theory between aerosol and cloud. There were great progresses in the observation technology of CCN. The nonlinear relationship between saturated water vapor pressure and temperature was used to make the instrument to observe the CCN. The related theories about CCN and cloud also have made some progresses. In China, the research methods were changed from the analyzing single observation data to the way of using model and the methods combining observation and model. Finally, several pieces of proposal are brought forward in this research area.

 This paper reviews the relevant ocean dynamics study of the Indonesian Seas and Indonesian Throughflow in the last 30 years. Centred at the heart of Maritime Contininent, the Indonesian Seas connect the Western Pacific Warm Pool and Indian Ocean Warm Pool, having a direct impact on the large scale atmospheric circulations. The Indonesian Throughflow (ITF), weaving through the mutli-straits and passages in the Indonesian Seas, balances the thermal and saline distribution of the world ocean. In a long time scale, ITF has an influence on the structure of general circulation and climate change. Based on the advance of the in situ observation by international cooperation, the global scientific community has a significant advance in the regional oceanography of the Indonesian Seas and ITF. Those studies include two aspects. In the study of the regional oceanography of the Indonesian Seas, this paper reviews the major advance in ocean circulation, wave dynamics, tide and mixing, ocean vertical stratifications and air-sea interactions. In the study of the ITF, which is the only ocean connection of the global conveyer belt in the tropics, this paper review the advance in the ITF pathway, vertical structure, multiscale variations, water mass origin and their influence, heat and saline transport, ITF relationship with the Pacific circulations and Indian Ocean circulations, and its impact on the large scale ocean-atmosphere interactions, etc. This paper categorizes and discusses the relevant study and proposes prospects.

As one of the means for bridging the gap of the data between low resolution data obtained from weather models and that needed in basin scale, statistical downscaling become a important field for study. The approaches for statistical downscaling are abundant and can be roughly divided into three groups: Transfer functions, weather-typing approaches and stochastic weather generators. The transfer functions may be linear methods, such as multivariate linear regression, canonic correlation, and Singular Value Decomposition, or nonlinear methods like artificial neural networks and support vector machine. Weather generators are designed initially for generating the missing weather data, but in downscaling applications it can be used as the output backend of other statistical downscaling techniques. The weather-typing approaches can be regarded as some variant of weather generators combining with some transfer functions or classifications. Thus, no strict boundaries exist among the three groups. The statistical downscaling problems have some attributes involved with temporal downscaling or spatial downscaling, stochastic downscaling or deterministic downscaling, temporal self-correlation and spatial correlation, point-site oriented or grids oriented. The differences of downscaling performance between all techniques are mainly related to these attributes. In recent years, the analog method, weather classifying, hidden Markov modeling, generalized linear models, Poisson clustered point process and the multiplicative cascade process based on multifractal theories are developed and used for statistical downscaling application, and many new nonlinear methods such as generalized additional models and physical-statistical methods are arising. Meanwhile, there is also some widely used model software available. Among all new emerging techniques, the nonlinear methods, stochastic simulation techniques of climate scenario, downscaling models for shortterm weather prediction and the statistical downscaling methods combining physical mechanism may become the main trend of study in the future.

The eddy covariance (EC) technique can measure turbulent exchanges between surface and atmosphere directly, and is now used widely in all of the flux stations. Since this method is based on certain assumptions, the obtained surface fluxes are not true values if there are no necessary corrections. Recent development and some focal points of the eddy-covariance method are reviewed, and used in the processing of the data collected in Miyun station, which is one of the flux stations near Beijing. The analysis of EC data at Miyun station shows: Despiking and the sonic temperature and coordinate rotation corrections have a rather little effects on the surface sensible and latent fluxes (about 1%), however, coordinate rotation has large effect on the momentum flux. The air density correction (WPL correction) is important for water vapor and CO^₂ fluxes, and should be applied. The turbulent spectral checks in the data quality evaluation are satisfactory. Turbulence stationarity and integral characteristics are used in the flux data quality analysis. After rigorously data screening, the final result shows that about 75% flux data is good, and 2% flux data need to be discarded. Footprint analysis shows for all day and daytime periods, over 70% source area of the fluxes is located in the interested area (non mountainous region) with over 90% of the biggest contribution points in the area.

Fractional vegetation cover is a key parameter for characterizing land surface vegetation coverage, and plays an important role in global change research, earth surface processes simulation and hydro-ecological models. Remote sensing can provide the vegetation coverage information and variation trend on different spatial scales, and become the important means in obtaining the information of regional or global fractional vegetation cover. In this paper, the commonly used remote sensing data sources including hyperspectral data, multispectral data, microwave data and LiDAR data for fractional vegetation cover estimation are analyzed, and multispectral data will be the long term main data source for fractional vegetation cover estimation because of  the advantage of  its easily acquisition, wide coverage and continuous observation advantages. Then, characteristics  and advantages of different estiation methods are analyzed, which include  the regression model, the pixel unmixing model, the machine learning method, the physical model, the spectral gradient difference and the forest canopy density mapping model. The dimidiate pixel model of the pixel unmixing model is extensively used for its simple form and certain physical significance, and the neural network method is widely used for generating products because of its extendibility and rapidity of calculation. Furthermore, the existing remote sensing data based fractional vegetation cover products are presented. However, the validation results indicate that almost all of the fractional vegetation cover products have underestimation problem and variational estimation accuracy in different regions. Finally, the fractional vegetation cover estimation research prospect is discussed and high spatial-temporal resolution global fractional vegetation cover dataset, multi-source remote sensing data fusion and assimilation method are the future development of fractional vegetation cover estimation using remote sensing data.

Abstract: This paper briefly introduces two marine observation systems in the United States: the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) sponsored by NSF, and the Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS) organized by NOOA. The two programs are closely related, but differentiated from each other. As China is now developing its own marine observation systems, there is much to be learned from the US experience.

Ecohydrology combines the studies of hydrological and ecological processes and their interrelations in soil and water. It aims at a better understanding of hydrological factors determining the development of natural and human-driven terrestrial ecosystems, and of ecological factors influencing the hydrology. This paper analyzes the understanding of ecohydrological process by researchers from ecohydrology connotation view. Terrestrial landscape ecohydrology research is a hotspot. This paper summaries the ecohydrological process advances of mountainous region, wetland, dry land and basin integration modelling, analyzes the strategy of establishing ecohydrological model, gathers part of developed ecohydrological models, considers the three problems in model establishment, scales, data, definition. We should pay more attention to the following four aspects: ①the basic research on ecohydrological process;  ②the integration modeling research on ecohydrological process;  ③ecohydrological process on-line coupling research with database and GIS/RS technologies;  ④ecohydrological process research combining with prototype observation. To establish ecohydrological models that accord with local condition is the important task in today′s China ecohydrology research.

The U-Pb chronology of detritus zircon is an important method to explore sediment provenance, which is widely used in sedimentology, geotectonics, geomorphology and other fields. This paper reviewed the recent progress of the U-Pb chronology of detrital zircon from three aspects: data acquisition, analysis and comparison. In terms of data acquisition, the sample preparation method, isotope age data selection and test quantity were expounded from the basic principle; In terms of data analysis, the data visualization methods of Probability Density Plot (PDP), Kernel Density Estimate (KDE) and Cumulative Age Distribution (CAD) were compared; In terms of data comparison, the basic algorithm and application advantages of quantitative comparison were analyzed with examples, including (dis)similarity measures based on non-parametric hypothesis tests (K-S test), (dis)similarity measures based on age spectrum comparison (Cross-correlation coefficients) and (dis)similarity measures based on Multi-Dimensional Scali (MDS). Finally, three commonly used software tools were introduced. Suggestions were given in terms of data acquisition, analysis and comparison for future research.

As a typical artificial landscape, the spatial structure of city is the type of high collective landscape and the function of city appears as the diversities of culture, high capability and high energy flow. Landscape ecology on city includes urban spatial structure and ecological process, urban landscape scene and urban ecological construction and urban landscape planning. The most direct application of landscape ecology on city is landscape planning. This paper, firstly, discusses on the valuations of urban landscape quality and value which include the valuation of landscape aesthetics and the capability of landscape vision. The topic of this paper is urban spatial structure and the principles on landscape planning, which involves urban spatial patterns, the corridor influence of urban spatial extension and the analysis on the spatial structure of urban greenbelt system. Based on the cases of greenbelt systems in Shanghai and Guangzhou, the authors analyze on the landscape change of the ecotone landscape between urban and rural. At the same time, the characteristics of the processes of urbanization are described by urban landscape patterns and its dynamics according to the typical researches in Shanghai and Shenyang.

Surface Water-Ground Water (SW-GW) interactions constitute an important link in wetland hydrologic processes, and consequently are of significance for eco-environmental evolution. Thus the interaction has important implications for the effective protection and management of the high environmental values usually attached to wetland habits. This article reviews the current knowledge of the SW-GW interactions and  the mechanisms, impact factors, interfaces effects, analysis methodologies and numerical models are synthesized and exemplified. The key findings are as follow: the SW-GW interactions are controlled by both the basic geological/hydro-geological conditions and the variations of hydrological regimes. However, its responses to the changing world should be emphasized in future due to the high sensitivity. Changes in global climate are expected to have impacts on hydrological and water supply regimes, which will in turn impose additional pressures on wetland. Subsequently the interactions among multi-interfaces integrating physical, chemical and biological processes will be enhanced for better understanding under changing conditions, and it is supposed to be counteractive to the SW-GW system extensively indeed. Concerted efforts from multidisciplinary approaches must be encouraged to elucidate the different interfaces effects, which help to understand the eco-environmental response to SW-GW interactions and provide insight into the research methodologies in return, because the interfaces effects display a function of fingerprinting to the characteristics of the interactions. Finally, the SW-GW interactions models are reviewed, and it is important to note that the models of SW-GW interactions coupling the water quantity and quality should be constructed based upon the understanding of hydrologic characteristics in wetland. To identify the information on different scales, coupling  several mechanisms and verifying  the parameters in the model are the key points in future study. Overall, the SW-GW interactions strongly influence the spatial/ temporal availability of the water resources and the structure/ function of the wetland ecosystem. Therefore, further study will be necessary to help water resources managers to deal with such issues as fiood mitigation, groundwater exploitation, and biodiversity conservation in a more integrated and sustainable manner.

Species Distribution Models （SDMs） are numerical tools that combine observations of species occurrence or abundance with environmental variables database. SDMs tend to be used to simulate the potential distribution of species in a larger scale， under the confirming modeling conditions， which can be extrapolated in space and time. SDMs are now widely used in the fields of climate change biology， landscape ecology and conservation biology， and they are one of the most important tools in current biophysics research. This paper systematically discusses the current challenges and future development of species distribution model from two aspects： i.e.， model building and model application. The development status and prospect of species distribution models in China are reviewed. The main viewpoints and conclusions are as follows： In the modeling practice of species distribution model， the rationality and accuracy of model results depend on many factors， including the choice of environmental variables and model algorithms， spatial and temporal scale， the interaction between environmental and geographical factors and the model extrapolation degree. Hence， researchers should understand the theoretical basis of the model， attach importance to the standardization of statistics in the process of modeling， choose and design a reasonable model algorithm. In future research， we need to consider the historical and geographical reasons for the current distribution pattern and the possible impacts of species niche shift， as well as the principles of landscape genetics and phylogeography， which should be effectively incorporated into the model framework. Meanwhile， how to use geoscience big data （remote sensing data） effectively is also one of the challenges for the development of the models.