In order to understand, evaluate and predict how terrestrial ecosystems will respond to global change, International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) has established fifteen global change terrestrial transects in the world. Two of them are located in China, and there are NorthEast China Transect (NECT) and North-South Transect of Eastern China (NSTEC). The advance along NECT and NSTEC during recent years is presented systematically in this paper from plant carbon and nitrogen metabolism, biodiversity, ecosystem function and carbon budget, and ecosystem change trend under global change. These studies enhance the understanding of the processes and mechanisms of global change and terrestrial ecosystem interaction. Finally, considering the special eco-environment and regional characteristics in China, the authors emphasize  that the future terrestrial transect study in China should pay more attention to the following key science problems: adaptability of terrestrial ecosystems to global change, dynamic process and mechanism of land use change, interactive biological-physical-chemicalsocial processes and management of the earth system, ecological effects of disaster weather and climate and their control mechanisms, global change simulation and warning system. These studies might enhance the academic level of global change study in the world, and provide the scientific basis for the sustainable social and economic development of China.

为从机理上理解、评估和预测陆地生态系统对全球变化的响应，国际地圈生物圈计划在全球共启动了15条全球变化陆地样带，其中2条在中国, 即中国东北样带和中国东部南北样带。从植物碳氮代谢、生物多样性、生态系统功能与碳收支及样带生态系统的变化趋势等方面较系统地总结了围绕中国这2条全球变化陆地样带的最新研究进展，加深了全球变化与陆地生态系统相互作用过程与机制的理解，提出未来中国全球变化陆地样带研究应充分利用我国特殊的生态与环境及区域特色，重点针对陆地生态系统对全球变化的适应性、地球系统相互作用的生物—物理—化学—社会过程与管理、土地利用变化的动力学过程与机制、灾害性天气气候的生态效应及其调控机制和全球变化模拟预警系统开展研究，做出一些在国际上既有显示度又服务于我国社会经济可持续发展的研究成果。

This paper firstly gives a brief introduction to “Regional conference on policy responses to climate-induced migration in Asia and Pacific”, which was held in Manila, the Philippine on September 15 and 16, 2011. Then in terms of the conference content, the newly significant progress, development trends of international disaster-induced migration (DIM), and relationship between DIM and regional disaster risk are analyzed comprehensively. Combining with the facts of the climate change in China and DIM cases in recent years, consisting of DIM due to the Zhouqu Flash Flood and Landslide disaster on 8 August, 2010 and drought disaster in Southern and middle of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, the policy responses of DIM in a changing climate are also put forward. These adjustments consist of four aspects. ① Distinguishing multi-hazard, coordinate the DIM based on the characteristics of sudden and low-onset hazards and establish the policy focusing on both emergency evacuation and resettlement and immigration from the places with the high level of disaster risk. ② Integrating multi-method framework, establish new conceptual model of DIM combining “top-down” and “bottom-up” methodologies; and the former model is the government-oriented policy, in which the migrants or communities usually did not take part or only few of them participated; while the latter model is the community-oriented policy, and the desire and activeness of migrants play an important role in the process of migration. ③ Across the multi-sector, establish the cooperation mechanism of “Government-CorporateCommunity / Personal partnership”, meaning the “Public-Private Partnership (PPP)”, and all of them are the key stakeholders and play different roles in the process of migration. ④ Syncretizing multi-scale, form the DIM from the perspectives of inter-region and intra-region cooperation, long-term  and short-term coexistence; and the inter-region migration cooperation is scarce in many cases now. The difference between the long-and short-term policies is that the former is due to the disaster risk and the later is due to the disasters. These proposed policies and conceptual models could provide an important reference in the process of enhancing the capacity of integrated disaster risk governance and minimizing disaster losses in China and other countries or regions with high sensitive to global climate change.

简要介绍了2011年9月15~16日在菲律宾马尼拉召开的“亚太气候（灾害）移民政策响应”地区会议，并着重阐述了当前国际灾害移民领域的重要进展和发展趋向，结合气候变化背景下中国重特大自然灾害移民案例，初步提出了气候变化背景下灾害移民的政策响应。区分渐发性、突发性灾害，综合“自上而下”与“自下而上”的工作方式，建立“政府—企业—社区/个人”协同合作机制，形成区域内—外合作，统筹短期安置与长远发展的灾害移民政策。所提的灾害移民响应政策综合多时空、多方法、多要素，可为气候变化背景下提升中国综合灾害风险防范能力，最大限度地降低灾害损失提供重要参考。

Researches on environmenal changes and Chinese civilization evolution in recent years has shown that there are really close relationships between the formation and development of Chinese civilization and environment and  its changes in China.According to the new findings in environment change and the evolution of Chinese civilization, following conclusions can be made (1) The unique Chinese civilization is unified from multiplex cultures The continuity of Chinese civilization is profited from various types of environmental and regional differences in environmental changes related to the vast area of life supporting environment in China  (2) Chinese civilization generally flourishes in the warmer periods on various time scales,even the reverse is not always true.(3) The extreme events of environmental changes may strongly change or even interrupt the development course of Chinese civilization The civilization has been created and developed in the course of coping with and adapting to the negative impacts Further researches on the impacts of environmental changes on Chinese civilization should be focused on three aspects:to commence the study with the natural resources changes induced by the environmental changes,to highlight the identification of the magnitude events of environmental changes, and to understand the civilization through the study on the adaptation to the impacts of environmental changes in China

近年来自然环境演变研究和中华文明演变研究的大量科学积累显示，中国的地理环境及其演变与中华文明的产生和发展之间存在着多样而复杂的相互影响关系。从已有的研究成果可以概括出以下认识：(1) 中华文明具有“多元一体结构”，其连续性得益于与巨大的生存空间相联系的多样的环境类型与环境演变的区域差异。(2) 尽管并非所有的暖期中华文明都繁盛，但中华文明繁盛的时期往往是各种时间尺度上的暖期。(3) 环境极端恶化事件对中华文明产生严重冲击，同时也促使文明发生重大变革，中华民族在对不利环境影响的适应过程中不断开拓创造、不断积累经验，从而促进社会的更大进步。进一步开展有关环境演变对中华文明影响的过程与机制研究，应以重大环境演变事件的识别为基础，以环境变化引起的资源变化为切入点，通过文明发展对环境演变影响的适应研究来深化对文明内涵的理解。

Paleoclimatic studies indicate four epochs of global cooling during the last 4 000 years, i.e. during the few centuries before and after 2000 BC, 800 BC, 400 AD, and 1 600 AD; the quasiperiodicity corresponds to cyclic variation of solar activity. Global temperature changes influenced regional precipitation patterns: Northern Europe was wetter while the middle and low latitude lands were more arid during colder epochs. Both sets of cold climatical conditions were unfavorable for agricultural production. Historical records show that large demographic movements in history took place because of crop failures and mass starvation, rather than escaping from war zones. The "wandering" of the Germanic tribes during the first two or three centuries of the Christian Era is one example. Whereas the accelerated release of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels is ultimately to cause global warming, historical evidence indicates, however, that global warming has been on the whole a blessing to mankind. Global cooling, on the other hand, has curtailed agricultural production and has led to famines and mass migrations of people. Perhaps the most important task at the present is not so much computer modelling of greenhouse effect on global climate, but water management and agricultural researches to insure food supply for an everincreasing world population.

Historical case studies of climate change impacts and the resulting social responses can provide analogies for better understanding the impacts of current and future climate changes. Around the turn of the 19th century, the climate of the North China Plain experienced a shift from a relatively warm stage in the 18th century to a colder stage in the 19th century, which was characterised by a much colder climate and more frequent and severe floods and droughts. Historical information about refugees, social disorder, grain transportation, and disaster relief on the North China Plain in 1780-1819 is collected from the Veritable Records of the Qing Dynasty (a collection of official records). The mechanism of climate change affecting the food security of the society, as indicated by the development of a refugee problem around the turn of the 19th century, is analyzed by examining the social vulnerability. There are four basic findings: (1) In the 40 years from 1780-1819, the society on the North China Plain was unstable and characterised by a significant deterioration of the refugee situation. The number of refugees increased markedly, and their behaviour became increasingly violent. In the 1780s, most of the disaster victims chose to stay at their residences waiting for relief. From 1790 to 1800, hundreds of thousands of refugees migrated to northeast China. In the 1810s, the frequency of farmer rebellions increased sharply. (2) The increase in instability corresponded to the climatic cooling over the same time period. The increased instability was a result of the negative impacts of climate change accumulating and transmitting to the social level. (3) For food security, a precondition for the negative impacts of climate change on human society was the vulnerability of the regional socioeconomic system, which had a high sensitivity and low capacity to respond. This vulnerability could be described by the following three observations: ① The regional balance of supply and demand for food was in a critical state, which led to a high sensitivity and dramatic reduction in yield that was caused by climate change; ② the capacity for disaster relief efforts by the government was too low to meet the needs of crisis management; ③ the capacity for refugees’ resettlement in eastern Inner Mongolia and northeast China, which both border the North China Plain, was severely restricted by climatic conditions or the quarantine policy. (4) It is estimated that climate change caused the social vulnerability to reach a critical level approximately 20 years earlier on the North China Plain.

This paper made an analysis of the relationship between climate change and agricultural development in China since the Qin Dynasty. The following conclusions are obtained about how historical climate fluctuation influenced ancient agricultural production. Warm periods were beneficial to agricultural development while cold periods made against to it. When the climate was warm (e.g. Qin, Han, Sui and Tang dynasties), the northern boundary of farming moved northward. Thus, cultivation area expanded. And crop growing time and cropping patterns would also increase due to relatively high temperature. As a result, crop yields were greatly improved. However, during cold periods, (e.g. Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern Dynasties, Late Tang Dynasty and Five Dynasties period), the boundary of farming moved southward, cropping patterns became single, cultivation land and crop growing time reduced. These changes caused the decrease of crop yield. Moreover, the history of rice distribution in ancient China shows that during warm periods, single cropping rice was widely planted in the Yellow River Basin, and double cropping rice could grow in the Yangtze River Basin. But when the climate became cold, the range of the distribution of single cropping rice plant in the Yellow River Basin was significantly diminished, and double cropping rice retreated to the south of the Yangtze River Basin.

IPCC报告指出:气候变暖将给人类农业生产和粮食安全带来严重的"负面"影响。中国历史上的情况又是怎样的呢？本文在前人工作的基础上,通过对我国秦汉以来气候变化与农业经济发展对应关系的梳理与分析,从百年尺度上阐明气候变化对我国古代农业生产的影响,结果表明:暖期利于农业发展,冷期则相反。当气候温暖时(如秦汉、隋唐时期),北方农业种植界线北移,农耕区扩大,同时农作物生长期增长,熟制增加,粮食产量提高;而当气候寒冷时(如魏晋南北朝、唐后期至五代时期),农业种植界线南退,宜农土地减少,农作物生长期缩短,熟制区域单一,粮食产量下降。古代稻作区的分布也具有类同的变化。

        An analysis of the corresponding relationship between climate change and social development over the last two millennia in China, leads to the following conclusion that how historical climate change impacted aspects of ancient society. Firstly, warm period was beneficial to social development while cold period was not. The law was appropriate for most of ancient times. Secondly, historical climate change imposed impacts of five levels on the society, which were transmitted step by step from nature subsystem to economic and humane subsystems. Thirdly, when climate became terrible, social unrest was often closely related to the poor whose living conditions were limited by regional environmental vulnerability to a large extent. Fourthly, climate change was only the external conditions for social development, while the reform of production relations was the most important impetus to the social development. At last, with advances in science and technology, the negative impacts of climate change on society were generally reduced.

     在前人研究的基础上，系统梳理了中国过去2000年气候变化与社会的自然、经济、人文三大亚系统发展状况间的对应关系，从数百年至数十年的时间尺度上揭示了气候变化的过程在实质上也是社会结构重新构建的过程。具体有以下结论：①尽管并非所有的暖期社会都是繁荣昌盛的，但总体上说来，“冷抑暖扬”的文明韵律十分清晰；②气候变化对社会发展的影响，通过自然—经济—人文亚系统的各个环节而逐级传导，进而产生了五个层次的气候冲击与适应；③在过去2000年气候恶化阶段，与生态环境脆弱性密切相关的贫困人群生存问题是诱发社会动乱的重要原因；④气候只是社会发展的外部条件，人对生产关系的变革才是推动古代社会发展进程的根本动力；⑤随着科学技术的不断发展, 气候变化对古代社会发展的不利影响在总体上渐趋减轻。

This paper is a result of interdisciplinary research between natural and social science．Evidences of more rapid development in the loess plateau than in the Yangtze delta in ancient time are given．It is suggested that this might be due to the fact that Holocene climate warming had different effect on the development of the loess plateau and the Yangtze delta．
Finally，causes of three great population migration of the Han People from north China to the lower Yangtze valley are elucidated．The ro1e of three great population migration in rapid economic development of the Yangtze delta since the 7th century is also briefly discussed．

将社会科学（文史考古研究）与自然科学（气候变化）结合，分析了黄土高原社会经济发展较长江三角洲地区为早的原因，提出这可能是由于全新世大暖期的气候变化对不同地理区域产生不同的影响，最后并分析了中国历史上的 3次移民潮的原因及其对长江三角洲社会经济发展的影响。

Tongwan City is one of the most famous and best-researched archaeological sites in China. By using palaeoclimatology proxy records from China over the last 2,000 years and archaeological/historical documents, we analyse the possible effect of climate on the collapse of Tongwan City, an ancient urban city of the Daxia state (AD 407–427). During Tongwan City’s existence (AD 413–994), two severe cold and drought stages were recorded by both natural proxy data and the synthesis compiled from the historical documents. The first cold and drought stage occurred at about AD 420–550, with the lowest point centred at about AD 500. The second cold and drought stage occurred at about AD 780–950. These periods correspond to the times of climate deterioration, especially weak summer monsoons, which eventually resulted in the intensive desertification and collapse of Tongwan City.

The causal correlation or linkage between the East Asian Monsoon (EAM) intensity and rise/fall of Chinese dynasties recently proposed by high-resolution paleoclimate reconstructions is examined in detail. Aside from many exceptions to the correlation, both instrumental and historical climate records show strong spatial variations of rainfall on annual-to-decadal scales over eastern China. The relationship between rainfall and EAM intensity also exhibits regional disparity. These observations suggest: (1) Tak-ing paleo-proxy records from a single locality in eastern China to imply changes in drought/wetness as to affect the cultural and political history of China is fraught with uncertainty. (2) On annual-to-decadal scales, the thesis that δ18O in speleothems can be used as a proxy for the EAM strength lacks empirical underpinnings.

The first half of the 13th century marks a significant period in the history of Eurasian continent，during which the unprecedented Mongol westward conquests were launched over the Eurasian continent by Chinggis Khan and his tribal members in 1219～1225A.D.,1235～1241A.D.，and 1252～1258A.D.，respectively. These westward conquests not only altered the political structure but also affected the history courses of Eurasian continent，thus being regarded as a milestone and a turning point in the history of Eurasian. At present，many issues related to Mongol westward conquests have been resolved gradually. However，the causes of such massive drives still remains a mystery with some questions for further exploration. For instance，why did Mongol Empire launch three times of westward conquests？Why did the Mongol westward conquests occur during the first half of 13th century? Why was the initial expansion launched towards to the steppe in the northwest rather than the tropic zone and subtropical zone in the southeast?
These questions have attracted numerous researchers for more than one hundred years，among which famous geographer Ells Worth Huntington，palaeoclimatologist H．Lamb and historian Arnold J．Toynbee are included. Various hypotheses on the causes of Mongol westward conquests have been put forward，however none could give a satisfactory explanation. Traditionally much more attentions were paid to the role of climatic deterioration(drought or cooling or both). In recent decades，great progresses have been made on the high­resolution and precisely­dated climate change，which could provide a solid background for such historical events. In this paper，the possible role of climatic change in the Mongol westward conquests are reconsidered based on Chinese historical documents，as well as several high­resolved data such as ice­cores，tree ring，marine­core and stalagmite records，which could be correlated well with several highly resolved climatic records on other regions of the world.
Our results indicate that the three times of Mongol westward conquests have been launched not in a period of aridity or/and lowering in temperature as held in traditional views，rather they were conducted in a relatively global warm period within the Medieval Warm epoch. Furthermore，the results of our reconstruction of past climate change indicate the habitation areas of Mongolian was also moist. Thus our results make a serious challenge to the traditional climate­deterioration­driven hypotheses. We suggest that the outbreak of westward conquests was not the consequence of aridity or/and temperature­lowing or both. On the contrary，the warm and moist climate has provided a favorable material foundation for the westward conquests. Our results could also make a better explanation for the directions of Mongol expansion，i.e. why did the Mongol Empire choose to invade the steppe in the Northwest first，rather than the tropical and subtropical areas such as Indian or South Song in southeast.

13世纪上半叶蒙古帝国发动的3次西征极大地改变了欧亚大陆的政治格局和历史进程，成为世界最为重大历史事件之一； 其发生原因一直是学术界关注的焦点，人们提出了各种假说，其中气候变化驱动说，即干旱或/和降温事件触发蒙古西征说最具影响力。文章依据古气候研究进展对蒙古西征的动因进行了重新研究，首先对蒙古西征各种假说进行了回顾，重点介绍和评述了气候变化驱动说，然后根据我国高分辨率气候重建资料，结合欧亚大陆其他地区的古气候重建成果，恢复了蒙古西征时期的气候背景； 结果发现蒙古西征并非发生在传统上所认为的干旱或/和降温期，而是发生在相当于中世纪温暖期中的中后期，而且当时蒙古民族主要生活住居地区还比较湿润。研究结果对传统的气候驱动说提出了挑战，认为蒙古西征并非干旱或/和降温事件所触发，相反，当时温暖而湿润的气候环境为蒙古西征提供了良好的物质基础。研究结果较好地解释了蒙古当时征讨的重点地区为什么是西北方而不是东南方的印度和南宋地区之谜。