Introduction
· Temperate Deciduous forest biomes are located
primarily in the northern hemisphere. And the amount of precipitation is between 30 and 60 inches a year. The biome
supports various types of mammals, birds and amphibians.(2)
The northeast Asian deciduous forest biome is located on the continent of Asia at about 30° to 45° North latitude, and about 130° to 145° East longitude, which includes parts of Korea, China, Russia, and Japan. Our project will focus on Beijing, which is in the part of China known as the Northeast China Plain deciduous forest.(1)
Beijing is surrounded by mountains to the west, north and northeast. Spring is very dry and windy, and usually the smothering dust storms from the northern desert plains of Mongolia will hit Beijing in spring.(10)
Four types of forest in Beijing(10):
1. Forest in the outer suburban. The function of these forests is partly ecological (conservation forestry for land erosion) and partly economic (special fruit growing).
2. Forest in inner suburban plain area. They serves to protect local farm fields as well as some orchards from wind and sand storms
3. Green belts in build-up area, which are focused on growth management and environmental improvement. This is a transitional zone.
4. Green space in residential area. It provides the elderly and children with more opportunities to make use of green space.
A map of the study area
Beijing is surrounded by mountains to the west, north and northeast. Spring is very dry and windy, and usually the smothering dust storms from the northern desert plains of Mongolia will hit Beijing in spring.(10)
Four types of forest in Beijing(10):
1. Forest in the outer suburban. The function of these forests is partly ecological (conservation forestry for land erosion) and partly economic (special fruit growing).
2. Forest in inner suburban plain area. They serves to protect local farm fields as well as some orchards from wind and sand storms
3. Green belts in build-up area, which are focused on growth management and environmental improvement. This is a transitional zone.
4. Green space in residential area. It provides the elderly and children with more opportunities to make use of green space.
A map of the study area
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| Temperate Deciduous Forest(1) |
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| "Beijing on Political Map" http://www.qbemm.net/beijing-on-political-map-h1n |
Images
before:
http://www.chinatouradvisors.com
http://what-to-see-in-beijing.com
Nowadays:
Citations:
http://www.nipic.com/VANY
http://beijing.qianlong.com/3825/2010/01/24/3042@5462654.htm
http://www.xinhuanet.com/special/dqwrfz/tp.htm
historical state of the Beijing
In the old time of Beijing, both the urban area and the totoal polulation were not as large as they are right now. The majority of people lived inside the "2nd Ring Road"(32.7 km)(3), which stands for the edge of central urban area and in recent years the edge expands to "5th Ring Road"(98.6km).(3)
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| "Economic Daily" http://paper.ce.cn/jjrb/html/2010-04/08/content_102519.htm |
Qianmen and Wangfujing were the two most prevalent commercial area in the old Beijing where people sold foods, clothes and jewelry. There wasn't a big inflow of people every year and the transportation and living areas were good enough to support the 2 million population(4).
The majority urban area are used for agriculture lands as well as forest reservation areas. Pine trees, spruce, oak, and ash trees growed in this biome. Forests probably included woodland, grassland, and swamp components with closed canopy forest staying in the well drained but wetter sights. (1)The forest experienced all four seasons, and had long cold winters, and warm, humid summers.
Current Human Impacts
1.Traffic jams. The number of cars is increasing rapidly, with only few underground
parkings and bad management of the road traffic.Approximately 2 millions cars in
total with a increasing rate of 8% to 10% per year.
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| zhanghong "Beijing still struggling to deal with traffic congestion" http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1298559/beijing-still-struggling-deal-traffic-congestion |
2. Increasing population. Huge amount of tourists come to Beijing during vacations, and also lots of residents in other provience are finding ways to move into Beijing for the sake of better jobs, educations and medical treatments.
3.Atmospheric pollution and dust from sand and dirt. Atmospheric pollution mainly comes from the gas emission of automobiles as well as the industrial waste gas from factories near downtown. Dust comes from sand and dirt swept by the wind from the many construction grounds.
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| Air condition of Beijng(Red:level 4 Blue: level 3 green: level 2)mea red in percentage |
4.Water quality deterioration, due to excessive pumping of
the underground water and uncontrolled industrial rejections.
Urban forests help to control the air pollution. A healthy, well-managed urban forest can provide many ecological benefits. One of those benefits can be the reduction of air pollution. (6)
Trees can reduce air pollution in two ways. One is that trees can absorb gaseous pollutants like sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and ozone (O3) through leaf stomata and also can dissolve water-soluble pollutants onto moist leaf surfaces (7). Secondly, trees can reduce the air temperature through direct shading and evapotranspiration in the summer, thus reducing the emission of air pollutants from the process of generating energy for cooling purposes.(8)
2. Restriction on traffic
One good way to reduce traffic in Beijing is to implement an odd-even day traffic restriction scheme. (Actually government is now applying that)
An odd-even day traffic restriction scheme is that cars with number plates ending with odd numbers were restricted one day and the next day cars with number plates ending with even numbers were restricted. Drivers who were unable to use their cars did not have to pay road or vehicle taxes, costing the city around 1.3 billion yuan.(9)
The future consideration based on current information
&What can we do to improve.
If problems caused by current human impacts continues, the ecosystem in Beijing would be worse. In this case, government will be likely to involve in the protection of the environment in Beijing area. In fact, the Beijing government has put a lot of effort in airpollution control from coal burning, industry, vehiacle exhaust, and fugitive dust, and the effort has had a positive impact. (5) Unfortunately, those efforts seems to be effective enough. For example,evidence shows that coal consumption, which produces much air pollution, was not obviously reduced from 1999 to 2003 because of the rapid growth of energy use (Table 4). What's more, Table 5 shows, by comparing six cities in China, that Beijing still has an extensive economic growth pattern, and energy consumption in the industrial sector is very high. There is still a long way to go for Beijing to optimize its economic and energy structure. (5)
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| (5) |
However, those efforts government, though not enough effective now, is nonetheless helpful in improving current situation. Experts suggest that additional optimization of the economic and energy structure and improvement of the transportation system needed.(5)
There are some few ways that might be helpful to improve.
1. Planting more urban treesUrban forests help to control the air pollution. A healthy, well-managed urban forest can provide many ecological benefits. One of those benefits can be the reduction of air pollution. (6)
Trees can reduce air pollution in two ways. One is that trees can absorb gaseous pollutants like sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and ozone (O3) through leaf stomata and also can dissolve water-soluble pollutants onto moist leaf surfaces (7). Secondly, trees can reduce the air temperature through direct shading and evapotranspiration in the summer, thus reducing the emission of air pollutants from the process of generating energy for cooling purposes.(8)
2. Restriction on traffic
One good way to reduce traffic in Beijing is to implement an odd-even day traffic restriction scheme. (Actually government is now applying that)
An odd-even day traffic restriction scheme is that cars with number plates ending with odd numbers were restricted one day and the next day cars with number plates ending with even numbers were restricted. Drivers who were unable to use their cars did not have to pay road or vehicle taxes, costing the city around 1.3 billion yuan.(9)
work cited
http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/ne_asian_decid_forest.htm
2.Shellie Braeuner"Cities in Temperate Deciduous Forests"
http://www.ehow.com/info_8480173_cities-temperate-deciduous-forests.html
3."The length of Beijing loop line"
http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/60702730.html
4. "The Analysis of the Problem of Beijing Population"
http://mall.cnki.net/magazine/Article/RKXK198503003.htm
5. Jiming Hao & Litao Wang "Improving Urban Air Quality in China: Beijing Case
Study"
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10473289.2005.10464726
6.Dochinger,1980 "Interception of Airborne Particles of Tree Planting"
https://www.agronomy.org/publications/jeq/abstracts/9/2/JEQ0090020265
7. Nowak, 1994aD.J. Nowak "Air pollution removal by Chicago's urban forest"
8.Jun Yang, Joe Mcbride, Jinxing Zhou, Zhenyuan Sun."The urban forest in Beijing and its role in air pollution reduction"
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1618866704000226
9. Nick Mulvenney, "Beijing to launch Olympic odd-even car ban in July" Reuters.http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/06/20/us-olympics-traffic-idUSPEK1121120080620
10."Urban Forestry Development in Beijing: A Historical Perspective"
http://www.ruaf.org/sites/default/files/Urban%20Forestry%20Development%20in%20Beijing.pdf
