Irrigation and drainage in the new millennium

Presented at the 2000 USCID international conference, Challenges facing irrigation and drainage in the new millennium on June 20-24 in Fort Collins, Colorado.Includes bibliographical references.Cross-boundary issues in water resources development and management are very popular throughout the world. One of the most notable cross-boundary issues facing irrigation is water resources allocation between urban and rural areas, and typically industrial and agricultural uses. In many areas in the world, agricultural water resources (typically irrigation) is severely impacted by urbanization, which has been one of the crucial restricting factors to sustainable agriculture of the world, especially that of developing countries. This paper presents the impact of urbanization on agricultural water resources. The general impact in China is briefly described. Some special solutions to the impact are recommended which include raising the design standards of irrigation projects, bestowing priority on farmland irrigation, and stipulating an upper limit to the water available per capita. More attention should be paid to the comprehensive solutions: to set up a water-saving society, to strengthen water pollution prevention and water resources protection, and to speed up capacity building. A strategic framework for sustainable water resources development and management for the new millennium is proposed for central Shaanxi, one of China's typical regions suffering from severe water shortage. Based on the analysis of basic demand for sustainable development and probable water resources available, an amount of 500 cubic meters of water per capita per year on average might be an upper limit to this region. A rough allocation of the water to agricultural, industrial, residential and environmental for the year 2020 is suggested based on the objective of self-sufficient food supply, continuous development of industry, persistent improvement of life quality, and safe environment These solutions may also be appropriate for most developing countries and other countries with similar issues

The Neuropharmacology of (-)-Stepholidine and its Potential Applications

(-)-Stepholidine (SPD), a natural product isolated from the Chinese herb Stephania, possesses dopamine (DA) D1 partial agonistic and D2 antagonistic properties in the nigrostriatal and mesocorticolimbic DAergic pathways. These unique dual effects have suggested that SPD can effectively restore previously imbalanced functional linkage between D1 and D2 receptors under schizophrenic conditions, in which, SPD improves both the negative and positive symptoms of schizophrenia. SPD also relieves the motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease (PD) when co-administered with Levodopa. Furthermore, SPD exhibits neuroprotective effects through an antioxidative mechanism and slows down the progression of neuronal degeneration in the substantia nigra (SN) of PD patients and/or animal models. Therefore, SPD is a novel, natural compound with potentially therapeutic roles in the treatment of schizophrenia and/or PD

Isolation and expression pattern of COR15b and KIN1 genes in watermelon and pumpkin

COR15b and KIN1 (COR 6.5) genes encode polypeptides of 15 KDa and 6.5 KDa, respectively. They are involved in the dehydration tolerance mechanisms and play important role under cold stress. cDNAsequences of COR15b and KIN1 genes were firstly isolated from leaves of watermelon (Citrullus lanatus) and pumpkin (Cucurbita moschata). Sequencing results indicated that the open reading fragments (ORF) of COR15b in watermelon (ClCOR15b) and COR15b in pumpkin (CmCOR15b) were 348 and 426 bp, which encoded 116 and 141 amino acids, respectively. The putative amino acids of CmCOR15 b shared 98.58% identities to COR15b in Arabidopsis (AtCOR15b), but ClCOR15b had only80.85% identities to AtCOR15b because there appeared two mutations at the positions of 220 (C/T) and 418 (T/A) in ClCOR15b and T/A mutation produced a transcript end codon (TAA), which led to a lack of26 amino acids. Similar with KIN1 in Arabidopsis (AtKIN1), ORFs of both KIN1 in watermelon (ClKIN1) and KIN1 in pumpkin (CmKIN1) were 198 bp, encoding two short polypeptides of 65 amino acids. The putative amino acids of ClKIN1 and CmKIN1 shared 98.48 and 90.51% identities to AtKIN1 respectively, although they also contained some mutation sites. Real-time quantitative PCR results indicated that, during cold stress condition, transcripts of CmCOR15b, ClKIN1 and CmKIN1 significantly increased,suggesting that they could take part in the cold tolerance. However, ClCOR15b kept stable during cold stress, implying that its role during cold stress could be changed because of the lacked sequence

HEIGHTENING URBAN WATER SUPPLY CAPACITY AND RELIABILITY THROUGH RECONSTRUCTING INTEGRATED REGIONAL WATER RESOURCES SYSTEMS

ABSTRACT This paper presents essential concept of reconstruction of integrated regional water resources systems (IRWRS), basic status of urban water supply in China, and a case study of solving urban water issues induced by unitary water source through reconstructing IRWRS. Integrated regional water resources systems are defined as water resources systems that consist of water source subsystems, water project subsystems, water utilization subsystems, water management subsystems and the environment of the systems. Lack of enough water sources with sufficient quantity and proper quality is recognized to be one of the most crucial stresses to urban water security. Integrated regional water resources systems with multiple water sources are regarded as an important solution to unitary water source induced urban water scarcity and pertinent issues. The results from the Xi'an Water Resources System show that urban water supply capacity and reliability is capable of being significantly improved through reconstructing IRWRS. KEYWORDS Integrated regional water resources system (IRWRS); multiple water sources; water scarcity; water supply capacity and reliability; unitary water source, urbanization