The impact of agricultural irrigation on land surface characteristics and near surface climate in China

It is well known that land cover and land use change can significantly influence the climate system by modulating surface-atmosphere exchanges. Land management, such as irrigation, also has a profound influence on the climate system. Irrigation can alter the water and energy flux from ground surface to the atmosphere and further influence near surface climate. Considering its dramatic expansion during the last century, the widespread use of irrigation has had an ongoing impact on our climate system. However, until now, this relationship between increased irrigation and its effect on climate system has not been well examined. The main objective of this dissertation is to quantify the irrigation impacts on land surface characteristics and near surface climate over China by using both observational (remote sensing and meteorological observation) and modeling studies with four specific questions: Where are the irrigated areas in China? What might have happened in the past? What will happen as a result of irrigation expansion in the future? And what is the relationship between the land cover land use change (LCLUC) impact and the irrigation impact on near surface climate in China? To answer these questions, I 1) developed three irrigation potential indices and produced a high resolution irrigation map of China; 2)analyzed and compared meteorological and remote sensing observations in irrigated and non-irrigated agriculture areas of China; 3) simulated both irrigation and LCLUC impact on land surface energy balance components (i.e., land surface temperature, latent flux, and sensible flux) and near surface climate (i.e., air temperature, water vapor, relative humidity) of China in the past (1978-2004) and also in two future time periods (2050 and 2100) by using the Community Land Model and compared the impact of irrigation with that of LUCC. Meteorological observations in Jilin Province show that the temperature differences between highly and lightly irrigated areas are statistically significant. The differences are highly correlated with the effective irrigation area (EIA) and sown area of crop (CSA). Results from satellite observations show that highly irrigated areas corresponded to lower albedo and daytime land surface temperature (LST), and higher normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and evapotranspiration (ET). The difference between highly and lightly irrigated areas is bigger in drier areas and in drier years. The modeling studies show that the irrigation impact on temperature is much less in the future than in the 20th century and that irrigation impacts more on the maximum air temperature than on the minimum air temperature. Both contemporary and future irrigation simulations show, nationally, irrigation decreases daily maximum temperature (Tmax) but increase daily minimum temperature (Tmin). Daily mean temperature (Tmean) decreases in contemporary irrigation simulations but increases in most of the cases in future irrigation simulations. In the 20th century, nationally, the spray irrigation leads to a decrease in Tmax of 0.079K and an increase in Tmin of 0.022K. Nationally, the spray irrigation leads to a decrease in Tmax between 0.022K and 0.045K and an increase in Tmin between 0.019K and 0.057K under future scenarios. This study demonstrates that the irrigation patterns (flood irrigation and spray irrigation) have statistically significant impacts on local climate. Moreover, this study suggests that, in the national respective, the impacts of changes in land management on climate are not comparable to the impacts of changes in land cover land use. This dissertation on irrigation and its impact is the first study which focuses solely on China using observational and modeling methods. The results from this dissertation contribute to a better understanding of the irrigation impact on near-surface climate which can improve our knowledge of how human activities influence climate, guide future policies aimed at mitigating or adapting to climate change, and help design a precise model to project the impact of irrigation on the climate system and irrigation requirements in the future. It can also be useful in assessing future food and water security issues

An Effective Way to Memorize New Words—Lexical Chunk

Vocabulary is the basis of language, but memorizing new words has always been a hard job for all English learners. This paper was written based on the theories on lexical chunk by Lewis and other scholars, and the experiment conducted on my own teaching class. The paper explored the function of lexical chunks, types of lexical chunk, high frequency lexical chunks, the differences between lexical chunks in English and Chinese, and how to implement the method of lexical chunk teaching

Lexical Ways of Expressing Interpersonal Meaning and Translation Strategy

In translation, the study of meaning is the key factor. About the unsatisfying translation version, usually the interpersonal meaning is not transferred probably. This paper first explored the difference usages to express mood and modality in English and Chinese, and then it studies mainly the lexical ways of expressing interpersonal meaning and translation strategy between English and Chinese. On the basis of this comparison, the paper tries to summarize the strategies in translation to use lexical ways to express interpersonal meaning

Traditional Cosmology and Hamlet’s Delay--—Four Humours and Their Activation of His Personal Character

There have been countless ways and perspectives to look into the causes and reasons why Hamlet has delayed in taking his revenge against his father’s death. However, one thing should be noticed is that the Four Humour theory might serve well to explain the situation. Traditional cosmology holds that macrocosm contrasts and corresponds to microcosm by way of the two parallel analogies: for the former, the Four Roots to construct and build the cosmos or the world are water, fire, air and earth, and correspondingly for the latter, the human being is affected and even controlled and directed by the Four Humours, Phlegm, the Yellow Bile, Blood and the Black Bile, and thus form their various states of character. Though everybody has a tendency of determination of personal character by these four fluids, Hamlet together with his special elements has fostered his character by the service of objective backgrounds and subjective vicissitudes of all four fluids like that which has balanced the system of all seasons of the macrocosm

The Practice and Inheriting of the Bai People’s local Culture of Dali

This paper discusses the status quo and problems of the local cultural heritage of ethnic minorities in the southwest China, which is in the context of modernization. The data in this paper are obtained through long-term field work. Study has the following findings: firstly, minority cultural erosion is serious in Wan Town of Dali, Yunnan; secondly, the main minority cultural heritage’s successors are the elderly and kids, called “empty nesters” and “lefted children”. Third, the local culture of minority in the tourism is superficial and distorted. Finally, the modern school education has not played an effective role in the inheritance of minority culture . In this paper, there are two suggestions: One is starting in-depth study on minority local culture inheritance pattern; the second,establsh a complementary pattern between school education and local education and promote the inheritance of ethnic culture

The Process of English Language Teaching and Learning experienced by Teachers and Students in Two Contexts: China and New Zealand

This study investigated the process of tertiary English language teaching and learning as experienced by teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL) and English as a second language (ESL) and their Chinese EFL and ESL students in the two contexts: China and New Zealand. Specifically, it explored classroom practice in terms of six key perspectives: instructional approaches, language pedagogy, use of textbooks, student modalities, error correction and classroom tasks by means of questionnaires, the Adapted Communicative Orientation of Language Teaching (COLT) Observation Scheme, stimulated recall interviews (SRIs) and interviews. Data for this study were collected from six regular scheduled lessons randomly selected and videotaped in the two tertiary contexts, as well as from the perspectives of 120 Chinese students (104 EFL and 16 ESL) and their 6 teachers (3 in each context) who experienced and/or viewed these videotaped lessons. This thesis uses three theoretical strands: (1) English language teaching (ELT) contexts - definitions and distinguishing EFL and ESL; (2) ELT approaches - the Grammar-Translation method (GTM), Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) and the Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT); and (3) ELT classroom practice - instructional approaches, language pedagogy, use of textbooks, student modality, error correction and classroom tasks. It revisits the background of Chinese traditional educational culture and its influences on Chinese English education, discusses the GTM and CLT in the Chinese EFL context, and covers the literature on ELT classroom practice in both contexts. These strands are used in theorizing the current research. This research aims to enable the views of Chinese EFL and ESL tertiary students and their EFL and ESL teachers on ELT in these two contexts to be heard or studied. It is an attempt to better comprehend the various factors which might aid or hinder the development of Chinese EFL and ESL students' English communicative competence in these English language classes. This includes addressing how EFL and ESL teachers might best help their Chinese students to achieve communicative competence in the classroom setting and which teaching approaches are the most effective in doing so. The findings showed that a conventional teacher-centred instructional approach continues to have considerable purchase for Chinese EFL and ESL students in both contexts. The findings suggest that it is important and also necessary, to some extent, to have teacher-centred instruction and grammar teaching according to students' needs and students' language levels. Nonetheless, it also revealed that the Chinese ESL students who shared the same Chinese culture and English education background as the Chinese EFL students had different perspectives on classroom tasks conducted in the Chinese EFL context after they experienced the Western English education for a short time in New Zealand. Another finding of this study was that age-appropriateness should be taken into consideration by ESL teachers when they design their classroom tasks for Chinese ESL tertiary students

Meaning in Context and Nature of Translation

The study of meaning is closely related to the research of context. One cannot understand the accurate meaning of a sentence without the study of context. Translation can only be conducted on the basis of right understanding of meaning in context. The paper explores culture from the aspects of context of culture (genre) and context of situation (register). Based on the ideas of functionalism, the paper tries to explain the term “equivalence” in translation in a more scientific way