Guo Chunqing,Wang Jiajia

(Resource and the Environment Department of Guilin University of Technology Guilin  541004)

 

Abstract: The karst process, the ecology process, the hydrology process are three important circulation mechanisms in the karst multiple media environment. In the Chinese North and South karst area, the ecological environment protection and the repair already been the important constituent as the national territory resources and the environment comprehensive development and management which strategic sense is significant. But ecological condition is severe in the North and South karst area ,especially south the karst stone mountainous area and north the arid karst area.The ecological environment protection and restoration are  rich in difficulties and challenges. This article take the karst multiple medium environment as a core, comprehensively discusses the fabric relations of the karst - hydrology - ecology three processes, proposes the karst ecology hydrology and the future direction it studies.

Key words: karst,ecology,hydrology ,karst multiple media environment

 

1 Introduction

The appear area of Chinese carbonate rocks is 90.7×10⁴ km², the appear area is 206×10⁴km² if according to including the carbonate rocks stratum.Adds to known lying concealed in the different depth carbonate rocks,its total area may reach 344.3×10⁴km² ,approximately composed the national territory area 1/3.

The Chinese carbonate rock is distributed with the south to the structural belt in Tian Mountain- the latitude of Yinshan Mountains basically,roughly south of 42-43 degree north latitude.There were only small area carbonate rocks fragmentry distribution in the north..This point are closed to the understanding which the deposition of mordern carbonate rocks are limited by the latitude.

The disribution of carbonate rocks in the Cina east are two companies pieces area most impoatant which are North the Shanxi plateau and approaches the provincial capital area  the karst plateau;and southwest Yun nan,Guizhou,Guangxi as well as partial Si chuan,Hubei,Hunan karst plateau.In addition the carbonate rocks distribution also has the broader geographical environment span.From South China Sea skerry island in the north latitude 3 degree to the area of Xiao xing’ an ling in the south 48 degree.;from Pamirs east longitudinal 74 degree until the island of Taiwan  longitudinal 122 degree;from Mount Qomolangma 8848 meters above sea level to eastern seashore. It has studied that the northmost karst is the underground river system of karst of twelve forest farm near Yichun of Heilongjiang Province near 48 degrees in the north latitude ,there are many kinds of corrosion shapes  such as  dry valley , collapsing  and so on.Above two companies piece growth karst area which are the important position in the China economic development ,the lives of the people and in the historical culture development, simultaneously also is in the world continually the piece growth karst vital area The Tibet plateau also has a bigger area of the carbonate rocks ,which resources and the environment question also day by day obvious,here climate is cold,there are many double layers  in the carbonate rocks,which have the important scientific value to study the karst  mountain.

In the lithosphere, the distribution area  of carbonate rocks is a secondary not continual loop layer, this karst not continual loop layer with surrounding aerosphere, the hydrosphere, the biosphere have composed the karst multiple media environment.The karst multiple media environment is an extremely complex system, refers to  the water body and the carbonate rocks and the earth, the biology, and other material compositions compound systems. In this system, there are substance、energy、information three constituents.

Substance is called the environment medium, while the energy and the information are called the environmental factor. Obviously, the karst multiple media environment is a opening system which is  far away the physics and chemistry equilibrium state, non- continual,  complex, the non- linear . This system depends on the solar energy and the vital activity to support and drive the substance flow to complete the water cycle and the element migration;depending on the carbon, the water, the calcium, the earth, the biological occurrence and development to adjust and maintain it to be relatively stable, and involves the climate, the soil, the vegetation, lothological and the water - crag and several  questions  mutually affacts.

2 The Climate and Hydrology Characteristics of Chinese karst Area

The climate is an important outside power factor for the karst function. Each kind of climatic factors, like the temperature, the precipitation, evaporate as well as the factor which has the close relations with them such as the hydrology, the vegetation, the soil, the hydrology geochemistry condition and so on, all of which has the very important influence function.Therefore some scholars proposed  the simple research of “the climate karst study”.

China's annual mean temperature performance for the tendencys of high in outheast, and low in northwest , but the annual mean temperature partial variation is complex by the terrain influence. The relations between the basic situation of annual mean temperature distribution and the distribution patterns of the main Chinese karst types are extremely clear. The temperature has the significant influence to the vegetation, the bacterium and the dioxide carbon content in the soil air, thus has the very positive influence to the karst.

Precipitation affects the growth of surface and the underground karst directly. Tests on the spot indicated, according to the influence to the carbonate rocks corrosion speed that precipitation is bigger than  the temperature. The tendency of precipitation distribution in our country also is high in southeast and low in northwest,the annual mean precipitation in Qingdao, Qinling, and Chengdu are about 800mm, its have a a general trend which high in east south side, low in northwest side approximately.When some local  areas have the change will influence to the local karst growth.

The advances of transpiration rate will weakens the corrosion of precipitation to soluble rocks, reduces the permeate of precipitation to the underground. It is more appropriate to reflect the relative transpiration rate with the aridity height. The aridity is a ratio of the year most greatly possible transpiration rate and the precipitation,which may divide into four kind of aridities areas, namely the moist area (aridity is smaller than 1.0, corresponding the natural landscap is forest), half moist area (aridity is 1.0-1.5, forest prairie), the semi-arid region (aridity is 1. 5-4.0, steppe and wilderness prairie) and the arid area (aridity is bigger than and equal to 4.0, wilderness).

The relations of climatic conditions and the karst shape combination are extremely close. The east China - traverses east of the sierra from Helan Mountain –Liupan water - Longmen Mountain, appeared to three levels of steps and ladders terrains, the mountain chain moved  towards mainly for the north east or north of north east, between the sierra had the Sichuan basin, Dongting Lake, the Poyang Lake basin and so on, in toward moving then reduced to the hill plain area. The tendency that reduces from the west to the east are divids by the mountain system which extends between the east and west, but from the north to south there are Yinshan , Qinling and Nanling. These three mountain systems not only are watersheds of the Chinese main rivers, moreover has the important influence to the east China climate and the karst growth. South of Nanling is mainly the tropics karst growth area, Nanling and Qinling are the tropics karst growth area, wherever the north of Qinling basically belongs to half arid karst area and the temperate zone moist karst area.

The terrain diversification has created the diversification of weather patterns. In identical latitude region the terrain elevation is disparate, which cause the climatic element and the vegetation have the obvious vertical belts . For instance, the temperature and the rainfall amount differences are disparate in the west mountain, the plateau and river valley、the basin between them, which also created the vertical upward change of karst growth .We can see that Huanglong  Jiuzhaigou scenic spot located center-section of Mt. Minshan in Sichuan northwest plateau, which grows the mountain and cold karst above the elevation 3,578 meters ; grows canyon temperate zone karst primarily by the sinter deposition below 3,578 meters.

3 The Karst of Tropical -subtropical  and Arid -half Arid in China

3.1 Tropical -subtropical karst

The condition of the tropical karst is annual average precipitation and average temperature of the whole year which are above 1200mm and 15^。respectively; The extensive development of subtropical karst is in the typical monsoon climate district and the climate characteristic is that the seasons of dry and wet are clearly demarcated, much rain of summer, the annual average precipitation is above 800mm. The boundary of tropics and the subtropics karst is not obvious and overlap, the landform shape also has the transition characteristic, therefore puts them in the same place to discuss.

The north border of the tropics subtropics karst area is Qinling, Huaihe River, the west border along the west mountainous east regions in Sichuan basin and to the south  Zhaotung, Chuxiong until Luxi in Yunnan Province. Region scope including classical peak forest landform of Guangxi, Guizhou, Yunnan, north Kwangtung, western Hunan, as well as Xi shuang ban na's tropical rain forest karst in south Yunnan and Hainan Island, Taiwan karst and south China Sea’s coral reef karst! The shape of Tropical-subtropical karst can be divided into three grades by scale, the first is the macroscale shape such as the karst peak forest landform; The second for the composed shape is topography of positive-negative association form which have peak forest depression and peak forest  plain mainly; The third is individual shape and little shape. How to know the question of the peak forest landform distribution rule have different views,we should according to the traditional evolved viewpoint of the peak clump - peak forest - butte and unaka are representing childhood, the maturity and gerontic three periods in the karst growth.But now studies indicated that each kind of karst peak forest is not the natural product of different developmental stages. On the contrary, a peak clump of marsh land and a peak clump of plain are possibly two subsystems in this kind of system, and at the same time condition obforms. The South tropics-subtropics karst shape combination contains the peak forest terrain, the massive marsh land, the point deep dissolve outside the mark, the travertine beside the red loam、the hole, as well as many large-scale caverns, the underground river, many small shapes by running water corrosions and big secondary calcium carbonate deposition in the hole. Recently in Hubei, Chongqing, Sichuan, Guangxi and other areas have discovered many large-scale Tiankeng and the crack type barrabcas, which are associated with underground(Zhu Xuewen,1985).Tiankeng is grow in a carbonate rocks peak clump of mountainous area, all around which are prependicular.It has certain area and the depth in 100 meter above main origins for the karst negative terrain which caves in. Northwest of Guangxi Leye County , discovered nearly 20 Tiankeng in 60km² panhandle, 14 of them have sifted and observed.Many of which are world-class scales and actually marvelous sight of the world karst. Tiankeng’s research indicated that in the forming process of karst shape, the avalanche also is an extremely important origin the same with corrosion.

3.2 The arid area karst

The arid area karst mainly distributes in northwest of Xinjiang, Gansu, Ningxia and the Inner Mongo general areas,in which the annual mean precipitation is 100-300mm and the average temperature is 2-6 degree. On the landform there are many plateaus, mountains, the inland basins, the deserts and so on. The carbonate rocks stratum conclude the Sinian System, the Cambrian Period, the Devonian Period, the carboniferous Period, the Permian Period and Triassic System, most of which includes layers of non-souble rock. Moreover, the existence of ancient karst has discovered, in the Himalayas, the Kunlun Mountain many areas ancient karst has grown the model karst landform, the underground karst take the small karst spring as a characteristic, which flow rate is usually smaller than 1×10⁴ L/h. In northwest area also grows dry or the modern salt lake, for example ,Cha’er han salt lake is the classical continental dry climate which multi- annual means temperature 2.5^。C-5.1^。C and multi- annual means precipitation 28mm, year transpiration rate 32500mm. The salty karst shape mainly has dissolved hole, dissolved pit, dissolved cave and the karst spring and so on. At present the phenomenon of the crag salts mainly is since 9000 years to form.

3.3 Half arid area karst

Half arid area karst exist in west North China ‘s Shanxi, Hebei, Henan, Weibei in Shanxi and centre in Shandong, the annual rainfall is 400-800. This karst may divide into two area,one of which the annual rainfall is 400-600mm called half arid area, such as the Shanxi plateau and Weibei, another one of which the annual rainfall is 600-800mm called  half arid – half moist area, such as southeast side in Taihang mountain, in the west of Henan, in the middle of Shandong. Surface feature primarily by normalcy mountain, dry valley, but also has small dissolved marks, calcareous ataxites, the karst big spring and the corrosion piles up shapes in the few caverns and the hole and so on.

Karst big spring is important hydrology characteristic of half arid karst area. In North China, there are more than 50 big springs flow larger than 1m³ /s, hydrology trends are quite steady which belonging to the corrosion type medium, there are large areas’ karst water to supply the basin, which flow stability is an important resource of water supply in the North.

4 Karst Ecosystem

4.1 Vegetation in the karst ecosystem

The carbonate rock district plant is limited by climatic zone, but in the same climatic zone, there are obvious differences in the coposition of the family,the category,the kind and the coposition of acid soil. This mainly attributes to its growth mechanism, especially soil or matrix are rich in calcium, therefore in the karst vegetation there are many calcicoles where the acidic plant are very few forms the karst plant unique characteristic of liking calcium. Xu Zhaoran and some other people thought that Guangxi, Guizhou, Yunnan three provincial capital areas especially  the south of Guangxi and the southeast of Yunnan are the the carbonate rocks mountainous area distributed center which has our country carbonate rocks characteristic . however Guangxi, Guizhou and north Yunnan's karst area as well as Vietnam's karst area then possibly is a worldwide basis carbonate rocks geographical dist of plants center, at the same time it also possibly is one of primitive differentiation center.

4.2 The coenology characteristic of karst vegetation

The central Asia tropics karst area primary vegetation is the evergreen broad-leaved forest. Because the formation of the evergreen broad-leaved forest depends on the special moisture content condition of carbonate rocks even if in the north tropic area where the rain water is abundant only in the rainy season, when dry season is coming which cause the lack of water in  the karst rocky mountain , the survival of the evergreen tree plants will be threaten,the leaf-fall tree will demonstrates its competitive advantages .Therefore. the climax community of China’s central Asia tropics carbonate rocks is the ever-green fallen leaf mixed broad-leaf forest.(Xu Zhaoran,Zhu Shouqian,1998)

4.3 Karst vegetation adapt to the karst arid environment

There are underground water drainage system in the karst area ,in addition the soil layer is thin,rock exposed ,the surface evaporates intensely,which cause the surface water often along the corrosion fissure to the underground when it rains.Only few water keep  in soil – surficial rock crack - forest ecosystem.Therefore the plant grows in the Karst area display the different xeric disposition.In order to adapt the habitat which has insufficient moisture cotent supply and the karst vegetation forms various compatibility in the long-term evolutionary process. This compatibility basically is divided into two kinds:

(1)    To control the moisture content loss effectively.Because of the transpiration,90-95% moisture content of the plant absorption lost to the atmosphere,therefore the plant can form the kinds of structures to change in order to reduce its transpiration speed.Such as reduce the leaf area,build up cuticle,the hollow pore and the wool .These characteristics obviously display in the plant which is on the peek of karst area.

(2)    To take up water effectively. The plant is depends on the root to take up water,therefore the root shape is affacting the plant to the moisture content absorption. Generally speaking, the karst plant has the developed root system, which can cause the majority plant’s root system alternation in the rock fracture.

4.4 Succession of karst vegetation

Vegetation's succession is a long process, especially the karst forest is a frail ecosystem which the ability of anti- external interference is weak, once the jamming such as massively haft hag, burns down and so on which will cause the system to degenerate, even form the stone desert. Therefore, the area which karst envrionment degenerates seriously and have propagulum yut does not favor the afforestation can through the methods of closes off hillsides to facilitate afforestation and depends upon the nature to restore to reconstructs the karst forest .

In nature recovery procedure of the karst vegetation, various succession stages and the main dominant species are: The herbaceous community stage, the grass-shrub community stage, the shrubbery stage, the shrub-arbor transient stage.Yang Shengtian has studied the degeneration of Mashan typical karst environment and nature restores in Guizhou Mayun country which use the remote sensing and the surface observation method.In the nature recovery procedure,the biodiversity increase along with  restores the age of the growth.; in the nature recovery procedure along with restores the age the growth, the vegetation coverage fraction acceleration increases, from grassy slope to brush, again to shrubwood increase by2.5% each year. At the same time the vegetation productivity acceleration increases, again from the grassy slope to the brush recovery procedure, the biological productivity increases is not large, but the process from the brush to the shrubbery, the biological growth quantity basically assumes a pair of time of growth.

4.5 The reverse distribution of karst vegetation

In karst area, the particularity of the vegetation distribution because of the special karst environment which display in the vertical distribution are obviously ,although the height from the foot of a hill to the summit in the karst mountainous area is not big, the change of vegetation is very obvious.This kind of change is mainly because the plant according to the different moisture content condition create the different ecology types.

5 Conclusion

The karst ecology hydrology is a synthetic study which involves the karst study ,the hydrology and the ecology three aspects.We use this subject to understand the evolution ,formations rules of the karst-hydrology-ecology three in the karst multiple medium environment.

The important research of Chinese karst ecology hydrology includes:

(1)    Hydrology process in karst area and the size assignment in five kind of water (atmospheric water, surface water, ground water,soil water, ecology water).

(2)    The correlational relations of karst - ecology - hydrology and the mutual function ways of different criterion

(3)    The ecology  hydrology process in karst stone mountainous area .

(4)    space and time evolves of moisture content 、the plant and the ecology hydrology in the karst arid area .

(5)    The characteristic of karst wetland’s water volume、 water quality and plant growth.

(6)    The cycle process of karst forest water .

(7)    Karst lake and aquatic plant community.

(8)    The rivers in karst area and rivers ecology.

 

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