Abstract This paper investigates the intersection of the Japanese gramophone industry and Chinese folk storytelling performances during the Second Sino-Japanese War, centering on a 1941 recording project conducted in Japanese-occupied Chōsen. While the project aimed to promote East Asian cultural synthesis in line with Japan’s expansionist agenda, it also captured marginalized local subgenres that had been overlooked even by Chinese companies. The article explores the political motivations behind the project, shaped by the shifting propaganda objectives of the Japanese colonial authorities and their complex interactions with private gramophone companies, Chinese performers, and local audiences. Moving beyond the conventional colonial narrative focused on Japan’s formal colonies, it instead examines Japan’s engagement with the would-be colonized Huabei Plain through a bottom-up lens. The paper argues that cultural production under Japanese imperial expansion was marked by contingency and disorganization, especially in regions not yet formally colonized. Ultimately, this reveals the fractures within Japan’s colonial vision – a result chaotically shaped by the inconsistencies of imperial cultural policy, the disadvantaged position of private gramophone companies under wartime constraints, the ambiguous collaboration of Chinese performers, and the resilience of local cultural connoisseurship.

The Yellow River flows through northern China and forms a fertile Huabei Plain in its downstream areas, where the psychological stability brought by farming, idyllic scenery and the stable social order makes people more gentle and polite, giving birth to the profound Confucian culture. Many foreign tourists admired Confucian culture, which leads to the will of sightseeing and experiencing Confucian culture at the birthplace of Confucian culture. If those foreign tourists can be guided to visit cultural cities and countryside scenery in the downstream areas of the Yellow River, and feel the charm of Confucian culture there, it will stimulate the inbound tourism boom and promote the economic development of that region. In addition, with more income of inbound tourism and the development of economy, the local government can provide more fund on environmental protection. Therefore, a survey has been carried out on the foreign tourists’ cognition of Confucian culture and their willingness to visit China’s Confucian cultural scenic spots, and a judgment based on this has been made: It is feasible to guide foreign tourists to visit downstream areas of the Yellow River full of Confucian cultural resources, and inbound tourism is beneficial to the environment protection.

How does water diversion affect land use change and ecosystem service: A case study of Baiyangdian wetland, China

Abstract Changes and new thoughts are vital if the farmland drainage method in the Huabei Plain is to be improved. In this article, drainage flow was chosen as the research object. Based on long‐series precipitation data, the spatial distribution of precipitation was analysed. The peak value relation index (m) was either adjusted or unadjusted in contrast calculations with the empirical formula and the average draining formula. The adjustment rationality and adjustment range of m were researched. Results of calculations were analysed and used to improve the applicability of the empirical formula. The spatial distribution of precipitation showed a decreasing trend from south‐west to north‐east. Before adjustment, the result of the empirical formula was equivalent to the flow of 1 day of draining water. After adjusting m to 0.84–0.87, the result was equivalent to the flow of 1.5 days of draining water. With the decrease of rainfall frequency, the drainage flow of the average draining formula was greater than that of the empirical formula and the ratio was 1.13 times when the runoff depth was 50 mm. m can be selected from 0.84 to 0.87 for calculating drainage flow in the Huabei Plain by using the empirical formula and has a direct ratio with precipitation.

Combined use of surface water and groundwater is a common practice in agricultural activities, but how the immobilize cadmium and its decrease in grains induced with irrigation micro-polluted surface water and groundwater is still poorly understood. This paper presents field experimental results in attempts to reveal the effect of irrigation water quality on cadmium migration and accumulation in winter wheat/summer maize rotation systems in Huabei plain while the cadmium content in 0-10 cm topsoil is 3.8 times, permissible value for agricultural land in China. The results showed there was no obviously influence on cadmium accumulation in grains irrigated with micro-polluted surface water during emergence and seeding stage, but there was significantly increased Cd content and a higher bioaccumulation factor in grains with micro-polluted surface water irrigation during jointing and booting stage. It was found a significantly inhibition for grain weight and uniformity with groundwater irrigation during jointing and booting stage, and winter wheat yield was significantly decreased with micro-polluted surface water irrigation during jointing and booting stage. It could be concluded irrigation water type can further immobilize Cd in mild and moderate contaminated soils, thus micro-polluted surface water can be adopted in seeding stage, and groundwater irrigated in jointing and booting stage at heavy metal pollution arable farmland to minimize the risk of biological chain pollution and food safety.

Recently, the Korea Meteorological Administration developed Asian Dust Aerosol Model version 3 (ADAM3) by incorporating additional parameters into ADAM2, including anthropogenic particulate matter (PM) emissions, modification of dust generation by considering real-time surface vegetation, and assimilations of surface PM observations and satellite-measured aerosol optical depth. This study evaluates the performance of ADAM3 in identifying Asian dust days over the dust source regions in Northern China and their variations according to regions and soil types by comparing its performance with ADAM2 (from January to June of 2017). In all regions the performance of ADAM3 was markedly improved, especially for Northwestern China, where the threat score (TS) and the probability of detection (POD) improved from 5.4% and 5.5% to 30.4% and 34.4%, respectively. ADAM3 outperforms ADAM2 for all soil types, especially for the sand-type soil for which TS and POD are improved from 39.2.0% and 50.7% to 48.9% and 68.2%, respectively. Despite these improvements in regions and surface soil types, Asian dust emission formulas in ADAM3 need improvement for the loess-type soils to modulate the overestimation of Asian dust events related to anthropogenic emissions in the Huabei Plain and Manchuria.

Fine particle matter (PM2.5) has been receiving increasing attention by the government due to its considerable adverse health effects, especially in the north part of China. Even though a number of techniques of estimating PM2.5 exposure have been developed, what is still lacking is a systematic comparison of commonly used techniques based on classical statistics, artificial intelligence, and geostatistics. To address this need, the land use regression (LUR), the artificial neural networks (ANN), and the Bayesian maximum entropy (BME) techniques were all used to map the space–time PM2.5 concentration distribution in the highly polluted Jing-Jin-Ji region (Huabei plain of North China) during the period June 2015–May 2016. The tenfold cross-validation analysis and the entropic information theory were used to evaluate numerically the performance of the three techniques at monthly, seasonal, and annual time scales. Our results showed that the performance of each mapping technique was affected by the temporal scale and the degree of spatial heterogeneity. All three techniques were suitable for low temporal resolution (annual) datasets with low spatial variability. BME also showed a noticeable ability to analyze higher temporal resolution (monthly) datasets exhibiting high spatial heterogeneity. BME involved a single dependent variable (PM2.5) and generated complete (full-coverage) space–time PM2.5 maps, whereas LUR and ANN produced incomplete maps because of lacking independent variables (such as satellite data). Due to its self-learning feature, ANN showed better modeling performance than LUR and produced more informative maps. Overall, the ANN and BME techniques perform better than the LUR technique.

With the aim of improving poplar timber production, a successive 8-year irrigation and fertilization factorial experiment with three blocks was designed to measure the response of Populus tomentosa stands to water and nitrogen in Huabei Plain, China. Specifically, we examined the responses of four P. tomentosa clones (P. tomentosa BT17, S86, B331, and 1316) to three irrigation levels (45%, 60%, and 75% above field capacity), as irrigation thresholds, and four N levels (0, 80, 160, and 240 g per plant). The results showed that both irrigation and nitrogen had significant effects in terms of improving clone stand volume. Further, we demonstrated positive interactions between irrigation and nitrogen. The stand volume increment of the four hybrid clones varied from 104.53 ± 19.84 to 191.35 ± 30.56 m3/ha in the descending order S86 > B331 > BT17 > 1316. With increasing irrigation level, the average stand volume of the four clones increased significantly from 120.46 ± 5.23 to 158.53 ± 21.72 m3/ha. When nitrogen level was increased from 0 to 240 g/plant, the average stand volume increment of the four clones increased from 126.04 ± 8.75 to 156.16 ± 26.01 m3/ha, respectively. Our results suggest that a comprehensive and specific management program is needed to improve poplar timber production.

Aquifer group classification is a prerequisite for groundwater resources evaluation as well as groundwater utilization, which making an important effect on human being living and production activities. So far, lithology is the primary criteria in aquifer group classification, but the available and specific supporting ideas are still insufficient. Supposing that two aquifers separated by clay had hydraulic connection in multilayer aquifer systems, groundwater flow from top to bottom of aquifer would be impacted by the clay in chemistry and isotope characteristic and presents some kind of regulations. According to these regulations, aquifer group classification would be more reasonability, and groundwater resources assessment and pollution management would be more purposeful. This research analyzed the hydraulic connection of groundwater in different aquifer and salt movement in clay soil by using isotopic and chemical data. The results showed that electrical conductivity of groundwater in clay soil is influenced by the source of the groundwater, having a continuous trend with depth, and clay soil in certain depth presented the feature of impeding salt migration. Because of the semipermeable feature of clay soil, stable isotope composition of groundwater in different depth is affected by clay’s distribution. This pattern of isotope and hydrogeochemical composition would be a valuable reference for groundwater evaluation and aquifer group classification.

Pattern of atmospheric mercury speciation during episodes of elevated PM2.5 levels in a coastal city in the Yangtze River Delta, China

ABSTRACTThis study analyzes the particulate-bound mercury (PBM) contents of two parts (leaf and stem) of different crops (white cabbage, Peking cabbage, and chili) at a sampling site in the coastal zone in the Taichung area from October 7 to 15, 2014. A direct mercury analyzer (DMA-80) was used to measure mercury content. The Mann-Whitney rank sum test was utilized to determine the mean differences between the PBM in two parts of various crops (white cabbage leaf, white cabbage stem, Peking cabbage leaf, Peking cabbage stem, and chili) at the Long-Jing sampling site. The results indicated the following: 1) The average mercury content was lowest in the Peking cabbage stem. The ratio of the mercury content in the stem to that in the leaf of the white cabbage was 5 and that of Peking cabbage was 3.5.2) No significant difference was observed between median mercury content in white cabbage leaf and Peking cabbage leaf, white cabbage stem and Peking cabbage stem, and Peking cabbage leaf and chili. 3) The average PBM contents were both the lowest (Huabei Plain) and the highest in Hg in China. 4) The ratio of average PBM content of white cabbage leaf in this study was as high as 981.

Abstract. Concentrations of PM10, PM2.5 and PM1 were monitored at 24 CAWNET (China Atmosphere Watch Network) stations from 2006 to 2014. The highest particulate matter (PM) concentrations were observed at the stations of Xian, Zhengzhou and Gucheng, on the Guanzhong Plain and the Huabei Plain (HBP). The second highest PM concentrations were observed in northeast China, followed by southern China. According to the latest air quality standards of China, 14 stations reached the PM10 standard, and only 7 stations, mainly rural and remote stations, reached the PM2.5 standard. The ratios of PM2.5 to PM10 showed a clear increasing trend from northern to southern China, because of the substantial contribution of coarse mineral aerosol in northern China. The ratios of PM1 to PM2.5 were higher than 80 % at most stations. PM concentrations tended to be highest in winter and lowest in summer at most stations, and mineral dust influenced the results in spring. A decreasing interannual trend was observed on the HBP and in southern China for the period 2006 to 2014, but an increasing trend occurred at some stations in northeast China. Bimodal and unimodal diurnal variation patterns were identified at urban stations. Both emissions and meteorological variations dominate the long-term PM concentration trend, while meteorological factors play a leading role in the short term.

Abstract. Since there have been individual reports of persistent haze–fog events in January 2013 in central-eastern China, questions on factors causing the drastic differences in changes in 2013 from changes in adjacent years have been raised. Changes in major chemical components of aerosol particles over the years also remain unclear. The extent of meteorological factors contributing to such changes is yet to be determined. The study intends to present the changes in daily based major water-soluble constituents, carbonaceous species, and mineral aerosol in PM10 at 13 stations within different haze regions in China from 2006 to 2013, which are associated with specific meteorological conditions that are highly related to aerosol pollution (parameterized as an index called Parameter Linking Aerosol Pollution and Meteorological Elements – PLAM). No obvious changes were found in annual mean concentrations of these various chemical components and PM10 in 2013, relative to 2012. By contrast, wintertime mass of these components was quite different. In Hua Bei Plain (HBP), sulfate, organic carbon (OC), nitrate, ammonium, element carbon (EC), and mineral dust concentrations in winter were approximately 43, 55, 28, 23, 21, and 130 μg m−3, respectively; these masses were approximately 2 to 4 times higher than those in background mass, which also exhibited a decline during 2006 to 2010 and then a rise till 2013. The mass of these concentrations and PM10, except minerals, respectively, increased by approximately 28 to 117 % and 25 % in January 2013 compared with that in January 2012. Thus, persistent haze–fog events occurred in January 2013, and approximately 60 % of this increase in component concentrations from 2012 to 2013 can be attributed to severe meteorological conditions in the winter of 2013. In the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) area, winter masses of these components, unlike HBP, have not significantly increase since 2010; PLAM were also maintained at a similar level without significant changes. In the Pearl River Delta (PRD) area, the regional background concentrations of the major chemical components were similar to those in the YRD, accounting for approximately 60–80 % of those in HBP. Since 2010, a decline has been found for winter concentrations, which can be partially attributable to persistently improving meteorological conditions and emission cutting with an emphasis on coal combustion in this area. In addition to the scattered and centralized coal combustion for heating, burning biomass fuels contributed to the large increase in concentrations of carbonaceous aerosol in major haze regions in winter, except in the PRD. No obvious changes were found for the proportions of each chemical components of PM10 from 2006 to 2013. Among all of the emissions recorded in chemical compositions in 2013, coal combustion was still the largest anthropogenic source of aerosol pollution in various areas in China, with a higher sulfate proportion of PM10 in most areas of China, and OC was normally ranked third. PM10 concentrations increased by approximately 25 % in January of 2013 relative to 2012, which caused persistent haze–fog events in HBP; emissions also reduced by approximately 35 % in Beijing and its vicinity (BIV) in late autumn of 2014, thereby producing the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) blue (extremely good air quality); thus, one can expect that the persistent haze–fog events would be reduced significantly in the BIV, if approx. one-third of the 2013 winter emissions were reduced, which can also be viewed as the upper limit of atmospheric aerosol pollution capacity in this area.

Just before midnight on August 12, 2015, violent explosions and massive fires occurred in the Tianjin Harbor, China, releasing extensive amounts of toxic gas and smoke, debris, and mineral dust into the atmosphere. Atmospheric damage resulted from the long-range transport of air pollutants (LRTAP) in neighboring areas and countries. It has been found that the smoke plumes circled around the Huabei Plain in the lee of the Taihang Mountains, the Shandong Peninsula, and the Bohai Sea before reaching the Yellow Sea and the Korean Peninsula. The transport of widespread smoke plumes in the Yellow Sea region was evidenced from detailed analyses of images from various satellites including NOAA, MODIS, Himawari, and MTSAT. Satellite images clearly showed the generation of smoke emissions from Tianjin, the entire covering of smoke plumes over the Yellow Sea and nearby shore areas, and the LRTAP to the Korean Peninsula. The deposit of soil dust after the trace of rainfall confirmed LRTAP from the explosions and large fires in Tianjin. Also, air quality measurements of particulate matter (PM) 10, PM2.5, O3, CO, and visibility showed the atmospheric impact of widespread smoke plumes from Tianjin.

We assess the relationship among haze-fog, aerosol and meteorological conditions, and analyze the chemical compositions and sources of aerosol particles, as well make some suggestions for aerosol control strategy. Present-day haze and fog in China are both dependent on atmospheric aerosol loading and weather conditions. The secondary aerosol formation and changes, which dominate the total aerosol mass and are highly influenced by meteorological conditions, characterized the regional haze feature in East China. In the Huabei Plain, which suffers from intense haze and fog, secondary organic aerosols are found to have similar role like sulphate, contributing to aerosol mass during both new particle formation and aging stages. The organic aerosol mix with inorganic ones to form hygroscopic particles earlier at ～70% relative humidity (RH), but which have a small hygroscopic growth factor. The hygroscopic aerosol particles would also make the PM2.5 mass monitoring at China exhibiting unrealistic high concentration under high RH stage. About 70% of these particles are internally mixed with two or three different aerosol components. Most mineral particles are covered with visible coatings, including fly ash, soot and metal particles, leading to have more secondary aerosol formed on their surface. This complicates haze formation in China. Under high aerosol particle concentrations, greater numbers of cloud droplets with relative small-size are observed in low clouds relative to high clouds; and the associated aerosol impact on cloud microphysical processe is different in less polluted areas. At low supersaturation most of hygroscopic particles larger than 150 nm form cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), and the impact of aerosol chemical composition on CCN activation is significant. There is a high aerosol concentration in China relative to other areas in the world, except for urban South Asia. These particles form under complex conditions and interact with clouds, resulting that present-day haze and fog in China both are not natural phenomenon. Haze and fog reduces surface radiation, making the atmosphere more stable, resulting in continuous coagulation, condensation, accumulation of aerosol, and more CCN activation, leading to serious and maintained haze-fog events. The heavy and persistent haze-fog between 6 and 16 January 2013 in East China was caused by both high aerosol loading and singular static weather conditions. We need to have adequate scientific judgment on the complexity and expectation of aerosol emission reduction in China. The government needs to make informed decisions and implement laws to maintain the health of its people, but this is not easy when we strive for economic growth. There is no easy solution to control aerosol sources, but the government should spare no effort to cut aerosol and their precursors gas emission. Regional pollution control is also very critical; a strong policy and protocol needs to be enforced by the central government to drive provincial leaders to make the necessary changes to ensure better air quality and quality of life for the population.

Regional haze episodes have been frequently reported in east China since 2000. In the present study, two regional haze episodes over east China in the spring of 2011 were examined by observations and simulations conducted by a three-dimensional regional chemical transport model (NAQPMS) with an on-line tracer-tagged module. The model reproduced accurately the observed PM2.5 with correlation coefficient ranging from 0.52 to 0.76 and root mean square error (RMSE) of 20–50µg/m3 in four city clusters (Yangtze River Delta, Shandong Peninsula, Huabei Plain and Central Liaoning) over east China. Our results indicate that a northward cross-border transport from the Yangtze River Delta to Central Liaoning below 2 km above ground played an important role in the formation of these regional high PM2.5 episodes. Contributions of regional transport from outside city clusters presented an increasing trend from south to north. In the northernmost cluster (Central Liaoning), the contribution from other city clusters reached 40–50% during the two episodes. In contrast, it was below 10% in the Yangtze River Delta (southernmost cluster). Mixing accumulation of pollutants from various city clusters during transport was responsible for this trend. Furthermore, a preliminary estimate shows that cross-border transport of PM2.5 might increase 0.5–3% daily mortality during the high PM2.5 episodes.

North China Plain (Huabei Plain) is one of the most densely populated regions on earth. Due to excessive underground water extraction, the North China Plain has been experiencing severe ground deformation over the last three decades. Therefore, for the purpose of hazard mitigation, it is necessary to monitor the ground displacement occurred in this region. As an extension of the differential radar interferometry (DInSAR) technique, advanced DInSAR techniques involving multiple images have demonstrated the potential to effectively map ground displacement. Such techniques are able to measure the temporal evolution of ground deformation with millimetre-level accuracy by using a stack of differential interferograms. In this study, the ALOS PALSAR data acquired over the North China Plain, which cover an area of approximately 16,000 km $$^2$$ , were processed based on the concept of advanced DInSAR techniques. Because of the large size of the PALSAR images, a targeted processing strategy was designed. This strategy is able to reduce required disk storage space and I/O operations, leading to the improvement of the computational efficiency. The resulting mean deformation velocity map demonstrates that a large portion of the area covered by the data was affected by various degrees of ground deformation between January 2007 and April 2010. The ground deformation is mostly distributed in rural areas, while the downtown areas are generally stable.

Abstract. From 2006 to 2007, the daily concentrations of major inorganic water-soluble constituents, mineral aerosol, organic carbon (OC) and elemental carbon (EC) in ambient PM10 samples were investigated from 16 urban, rural and remote sites in various regions of China, and were compared with global aerosol measurements. A large difference between urban and rural chemical species was found, normally with 1.5 to 2.5 factors higher in urban than in rural sites. Optically-scattering aerosols, such as sulfate (~16%), OC (~15%), nitrate (~7%), ammonium (~5%) and mineral aerosol (~35%) in most circumstance, are majorities of the total aerosols, indicating a dominant scattering feature of aerosols in China. Of the total OC, ~55%–60% can be attributed to the formation of the secondary organic carbon (SOC). The absorbing aerosol EC only accounts for ~3.5% of the total PM10. Seasonally, maximum concentrations of most aerosol species were found in winter while mineral aerosol peaks in spring. In addition to the regular seasonal maximum, secondary peaks were found for sulfate and ammonium in summer and for OC and EC in May and June. This can be considered as a typical seasonal pattern in various aerosol components in China. Aerosol acidity was normally neutral in most of urban areas, but becomes some acidic in rural areas. Based on the surface visibility observations from 681 meteorological stations in China between 1957 and 2005, four major haze areas are identified with similar visibility changes, namely, (1) Hua Bei Plain in N. China, and the Guanzhong Plain; (2) E. China with the main body in the Yangtze River Delta area; (3) S. China with most areas of Guangdong and the Pearl River Delta area; (4) The Si Chuan Basin in S.W. China. The degradation of visibility in these areas is linked with the emission changes and high PM concentrations. Such quantitative chemical characterization of aerosols is essential in assessing their role in atmospheric chemistry and weather-climate effects, and in validating atmospheric models.

Study on the Sustainable Utilization of Groundwater Resources in Hebei Plain

In this study, a regional air quality model system (RAQMS) was applied to investigate the spatial distributions and seasonal variations of atmospheric aerosols in 2006 over East Asia. Model validations demonstrated that RAQMS was able to reproduce the evolution processes of aerosol components reasonably well. Ground-level PM10 (particles with aerodynamic diameter ≤10 µm) concentrations were highest in spring and lowest in summer and were characterized by three maximum centers: the Taklimakan Desert (∼1000 µg m−3), the Gobi Desert (∼ 400 µg m−3), and the Huabei Plain (∼ 300 µg m−3) of China. Vertically, high PM10 concentrations ranging from 100 µg m−3 to 250 µg m−3 occurred from the surface to an altitude of 6000 m at 30°–45°N in spring. In winter, the vertical gradient was so large that most aerosols were restricted in the boundary layer. Both sulfate and ammonium reached their highest concentrations in autumn, while nitrate reached its maximum level in winter. Black carbon and organic carbon aerosol concentrations reached maximums in winter. Soil dust were strongest in spring, whereas sea salt exerted the strongest influence on the coastal regions of eastern China in summer. The estimated burden of anthropogenic aerosols was largest in winter (1621 Gg) and smallest in summer (1040 Gg). The sulfate burden accounted for ∼42% of the total anthropogenic aerosol burden. The dust burden was about twice the anthropogenic aerosol burden, implying the potentially important impacts of the natural aerosols on air quality and climate over East Asia.