Debris flows and flash floods are widely distributed mountain hazards in China. Effective hazard mitigation and prevention require understanding of hazards formation mechanisms and their potential risks. This article elaborates on the formation mechanism, risk analysis, and risk management of debris flows and flash floods. Surface runoff and material supply volume incensement, hazard scale amplification due to outburst of multiple channel blockages and bed erosion as hazard formation mechanism are discussed. Base on the dynamic process of debris flows and flash floods as well as vulnerability assessment of elements at risk, methods of risk assessment and mapping are proposed. Comprehensive engineering and non-engineering measures for hazards control shall be guided by the result of risk analysis that identifies the hazardous level of debris flows and flash floods and incorporates the vulnerability of different elements at risk. Finally, this article discusses strategies when facing risk of these hazards and puts forward a risk management system that involves the participation of local communities.

The new normal of China's economic growth has profound impact on the development of regional tourism in china. Based on an analysis of the characteristics of the development of China's tourism industry, this article addresses the general trend of regional tourism development in the future, and puts forward a new approach to realize innovative regional tourism development. It shows that the tourism industry presents six main characteristics: (1) the tourism industry in China is expanding in scale but at the same time, services are becoming increasingly personalized. Characteristics and effects of a country of strong tourism attraction begin to appear; (2) cross-border, cross-industry enterprises gradually lead the development of tourism and plan the development at the global scale; (3) tourism is becoming an important industry and a comprehensive, coordinated development of regional tourism industry has become an important goal of regional economic development; (4) a high-quality workforce begins to form and the overall quality of services has gradually enhanced; (5) the Internet is transforming the tourism markets, enterprises, and business models, and changing the territory of traditional tourism industry; (6) "people-oriented" green development supports the construction of an "ecological culture." Correspondingly, tourism development is facilitating and being integrated into regional development strategies of China, including the development of tourism industry in central and western China, urban vacation and tourism development, the overall development of ecological cultural areas, regional tourism network development, and the development of innovative regional tourism management models. Under the "new normal" of China's economic growth, new strategies for China's regional tourism development should include constructing trans-regional tourism destinations, improving investment and innovation, realizing regional integrated governance, fostering the internationalization of business entities, and achieving integrated tourism risk prevention.

As a frontier and hot topic in ecology and geography, the study of ecosystem services has attracted the interest of many scholars and research institutions. By changing the structure and processes of ecosystems, landuse change affects the provisioning capability of ecosystems for products and services. Study of the relationships between ecosystem processes and services, the relationships among multiple ecosystem services, and the integration and optimization of these services at the regional scale in the context of land-use change urgently needs to be enhanced. The results of such research will be critically important for informing and supporting activities of ecosystem management. This paper introduces the concepts and methods of the study of land- use change and ecosystem services and discusses the shortcomings of existing studies and future prospects of land-use change and ecosystem services research.

In this paper, first, the research progress on fundamental theories on mountain hazards and prevention techniques are briefly reviewed. In the current research, the distribution of mountain hazards has been recognized and the hazards assessment methods for mountain torrents, debris flow and landslides have been established, and the principles and calculations of landslide stability analysis have been developed. In addition, the stress-strain relation of debris flow slurry and the formulae of velocity, discharge and impact of debris flow have been established, and a model of viscous debris flow initiation has also been proposed. We also presented the magnitude amplification effects of mountain torrents and debris flows. Meanwhile, the methods to forecast mountain hazards have been developed by analyzing both rainfall and ground factors. Based on the understanding of the physical characteristics of mountain hazards, a number of monitoring instruments have been invented, and especially the early warning methods have been used in the underdeveloped regions. Furthermore, a systematic technology for coping with mountain hazards has been developed. The topics on the formation, development, forecasting and prevention, protection strategies and risk management of mountain hazards have been proposed for future research. Finally, aiming at the requirements of the reduction of disasters for the nation and the goals of the academic progresses, we propose the topics that are worthy of more attention in the future research, such as the response of mountain hazards to ecology, the effects of climate change on mountain hazards, the prediction of catastrophe, the mesomechanic behaviors of the soil affected by water, the theories and methods of hazard risk assessment, the hazard forecasting model based on the formation mechanisms and the improvement of prediction and recovery technology.

In the current research on climate changes it is a hot topic to study the changes of extreme climatic events during historical periods. In this paper, based on the reconstructions from multiple proxy types including historical documents, tree-rings, ice cores and lake sediments in the published literature of the recent 20 years, we summarized the characteristics of changes of extreme climate events during the past 2000 years in China. The analysis shows that: (1) During the cold periods of 1500-1900 and 220-580, there appeared extremely cold winters that were even colder than the cold winters in the years after 1950, and there appeared hot summers with daily highest temperature exceeding record high of the years in the 20th century as well. In the past 1600 years, the cold summer events in Northeast of China mainly occurred during the period of 1400-1900. (2) In the eastern monsoon region of China, the extreme drought events prevailed during the periods of 301-400, 751-800, 1051-1150, 1501-1550 and 1601-1650, the extreme flood events often occurred during the periods of 101-150, 251-300, 951-1000, 1701-1750, 1801-1850 and 1901-1950, and for the period of 1551-1600, coexisting extreme drought and extreme flood events occurred most frequently. The frequency of persistent extreme drought was higher during the 7th-8th century, 12th-14th century and late-15th century to mid-17th century; the frequency of sustaining extreme flood was higher during the 10th-11th century and after the mid-17th century. The time intervals of extreme drought/flood events are different in North China, Yangtze and Huaihe River Valley and south of Yangtze River. In addition, the notable extreme drought events, such as "Chong Zhen Drought" in the Ming Dynasty, and "Ding Wu Famine" in the Qing Dynasty, were recognized. (3) In the arid region of Northwest China, the extreme drought events mainly occurred during the periods of 1471-1520, 1581-1650, 1711-1760, 1811-1860 and 1921-1970. 1710s was the most severe drought decade during the past 1000 years. However, due to the very limited climate proxy data for this region, the primary characteristics of complete change process of the extreme events were difficult to evaluate. (4) Although drought frequently occurred in southwest of China during the early 21th century, the extreme drought events as severe as the one in Sichuan and Chongqing in 2006 occurred many times during the historical periods.

尽管空间、地方、区域、环境是所谓“永恒的地理命题”, 但大部分的人文、环境地理学研究中的“时间”主题都聚焦在研究地方、景观和区域的当前或过去, 却少有研究者对其未来产生兴趣。研究的缺乏可能要归因于对此前社会、文化、政治、经济地理学者所做的相关研究不熟悉, 或者对这些研究所具有的价值和意义估计不足。本文希望通过梳理在不同年代地理学界对未来地理学的研究做过哪些工作, 以及未来还可以在哪些方面做出贡献, 来弥补这一缺陷。20 世纪70 年代早期, 地理学者开始关注当时正在显现的后工业经济、社会的不同特征, 信息和通讯技术的革新, 城市未来, 变化中的社会秩序, 区域和全球尺度上的资源短缺和环境改造等一系列问题。部分未来地理学者从“带有地理色彩”的科幻作家们以及其他各学科的学者那里借鉴了许多观点和概念。这些学者们的代表作品, 在文中列出的书目以及两本主要的跨学科杂志The Futurist(由世界未来学会出版)以及Future Studies中可以看到。未来学家们所使用的预测方法和模型多种多样, 如趋势外推、交叉影响分析、模型模拟、情景假设、德尔菲法等, 这些方法各有其优势和劣势。当前, 对未来的研究已经引起了企业界、教育界、政策研究界等的重视, 这一点可以从学术性刊物、奖项, 以及对2050 年及其以后的世界规划中, 对未来研究的兴趣日益增长得到证明。对未来的研究聚焦于世界南方(发展中国家)、北方(发达国家)、区域经济与人口, 以及全球环境的未来, 不仅需要考虑“确定性”(期待中的世界), 也同样要考虑“不确定性”以及“不愿意看到却又可能出现”的一面。本文给出了当前至2050 年时段地理学者可能需要考虑的29 个重点研究主题, 涉及经济、文化、社会、政治及环境地理领域。同时, 本文还讨论了6 个针对中国经济、文化、政治、环境领域未来发展的研究主题, 包括中国的“绿色化”, 作为崛起的世界性强国的中国, 中国消费者及其伦理观, 作为全球创新领袖的中国, 人口问题和数字鸿沟, 以及未来的宗教/信仰问题。为便于对未来研究的讨论和分析, 文中给出了7 幅富有新意的专题图, 分别描绘了欧洲世界的亚洲化趋势, 未来的城市系统, 重大洲际交通工程, 不同区域的时间文化, 自治区域和新的国家, 以及环境地带迁移等。最后, 本文建议中国地理学界运用德尔菲法, 对中国的未来从经济、社会、环境等方面进行审视。其结果对于区域和国家层面规划制订将是非常具有价值的, 也将使地理学者在推动建设社会、环境美好未来的过程中扮演更为重要的角色。同时, 地理学者也需要与其他学科的学者们紧密合作, 共同研究与国家、区域乃至全球未来相关的“时间”主题。

The "time" focus of most human and environmental geography research is on the present and past with little interest or inclination, unfortunately, in examining place, landscape and regional futures, even though space, place, region and environment are "geographical constants". This reluctance may be attributed to being unfamiliar with previous research conducted by social, cultural, political and economic geographers or an appreciation what such studies have to offer. This article seeks to fill this "gap" by informing the geography communities what geographers have done vis-à-vis the future and what they might contribute. Geographers in the early 1970s began to look at the distinguishing features of emerging postindustrial economies and societies, the advances in information and communication technologies, urban futures, a changing social order, issues of resource scarcity and environmental modification at regional and global scales. Some of these pioneering geographical futurists borrowed ideas and concepts from "geographical" science fiction writers last and this century and also from scholars in a variety of disciplines. Specific examples of these writers and scholars are discussed and listed in the bibliography as well as two major interdisciplinary journals, The Futurist(published by the World Future Society) and Future Studies. A number of forecasting methods and models have been used by futurists; these include trend extrapolation, cross-impact analysis, simulation, scenario writing and the Delphi consensus method. Each has specific advantages and disadvantages when it comes to predicting and projecting likely and alternative futures. Today future studies are gaining respect by those in the corporate, education and policy communities. Evidence is the growing interest in future studies is found in academic journals, awards and planning for worlds at 2050 and beyond. Future studies focusing on the Global South or Global North or regional economic and demographic futures or global environmental futures need to consider not only "certainties" (expected worlds), but also the worlds of "uncertainty" and the worlds of "unintended consequences". I suggest 29 specific research foci about economic, cultural, social, political and environmental topics that geographers might consider between now and 2050. Also I discuss a half-dozen topics specifically about China's economic, cultural, political and environmental futures that would appeal to members of various geographical communities; these include the greening of China, China as an emerging world power, Chinese consumer worlds and ethics, China as a global leader in innovation, demographic issues and digital divides, and emerging religious/spiritual faces and landscapes in China. I also prepared seven innovative maps for discussion and analysis: the Asianization of European worlds, future urban systems, major transcontinental transportation projects, time culture and regions, autonomous regions and new states and shifting environmental zones. I conclude by suggesting the Chinese geography community use the Delphi approach to investigate the country's economic, social and environmental futures. The findings would be invaluable in regional and national planning and provide geographers a strong role in developing and implementing humane social and environmental futures. Geographers are also advised to work with scholars in other disciplines on timely topics about national, regional and global futures.

Internationally, impact evaluation has become an essential part of program design. However, the challenge on impact evaluation is how to attribute, or how to find out the true impact of program intervention. In general there are two broad types of evaluation methods: non-experimental and experimental. The objectives of this paper are: (1) to briefly compare basic characteristics of each and different evaluation methods, and (2) to discuss in more detail the basic principles and major implementation issues of Randomized Controlled Trails (RCTs). Then the paper uses a current evaluation project of baby nutrition intervention carried out by Rural Education Action Program (REAP) to further elaborate how to evaluate the "true" project impacts using RCTs. Methods belong to non-experimental types include simple comparison of before and after treatment, DID, PSM, IV, RDD, etc. RCT as a rigorous impact evaluation method has its key advantage of avoiding selection bias: the issue that could not be easily solved using other methods. There are five key components in designing an RCT, theory based casual chain analysis to determine what type of interventions in order to achieve target impact, the next is to determine intervention unit and also the way and level of randomizing. A careful examination on likelihood of other factors which may have impact on the outcome should be carefully examined so to be built into intervention design. The last but very important work is to determine project size through power calculation. The implementation of an RCT need to go through "three steps": first is baseline survey, then to randomly assign a group of sample as intervention group while the other half as control group. The last step is evaluation survey. Only with both baseline and evaluation data, one can use then to measure the true impact of project intervention. Like any other methods, RCTs also has its implementation challenges, such as spillover effects, cross contamination, non-compliance or attrition. As a cutting-edge impact evaluation method, Randomized Control Trail (RCT) has a great potential to be widely used in rigorous impact evaluation.