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Key Program projects
to be supported by the Department of Earth Sciences
From
2002, the Department of Earth Sciences will publish guidelines
of Key Program projects according to the important issues
in the priority funding areas in the Tenth Five?Year Plan
period instead of announcing guidance and amount of funding
for each of the Key Program projects. In each area, there
will be a scientific steering panel and a review panel for
the coordination and management. The goal is to focus limited
amount of funding on important frontier issues, try to make
breakthroughs, to form some research areas with Chinese features
and international superiority, and to foster and attract a
number of innovative scientists with pioneering ideas and
development potential.
Within the following specified areas,
applicants are free to determine the research topics, goals,
contents, technical approaches and the amount of funding on
the basis of summarizing research work carried out both domestically
and internationally and making clear new breakthrough points
and ways for breakthrough. Proposals should be submitted before
the deadline announced. This method will encourage applicants
to bring into full play their own initiatives and advantages
in research and to form competition. If necessary, funding
will be provided to projects with different ideas to allow
academic contention for the facilitation of breakthroughs.
Besides Chinese, submission of application in English is encouraged.
The total sum of funding planned is
80 million yuan for 2002, and the number of projects to be
funded and funding for each project will be determined by
the application and the factual needs of research. The planned
funding for each of the research areas is between 10?13 million
yuan, and the number of projects in each research area is
no more than 15. It is suggested that the funding of each
project should be 0. 5-1. 8 million yuan. An annual workshop
should be organized with the participation of principal scientists
in the " research area" in order to strengthen the
communication and exchange of academic ideas and information,
and to promote the formation of new research groups and the
integration of multidisciplines. Expenses for this meeting
should be included in the budget of the application.
For the realization of the overall
scientific goals and the integration of multi?disciplines,
principal investigators should obey the corresponding stipulations
on data and research materials.
To avoid duplication in funding, applicants
should clearly expound the relations and differences of the
research with related projects funded by other national agencies.
The mechanism of peer review by correspondence
and panel meeting review will be adopted for the evaluation
of Key Program projects. In addition to the criteria made
by NSFC in the review and selection processes, the contribution
to speeding up the progress of research areas and the understanding
of key scientific issues will also be stressed. Please refer
to thereport of six priority funding research areas.
1. Global change and its regional
response
With the increasing prominence of
environment problems, research on global change has become
the largest international scientific activity, which has attracted
extensive attention from the governments and public all over
the world. Future research will lay stress on the global carbon
circulation, water circulation, food and human environment
interaction, and will highlight regional strategic deployment.
Since 1986, China has allocated a large amount of funds to
the research on global change and has made scientific contributions
of international importance. On the basis of the above work,
NSFC will continue to support the research on " Global
change and its regional response" in the Tenth Five Year
Plan period. The main idea is to take a number of global change
sensitive areas in eastern 'Asia continent and adjacent sea
as research objectives, focus on the carbonnitrogen circulation,
water circulation and monsoon environment evolution, study
the ocean?continent?atmosphere interaction in Asia monsoon
area and the mechanism of impact of human activities on regional
environment change, and acquire the response ways and process,
interaction process, dynamic mechanism and future trends of
this regional response on the global change, thus providing
a scientific basis for national stand on water security, food
security and international conventions. In order to achieve
the above?mentioned objectives, researches will be concentrated
on the following key scientific issues:
1 ) The formation and evolution of eastern Asia monsoon environment
and its relation with global change;
2 ) Ocean continent atmosphere interaction and water circulation;
3 ) The impact of ecosystem evolution and geological process
on carbon circulation, and
4 ) Humanity factors in environment evolution.
Key scientific issues to be studied:
1 ) Geological time and cause of monsoon environment and important
transforming events;
2 ) Monsoon environment evolution in various time scales and
their elements and mechanism;
3 ) Quantitative research and numerical simulation of spatial
temporal evolution of monsoon environment;
4 ) Annual and decadal changes of sea circulation;
5 ) The interaction of global change and ocean?continent?atmosphere,
and the change of the sea level;
6 ) The influences of global change on regional water circulation
in China and the adjacent areas;
7 ) The modeling and simulation of multi layer interaction;
8 ) Typical ecosystems and their influence on carbon circulation;
9 ) The geological records of off?shore process, carbon circulation
and marine environment evolution
10 ) Geological process and carbon circulation in China and
the adjacent areas;
11 ) Greenhouse effect on the productive force of typical
ecosystems;
12 ) The change of land use/cover and its effect on the environment;
13 ) The influence of the change of industrial structure on
the environment;
14 ) The influence of global change on the inhabitable environment
in China.
2. Environment and life process on the Earth
In the Tenth Five Year Plan period,
comprehensive research should be carried out focusing on the
frontier issues in the contemporary earth science and life
science to explore basic scientific problems of the relations
between the environment and life process on the Earth, including
the environment influence on life process, life process feedback
on the environment and the coordination of the two elements.
In order to realize the above mentioned objectives, research
will be concentrated on the following key scientific issues:
1 ) The origin, evolution and environmental constraints of
important species;
2 ) Environmental events and biodiversity on the Earth;
3 ) Surface environmental biogeochemical process and its impact,
and
4 ) Life features and the adapting mechanism in the extreme
environment.
Key scientific issues
to he studied include:
1 ) The origin and environmental background of multicell life;
2 ) The origin and evolution of terrigenous plants and their
interaction with the environment;
3 ) The evolution process and environmental factors of vertebrates;
4 ) The origin, corporeity evolution and living model of paleoanthropoid
and environment change in the Pleistocene era;
5 ) Bio?radiation events and the origin of biodiversity
6 ) Earth environment and life process during major geological
transitions;
7 ) Response of terrestrial life system to the environment
change since Cenozoic era;
8 ) Biogeochemical circulation and ecological effect of biogenetic
elements;
9 ) The environment biogeochemistry process and environment
effect of poisonous pollution materials;
10 ) Toxicology, exposure level and regional risk of persistent
organic matters, and
11 ) Life features and the adapting mechanism in the extreme
environment.
3. Physical dynamics of weather and climate system
In the Tenth Five Year Plan period
and before 2015, the general goal is to deepen research on
the dynamics of climate system, especially the climate system
of East Asia monsoon, to understand the climate change of
seasonal, annual, decadal and centennial scales, to exploit
the predicable 'theory system of the climate change in seasonal
and annual scales, and to develop the theory and predication
research on the climate change and living environment change
based on the model of ocean?continent?atmosphere interaction
with high appreciation and high precision. In order to realize
the above?mentioned goals, new principles, methods and equipment
on atmospheric probing should be strengthened in a long period
of time in the future, including the manufacture of new sensors
and platforms, and the retrogression and application of satellite
and radar remote sensing. Comprehensive research will be concentrated
on the following key scientific issues:
1 ) Research on climate change and its predictability;
2 ) Dynamics of catastrophic climate process;
3 ) Research on energy and mass transport between atmosphere
boundaries, and
4 ) The interaction of stratosphere and troposphere and its
impact on
climate environment.
Key scientific issues to be studied:
1 ) The interaction of atmospheric circulation in various
latitudes and their complicated relations with sea circulation
and ENSO monsoon;
2 ) The influence of changes of snow pack, sea ice, ground
temperature and ground humidity on regional climate change
in East Asia;
3 ) Atmospheric composition aerosol cloud physicochemical
processes and their effects of radiation and climate;
4 ) The climate system models of global atmosphere sea continent
sea ice and their prediction;
5 ) The dynamic process of structure, formation and evolution
of strong precipitation weather system and its prediction
theory;
6 ) The physical process of climate system and its development
of parameters and models;
7 ) The scientific principles and methods of artificial effects
on climate;
8 ) The exchange process of Earth's surface atmosphere of
typical surface/climate in China;
9 ) Parameters of Earth's uneven surfaces and their up scaling
and down scaling transformation;
10 ) Stratosphere process and stratosphere convection sphere
transforming process, and their impacts on weather and climate,
and
11 ) Structural evolution features of the stratosphere, convection
sphere and middle sphere, and the physical foundation for
the development of global atmospheric circulation patterns.
4. Continent dynamics
The main research goal in the next
10-15 years in the area of continent dynamics is to apply
multidisciplinary methods to explore the geological, geophysical
and geochemical features of the continent in China, to compare
the continents with adjacent areas in Asia and other parts
of the world, to understand the three dimensional structure
of continental crustmantle system in China, to reveal the
accretion and subduction process of continental materials,
and to establish the Mesozoic?Cenozoic evolution dynamic models
of East Asia continent in order to provide the innovative
prognostication and evaluation theory for resources exploration,
hazard mitigation and environment protection. Specific research
targets should be focused on the following:
1 ) Heterogencity feature and dynamics of continent lithospheric
structure and composition;
2 ) Continental deformation process and dynamics during the
Mesozoic Cenozoic era, and
3 ) The mechanism of continental formation and evolution.
Key scientific issues to be studied:
1 ) Precise structure and deep process of the lithosphere
in continent-continent collision and ocean?continent subduction
zone;
2 ) The structure of active continental margin and marine
lithosphere/ asthenosphere and the formation of marginal sea;
3 ) The deep process of Qinghai?Tibetan Plateau lithosphere
thickening and northern China lithosphere thinning;
4 ) The heterogeneity feature of continent lithosphere composition
in China;
5 ) Patterns, deformation processes and dynamics of intraplate
basinmountain system;
6 ) The abrupt change of landforms and the link?up and eastward
following of mega?water system in China during the Late Cenozoic
era;
7 ) Geological and hazard inducing mechanism and their relations
with active tectonics in key areas in China;
8 ) The convergence and transform of structural domains of
the continent in China and their relations with main global
geological events;
9 ) The deep subduction process of continental materials;
10 ) The formation and evolution of large volcanic provinces
in East China, and
11 ) The mineralization process during the continent evolution.
5. Regional sustainable development
In the Tenth Five Year Plan period,
comprehensive and integrated 'research will be aimed at key
issues which play important roles in the regional sustainable
development in China. Research will be concentrated on the
theory and methodology of regional sustainable development,
with an eye to the sustainable utilization and capacity of
renewable resources, and on the exploration of typical regional
sustainable development models so as to provide a scientific
basis for the realization of regional sustainable development
strategy. Comprehensive research will be focused on the following
key scientific issues:
1 ) Principles and evaluation systems of regional sustainable
development;
2 ) The support and influence of renewable resources to regional
sustainable development;
3 ) Environmental quality change and regional sustainable
development;
4 ) The effects of serious natural disasters on regional sustainable
development, and
5 ) The spatial pattern evolution of economic development
and the sustainability of regional development
Key scientific issues to be studied:
1 ) The evaluation system of vulnerability in various regional
natural-society systems under multi?pressure factors (e. g.
, climate, poverty);
2 ) The determination of "threshold value" or "critical
point" for retrogression or critical state in regional
nature social system;
3 ) Multi evaluation system of the environment and the development
of monitoring system for the society transform to sustainable
development;
4 ) Water circulation in the environment change situation
and sustainable use of water resources;
5 ) Soil quality evolution process in the environment change
situation and the sustainable use of land resources;
6 ) The change of land use/vegetation and the migration process
of regional drainage water, sand and chemical materials;
7 ) The coupling model of migration of pollutants and their
spatial process with transport media;
8 ) The mechanism, evaluation, forecast and control of regional
environment evolution;
9 ) The effects of regional environment evolution on residence
environment;
10 ) Risk assessment model and risk transform mechanism for
serious natural disasters;
11 ) Regional fragility evaluation and disaster relief multi
model for serious disasters;
12 ) The pattern change of regional priority economics in
the process of economic globalization;
13 ) The space misplace of cost and benefit and the compensation
mechanism of interests in the areas of resources and environment,
and
14 ) The economic and environmental effects of resource redistribution
in the economic accumulation.
6. Solar terrestrial space environment and space weather
The general goals of research on solar
terrestrial space environment and space weather are as follows:
1 ) To form an integral theoretical framework of the chain
reaction process on the space climate and to achieve important
innovative progress with high international impact based on
the research of space weather processes at various scales
of the solar terrestrial system;
2 ) To establish the cause effect model of space weather events
in the solar terrestrial system and to develop comprehensive
forecast methods based on physical forecast;
3 ) To promote extensive intercrossing and interpenetration
with other disciplines, especially with information science,
materials science and life science, and to conduct studies
of space weather effects on human activities in an attempt
to provide ,a scientific basis for the protection and decision
making by related agencies;
4 ) To develop new concepts and new methods on space weather
probing, and to put forward new plans of series satellites
for space weather purpose, and
5 ) To introduce new principles, new technologies and new
methods on space weather change probing and to try to include
one or two space climate satellites in the national program,
opening up a new phase for the space climate research.
In the Tenth Five Year Plan period, research will be focused
on the following key scientific issues:
1 ) The driving source of space weather;
2 ) Interplanetary space weather process;
3 ) Terrestrial weather process;
4 ) Research on some important plasma theoretical issues in
space weather;
5 ) The effects of space weather on human activities, and
its models and forecast methods, and
6 ) New concepts and new methods on space weather probing.
Key scientific issues to be studied:
1 ) Physical factor, forewarning and emerging condition of
CME and
solar flare source, and their effectiveness on the Earth;
2 ) Three dimensional structure and the evolution of interplanetary
space, and the acceleration mechanism of solar wind and solar
high energy particles;
3 ) Basic process, interaction and cause effect model of corona
material projection interplanetary disturbance?geomagnetic
active chain;
4 ) The mechanism and model of magnetoshperic sub storm and
magnetic storm, dynamic model of magnetic particle events
and radiation zone;
5 ) The triggering, formation mechanism and evolution of ionospheric
storm, harassment and irregular structure;
6 ) The response modes of the high middle atmosphere to the
interference of the sun and the lower atmosphere;
7 ) The basic process of magnetic field reconnection, particle
acceleration and wave particle interaction of space plasma;
8 ) Model and comprehensive forecast of space weather;
9 ) New theory, new technology and new methods on space weather
probing.
Other projects:
1. The environment change mechanism and sustainable use of
soil under the continuous cropping condition
It is an interdisciplinary project
jointly supported with the Department of Life Sciences, and
proposals are handled by the Department of Life Sciences.
The proposed funding is 2 million
yuan.
2. Drilling technology in complex conditions
It is an interdisciplinary project
jointly supported with the Department of Engineering and Materials
Sciences, and proposals are handled by the Division of Metallurgical
and Mining Sciences. For detailed information, please refer
to the Department of Engineering and Materials Sciences.
The proposed funding is 2 million
yuan.
3. Projects jointly funded by NSFC and Chinese Marine Petroleum
Corporation
For detailed information, please refer
to the Joint Funds.
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