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Department of Earth Sciences
The Department of Earth Sciences
announces guidelines of Key Program projects
according to the major issues in the
priority funding areas listed in the Ten
Five-Year Plan period instead of announcing
guidance and amount of funding for
individual projects. This model has been
strengthened by the practice in the past two
years. For each area, a scientific steering
panel and a review panel are assigned the
work of coordination and management. The aim
is to break disciplinary boundaries and to
promote interdisciplinary research,
thereafter to focus limited amount of
funding on important frontier issues to make
breakthroughs and 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 developing
potential.
Within the following specified
areas, applicants are free to determine the
research topics, goals, technical approaches
and the funding needed 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 discussions for the facilitation of
breakthroughs. Besides Chinese, submission
of application in English is encouraged.
The total funding planned is 20 - 30
million yuan for 2003, and the number of
projects to be funded and funding intensity
for each project will be determined by the
applications and the actual need of
research. It is suggested that the
application of funding for each project be
between 800 to 1,800 thousand yuan. The
number of projects will be 16 - 22. The
period of a project will generally be 4
years. An annual workshop will be held with
the participation of principal scientists
for each "research areas" 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 multi-disciplines.
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 redundancy in funding,
applicants should clearly state the
relations and differences of the research
with related projects funded by other
agencies concerned.
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 used
by NSFC in the review and selection
processes, the contribution to the progress
of specific research areas and the
understanding of key scientific issues must
be stressed.
As the scientific issues listed below are
interdisciplinary in nature, coordinated
studies by scientists from different
disciplines are necessary. It is expected
that scientists from various disciplines of
earth sciences, and scientists from other
research areas such as mathematics, physics,
chemistry, biology, materials and
engineering science, information science and
management science jointly submit
applications for the Key Program projects of
the Department of Earth Sciences. The code
for interdisciplinary study should be filled
in on the application form.
In addition to the following seven areas,
applications can also be submitted if they
are aimed at frontier scientific issues and
need to be supported by the funding for Key
Program.
Due to the limit of total funding,
large-span and cross-disciplinary projects
will be encouraged in 2004.
- Global change and the Earth system
As environmental issues become an
increasing concern, research on global
change has been 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 large amount
of funding to research on global change and
has made scientific contributions of
international importance. On the basis of
the above work, NFSC will continue to
support the research on global change and
the Earth system 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 seas as research
objectives, focus on carbon-nitrogen
circulation, water circulation and monsoon
environment evolution, study
ocean-continent-atmosphere interaction in
Asia monsoon area and the mechanism of
impact of human activities on regional
environment change, and acquire ways and
processes of response, interaction
processes, dynamic mechanisms, environment
effects and future trends of this regional
response to global change, thus providing
scientific basis for national stand on water
security, food security and international
conventions.
Key scientific issues to be studied include:
1) Geochemistry circulation of marine
biology;
2) Research on foregone global change;
3) Evolution processes of polar region
environment.
When the application is prepared, the
research field should be filled in the
column of additional notes. About one to
three proposals will be supported.
- Environment and life processes on
the Earth
In the Tenth Five-Year Plan period,
comprehensive research should be carried out
focusing on the frontier issues in
contemporary earth science and life science
to explore basic scientific problems of the
relations between the environment and life
process on the Earth. Research includes the
environmental influence on life process, and
life process feedback on the environment and
the coordination of the two elements.
Proposals should highlight the combination
of environment and life process on Earth,
especially the intercrossing and permeation
in research contents and methods between
earth science and other related sciences,
and applications submitted by scientists
from life science and other related
disciplines are welcome.
Key scientific issues to be studied include:
1) Evolution processes of vertebrates and
their environmental conditions;
2) Form, process, and mechanism of
bio-radiation events and the origin of
biodiversity;
3) Terrestrial life system and the
environment change since Cenozoic era;
4) Biogeochemical circulation and ecological
effect of biogenetic elements, trace gases
and granules;
5) Environment biogeochemistry process and
environment effect of poisonous pollution
materials, and;
6) Toxicology, exposure level and healthy
risk of persistent organic pollution
matters.
When the application is prepared, the
research field should be filled in the
column of additional notes. About 2 to
5proposals will be supported.
- Physical dynamics of weather and
climate system
The general goal of this project in the Ten
Five-Year Plan period is to understand
various weathers and climatic
spatial-temporal characteristics, laws
underlying the change, interrelation,
physical mechanism and predicable theory
determined by atmosphere-ocean-continent
interaction coupling the climate system, the
middle-level and high-level atmosphere and
various physical, chemical and biological
processes impacting these processes in the
underlying surface and boundary layer, and
to conduct theoretical and predication
research on the climate change and living
environment change based on the model of
ocean-continent-atmosphere interaction with
high resolution and high precision. In order
to realize the above-mentioned goals, new
principles, methods and equipment on
atmospheric sounding should be strengthened
in a long period of time in the future,
including the manufacture of new sensors and
platforms, and the inversion and application
of satellite and radar remote sensing.
Key scientific issues to be studied include:
1) Chemical process and weather, climate
effect of atmospheric elements, aerosol and
cloud-fog physics;
2) Research on water sources in the sky and
man-induced weather modification (control
principles, methods and proof);
3) Chemistry processes and the integration
of predictive research in the climate system
model;
4) Research on the dynamic process and
predictive methods of strong precipitation
weather system in the north of china.
When the application is prepared, the
research field should be filled in the
column of additional notes. About one to
three proposals will be supported.
- Continental dynamics
The main research goal in the area of
continental dynamics in the next 10 to 15
years is to apply multidisciplinary methods
to explore the geological, geophysical and
geochemical features of the continent in
China, to compare the continent with
adjacent areas in Asia and other parts of
the world, to understand the
three-dimensional structure of continental
crust-mantle system in China, to reveal the
main accretion and subduction processes of
continental materials, and to establish the
dynamic conceptual and quantification models
for the Mesozoic-Cenozoic evolution of East
Asia continent in order to provide
innovative prognostication and evaluation
theories for resources exploration, hazard
mitigation and environment protection.
The following studies are encouraged: 1) to
obtain reliable data or to make significant
discoveries in key scientific issues by
applying comprehensively new technical means
such as the precise field geological
observation, geophysical exploration,
high-precision qualitative examination of
major geological events, geochemical
tracing, etc.; 2) to analyze all kinds of
geological, geophysical and geochemical data
with new thoughts, to construct conceptual
models of continental dynamics and to carry
out numeral simulation; 3) to conduct
effective international and regional
cooperation, to encourage particularly
comparative studies with relevant countries
concerning the scientific goals of the
projects, and to participate energetically
in international competition.
Key scientific issues to be studied include:
1) Neoproterozoic tectonic processes and
their environmental and hazard effects;
2) Patterns, deformation processes and
dynamics of intraplate basin and range
systems;
3) Metallogenesis and oil forming during
continental evolution;
4) Physical and chemical heterogeneity of
the continental lithosphere in China.
* Precise structures and deep-seated dynamic
processes in the lithosphere of Yinshan
orogenic belt (jointly supported with the
Chinese Academy of Sciences with a proposed
funding of 3 million yuan)
When the application is prepared, the
research field should be filled in the
column of additional notes. About two to
five proposals will be supported.
- Regional sustainable development
Aiming at scientific issues which play
important roles in the implementation of
sustainable development strategy,
comprehensive and integrated researches will
be conducted during the Tenth Five-Year Plan
period to explore the models of social,
economic and ecological sustainable
development in typical regions and to
provide scientific bases for the regional
sustainable development by focusing on the
theory and methodology of regional
sustainable development and with a view to
the harmony among population, resources,
environment and development.
Key scientific issues to be studied include:
1) The assessing method and index system for
typical regional sustainable development;
2) Urbanization processes and regional
sustainable development;
3) The model of typical regional sustainable
development.
When the application is prepared, the
research field should be filled in the
column of additional notes. About one to
three proposals will be supported.
- Solar terrestrial space environment
and space weather
The general goals of research on solar
terrestrial space environment and space
weather are: 1) to form an integral
theoretical framework of 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 the 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 agencies concerned; 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.
Key scientific issues to be studied include:
1) Physical parameters, precursors of CME
and flare source area, and occurrence
conditions and their efficiency in
influencing the Earth;
2) Study on basic processes in space plasma
such as magnetic reconnection, particle
acceleration and wave-particle interaction;
3) Study on the composite forecast models of
space weather and its modeling;
4) Investigations of new concepts,
techniques and methods for probing space
weather.
When the application is prepared, the
research field should be filled in the
column of additional notes. About one to
three proposals will be supported.
- Innovative theory and technology
for the detection and analysis on the earth
system
It has been revealed by the history of earth
science that the development of modern
technology has basically created
accessibility for the breakthroughs on
important earth science themes. The
improvement of detection and analysis
technologies can be a promising fact for the
source of the creative ideas in the field of
earth science. In the Tenth Five-Year Plan
period, new theories, approaches and
technologies of observation and analysis on
the earth system must be further emphasized
so as to address major scientific themes in
earth science and to provide new support for
basic research on earth science.
Core issues are the introduction, study and
application of new technologies and
methodologies in the fields of information
science, physics and mathematics, so as to
promote and foster the development of the
earth system science.
Key scientific issues to be studied include:
1) New principles on terrestrial detection;
2) Theory and new technology for deep earth
detection;
3) Theory and new technology for ocean
detection;
4) Micro-area analysis and high-precision
dating;
5) High-precision measurement of trace
materials;
6) New distinguishing and distilling
technologies of super-weak information;
7) System integration of earth space
information system and virtual realities.
When the application is prepared, the
research field should be filled in the
column of additional notes. About one to
three proposals will be supported.
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