The Hexi Corridor,our study area,is located in Northwest China and is also the most developed area of oasis farming in arid regions of Northwestern China.However,the rapid development of metallurgy and chemical industries in this region poses a great threat to the accumulation of heavy metals in crops.The objectives of this study are(1)to determine the influence of heavy metals on plant growth;(2)to assess the translocation capability of heavy metals in soil-plant system;and(3)to investigate the interaction between heavy metals.Pot experiments were conducted on cole(Brassica campestris L.)grown in the arid oasis soils singly and jointly treated with cadmium(Cd)and lead(Pb).Nine treatments were applied into the pots.Under the same planting conditions,three scenarios of Cd,Pb and Cd–Pb were designed to compare the interaction between Cd and Pb.The results showed that the response of cole weights to Cd,Pb and Cd–Pb treatments was slight,while Cd and Pb uptakes in cole were more sensitive to the single effects of Cd and Pb concentration in soils from the lower treatment levels.Under the influence of the single Cd,Pb and joint Cd–Pb treatments,Cd concentrations were lower in the cole roots than in the shoots,while for Pb,the results were opposite.Comparison studies revealed that the interaction of Cd and Pb could weaken the cole’s ability to uptake,concentrate and translocate heavy metals in arid oasis soils.
Daily meteorological data are the critical inputs for distributed hydrological and ecological models. This study modified mountain microclimate simulation model(MTCLIM) with the data from 19 weather stations, and compared and validated two methods(the MTCLIM and the modified MTCLIM) in the Qilian Mountains of Northwest China to estimate daily temperature(i.e., maximum temperature,minimum temperature) and precipitation at six weather stations from 1 January 2000 to 31 December2009. The algorithm of temperature in modified MTCLIM was improved by constructing the daily linear regression relationship between temperature and elevation, aspect and location information. There are two steps to modify the MTCLIM to predict daily precipitation: firstly, the linear regression relationship was built between annual average precipitation and elevation, location, and vegetation index; secondly, the distance weight for measuring the contribution of each weather station on target point was improved by average wind direction during the rainy season. Several regression analysis and goodness-of-fit indices(i.e., Pearson's correlation coefficient, coefficient of determination, mean absolute error, root-mean-square error and modeling efficiency) were used to validate these estimated values. The result showed that the modified MTCLIM had a better performance than the MTCLIM.Therefore, the modified MTCLIM was used to map daily meteorological data in the study area from 2000 to 2009. These results were validated using weather stations with short time data and the predicted accuracy was acceptable. The meteorological data mapped could become inputs for distributed hydrological and ecological models applied in the Qilian Mountains.
