Geoscience

Complex Temperature-controlled Ventilation Embankment Awarded

The complex temperature-controlled ventilation embankment developed by Yu Qihao, Research Fellow from the Cold and Arid Regions Environment and Engineering Research Institute, CAS and his colleagues was recently honored with the 10th China Patent Excellence Award. The work protected by the invention patent is based on the active cooling of embankment and has been successfully applied in the pilot Beilu River project of the Qinghai-Tibet railway construction. The project practices prove that the frozen-earth-area where the railway goes through and constructed in accordance with the proprietary technology has been in a process of consistent fast cooling ever since the patented technology was adopted three years ago. The latest observation shows that the average annual temperature of the soils, which are close to the upper limit of the original frozen earth, is lower than the soils under the original natural ground surface. The innovative technology has provided an effective solution to the key technical problem relating to the frozen earth area of the Qinghai-Tibet railway construction.

Journal of Digital Earth Comes into Being

The global spatial information industry is currently one of the few industries with fast and continuous growth. The sector has contributed a high annual output value of more than 50 billion US dollars worldwide and been growing by over 20% each year. The websites offering global spatial information, with GoogleEarth as one of their representatives, are rapidly accessible to and affecting common people’s life”, Guo Huadong, secretary-general of the International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE), said on the inaugural ceremony for the International Journal of Digital Earth (IJDE). The peer-reviewed quarterly is the first journal supported by the Chinese science circle, and will be published in joint hands by ISDE and the UK-based Taylor & Francis Group.