Soil & Tillage Research 69 (2003) 107115

Evaluating gully erosion using 137Cs and 210 Pb/137Cs

ratio in a reservoir catchment
Y. Li a,b, , J. Poesen c , J.C. Yang a,b , B. Fu d , J.H. Zhang a,b
a

Institute of Agricultural Environment and Sustainable Development, CAAS, Beijing 100081, PR China
b Institute for Application of Atomic Energy, CAAS, Beijing 100094, PR China
Laboratory for Experimental Geomorphology, Catholic University Leuven, Redingenstraat 16, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium
d Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, PR China

Abstract
Water erosion in the hilly areas of west China is the main process contributing to the overall sediment of the Yellow River
and the Yangtze River. The impact of gully erosion in total sediment output has been mostly neglected. Our objective was to
assess the sediment production and sediment sources at both the hillslope and catchment scales in the Yangjuangou reservoir
catchment of the Chinese Loess Plateau, northwest China. Distribution patterns in sediment production caused by water erosion
on hills and gully slopes under different land use types were assessed using the fallout 137 Cs technique. The total sediment
production from the catchment was estimated by using the sediment record in a reservoir. Sediment sources and dominant
water erosion processes were determined by comparing 137 Cs activities and 210 Pb/137 Cs ratios in surface soils and sub-surface
soils with those of sediment deposits from the reservoir at the outlet of the catchment. Results indicated that landscape location
had the most significant impact on sediment production for cultivated hillslopes, followed by the terraced hillslope, and the
least for the vegetated hillslope. Sediment production increased in the following order: top > upper > lower > middle
for the cultivated hillslope, and top > lower > upper > middle for the terraced hillslope. The mean value of sediment
production declined by 49% for the terraced hillslope and by 80% for the vegetated hillslope compared with the cultivated
hillslope. Vegetated gully slope reduced the sediment production by 38% compared with the cultivated gully slope. These data
demonstrate the effectiveness of terracing and perennial vegetation cover in controlling sediment delivery at a hillslope scale.
Averaged 137 Cs activities and 210 Pb/137 Cs ratios in the 05 cm surface soil (2.224.70 Bq kg1 and 20.7022.07, respectively)
and in the 530 cm subsoil (2.60 Bq kg1 and 28.57, respectively) on the cultivated hills and gully slopes were close to those
of the deposited sediment in the reservoir (3.37 Bq kg1 and 29.08, respectively). These results suggest that the main sediment
sources in the catchment were from the surface soil and subsoil on the cultivated slopes, and that gully erosion is the dominant
water erosion process contributing sediment in the study area. Changes in land use types can greatly affect sediment production
from gully erosion. An increase in grassland and forestland by 42%, and a corresponding decrease in farmland by 46%, reduced
sediment production by 31% in the catchment.
2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Cesium-137; 210 Pb/137 Cs ratio; Gully erosion; Sediment production; Land use; Chinese Loess Plateau

Corresponding author. Present address: Institute of Agricultural Environment and Sustainable Development, Chinese Academy of
Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), Zhongguancun South Street 12, Beijing 100081, PR China. Tel.: +86-10-62137112; fax: +86-10-62137112.
E-mail addresses: yongli32@hotmail.com, yongli@ami.ac.cn (Y. Li).

0167-1987/02/$ see front matter 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/S0167-1987(02)00132-0

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Y. Li et al. / Soil & Tillage Research 69 (2003) 107115

1. Introduction

2. Study area and methods

Over the last decade, there has been an increasing concern about the relationship of catastrophic floods to water erosion in northwest (Loess
Plateau) and southwest China (Upper Yangtze River
Basin), particularly since the most recent ones of
August 1998 in the Yangtze River Basin. Water
erosion-induced siltation of the reservoirs and lakes
resulting from inappropriate land use and intensive cultivation of very steep hillslopes is considered to be the main cause of these catastrophic
floods. Therefore, controlling water erosion by planting grasses and forests on steep hills and gully
slopes (Fu, 1989; Li et al., 1989, 1992; Zhang
et al., 2000) is a key issue among the strategies
proposed by Chinese government for China West
Development.
The existing designs of these conservation practices are mainly based on the knowledge and information related to rill and inter-rill erosion using
small runoff plots. Monitoring and experimental
erosion data at the hillslope and catchment scales
are lacking. Gully erosion processes, which operate at a larger spatial scales, have mostly been
neglected in many water erosion studies in China
(Zhu, 1984; Tang, 1993). In addition, with the
only available information based on runoff plots,
land use planners and policy makers have difficulty in understanding the diversity of landscapes,
soils, sediment production, and conservation structure impacts operating at a large scale. Given the
growing interests in soil erosion studies at the catchment scale (Poesen et al., 1996a,b; Govers and
Poesen, 2000), there is a clear need for assessing spatial routing systems of sediment by gully
erosion at both hillslope and catchment scales
to effectively control sediment delivery in west
China.
This study was conducted in the Yangjuangou
reservoir catchment of the Loess Plateau in northwest
China. The objectives are to (1) identify distribution
patterns of sediment production along the cultivated
hills and gully slopes under different land uses, (2)
determine sediment sources and the contribution of
gully erosion to sediment yield at the catchment scale,
and (3) assess the effect of changes in land use on
sediment yields in the catchment.

2.1. Description of study area

The study area is the Yangjuangou catchment
(36 42 N, 109 31 E) and information regarding its
environment can be found in Li et al. (1997) and Fu
et al. (2000). The area is representative of the rolling
and hilly topography of the Chinese Loess Plateau,
where many erosion studies have been conducted
in the past 40 years. The catchment covers an area
of 2.02 km2 , at an elevation of 10251250 m above
mean sea level, near Yanan city, in the northern
Shaanxi province, northwest China. It is a second
order tributary of the Yanhe River, which drains into
the Yellow River. The gully density is 2.74 km km2 .
The topography of the study area can be divided
into inter-gully area (hillslopes) and gully area (gully
slopes) (Figs. 1 and 2). The hillslope consists of top
portion and linear backslope portion that includes
upper, middle and lower parts. The slope gradients
range between 10 and 30 . Soils in the study area are
Calcaric-Cambisols (FAO, 1997), uniformly textured
and weakly structured. The typical particle size distribution of this soil is 20% sand, 55% silt and 25%
clay by weight. The mean annual rainfall is 550 mm
and rainfall patterns are highly variable, both monthly
and annually. Seventy percent of the rainfall occurs
between July and September. Water erosion problems
are the result of runoff scouring, deforestation, and
cultivation of steep slopes up to 40 and the extremely
high erodibility of the loess soils when lacking vegetation cover (Li, 1995). The forest on hillslopes is
planted including Pinus tabulaeformis and Robinia
psendoacacia. The natural grasses in the catchment
include Bothriochloa ischaemum, Themeda triandra
var. japonica, and Carex filipes. The crops grown on
the farmland are potatoes, beans and millet.
2.2. Methods
Field surveys of topography, land use types, and
soil and sediment sampling were conducted during
19931998 on hills and gully slopes, and the reservoir. Three hillslopes including top and backslope
portions and having a typical land use structure for
more than 20 years were selected to provide an assessment of spatial patterns of sediment production under

Y. Li et al. / Soil & Tillage Research 69 (2003) 107115

109

Fig. 1. Gullied area and inter-gully area of the study catchment. The reservoir is at the outlet of the catchment (middle distance).

specific land management practices at hillslope scale

through the 137 Cs technique (Ritchie and McHenry,
1990). They were (a) a cultivated hillslope, (b) a terraced farm hillslope, and (c) a vegetated hillslope, i.e.
grassland on the top portion, forest on the upper and
middle portion, and grassland on the lower portion of
the backslope (grass/forest). Two gully slopes were

selected: one gully slope was cultivated and the other

was grassland where natural grasses were sparsely distributed. The soil sampling for 137 Cs was undertaken
using a 6.74 cm diameter hand-operated core sampler,
with samples taken at 10 m intervals along cultivated
and vegetated hillslope and gully slope transects,
and 35 m intervals along the terraced farm hillslope

Fig. 2. A cultivated hillslope of the study catchment with (a) slope gradients of 333 , (b) elevation of 1238 m above mean sea level, and
(c) crops grown including potatoes, beans and millet.

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Y. Li et al. / Soil & Tillage Research 69 (2003) 107115

transect including all portions of the terrace. Three

cores were collected at each sampling point to a depth
of 50 cm and were then bulked to make a composite
sample. Depth-profiling carried out showed that sampling to this depth ensured that all 137 Cs inventory of
the soil profile was measured. There were 24 composite samples collected on cultivated hillslope transect,
12 samples on terraced farm hillslope transect, 24 samples on the vegetated hillslope transect, six samples
on the cultivated gully slope and six samples on the
vegetated gully slope transects.
Five reference sites for determining the 137 Cs
fallout in the study area were established at undisturbed, uneroded, level terraced fields constructed
in 1954, and grassland in the catchment. A mean
value of 2390 Bq m2 (2390 360 Bq m2 , n = 5)
was determined as the actual fallout of 137 Cs in the
study area. This value was close to the global average (Ritchie and McHenry, 1990), and the range of
23652741 Bq m2 reported by Zhang et al. (1998)
within 40 km of the study area.
To determine sediment sources at the catchment
scale, five vertical sediment profiles to a depth of 3 m
with 90 samples in the reservoir at the outlet of the
catchment and 105 samples from the catchment including 93 samples from 0 to 5 cm surface soils with
different land uses and 12 samples from 5 to 30 cm
subsurface soils on cultivated land, were collected for
137 Cs and 210 Pb analysis. We investigated the total
sediment production delivered from the catchment to
the reservoir during the period 19801996. From interviews with the local senior experts and farmers it
was determined that the dam was built in December
1979 to a height of 15.7 m. In 1994, its height was
increased by 4.6 m, resulting in an increase in the volume of stored water. Since 1980, about 90% of the
sediment delivered from this catchment has been intercepted in the dam reservoir (Li et al., 1997).
Soil samples were air-dried, weighed and passed
through a 2 mm screen. Typically, a sub-sample of
1000 g of the finer fraction (<2 mm) of each sample
was then extracted for measurements of 137 Cs concentration while sub-sample of 300 g of each sample for
measurements of 210 Pbex concentration were stored
28 days to ensure equilibrium between 226 Ra and
its daughter 222 Rn (half-life 3.8 days), an inert gas.
Measurements of 137 Cs and 210 Pb concentration were
undertaken at the Institute for Application of Atomic

Energy, Beijing, using a hyperpure coaxial Ge detector coupled to a multi-channel analyzer. Cesium-137
content of samples was detected at 662 keV peak
while total 210 Pb concentration was determined at
42.52 keV, the 226 Ra was obtained at 351.9 keV and
using counting time over 80,000 s, which provided an
analytical precision of 6% for 137 Cs and 10% for
210 Pb. Unsupported 210 Pb or 210 Pb
ex concentrations
of the samples were calculated by subtracting the
226 Ra-supported 210 Pb concentration from the total
210 Pb concentrations. The results of 137 Cs were originally calculated on a per unit mass basis (Bq kg1 )
and were then converted to the inventory (Bq m2 )
using the total weight of the bulked core sample and
the cross-sectional area of sampling device. Soil bulk
densities (Mg m3 ) calculations were based on volume of bulked soil cores and oven-dried soil mass
determinations (Li and Lindstrom, 2001).
Using 137 Cs to estimate sediment production involves the comparison of the measured inventories (total activity in the soil profile per unit area) at the study
sites with an estimate of the total atmospheric input
obtained from a reference site. By this comparison
one can determine whether erosion (less 137 Cs present
than at the reference site) or deposition (more 137 Cs
present than at the reference site) has occurred. In our
studies, the profile distribution model was used for
estimating total soil redistribution rate at individual
sampling points on non-cultivated land and the 137 Cs
mass balance model on terraced and cultivated slopes
(Walling and He, 1999). An appropriate k-value of
250 kg per year m1 for the study area (Govers et al.,
1996; Li and Lindstrom, 2001) was used for simulating tillage erosion rates from topographical survey data (Li et al., 2000; Li and Lindstrom, 2001;
Lindstrom et al., 2000). At each 137 Cs sampling point
of terraced and cultivated slopes, the soil erosion rates
due to overland flow can be calculated by subtracting
tillage erosion rates from total soil erosion rates. For
different landscape locations, sediment production can
be calculated by the difference between the gross erosion rate (total soil erosion amount divided by total
area of the slope) and gross aggradation rate (total soil
deposition amount divided by total area of the slope).
In order to link the sediment production to land
use changes, aerial photograph interpretation and field
survey techniques were used to distinguish six land
use types in the catchment. These are: (a) farmland

Y. Li et al. / Soil & Tillage Research 69 (2003) 107115

111

61% (on a 2390 137 Cs-reference value basis) for the

cultivated hillslope compared to 28% for the terraced
hillslope and 15% for the vegetated hillslope.
Landscape locations had the most significant impact on sediment production for cultivated hillslope,
the second significant impact for the terraced hillslope,
and least for the vegetated hillslope. Sediment production increased in the following order: top > upper >
lower > middle for the cultivated hillslope, and top >
lower > upper >middle for the terraced hillslope.
The highest sediment production occurred on the middle portion, whereas the lowest sediment production
occurred on the top portion of the cultivated hillslopes. There was little difference in sediment production among the different landscape locations (except
the upper portion) for the vegetated hillslope.
For gully slope areas, the sediment production on
cultivated land was greater than that on grassland
(Table 1). Vegetated gully slope reduced the sediment
production by 38% compared to the cultivated gully
slope (Table 1). These data demonstrated the effectiveness of terracing and perennial vegetation cover
in controlling sediment delivery at a hillslope scale.
It should be noted that the estimated sediment production from the hillslopes (inter-gully areas) and
gully slopes (gully areas) must be considered as underestimates. As the surface of the gully slopes and
deep soil layers have not been labeled by 137 Cs fallout, the 137 Cs technique would not be appropriate to
estimate gully and especially ephemeral gully erosion
rates. During a field survey made in the Chinese Loess
Plateau, Tang (1993) found that the total sediment
production on cultivated hillslopes varied between 97
and 103 t ha1 per year and with a mean value of ca
100 t ha1 per year.

including cultivated hillslopes, cultivated gully slopes,

terraced farm hillslopes, and check dams at the bottom
of the gully; (b) grassland on hills and gully slopes;
(c) forestland on hills and gully slopes; (d) orchard on
hills and gully slopes; (e) gully floor; (f) residential
land on the lower portions of the gully slopes. GIS
was used for analysis of land use changes in the study
area between 1984 and 1996 (Fu et al., 2000).

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Spatial patterns of sediment production on hills
and gully slopes
Table 1 shows a distinct spatial pattern of mediumterm (45 years) sediment production calculated from
137 Cs data for cultivated hill and gully slopes. Negative 137 Cs residuals averaging greater than 40% of the
137 Cs reference inventory have occurred over 92% of
the sampled cultivated hillslope (data not shown). Average net 137 Cs inventories losses at the top, upper,
middle, and lower portions of the cultivated hillslope
are respectively 23, 75, 74, and 70% compared to the
137 Cs reference inventory (2390 Bq m2 ). This indicates that serious soil erosion and sediment production
have occurred over the entire cultivated slopes.
For the study hillslopes, sediment production on the
cultivated hillslope was significantly higher than that
on the terraced and vegetated hillslopes (Table 1). The
mean value of sediment production declined by 49%
for terraced hillslope and by 80% for the vegetated
hillslope compared to the average sediment production
of 50 t ha1 a1 for the cultivated hillslope (Table 1).
The corresponding mean loss in 137 Cs inventory was

Table 1
Distribution patterns of mean sediment production caused by water erosion and its standard deviation on hills and gully slopes under
different land usesa
Location

Cultivated hillslope
(t ha1 a1 )a

Top
Upper
Middle
Lower

17
49
71
63

6
30
25
16

Terraced farm
hillslope (t ha1 a1 )b
13
27
37
25

10
16
36
11

Six samples were collected at each slope location.

Three samples were collected on each location.
c Six samples were collected.
b

Vegetated hillslope
(grass/forest) (t ha1 a1 )a
11
2
17
11

6
8
15
21

Cultivated gully
slope (t ha1 a1 )c
87
87
87
87

41
41
41
41

Vegetated gully slope

(grasses) (t ha1 a1 )c
54
54
54
54

18
18
18
18

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Y. Li et al. / Soil & Tillage Research 69 (2003) 107115

3.2. Contribution of gully erosion to sediment

production in the catchment
It is possible to identify the dominant erosion processes for the sediment in the reservoir using 137 Cs
concentrations and 210 Pb/137 Cs ratios for deposited
sediments (Wallbrink and Murray, 1993; Li et al.,
1997). In brief, cesium-137 accumulates preferentially
in surface soils to a depth of 20 cm (plough depth for
cultivated farmland). If little or no 137 Cs is detectable
in the reservoir deposits, it can be inferred that the sediment has been primarily eroded from subsoil sources.
Another radionuclide used for soil tracing is unsupported 210 Pb, which is an end product of U-238 decay series with a half-life of 22.2 years. Total 210 Pb
concentrations may include fallout 210 Pb (unsupported
210 Pb or 210 Pb ) from the atmosphere and supported
ex
210 Pb produced in situ from soils. Unsupported 210 Pb
concentration changes with soil depth and land use.
The ratio of unsupported 210 Pb to 137 Cs is also a useful indicator of the erosion source. In a previous study,
in general, the bare loess (uncultivated soil) had the
highest ratio; subsoil the second highest and vegetated
soils the least in the study area (Li et al., 1997).
Table 2 summarizes the mean values of 137 Cs content and 210 Pb/137 Cs ratios and their standard deviations of the catchment surface and subsurface soils
within the Yangjuangou catchment. If we assume two
depths of sediment sources (i.e. surface 05 cm and
Table 2
Mean cesium-137 contents and
of the Yangjuangou Reservoir

210 Pb/137 Cs

subsurface soils 530 cm), then the data for the various land uses in Table 2 can be compared with the
137 Cs content (3.37 Bq kg1 ) and the 210 Pb/137 Cs ratio
(29.08) of the sediment in the reservoir. The weighted
average 137 Cs concentration of 05 cm surface soils
was 6.84 Bq kg1 for the whole sampling sites in the
catchment, 8.24 Bq kg1 for forest and grassland and
4.29 Bq kg1 for farmland. The averaged 137 Cs concentration of surface and subsurface soils on the farmland was 3.45 Bq kg1 , which was close to that of the
deposited sediment in the reservoir. These data suggest
that the dominant source of the reservoir sediments
was not the surface soil from the slopes supporting forest and grasses of the study catchment but the surface
soil and subsoil from the cultivated slopes (farmland).
The interpretation of sediment source can also be best
illustrated by the 210 Pb/137 Cs ratio data (Table 2).
The averaged value of 210 Pb/137 Cs ratio (28.57) in the
530 cm subsoil of cultivated slopes is consistent with
the value (29.08) in the reservoir sediment, further
confirming that this sediment is mainly derived from
the eroded subsoil by gully erosion.
Tang (1993) found that gully erosion on cultivated
hills and gully slopes of the loess plateau represented
5270% of the total soil loss, averaging 60% (Table 3).
This finding is in agreement with our results in that
sediment is derived mainly from the eroded subsoil by
gully erosion, rather than from the surface materials
eroded by rill and inter-rill erosion (Table 2).

ratios and their standard deviations for the potential sediment source areas within the catchment
Land use

137 Cs

05 cm surface soils
Inter-gully area
Hillslopes
Hillslopes
Terraces

Farmland
Grass and forest
Farmland

Gully area
Gully slopes
Gully slopes
Gully slopes
Check dam
Gully slope

(Bq kg1 )

210 Pb/137 Cs

No. of samples

4.70 2.14
8.25 3.22
4.61 0.10

20.70 12.95
12.10 5.21
12.19 87.64

32
18
6

Farmland
Grass and forest
Uncultivated
Farmland
Residential land

2.22 1.13
9.15 3.05
0.70 0.47
3.57 1.52
Undetected

21.30 21.85
10.34 5.20
41.85 15.15
22.07 18.70
Undetected

14
10
6
4
3

530 cm sub-soils
Hill and gully slopes

Farmland

2.60 2.00

28.57 21.70

12

Reservoir sediment (19801998)

Water

3.37 1.14

29.08 17.25

90

Y. Li et al. / Soil & Tillage Research 69 (2003) 107115

113

Table 3
Contributions of rill and gully erosion to total soil loss on cultivated hillslope and gully slope from field measurements on the Loess
Plateau (Tang, 1993)
Plot no.

6
2
3

Location

Hillslope
Gully slope
Hill + gully

Total (t ha1 a1 )

103
218
153

Rill + gully

Rill erosion

Gully erosion

t ha1 a1

t ha1 a1

t ha1 a1

22
67
48

21.3
30.7
31.4

72
126
80

69.9
57.8
52.3

94
193
128

91.3
88.5
83.7

Average

27.8

Field investigations evidenced that there was little

erosion on the gully slopes supporting grasses and forest, with light erosion on the uncultivated slope land.
Severe shallow and deep gully erosion, however, occurred over the cultivated hills and gully slopes. Sometimes, serious gully erosion also occurs on the check
dam (farmland) because of the destruction caused by
mountain floods, such as the torrents that occurred in
1977, 1983 and 1996 (Fig. 3). These results suggested
that gully erosion on the cultivated land is probably
the major soil erosion and sediment contributing process in the study area.
3.3. Impacts of land use change on sediment
production by gully erosion
To elucidate how land use affects sediment production due to gully erosion, a detailed investigation on

60.0

87.8

land use changes within the catchment was made using aerial photograph interpretation and field survey
techniques (Fu et al., 2000). The change in area of
land use types between 1984 and 1996 is summarized
in Table 4. Total sediment yields from the study catchment were estimated from the survey of sediment deposits in the sediment trap reservoirs (Table 5). During
the time periods between the years 1980 and 1996, the
average sedimentation yield was 82 t ha1 a1 , which
is consistent with the published data estimated from
river sediments by Tang (1993) and Jing (1995) for
the study area.
Over the last 20 years, significant changes took
place on the Chinese Loess Plateau with the conversion of steep farmland into forest, grassland and
terraces. Farmers and local communities were encouraged to plant fruit trees on hillslopes and establish orchards on broad terraces instead of cultivating sloping

Fig. 3. Gully erosion on check dam (farmland) caused by one rainfall event in July 1996 in the study catchment.

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Y. Li et al. / Soil & Tillage Research 69 (2003) 107115

Table 4
Changes in main land use types in the catchment between 1984
and 1996
Land use types 1984 (% area) 1996 (% area) Changes in %
Farmland
Grassland
Forestland
Orchard

37.93
41.30
10.18
3.95

46.35
+4.67
+37.52
+243.54

20.35
43.23
14.00
13.57

Table 5
Sediment production within the Yangjuangou catchment, derived
from the survey of sediment in the reservoir at outlet of the
catchment
Time period

No. of
years
(year)

Volume
(m3 )

Weight
(t)

Sediment
deposition
(t ha1 a1 )

19801990
19921996

11
5

152280
48000

201009
63360

90.42
62.73

land to increase their incomes. An increase in grassland and forestland by 42% and a corresponding
decrease in farmland by 46% (Table 4) decreased sediment production by 31% in the catchment (Table 5).
These data indicate that an increase in vegetation
cover by adjusting land use structure could greatly decrease the total sediment production caused by gully
erosion, although gully erosion rates from the agricultural areas of the catchment can vary considerable
in space and time (Poesen et al., 1996a).

4. Conclusions
The following conclusions can be drawn from this
study:
(1) Distribution in sediment production increased in
the following order: top > upper > lower >
middle for the cultivated hillslope, and top >
lower > upper > middle for the terraced hillslope. There was little difference in sediment production among the different landscape locations
(except the upper portion) for the vegetated hillslope.
(2) Cultivated gully slopes and hillslopes, and check
dam (farmland) are the major sediment sources in
the study area.

(3) Changes in land use can greatly affect sediment

production due to gully erosion. Establishing
grasses and forests with 70% cover on steep slope
locations can reduce sediment production from
hillslopes by 80%. An increase in grassland and
forestland by 42% and a decrease in farmland by
46% decreased sediment production by 31% in
the catchment.
(4) Changes in land use types associated with an increase in vegetation cover on the hills and gully
slopes should, therefore, be the key strategy of
ecological restoration for sediment reduction and
flood control in China West Development.

Acknowledgements
The first author is grateful to the Alexander von
Humboldt Foundation (IV CHN 1039279) for granting
financial support for his research stay in Germany. Financial support for this project was provided by the International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, under Research Contract No. 9042 and No. 8814, the National
Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 40071054
and No. 90202005), and the Hundred Talents Project
of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

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