Material Flux From River to Sea and Its Response to Land and Sea Environment Changes

The study on material flux from river to sea is an important subject of programs "Joint Global Ocean Flux Study(JGOFS)" and "Land-Ocean Interaction of Coastal Zone(LOICZ)",and China is one of pioneering countries to make the material flux study.Since 1990s,some projects granted by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the National Key Basic Research Development Plan of China have made the studies on river flux and marginal sea flux,and the incoming thematic program "National Investigation of Coastal Zone Environment" has taken the study on material flux from major rivers to the seas and its effects on marine environment as one of main tasks.In this paper,based on the new advances in the study on river material flux at home and abroad,the concept of material flux from river to sea and its response to the adjacent land and sea envirnment changes are systematically expounded,and then it is emphatically pointed out that the material flux from river to sea is an important parameter for studying the land-sea interaction and its effects on the global changes.Finally,the problems needing solving in studying the material flux from river to sea are summarized.