| Abstract: | Although soil freeze/thaw phenomena were reported centuries ago in the historical Chinese literature, systematic study of permafrost in China started in the 1950s. Permafrost research in China has been related to the exploration for and economic development of natural resources. Intensive investigations for several decades culminated in 2000 in the publication of a detailed map of geocryological regionalization and classification. From this map, it is estimated that permafrost covers approximately 23% of the country. About 80% of China's permafrost is mountain permafrost. China contains about 74.5% of the mountain permafrost area of the northern hemisphere. Since the early 1960s, researchers in China have conducted numerous field campaigns to determine permafrost and ground-ice distribution. A comprehensive ground-based and long-term monitoring network has been established on the Tibetan Plateau and in northeastern China. The State Key Laboratory of Frozen Soil Engineering (SKLFSE) was established in 1991 and is open to national and international engineers and scientists to conduct related studies and experiments. Numerous field and laboratory experiments, as well as numerical modeling, have been conducted to meet the requirements for industrial design, construction, and operation in permafrost regions. Rescuing, archiving, and distributing historical permafrost data would greatly aid the ability of scientists to assess long-term changes in permafrost and its potential influence on the natural and engineered environment. Chinese geocryologists and engineers are facing new challenges with the construction and future operation of the Qinghai-Xizang railroad that will cross 550 km of permafrost on the Tibetan Plateau. |
