Evolutive characteristics of cold damage of economic forest fruits in Guangxi during 1961 to 2008

Analyzing the evolutive characteristics of cold damage under climate change is important to provide theorical evidences for instituting policies on issue of disaster prevention and mitigation. Cold damage index (HI) was established based on five climatic factors, such as the extreme minimum air temperature, the accumulative days below 5℃, the accumulated cold harmful temperature with daily minimum air temperature below 5℃, the maximum amplitude of daily temperature and accumulative days with daily precipitation above 5 mm. The weather data of 77 meteorological stations from 1961 to 2008 in Guangxi was analysed. The frequency, intensity, the ratio of 77 stations and inter-decadal variations of cold damage of economic forest fruits in Guangxi were studied using HI. The spatial distribution of cold damage intensity was generated by geographic information system (GIS). The results showed that the frequency, ratio of existing station and the intensity of cold damage were more serious in 1960s and 1970s, than that in 1990s; While it was increased in 2001 to 2008 compared with 1990s; overall, it had a slight decreasing from 1961 to 2008. The commercial growing region of economic forest fruits in Guangxi, where the cold damage intensity is less than 0.24, is distributed in the south of Guangxi, including CangWu, MengShan, LaiBin, DuAn, BaMa, BaiSe, etc.