| Northwestern region of China is the agricultural civilization cradle at ancient time. However, the agriculture development in this area was especially difficult due to frequently occurring natural disasters, and many disaster elimination and resistance technologies have developed and used by people during historical time. This paper mainly discussed natural disaster during historical periods and its relation to agricultural technology selection. The obtained results are as follows:Part I: Introduction - objective and significance of the research. Based on the literature search and analysis on natural disasters happened in northwestern region and agriculture development history, it was found that the disaster elimination in this area included main three kinds of technologies: crop based technologies, biological, chemistry and physical technologies, and water resource engineering technologies.Part II: Agricultural development risk caused by natural disasters in historical time of northwestern region. Because of the week ecological and geographical environment as well as the continental climate, plenty of natural disasters occurred in northwestern region. The most serious and extensively occurred disaster is drought. Based on the type analysis of natural disaster, it was showed that the disasters were changed with seasons and created serious impacts on the whole agricultural production process.Part III: Crop cultivar selection and breeding for disaster resistance and elimination during historical time. In order to decrease the impacts on agriculture caused by disasters, farmer usually selected the cultivars with high capacity of disaster resistance for production. The crop resistance capacity to disaster was found greatly improved during Ming and Qing Dynasty. Strong disaster resistance, high diversions of cultivar selection and breeding, and high crop yield are the important characteristics.Part IV: Development of drought resistance technology during agriculture development in the historical period in northwestern region. Due to the serious disaster of drought, the drought resistance and water conservation technology was developed and selected for agriculture production. Physical, chemical and biological technologies was selected and used for insect, frost and hail disasters. Covering soil surface with sand and small stones in Longdong, Gusu set a useful model for drought resistance in northwestern China.Part V: Technologies for prevention of crop lose and damage during agriculture development in the historical period in northwestern region. Crop harvest and storage are the key points for production at the late cropping period, and disaster resistance technology should be able to prevent crop lose and damage. Development of high-efficient tools and used different insect prevention technologies for storage had played great roles in decreasing product lose and keeping all harvests in storage.Part VI: Water resistance engineering construction during agriculture development in the historical period in northwestern region. Widely distributed water resistance engineering was found had close relationships with frequently occurred drought disasters. In different places, irrigation with river water and/or rainfall had been developed and become the dominant technology for prevention of drought disasters. Irrigation by underground water and the Kaner Well were two special methods for drought resistance in northwestern China, and had contributed a great deal to agriculture development in this area. |
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