Experience of Basin Landscapes in China Agriculture has led to Ecologically Prudent Engineering

INTRODUCTION

Under certain conditions, natural selection will favor animals that use resources prudently, so that ecological prudence can be developed as an instinctive trait of some animal species, (see Gadgil 1985). These conditions embrace the following aspects:

1) Resources are scarce or their stock is perceivably limited. In such a situation, the maintenance phenotype of population will be favored instead of the dispersal phenotype by means of natural section (Geist 1978).
2) Resources are defensible. This means the prudent group will not be deprived of the product by invaders.
3) The animal group as a whole can benefit from the prudent behavior of each individual in the long run. This is self-evident if we keep in mind that individuals act as representatives of genes (Geist 1978); it is the gene that is selfish. Individuals will save as much of the resources as possible for the coming generations.
4) The group must be well organized and pure enough. That means the group can effectively kick out and control individuals who behave profligately towards the environment, and fight against invaders to protect their prudent products.
It is reasonable to deduce that only when these four conditions are met simultaneously will animal species evolve adaptive prudent behavior as an instinctive trait. According to the dispersal theory (Geist 1978), traits of animals, especially mammals, evolve mainly during dispersal when resources are abundant, so profligacy will be more common among animals. Man as an animal was evolved with his first bold step into the Savanna rather than into the periglacial region characterized by rich resources, so the human lacks a system of physiological or neural controls over gratification (Bennet 1980) and ecological prudence can not be a trait of human beings. However, culture is just ways of adaptation, and much of the cultural behavior of human beings has adaptive value (Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman 1981; Plog and Bates 1980) . Thus when a certain culture develops under the conditions mentioned, ecological prudence may become a trait of the culture. In the following pages, we will see that the Chinese culture (of agriculture) , as adaptations to the basin environment, has developed a pattern of ecologically prudent behavior toward the natural environment.

THE BASIN EXPERIENCE OF CHINESE CULTURE

We are convinced, for the following verifiable reasons, that Chinese ways of coping with the environment are mainly adaptions to the basin environment that Chinese agriculture has long experienced.

1) From Homo erectus yuanmouensis dating back to around 1.7 million years ago to the dawn of agricultural civilization, Chinese Hominid ancestors were distributed among mountain basins and valleys along the edges bordering the three major physical geopraphic zones: the East Monsoon zone, The Northwest Arid Zone and The Tibetan Alpine Zone.

2) The multi-centred Neolithic cultures in China developed along with the distribution pattern of pre-Neolithic cultures, with their centres in basins surrounding the great north China plain, which was not yet stable for settlement during this period because of the floodprone Yellow River (The History of Chinese Civilization 1989) .

3) The Zhou people, which made the most important contribution to Chinese culture, evolved during the period in the Guanzhong Basin in mid Shanxi Province which was of optimum size. Actually, it was this magic basin that gave birth to the first written Chinese book I Ching (Yu 1990a), which is considered as the most important source of Chinese culture. When one notices the fact that the Chinese culture has hardly ever moved too far away from the Classics, one may better understand the significance of the ecological experience in the Guanzhong Basin to Chinese culture, especially to the adaptive ways coping with the environment (Yu 1990a) . In Chinese history, "fighting for power" usually occurred on the great north China Plain, but it was surrounding areas away from the great plain that nurtured powers like the Zhou people, which then came to be displayed on the great plain (Liu 1987). Recognizing the main flow of the Chinese culture as an agricultural one, the author emphasizes that the surrounding basins which were more suitable for agriculture must be taken in special consideration.

4) "Fighting for power on the Central Plain" has led repeatedly to the formation of "no-man's land" (Jin et al 1990). To escape death the civil residents fled into the hilly area of south-east China, where a series of small basins act as natural refuges. This was especially obvious during the dynasties of Eastern Jin (317-420 AD) and Southern Song (1127-1279). It made the Chinese model their ideal society on a basin, which is vividly illustrated by Tao Yuanming's "the land of peach blossoms" from the Eastern Jin Dynasty.

5) From the geographical distribution pattern of the Chinese population, one can see that the population is most densely distributed in the Sichuan Basin, Guanzhong Basin, south-east China's hilly land, etc (Wu and Zhang 1984; Jin et al 1990). This has further strengthened the basin characteristics of Chinese Culture.

6) The Theory and practice of Feng-shui, which sum up typical ways that Chinese cope with their environment, were mainly developed against the background of the hilly landscape in south-east China, and the ideal Feng-shui mode is actually an idealized basin (Yu 1990c, 1991a, 1991b). The rules of Feng-shui have made the rural landscapes so beautiful and ecologically healthful that even modern scientists can not help expressing their admiration (e.g. Feng and Wang 1989; Lip 1987; Needham 1962; Skinner 1982) .

7) Because of the backwardness of land transportation, basins that have always had a glorious agricultural civilization during the long history of water-way transportation have still kept the splendid traditional agricultural landscapes intact. However, according to modern standards of value, they are the "third world" in this country and need to be developed, and the only way for the development of these areas is eco-development. Thus, Chinese agriculture has experienced and will continue to experience a basin environment, which has always had a great influence on the evolution of ecologically prudent behavior in Chinese culture. The effects of the basin on the evolution on the prudence will be investigated as follows.