strong scientific infrastructure. CAS also hosts the China Center for the ICSU Committee on Data for Science and Technology (CODATA) and is the secretariat for the ICSU World Data Center (WDC)-D, and five of the nine WDC-D subcenters¹³ are in CAS. Furthermore, CAS is in the process of upgrading its ecological stations into a network for long-term studies.

The draft CNCIGBP proposal to the START Standing Committee demonstrates the large and multidisciplinary research enterprise that CAS offers to the study of environmental and climate change. The proposed scientific themes closely reflect the current Chinese research agenda. Overall, this proposal will be further strengthened when details are added concerning multilateral links in the proposed EAWEP region.

Of the developing countries, China offers one of the most advanced scientific infrastructures. Furthermore, it is an important site for research in many of the global change topics. A strong role for China in START would be beneficial to China, the region, and the three major international global change programs.

Data and Information Systems (DIS) for the IGBP was established to provide global data needed by core projects and, eventually, to provide data management and information services (IGBP 1990). Since its inception, DIS has been open to China's active involvement, for example, in the development of a 1 km global AVHRR data set and in having a site for one of the DIS land cover change pilot studies.

Under the leadership of Fu Congbin, who is from the CAS Institute of Atmospheric Physics and a representative from China to the SC-IGBP, the Chinese global change program has two relevant activities using Chinese AVHRR data. First, Fu has used AVHRR data to produce a normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) for the country. Second, and most recently, in collaboration with the State Meteorological Satellite Center on a national project of the Eighth 5-Year Plan, the CAS Institute of Atmospheric Physics will produce 1 km AVHRR data sets for the first time in China.

In IGBP Report No. 12 (1990), listed under DIS are various sites around the world for land cover change pilot studies, one of them being the Gansu Grassland Project. In 1990, the Gansu Grassland Ecological Research Institute was named as the lead institute for a