Cover Story：Geographic map showing the groundwater safeguard capacity situation of the main grain production region in the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain. Centered on the national grain safety strategy and based on innovation of key technologies, research-ers have found out the dependency degree of agricultural irrigation on groundwater in this region, revealed the ‘strong fall-weak rise’ regularity of the groundwater level in the groundwater over-exploitation area, and expounded for the first time the groundwater safe-guard capacity in China’s main grain production region, thus providing important scientific basis for the policy-making of national grain safety strategy and the solving of the groundwater over-exploitation problem in North China. The research achievement led by Professor ZHANG Guang-hui, Institute of Hydrogeology and Environmental Geology, CAGS, ranks the eighth among “Top Ten Geological Sci-tech Progresses of CGS and CAGS in 2015”. For details see pp. 257-265 of this issue. (Photo by ZHANG Guang-hui)
