Study on the Relationship Between Kaschin-Beck Diseases (KBD) Distribution and Mountain Semi-Luvisols&rsquo|Distribution in Tibet
西藏山地半淋溶土壤分布与大骨节病关系研究

Kaschin-Beck Disease (KBD) is an endemic osteoarthropathy distributed from North-east to South-west of China. Most disease areas are located in temperate zone and warm temperate zone with forest brown soil and cinnamon forest soil. Tibet is one of the serious and active areas of KBD now. It mainly distributes in mountain and canyon areas located in wetness and half wetness areas of plateau temperate zone. The cultivated soils are mountain brown soil, mountain cinnamon soil, mountain grey cinnamon soil and plateau shrubby steppe soil. This paper studies the relationship between the KBD distribution and the cultivated cinnamon soil and cultivated grey cinnamon soil distributions through comparison analysis of areas of different subgroups of cinnamon soil and grey cinnamon forest soil in KBD affected counties and non-KBD affected counties. The results show that: mountain cultivated Semi-Luvisols, cinnamon and grey cinnamon soils are main soil types in KBD affected area in Tibet. 89.4% of cultivated cinnamon and 97.4% of cultivated grey cinnamon soils are distributed in KBD counties. For similar cultivated Semi-Luvisols’ environment, KBD tends to distribute in South slopes of Nyainqentanglha Mountain, North bank of Brahmaputra River. While most areas in North slopes of Himalayan Mountain are KBD areas, South bank of Brahmaputra River are non-KBD areas. It indicates that the area affected by KBD is probably related with the lithology and substance’s source of soil mother materials. Further more, the severity of soil and water loss was a likely important factor impacting on KBD distribution in Tibet. Soil loss and erosion is mostly concentrated on KBD affected area, and non-KBD affected counties tend to distribute in areas with flat topography and weak soil loss and erosion. It is important to probe the relationship of KBD distribution and prevalence with the territorial differentiation of soil in typical KBD affected areas and the degree of soil loss and erosion in Tibet.