Research progress on permafrost in cold region ecosystem

Permafrost near earth surface is an important part of terrestrial ecosystem, and its research is a special concern of ecologists, hydrologists and engineers. Climate change plays a significant role on permafrost, being an indispensable part of the permafrost research at home and abroad. At the same time, the study on the hydrological and ecological effects of permafrost is developing. In China, the research on permafrost has a close link with the economic development in cold region, and admiring achievements have been obtained in the distribution, type, and degradation of permafrost, and especially in the exploitation of permafrost region. In the future, more attention should be paid on the permafrost mapping with high resolution and the thickness variation of permafrost active layer, and a long-term observation system on this variation should be established to better understand the response and feedback of terrestrial ecosystem to global climate change.