Regional governance in China has shown the periodic feature, notably under the city regionalism in recent years. Examining the formation of regional governance in China is conducive to probing the China’s city-regionalization as well as the features of institutional architecture oriented integrated development. The dynamic and continuing game process in terms of power configuration has replaced the traditional multi-level governmental system. Based upon a case study of Pearl River Delta intercity railway, this article examines the dynamic evolution of power and financial right relation in the planning, construction, and operation process systemically. The Pearl River Delta intercity railway is a large-scale infrastructure project in which multiple governments are fully involved and actively sought for their interests. Thereby, the primary objective of this article is to explore the dynamics of regional governance restructuring in China through interrogating the role of provincial government and the evolution of provincial-local relation. There are two important findings reported by this article. First, the role of provincial government has been transformed from subcontractor and coordinator to “subcontractor plus contractor” and “coordinator plus developer”. This indicates that the provincial government has operated towards both gatekeeper and competitor. The financial authority is essential to determining this role transformation. Second, the structural administrative subcontract of provincial-local relation has transformed to serval opposed and cooperation waves of continuum. This continuum has been driven by different types of interests and the provincial-local relation constitutes to the stability and structural coherence of regional governance in China. This finding rectifies existing understanding around the regional governance mechanism, that is top-down and bottom-up mechanisms. As such, the regional governance has generally manifested as the hybrid model in which different governmental agencies co-shaped. The changing regional governance in the Pearl River Delta intercity railway also implies that the regional governance is sensitive to the concrete socioeconomic environment and varied case by case. In this vein, we contribute to the understanding of recentralization of state space as well as the restructuring of provincial-local relation beyond administrative subcontractor. It concludes that China’s city-regionalization is orchestrated by different levels of government and the actual effect and modality of regional governance are determined by inter-scalar politics oriented economic growth.
National-level new area is a large-scale comprehensive urban functional district designated by the central government based on the relevant administrative divisions and functional zones. The purpose is to carry out state developmental and reform activities. As the core content of Chinese strategic space, governance rescaling is the crucial thing in the process of establishment and development of national-level new areas. This paper builds an analytical framework from the perspective of scale rescaling to examine the practice of governance rescaling in national-level new areas. It adopts panel data of 215 counties of 16 national-level new areas involved between 2009 and 2017 and the regression model to test the economic effects of different types of governance. This paper concluded that governance rescaling of national-level new areas is the process of the function of all-level administrative subjects in the functional orientation, spatial zoning, administrative system and power allocation through rigid or flexible means. In practice, there are significant governance scale differences in regional spatial organization, administrative subject composition and power distribution among various national-level new areas, which form diversified governance types. Among them, the types of governance such as "Municipal District+Co-operative Work" and "Municipal District+Management Committee" have better economic effects, which can help to settle the problems of fuzzy power boundary and diversity of governance subjects. Whereas, the types of governance, such as "Municipal County+Management Committee" and "Cross-land City+Management Committee", show lower economic effects. The more complex the administrative relationship in the national-level new area spatial division and management is, the less they contribute to local economic growth. When a national-level new area spatial division crosses the border of prefecture-level cities or includes counties, management faces additional challenges. For national-level new areas which cross prefecture-level cities or contain municipal counties, it is necessary to promote the "removing counties and districts" in due course to simplify the main body of governance or to unify the logic of local development through the "strong power intervention" of superior governments. The Chinese case is theoretically significant because it suggests that the various trajectories and effects of state rescaling in different regions are contingent upon local social, economic, and political conditions.
In recent years, the new paradigm of Western social and cultural geography has become a research hotspot in the domestic geographic circles, but some scholars have different opinions and argue that the new paradigm lacks the professional characteristics of geography and deviates from the traditional research paradigm. On the basis of combing the thoughts of Western humanistic geography school and the evolution of its paradigm, this paper analyses the background, basic issues, connotation and significance of the new paradigm of the new paradigm of Western social and cultural geography. The results show that the new paradigm of Western social and cultural geography advocates subjective ideas in geography, the turn of social and cultural theory, in addition, it also includes issues of "interrelationships" and "ethics, morality and ontogenesis". It is not only a reflection on positivism and space science characterized by the metrological revolution, as well as the "cultural superorganism" of the Berkeley School, but also a new interpretation paradigm of complex social space and cultural cognition caused by the growing globalization and global localization that have become increasingly prominent since the Second World War. In terms of research perspectives and objects, the new paradigm incorporates "human" into the study of geography and establishes the position of "human" in geography. The new paradigm predicts the possibility of social space as well as the significance and value of social culture through the filter of "theoretical turn". It guides people's attention to various spaces, especially spatial relations through the filter of "interrelationships", and strengthens the moral practice of social cultural geography and the promotion of human nature, reconstructs the harmonious coexistence of human and self, human and society and human and the natural environment through the filter of "ethics, morality and ontogenesis". The new paradigm uses a unique way to explain the geographic environment and the social, economic and cultural causes of the spatial process and interaction of human activities, which is a major change in the evolution of human cognition of natural and social environment practice and represents a new philosophy and thinking of geography. One of the reasons why there are different opinions on the new paradigm in Chinese academic circles is that researchers lack in-depth dialogue on the philosophical cognition of the old and new human geography paradigms, and the other reason is that the academic circles' theoretical interpretation of the new paradigm is insufficient. In the future, the Chinese school of social and cultural geography needs to actively embrace and absorb the reasonable contents of the western frontier theories, and construct a new discipline paradigm to actively respond to major issues reflecting China and the world on the basis of careful reference to the Western theories.
Cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are one of the important globalization strategies of multinational corporations. Using data from Zephyr global M&A database, this study built the global cross-border M&A network from 1997 to 2017 and analyzed the evolution of topology characteristics and structure. The analysis results are as follows. (1) Since the 1990s, global cross-border M&A have developed in a fluctuating manner. The topological characteristics show different features at different points, of which the global financial crisis in 2008 was an important turning point. (2) The small world characteristic of the global cross-border M&A network is prominent. The network is scale-free, and rich-club phenomenon of the acquiring party is more obvious than that of the acquired party. However, the rich-club phenomenon of both shows a decrease as the process of economic globalization with more and more developing countries/regions participating in the competition of cross-border M&A market. (3) The global cross-border M&A network shows a “core-edge” structure. The center has gradually transformed from dual-core (North America and Western Europe) structure to “global triangle” structure since the global financial crisis in 2008, of which East Asia and Southeast Asia constitute the third core. Nevertheless, Africa, South America and parts of Asia are the persistent peripheries. (4) Countries/regions play a different role in the global cross-border M&A network, so they can be divided into outward or inward in terms of net capital flow and core, active or potential players in terms of the scale of cross-border M&A. The performance of different countries/regions has changed a lot in 1997-2017, especially European regions. (5) Although some countries (Singapore, Poland, Czech, United Arab Emirates, etc.) become more and more important in the global cross-border M&A network, countries along the Belt and Road as a whole are not active in cross-border M&A, most of which are in a position of the edge. (6) China has grown from a potential player to a core player by attracting foreign investment and encouraging capital exports, but the link between China and Belt and Road countries in the aspect of cross-border M&A is weak and should be strengthened appropriately on the basis of host country’s resource endowment, industrial development, and institutional environment.
It is a new field of international trade and industrial specialization research with the perspective of value added creation and flow, to observe manufacturing regional network and value chain. The effect of each country in the manufacturing regional value chain participation is a black box that needs to be explored, especially the regulation of the value chain participation on the optimal allocation of various economies and their production factors. The paper constructs quantitative indicators such as regional value chain participation index, industrial evolution index, industrial competitiveness index, and regional value chain participation degree order. Based on the latest statistical data of TiVA database jointly released by OECD and WTO, the paper analyzes the participation characteristics and coupling relationship of China, Japan and South Korea in the ASEAN manufacturing value chain, using an analysis framework of participation-adaptation-competitiveness, with the method of time series statistics and horizontal comparison. The research shows that: (1)The contribution of China, Japan and South Korea to the ASEAN manufacturing value chain has increased to 47%, which is the main player and actual leader of the regional value chain. Among them, China experienced three development periods of 1995-2001, 2002-2007, and 2008-2015, and has surpassed South Korea and Japan to become the first participating countries. (2) The industrial structure of the three countries participating in the regional value chain has been adjusted during the same period. China conforms to the general law of the gradient of industrial evolution and deconstructs the so-called East Asian “goose line model”, but it still needs to be optimized in terms of structural rationality. Japan and South Korea have reversed the trend toward medium-low-tech industries, which is more in line with market demand. (3) The industrial competitiveness of the three countries and their spatial pattern have resulted in a phased succession. At present, China, Japan and South Korea each have advantages in high-tech industries, medium-high-tech industries and medium-low-tech industries, and have developed three types of industrial interaction, such as spatial intersection, partial overlap and monopoly in the ASEAN region. This is closely related to the manufacturing capacity of each country and its development stage, and is also affected by the growth of regional value chain demand and participating countries’ competitive relationship.
Urban public service facilities centers are not only the concentrated areas for the diverse public service facilities, but also the hot spots areas of public service facilities’ consumption and demonstration areas of urban vitality. While previous polycentric city literature have focused on job and population subcenters, very little is known about multi-centers of urban public service facilities. Using spatial points data of urban public service facilities in Beijing, this paper utilizes the weighted kernel density analysis and contour analysis methods to identify the urban public service facilities centers in Beijing with consideration of their service radius and quality among different types and grades facilities. The results show that although the spatial patterns of different types of urban public service facilities’ hotspots are varied, all of them have presented a similar center-edge spatial pattern. The spatial patterns of cluster intensity and mixing degree of urban public service facilities display “one center with five sub-regions” and “one core with multiple points”, respectively. There are 136 urban public service facilities centers totally identified within the study area, whose cluster intensity presents a U-shaped change by distance to the city center and an exponential distribution by population density. Multiple regression modelling results further indicate that distance to the closest urban public service facilities center has a significant negative impact on urban residents’ satisfaction with public service facilities in Beijing, and its impact intensity is much stronger than that of distance to the city center. The formation mechanism of urban public service facilities centers in Beijing include the basic role of natural and historical factors, the leading role of economic development factors, the regulating role of social demand factors in addition with the guiding role of planning and policy factors. Our findings suggest that the spatial equalization of urban public service facilities centers in Beijing should be strengthened, and the number of urban public service facilities centers in urban fringe areas should be moderately increased, especially for the urban public service facilities centers with higher concentration intensity, which could promote to dismantling non-capital functional industries and population from the central city zone to the suburbs.
Promoting physical activity is an effective way to improve healthy level of older adults under the background of “healthy aging”. The related research of physical activity is important, and has become a hotspot between multiple disciplines at home and abroad. Thus, based on the perspective of health, this study mainly focused on walking that is very common and is beneficial to older adults’ health in daily life, and examined the influence of built environment on walking by using survey data of physical activity in Nanjing, and eventually provided useful exploration for relevant theories and practices. The results show that: (1) The range of daily walking space can be used as the basis for identifying the built environment boundary involved in walking, and the main places can be used to identify the differences in the demand of built environment elements. Specifically, a place within 1000 meters from home is the major walking space for older adults, and that within 2000 meters is also an important option. Moreover, there are significant differences in the choice and use of major destinations among older adults among different space distances. (2) The density of public open space, commercial and public service facilities involved in daily life, and the subjective perception of built environment have a significant impact on the transportation/leisure walking of older adults. The intensity of commercial and public service facilities, public space, traffic facilities, the perception of road intersection density, safety and flatness have positive or negative influences on participation or amount of transportation walking. The intensity of public space, residential density and the perception of accessibility of public space, road night lighting and flatness have positive or negative impacts on participation or amount of recreational walking. In addition, with the extension of the range of active space, the influence of subjective and objective spatial characteristics is weakened or strengthened. (3) According to the daily walking habits of older adults and the influence of urban built environment on walking, this study attempts to propose planning strategies from the aspects of providing walking space involved in daily life and promoting a healthy lifestyle.
With the rise of the network society, the connotation of urban space has changed significantly, and it has become a new important content in the study of human geography. In this paper, the gravity model is improved, based on the method of directed weighted network analysis and BRIM, and the evolution of the logistics network of the Shandong Peninsula and the Central and Southern Liaoning urban agglomerations are discussed before and after the construction of the Bohai Strait cross-sea channel. We found that: (1) After the construction of the cross-sea channel, urban low-level logistics links will be mainly affected, and the impact on high-level networks will be concentrated on cities that have large logistics scales and located in the southern part of central and southern Liaoning and the eastern part of Shandong Peninsula. Among them, a large quantity of logistics resources are monopolized by a few key cities such as Dalian, Shenyang, Qingdao, Yantai, Weifang and Jinan. (2) The “two-channel two-way synthetic flow” will be formed with the construction of the channel. Within the respective urban agglomerations, changes in the logistics structure in the land and sea directions have begun to emerge, and further the status of Dalian and Yantai as gateway cities will be established. (3) The pattern of primary centrifugal/centripetal flow has directivity towards Bohai channel in the evolution process. Normalized reciprocal relationships are maintained among a few cities such as Shenyang⇄Jinan, Shenyang⇄Zibo, Dalian⇄Qingdao and Anshan⇄Weifang, but the degree of reciprocity of urban logistics is asymmetric. In terms of cities with reciprocal relationships, the logistics output of cities in central and southern Liaoning is generally higher than that of Shandong Peninsula. The former is characterized by a typical “dual-core-edge” structure, and the latter by multipolarity. (4) Before and after the construction, the types of logistics cities in the Shandong Peninsula urban agglomeration remained stable. The centripetal-flow-oriented cities in the central and southern Liaoning urban agglomeration continued to spread. (5) After the construction, Dalian will be classified into subgroup 3 firstly, while the sub-group structure of the inter-regional urban agglomeration will be improved by the Bohai Strait cross-sea channel together with Yantai and Qingdao, which optimized the logistics spatial pattern of the Shandong Peninsula and the Central and Southern Liaoning urban agglomerations.
Cognitive proximity based on technological relatedness has an important impact on the knowledge spillover effect between industries. This conclusion refutes the important influence of traditional geographical proximity based on knowledge externality on knowledge spillover. The existing research mainly focused on the promotion of high-tech industry innovation by technological relatedness at national spatial scale, but ignored the analysis of the relationship between traditional manufacturing technological relatedness and industrial innovation at regional spatial scales, especially for underdeveloped regions. This paper draws on the concept of cognitive proximity in evolutionary economic geography, and uses the improved technological relatedness analysis method to take central China as an example to investigate the impact mechanism of technological relatedness on industrial innovation in the four-digit classification level dimension of manufacturing industry. The results show that: (1) the industrial technological relatedness in central China has significantly improved industrial innovation performance, and the effect becomes more and more obvious with the passage of time. (2) From the perspective of regional heterogeneity, the technological relatedness of Shanxi Province, which is dominated by resource-based industries and has poor economic development prospects, is not significant. The level of innovation in manufacturing of another five provinces, namely Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Anhui, and Jiangxi, is obviously promoting, and the spatial pattern shows a strong central but a weak link between the north and south. (3) From the perspective of industry categories, technological relatedness not only plays a significant role in promoting high-tech industrial innovation, but also has a great impact on the promotion of resource-intensive, labor-intensive, and capital-intensive industrial innovations, although the degree of influence is different. The role of technological relatedness in promoting industrial innovation from strong to weak is followed by technology-intensive industries, labor-intensive industries, resource-intensive industries, and capital-intensive industries. (4) In addition, this paper finds that the fierce competitive environment and government policy support contribute to the improvement of manufacturing innovation. Local governments should take measures to promote industrial innovation from two aspects: establishing innovative platforms and technology service institutions to strengthen inter-industry and intra-industry enterprise contact and shorten the cognitive distance between industries; prioritizing the development of industries that have higher technological relatedness with local industries, and introducing related companies, thus to promote the transformation and upgrading of regional industries.
To realize the coordinated development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, it is important to promote the industrial cluster cultivation and orderly industrial transfer. Based on an analysis on development zones, this paper depicts the characteristic differentiations of industrial structures and industrial agglomeration patterns in the Yangtze River Economic Belt. Then we specially look into the evolution characteristics of technology, capital and labor intensive industries in development zones. The results show that compared with the whole China, there exist obvious advantages for the equipment manufacturing, electronic information, automobile and parts, new material, new energy and other technology-intensive industries in development zones of the Yangtze River Economic Belt. However, in the development zones, there are significant gradient differences among downstream, middle and upstream of the Yangtze River Economic Belt in terms of the industrial development levels. Secondly, the industrial distribution mainly relies on the “urban agglomeration and central city” in space. Labor-intensive industries are partially aggregate and averagely disperse, and capital-intensive industries mostly flourish in places that are favorable in capital, natural resource endowment or geographical location while technology-intensive industries have formed clusters of different scales. We find that, how to advance the industrial structure in development zones of the Yangtze River Economic Belt is related to its establishment time. The earlier the development zone is established, the more advanced industrial level will be. Furthermore, the industrial development stages of different areas’ development zones are distinguished, and the development of downstream areas is more advanced. Besides, the spatial correlation among three categories of industries appears to be stronger and stronger, from relatively unbalanced to coordinated development. Finally, combined with the case analysis of the Yangtze River Economic Belt and relevant theoretical basis, this paper constructs a theoretical analysis framework of industrial cluster cultivation and orderly industrial transfer based on development zones and puts forward some policy recommendations. In the future, during the construction of world-class industrial clusters in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, the role of either national-level or provincial-level development zones acting in industry-cluster growth mode is indispensable. At the same time, in combination with industrial development gradient and industrial (technological) linkages, various development zones will be formed as carriers to promote orderly industrial transfer, which is an important way to realize regional cooperation and coordinated development in the Yangtze River Economic Belt.
Based on the scale-structure-benefit index system, using multiple analysis methods, the spatial pattern characteristics and influencing factors of industrialization-urbanization comprehensive level at town level in China were analyzed. The results were shown as follows. Firstly, although the high and medium value score units were not obvious from the overall spatial pattern, these were still visible with point-like shape in the core areas of urban agglomerations in Eastern and Central China. In addition, the high and medium score units of scale level were prominent, mainly distributed in the triangle area. On the whole, the spatial differentiation characteristics of scale and benefit at town level were similar to the results of previous studies. It was worth mentioning that the southeast-northwest difference with the Hu Huanyong line was clearly visible. Secondly, the internal difference degree from low to high was Eastern China, Central China, Western China and Northeast China. From the provincial and urban cluster levels, although the gap between actual variation and ideal expectations of some provinces and urban agglomerations was quite different, the overall difference in Central and Eastern China was small. Thirdly, from the spatial autocorrelation, the significant High-High and Low-Low units of scale and benefit score were obvious, and formed a new “S”-type separation, which was different from the Hu Huanyong Line. Fourthly, from the comparison perspective, the high, and medium value units of the comprehensive and structural score at county and city levels were similar to those at town level, which were mainly distributed in the core areas of urban agglomeration regions in Eastern and Central China, and some areas were surrounded by the main economic belt and Beijing-Guangzhou axis. The difference was that the centralized agglomeration units of scale strength at county and city level extended to the region in the south of the Middle and Lower Yangtze River and formed a quadrilateral shape. Seen from both sides of the Hu Huanyong Line, the distribution pattern of scale strength at town level was similar to that at county and city levels, but not obvious in comprehensive, structural and benefit pattern. It was worth mentioning that the significant High-High units greatly changed and significant Low-Low areas markedly reduced, and their overall agglomeration pattern became a little scattered. Finally, we found that economic strength, non-agricultural process, towns' modernization level, topographical conditions, rooting and path dependence were the main influencing factors, which respectively played roles of foundation, process, orientation, strength support and chain conduction.
Based on the PM2.5 monitoring data of China's cities, we identified the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of PM2.5 concentrations, and used the geographically weighted regression (GWR) model to analyze emphatically the spatial heterogeneity of the influence of natural factors and socio-economic factors on PM2.5 concentrations. The results showed that: in 2015, the average annual concentrations of PM2.5 in China was 50.3 μg/m 3, and the monthly concentration change presented a "U-shaped" pattern with a higher level in autumn and winter while a lower one in spring and summer. In addition, PM2.5 concentrations were high in cities of eastern and northern China, but low in cities of southern and western China. Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration was the center of PM2.5 pollutions in China. The results of geographically weighted regression showed that: (1) in terms of natural factors, elevation had a negative correlation with the urban PM2.5 concentrations, while positive and negative correlations exist for other indexes, and negative correlation effect dominated, which is conducive to reducing PM2.5 concentrations in most cities. Thus it can be seen that the influence indexes of PM2.5 concentrations have significant spatial difference characteristics. From the mean contribution of the regression coefficient, the ranking of the influence intensity of natural indexes on PM2.5 concentrations were: digital elevation model, relative humidity, temperature, rainfall, wind speed, normalized difference vegetation index. (2) In terms of socio-economic factors, all the indicators showed positive and negative effects, with significant spatial heterogeneity. Among them, the build-up and GDP per capita were conducive to reducing PM2.5 concentrations in most cities, while population density, foreign direct investment, industrial structure and research and development expenditure can aggravate the air pollution in regions. The ranking of the influence intensity of socio-economic factors on PM2.5 concentrations were: population density, research and development expenditure, built-up, industrial structure, foreign direct investment, GDP per capita. (3) Due to the spatial heterogeneity of the influence of various factors on urban PM2.5 concentrations, the spatial difference of the influence of various indexes can be taken into account in the formulation of atmospheric governance countermeasures. Moreover, although natural factors have a more significant influence on PM2.5 concentrations, since it is difficult to change the natural conditions of cities artificially, specific strategies should be proposed from the perspective of social and economic factors in tackling haze.
The characteristics of the spatial network structure of tourist flow in a high-speed transportation era are the fundamental issue that needs to be explored in the spatial organization and management of the national tourist flow. Through modification of relative parameters of the gravity model close to reality to calculate the inter-provincial tourist flow, and with application of the complex network analysis method to measure the superiority, connectivity and development level of the inter-provincial tourist flow spatial network structure in China, the research reveals the following characteristics of the spatial network structure: the structure of the inter-provincial tourist flow spatial network in China is stable, with tourist flows converging in Southeast China, asymmetric flow, coexistent spatial connectivity structures of proximity type and skipping type, and significant hierarchical structure. In practical terms: (1) Seen from the superiority of the inter-provincial tourist flow spatial network in China, main tourist destinations and main target tourism markets are overlapping, the tourism flow largely converges within the region along Shanghai (East)-Guangdong (South)-Sichuan (West)-Hebei (North); (2) Seen from the connectivity level of the inter-provincial tourist flow spatial network in China, three eastern provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shandong are main converging places with the superior tourism flow from various regions, among which Jiangsu and Zhejiang even have created a mutually beneficial relationship; while Tibet is at the bottom of the list, especially the flow from Hainan; (3) Seen from the development level of the inter-provincial tourist flow spatial network in China, the entropy is fairly high, and the structure is stable; the tourism flow presents asymmetry at a certain level, and the spatial converge of superior tourism flow is obvious; and there is basically no group-organizing phenomenon within the spatial network; the inter-provincial tourist flow spatial network China has two types of structure, namely “close mass connection structure” and the “enclave spanning connection structure”. The former is represented by Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai, and the latter by Jiangsu and Guangdong; the inter-provincial tourist flow spatial network in China is of hierarchical nature, roughly presenting a pattern of eastern-central-western gradient weaving; and the status of unbalanced development will remain unchanged for a relatively long time.
The crisis of memory disappearing of local culture has made the development model aimed at "retaining homesickness" become the focus of academia. The function of both protection and activation of local culture has made tourism development an effective way to "keep homesickness" in the field of geography. In recent years, tourist destinations featured with regional nostalgic culture (especially the ancient cities, the traditional villages and the rural areas) have attracted many tourists and developed rapidly. However, the theoretical research on the local nostalgic cultural resources in China lags far behind the practice. At present, there are only a few studies on qualitative description and logical deduction in the academic debate, and case analysis or quantitative research on developing tourism to "keep homesickness" is scarce, which is not conducive to the exploration of the regional nostalgic cultural resources and the tourist destination construction of "retaining nostalgia". Under this background, this paper tries to bridge the gap. Taking Huizhou region as a case study, we examined the influencing factors of tourists' cognition of local nostalgic cultural elements with the aid of cognitive measure analysis, Logistic regression model, etc. During the process, local nostalgic culture elements system was built. This paper reveals that the overall cognition degree of tourists' cultural elements is high, however, there is a big difference between them. Tourists have a higher awareness of the local architecture of the tourist destinations, followed by the natural landscape and local story, while with the lowest cognition of local festivals. The factors that influence the tourists’ cognitive level of local nostalgic cultural elements mainly include tourists’ age, visiting frequency, the motivation of leisure, and the motivation of shopping. The influence of these four factors on the tourists’ cognitive level of local nostalgic cultural elements is the motivation of leisure > visiting frequency > age > the motivation of shopping. Among them, the motivation of leisure, visiting frequency, and age have significantly positive influence on tourists’ cognition, while the motivation of shopping has significant negative effects. This study has certain theoretical significance and reference value in response to the academic community’s assertion that tourism development is a new urbanization model under the concept of "retaining homesickness", broadening the connotation of cultural tourism resources and guiding the exploration of local nostalgic cultural elements through the market segmentation.
The integration of agriculture and tourism is an important engine to propel rural construction. The purpose of the study is to better realize the rural revitalization under the new rural social relations, and promote the differentiation, cooperation and innovative development of tourism. Based on the characteristics of traditional rural acquaintance social relations, this paper combs the transformation elements of rural social relations from the micro perspective. From the perspective of the integration of agriculture and tourism, a new mechanism model of rural social relations is constructed, which is based on the comprehensive effects of kinship, geography, industry, ambition and external relations. This study takes Chenjie village in Jinhua City, Zhejiang province as a typical case area. Based on the field investigation of the case village and its surrounding environment, this study conducted in-depth interviews with the village operators, ordinary villagers, village cadres, tourists and other subjects. Combined with the spatial analysis of geographic information system, we obtained the characteristics of social relations in the integrated development of rural tourism in Chenjie village. The conclusion of the study is that the five relations in rural society support, permeate and feedback each other. Kinship tends to be utilitarian and instrumental, but it still dominates. The geographical relationship is no longer limited to the neighborhood. The scope of communication within the same village, between the neighboring villages and between urban and rural areas is expanding, and the spatial connection has been continuously strengthened. The relationship between industries becomes close, that is, the competition and cooperation in the rural industries are increasing. How the grass-roots government can mobilize the villagers' consciousness of subject and participation becomes the critical condition for the reconstruction of rural society. And the external relationship has become the key to promote the long-term development of rural industry. Finally, the paper puts forward suggestions on the development of rural industry from three aspects: the path of complementary development of rural five elements, the path of rural talents' agglomeration and revitalization, and the path of common trust of interest alliance, so as to consolidate the rural social relations, boost the rural revitalization, and provide reference and reference for the development of the same type of rural tourism industry.
Since the beginning of the 21st century, the exploratory action of art participation in rural practice has gradually emerged, which has affected the development, transformation and reconstruction of the countryside to a certain extent. This research is based on Halfacree's three-fold model of rural space, combined with Frisvoll's action-taking framework to capture power form. By comprehensively comparing the different practice modes of art participation in the rural areas, this article analyzes the performance and impact mechanism of rural space reconstruction with the participation of art, in order to provide some prudent references for art to promote rural revitalization. Firstly, the article analyzes the performance of the rural space's performance with art participation: dramatic changes in rural areas are significant features, including structural changes in physical space, such as the increase in landmarks, reconstruction of buildings, and changes in rural landscapes. The rural representation is redefined by the main body of discourse power, with artistic groups, local governments and social capital as the leading force, which promotes the continuous exchange and flow of production factors such as population, capital, and resources between urban and rural areas. Then these changes brought about a mix of rural life, which was in sharp contrast with the villagers' daily life and traditional concepts, and caused collisions and exchanges. Each part of three-fold model of rural space is interconnected and interacts with other parts. The article also discusses the influence mechanism of rural space’s reconstruction with art participation. The process of rural space’s reconstruction is affected by both endogenous and exogenous factors. Endogenous factors refer to the basic conditions of the village, including the village's natural geographic background, historical and cultural resources, and socioeconomic foundation. Exogenous factors include the leading force represented by art groups, government and capital, and the auxiliary force represented by academic institutions and public welfare organizations. With the elapse of time, they can promote public participation and collective identity, and help develop multi-level and diverse social participation as the endogenous driving force for rural development, thereby promoting rural transformation and development in the new stage.
Variation features for seasonal drought/flood over the Hanjiang River Basin have important climatic meaning because of its special geographical location. The study basin is located in the south-north transitional zone of geography and climate in China, as well as the starting point of the Middle Route of South-to-North Water Transfer Project in operation. In this paper, data sources were historical documents including records from a unique historical archive named Yu-Xue-Fen-Cun and collections from local gazettes and other historical information. A total of 31752 records according to different time resolutions, districts, record classes from 1736 to 1911 were collected from Yu-Xue-Fen-Cun archive with about 179 records yearly, and 2542 records from 1735 to 1911 were collected from other historical documents with about 14 records yearly. Based on the features of historical documents over the Hanjiang River Basin, methods with 3 standards of spatial distributions, severity and duration were put forward as the way for reconstructing seasonal drought/flood grades over the Hanjiang River Basin. And then drought/flood grades for 7 prefectures in the basin in spring, summer, autumn and winter were reconstructed for characteristic analysis in the study area during 1735-1911AD. The results showed that: 1) Compared with other prefectures in the Hanjiang River Basin, there were more drought events in Shaanxi province and Nanyang prefecture in spring, summer and winter, while there were more drought events in autumn and more flood events in spring and summer in Hubei province. 2) More obvious fluctuations existed in the drought/flood grades in summer and autumn, while less existed in spring and winter. 3) For the whole basin, more flood events occurred during the 1820s-1840s, and more drought events happened in the 1850s and 1870s. 4) More successive drought seasons with greater severity were observed in the study basin in the 19th century; and most successive flood events with serious severity occurred in summer and autumn. This study has certain value for quantitative climate research in the Hanjiang River Basin, and also can provide data support for future precipitation variation research in the study area.
As a huge mountain range in the North-South boundary of China, the Qinling-Daba Mountains are characterized by prominent mass elevation effect (MEE) and play an important role in the azonality pattern of climate and ecology in central China. The essence of the MEE is the warming effect of mountains, as huge mountain and plateau absorbs more solar radiation compared with the free atmosphere of the same altitude and then releases in the form of long-wave radiation external heat, making the internal mountain temperature higher than the external in the same altitude of free atmosphere. Therefore, the temperature difference between the mountain interior and the periphery has been suggested as an appropriate indicator to quantify the MEE. To analyze MEE of the Qinling-Daba Mountains, MODIS land surface temperature (LST) data, STRM-1 DEM data and observation data from 118 meteorological stations were combined to estimate monthly mean air temperature by ordinary linear regression (OLS) and geographical weighted regression (GWR) methods in the Qinling-Daba Mountains. Air temperature at an altitude of 1500 m (the average elevation of the Qinling-Daba Mountains) in the interior of the Qinling-Daba Mountains was calculated by a fixed lapse rate and compared with that in the periphery. The results show that: (1) Compared with OLS method, the GWR method has higher accuracy with R 2 > 0.89 and the root mean squared error (RMSE) = 0.68-0.98 ℃. (2) The monthly mean temperature at the altitude of 1500 m estimated by GWR presents a gradual upward trend from east to west. In the western Qinling Mountains, the annual average temperature and temperature in July at the altitude of 1500 m increase about 6 ℃ and 4.5 ℃ compared with the eastern flank, while in the Daba Mountains, they are about 8°C and 5 ℃ higher in the west than in the east. (3) From south to north, with the Hanjiang River as the boundary, the monthly mean temperature at the altitude of 1500 m tends to rise from the rim of the mountains to the ridge. (4) Compared with the lower valleys in Hanzhong and western Henan, the monthly mean temperatures at the altitude of 1500 m are approximately 3.85-9.28 ℃, 1.49-3.34 ℃ and 0.43-3.05 ℃ higher those in the great undulating high mountains in the western Qinling-Daba Mountains, the great undulating middle-high mountains in the Qinling Mountains and the great undulating middle mountains in the Daba Mountains, respectively, and the average temperature difference is about 3.50 ℃. This shows that the MEE of the Qinling-Daba Mountains is obvious and its impact on the distribution patterns of mountain climate and ecology needs to be further studied.
Using US NASA's Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) VIIRS V1 (or Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Version 1) active fire location vector data, ASTER GDEM (30 m, or Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer Global Digital Elevation Model), Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS, 1 km) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Land Surface Water Index (LSWI), and Global Land Cover products (30 m), based on GIS, the dynamic changes in active fire events were quantitatively analyzed from provincial to national scales in Laos in 2012-2017. In addition, characteristics analyses of major physical geographic elements of VIIRS V1 active fires, including topography (elevation and slope), MODIS vegetation-moisture indices (NDVI and LSWI) and land cover types, were conducted in detail in the 2015 El Niño. The results showed that: (1) the number of active fire events in Laos increased first and then decreased in 2012-2017, with the peak in 2015. Active fires in Laos were mainly concentrated in the northern and central regions. Luang Prabang, Sayaburi and Savannakhet had the top number of active fires at the provincial level, while Vientiane City, Sekong and Xaisomboun in sequence ranked the last. (2) The relationship between the frequency of active fires in Laos and topographic factors (elevation and slope) in 2012-2017 was basically the same. Active fires primarily occurred in the hilly and low mountainous areas with elevations of less than 1000 m (86.10%) and slopes of less than 30° (92.45%). Among them, active fires in the northern region were concentrated in the mountainous areas with elevations of 500-1000 m and slopes of 10-30°, while others in the central and southern regions were concentrated in the hilly areas below 500 m and gentle slopes of 2°-20°. (3) Seasonally, the active fires in Laos mainly happened during the dry season (94.75%), with the most number in March and April (82.24%) and in the medium-high coverage vegetation area with NDVI of 0.4-0.8 (92.05%) and LSWI of 0.2-0.6 (75.70%). (4) Active fires were mostly distributed in the forests of Laos, especially in the northern part, while the counterparts in the central and southern parts mainly occurred in farmland, grassland and shrubland. (5) In summary, characteristics analyses of major physical geographic elements of VIIRS active fires can be used to determine its fire type, that is, active fires in Laos were mainly caused by swidden agriculture.
