The Yellow River Basin is one of the regions with the most complex human-land relationship in China, and takes responsibility for the construction of ecological security and economic and social development. Since ancient times, human beings and the Yellow River has been in the process of coevolution. In recent years, there is an increasing pressure of ecological protection brought about by economic development. And there is a higher risk and greater vulnerability of water resources in the river basin. In order to resolve the human-land contradiction, it is necessary to explore the dynamic coupling mechanism of urban settlements and rivers. As "ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin" has become a major national strategy, this study focuses on the spatial differentiation and evolution of human-land relationship in this basin, as well as the difficulties and opportunities of resources and ecological protection, from the perspective of urban and rural planning, physical geography, environmental archaeology, ecology, hydrology and water resources, land resource management and other related fields. The balance between built environment and natural environment is the basis of sustainable development. The Yellow River Basin should be regarded as a “community of life”, in which the natural and human environment interact and depend on each other, and sustainable development strategies should be discussed from the aspects of systematization, intersection, locality and adaptability.
Since China's reform and opening up, Shenzhen has experienced rapid urbanization and dramatic changes in landscape patterns. On the basis of the land use dataset of Shenzhen city from 1996 to 2015, this study utilized landscape metrics, transition matrix and, expansion index to detect the spatiotemporal changes of urban landscape pattern, which analyzed the trend of landscape transfer and urban expansion. Also the major driving forces for landscape pattern changes on municipal and district scales were identified through the Binary Logit regression model. The results showed that: (1) the dominance of construction land landscape in Shenzhen gradually increased during the study period, with the construction land increasing by 15.81%, which occupied a large area of woodland (157.59 km2). The edge-expansion and infilling are the two main growth types of newly developed urban land, accounting for 61.19% and 36.27% respectively. (2) The rapid urbanization occurred from 1996 to 2006, during which landscape diversity and uniformity increased. (3) There was a low-speed urbanization transition from 2006 to 2015, during which landscape fragmentation intensified. The boundaries of the built-up areas became complex. However, due to the influence of land policy and red line of ecological protection, the rate of urban expansion slowed down. The pattern of urban expansion was mainly west-oriented, with the center continuing to shift northwards. (4) On the municipal scale, the GDP density and population density had a significant positive impact on the evolution of landscape pattern, while the ecological control line, elevation, slope and the distance to the road had a significant negative impact. The driving factors had the difference in scale and region, with GDP in Baoan, Nanshan and Pingshan districts, population growth in Baoan and Longhua districts, and traffic accessibility in Dapeng and Longgang districts being the most prominent drivers, respectively. This study can provide scientific practice for landscape pattern change in the process of rapid urban expansion in China.
Space fragmentation is an important issue to be deepened in the study of urban spatial structure. The measurement index of urban space fragmentation is constructed from three dimensions of form, connection and function, and its pattern characteristics and influencing factors in Changsha are discussed by using geographical detector model. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) fragmentation of urban space can be measured from three aspects: morphological segmentation, contact barrier and functional disorder. Morphological segmentation can be characterized by mean block area index (MBA), contact barrier can be featured by average impedance index (AI), and functional disorder can be reflected by functional diversity index (FD) and adjacency conflict index (AC). (2) The spatial fragmentation of Changsha presents a pattern of circle-shaped differentiation and fan-shaped expansion differentiation. The low-fragmentation area is mainly distributed in the urban core area, while the high-fragmentation area extends to the periphery along specific sectors, and is mainly distributed in large-gated communities, industrial parks, mountain green areas and large railway stations. (3) The spatial differentiation of urban space fragmentation is the result of the joint action of multiple factors, among which the natural conditions such as altitude and slope are the basic factors, while land price, population density and facility input are the dominant factors. (4) The governance of urban space fragmentation in Changsha should break through the constraints of market supply, market demand and facility abundance. In order to reduce the negative effect of space fragmentation, the corresponding countermeasures should be adopted.
In the background of transformation and development of China's cities, controlling the excessive growth of city size by means of relocating the non-core function from megacity behemoth has become an important research topic in urban geography. As the capital, Beijing bears not only the general function of city, but also the special function of the capital because of its special political status. To a certain extent, the non-capital function proposed by Beijing also belongs to the category of non-core function, which can contribute to the function dispersion of other mega-cities through the study of Beijing. Taking the Zoo Wholesale Market as an example, with the help of questionnaires and in-depth interviews, this paper investigates the relocation intention and influencing factors of merchants by Ordered Probit Model. The results show that: (1) from the perspective of the impact of non-capital function dispersion, 66.38% of the merchants think that dispersion has a great impact on the business operation of shops. (2) The willingness of wholesale market merchants to relocation is very low, only 12.07% of the merchants agree to be relocated, and the unwilling and extreme unwilling to relocate account for 37.07% and 31.03% of all the samples, respectively. (3) From the perspective of the factors influencing the willingness of wholesale market merchants to relocate, seven factors, i.e., logistics, brand effect, the impact of relocation news, education, relocation plan, number of employees and rent, significantly affect the relocation intention of merchants. Logistics conditions and agglomeration brand effect are the most important factors affecting the relocation intention of merchants in the wholesale market. (4) From the point of view of relocation location re-selection, the most desirable place for relocation is other large wholesale markets in Beijing. Traffic and logistics, rent and other operating costs are the main conditions for the new location selection, and the preferential policies of relocation location are not highly concerned.
In recent years, with the expansion of cities, the distribution range of garbage disposal stations has gradually overlapped with urban living spaces, and affected the quality of residents' lives. In the past, people's perception of the problem of garbage sewers in Beijing came only from sensory impressions. In fact, garbage disposal sites and facilities only accounted for a small part of the “encirclement of the city”, but the scope of its impact on the living space is relatively large. The specific impact degree and scope need to be analyzed quantitatively to reach an objective conclusion. Taking the streets within the Sixth Ring Road of Beijing as the research scope, this paper analyzes the impact of waste treatment and transfer facilities on the housing price, as well as the spatial scope of the impact of waste treatment facilities on surrounding housing prices. On this basis, the impact range of Asuwei waste treatment center on the surrounding housing prices is analyzed. The results show that: (1) on average, large-scale waste treatment facilities in Beijing will affect the price of residential buildings within a distance of 6 km. This result is consistent with the previous results derived by scholars. There are 810 residential areas and nearly 700 thousand households in the affected area. (2) The impact of Asuwei waste treatment center on the surrounding housing prices reaches 14 km, which is far beyond the average impact range of waste treatment facilities and the protection distance specified in the construction standards.
With the continuous development of the global port and shipping market, inter-port competition is increasingly manifesting as competition at the terminal level. The efficiency of container terminals will significantly affect the efficiency and competitiveness of the whole port supply chain, and then have an important impact on regional economic development. It has grown up to be a challenging task for many countries to measure and understand the efficiency characteristics of container terminals scientifically, especially for developing countries and emerging market countries. Therefore, research on container terminal efficiency has received more and more attention in recent years, but there are the research results based on the geographical perspective. In this paper, 15 main container terminals in the Yangtze River Delta region are chosen as the research object, and their efficiency between 2008 and 2017 is measured by using the super-efficiency SBM model, and then the spatial-temporal evolution characteristics are analyzed. On this basis, the Tobit model is utilized to analyze the key factors affecting the efficiency of container terminals. The result shows that: (1) the overall level of comprehensive technical efficiency of the Yangtze River Delta container terminal is not high, the highest efficiency value is only 0.581, but the overall growth trend remains unchanged. During the study period, the average scale efficiency value of container terminals showed a slowly decreasing trend year by year, while the average pure technical efficiency value maintained a steady growth trend. The gap between them is narrowing year by year. Besides, the principal driving force for the slow growth of comprehensive technical efficiency comes from the improvement of pure technical efficiency. (2) From 2008 to 2017, the change trends of container terminal efficiency in the study region were different, which jointly promote the significant adjustment of the spatial pattern of container terminals efficiency. During the study period, the coefficient of variation of the comprehensive technical efficiency of the delta container terminal fluctuated between 0.159 and 0.318, and the spatial pattern evolution of container terminals efficiency has obvious phase characteristics. Since 2013, this spatial difference has developed towards equalization. At the same time, there are noticeable differences in efficiency evolution between the coastal and the riverside container terminals, and the former performs better. (3) Depending on the regression analysis results of influencing factors, human resources, port collection and distribution conditions, and port functions have a significant positive effect on container terminal efficiency. Also, the relevant indicators of ownership structure and hinterland economy have not passed the model test, and their impact is not significant.
As an important carrier of farming civilization, traditional villages are extremely important to maintaining their effective renewal of human settlement environment. Taking Zhangguying, a traditional Chinese village, as an example, this paper analyzed the genetic characteristics of dominant material culture landscape and recessive intangible culture in the village by gene analysis method, and then proposed an activation scheme of human settlement environment of traditional villages from the perspective of settlement“double repair”. The results showed that: (1) the dominant landscape gene features a hollow spatial layout trend, and the street system is seriously degraded; the residential building structure is disordered, and the function utilization subject is polarized; the connection of main building chain is fractured, and the civilization carrier connotation is still shallow. The foundation and venation of the mountains and terrain are stable, and the lines of water system are becoming single. (2) The characteristics of the recessive culture gene are family tradition and belief inherited from generation to generation and the totem signs echo each other at a distance continuously. The continuation road of folk culture is blocked, and the path of resistance to traditional etiquette is difficult. (3) The dominant gene repairing path is to create the gene database to perfect the basic system by restoring the original form, and retain the original function and reproduce the original style by minimally invasive repair. Then we reconnect the local chain and consolidate the architectural connotation by stealth mining, maintain a stable vein and adapt to a single line by “High & Low” intervention. (4) The path of recessive gene repairing is getting edification internally and externally, and creating an atmosphere of inheritance and perfecting the interpretation system, and then working in them, enhancing villagers' participation and reappearing distinguished scenes. The purpose of exploring the optimization plan of human settlement environment of traditional villages from the perspective of “double repair” is to achieve organic renewal on the basis of retaining the original styles and features, complete the transformation development of material space and non-material space, and promote the sustainable development of human settlement environment of traditional villages.
Geographical environment exerts profound influence on the location of traditional intangible culture. Based on 1519 intangible cultural heritages (ICHs) and geographical environment information such as DEM, meteorology, rivers, population, economic level, ancient road and others of Shanxi province, the distribution pattern of ICH was visualized with ArcGIS 10.3 kernel density, and the attributes of Shanxi's natural conditions, socioeconomic development and historical geographical environment were given in more detail by means of terrain analysis, buffer analysis and time cost distance on ArcGIS10.3. After extracting geographic information of ICHs, we analyzed the correlation of the distribution of ICHs and its geographical environment by the density, location quotient and geographical detector of ICHs. The conclusions can be drawn as follows. (1) The natural geographical environment has a basic effect on the distribution of ICHs. ICHs were collected in the areas with high bearing capacity of natural environment (low or medium elevation, slope <5°, plain or basin, near river, annual accumulated temperature over 10℃ (aat10) ≥3000℃, annual average precipitation ≥500 mm). (2) Considering the impact of geographical environment on human geography, the distribution of ICHs is more responsive to traffic than to population and economic development at county/district level. Firstly, ICHs were almost located in the county center within 2 hours and the city center within 4 hours. Secondly, the scale structure of ICHs of counties was consistent with its population pyramid. And, more than 50% of Shanxi's ICHs were located in rural areas. Specifically, when the population of a district was more than 500,000 or the population of a county was less than 200,000, there were much more ICHs. The differences in the number of ICHs were mainly due to the differences among urban, suburban and rural areas, which tended to be smaller with the decrease of population size. Thirdly, the spatial distribution of ICHs was only weakly related to the output value of the primary industry. The political geography and economic geography in the historical period and local history also influence the location of ICHs. The cities with the largest number of ICHs in Shanxi were all important political or business centers in the ancient times. (3) The spatial distribution of ICHs is related to the joint effect of various regional geographical factors. What's more, at different spatial scales or at different geographical locations, the responses of ICHs to geographical factors and their intensity are different.
Self-driving tour market has become an important part of China's domestic tourism market. It is of great theoretical significance to study the spatial extent and structure of urban self-driving tourists' tourism space for enriching and deepening the research on the spatial structure of self-driving tourism. Besides, it has practical value to the tourism destination management organizations' (DMOs) works of marketing, development of self-driving tourism products and implementation of self-driving tourism development strategies. This paper explores the characteristics of tourism space structure of Chinese urban self-driving tourists by analyzing their visits to target scenic spots, based on data of more than 4000 questionnaires obtained from three representative case cities of Beijing, Xi'an and Wuhan, and methods of mathematical statistics, mapping and spatial analysis. The results showed that: (1) The self-driving visiting rate decreases exponentially with the increase of travel distance, and it decreases fast within a range of 400 km. (2) Self-driving tourism space centered on origin city can be divided into three types of zones from the nearby to the distance, which are center zone, diffusion zone and edge zone. Among them, center and diffusion zones are self-driving tourism space with important tourism market value. (3) The size of self-driving tourism space varies in different origin cities. Self-driving tourism space radiuses of Beijing, Xi'an and Wuhan measured by travel distance are respectively 1665 km, 1196 km, and 1176 km. The radius of self-driving tourism center zone in all the three cities is about 400 km. (4) With 4 h and 6 h as the time threshold, self-driving tourism space can be divided into comfort space (within 4 h) and fatigue space (over 4 h), which can be further divided into mild fatigue space (4-6 h) and severe fatigue space (over 6 h). The comfort space corresponds to the center zone while the fatigue space corresponds to the diffusion zone, and the mild fatigue space corresponds to the transitional belt between the center and the diffusion zones. In this study, the tourism space structure of urban self-driving tourists is summarized as a “wheel hub” model, which provides a cognitive framework for studying the spatial structure of self-driving tourism.
Based on the urban-rural equivalence, the Global Principal Component Analysis (GPCA) method is used to measure the China's urban-rural multi-dimensional integration levels, and the Global and Local Moran Index, Local Getis-Ord Gi * Index are performed to reveal the spatial distribution of urban-rural multi-dimensional integration levels in China during 2000-2016. And finally, the spatial econometric model is introduced to explore the influencing factors of urban-rural integration development from the aspects of labors, land, capitals and industries. Research findings are as follows: (1) the trend of urban-rural integration development in China is well and orderly, but has regional heterogeneity. The agglomeration effect is obvious in Eastern China, and the social and economic coordination level has always occupied the first and the second places. (2) China's urban-rural multi-dimensional integration levels often show spatial autocorrelation. The HH values of urban-rural integration overall level are concentrated in Central China and Eastern China, while the LL values are gathered in Western China. The hot and cold spots are located to the southeast and northwest of Heihe-Tengchong Line, respectively. Also the high values of economic integration have always corresponded to those of ecological and environmental integration. Population integration level decreases from Eastern to Western China. Spatial integration level presents the "core-edge" structure such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong. Spatial spillover effect of the economic integration development is obvious in the coastal region of China, while the development of ecological environment integration and economic integration has spatial dislocation. And the clusters of social integration high values are in Central China. (3) The ways of the urban-rural multi-dimensional integration are as follows: Firstly, we should improve the quality of rural labor forces and promote the interaction between urban and rural residents. Secondly, we should stimulate the multi-function of rural land and control the disorderly urban expansion. Thirdly, we should take financial expenditures in a reasonable range and provide a perfect financial support in urban and rural areas. Finally, industrial restructuring is also needed. And moreover, regulating the behavior of the local governments will be benefit to the urban-rural multi-dimensional integration and good governance in China.
Regional environment has been recognized as a crucial factor in explaining entrepreneurial intention of individuals. Using the Chinese Family Database and the China Household Finance Survey, this paper extends a multilevel mixed-effects logistic regression model to understand the differences between urban and rural entrepreneurial intention driven by factors such as entrepreneurship model effects, educational background, as well as risk preferences. Results show that: (1) regional model effects have a positive effect on eastern urban entrepreneurial intention, but exert no significant effect on both rural and urban residents in the central and western China. (2) In urban areas, highly-educated residents are less likely to generate entrepreneurial intention. In rural areas, higher educational background promotes entrepreneurial intention of residents in the central and western regions, but it does not produce any influence on residents in the eastern region. (3) Urban residents who prefer higher-risk and higher-yield economic activities are more likely to generate entrepreneurial intention, but this intention would no longer change when the degree of tolerance to risk is high enough. And the degree of tolerance to risk of eastern residents is higher than their western counterparts. In rural areas, risk preferences have nothing to do with entrepreneurial intention, and this intention is even depressed by rural residents who refuse to take any risk.
In this paper, the correction coefficient was applied to measure energy industry efficiency of emission reduction in each province. According to the energy industry carbon emission intensity and output value share of each province, the identity of national carbon emission intensity in China's energy industry was established from top to bottom, and the contribution rate of each province, energy industry carbon emission intensity and output value share in each province to the decline of national carbon emission intensity in energy industry was obtained by using LMDI-I decomposition method. Following the idea of “emission reduction efficiency - carbon emission intensity contribution - comprehensive contribution by province - the relationship between provincial emission reduction efficiency and the comprehensive contribution of province”, the emission reduction effectiveness of each province in the process of carbon emission intensity decline in China energy industry was evaluated. The results indicate that (1) the carbon emission intensity in China' energy industry shows a downward trend year by year, and the carbon emission intensity decreased by 45% in 2016 than that in 2005. (2) More than half of the provinces are efficiency areas for emission reduction and the number of provinces is increasing, while most of the provinces that do not meet the emission reduction standards are located in economically underdeveloped areas, and there are significant differences in emission reduction paths between provinces. (3) The contribution rate of energy industry carbon emission intensity in most provinces shows an upward trend, and the regional differences gradually decrease. (4) The competing momentum of comprehensive contribution by province is strong, and most provinces have contributed to the decline of carbon emission intensity in China energy industry, and the eastern region is the main contribution area, where the comprehensive contribution grade of many provinces develops positively. (5) The number of provinces with good emission reduction effectiveness is the largest, the general areas are scattered in the eastern coastal area and a few inland areas, and the spatial pattern of the poor areas remains stable in the western region. In the future, provinces should not only choose the low-carbon development path according to their own emission reduction effectiveness characteristics, but also form a benign interaction with the decline of national carbon emission intensity.
To understand the matching degree and pattern change of agricultural soil and water resources in three typical mountainous areas of China, the matching coefficient of agricultural soil and water resources was introduced to describe the spatial and temporal matching patterns of land and water resources in the study region by the amount of agricultural water resources on the unit area farmland. The results show that: (1) the concentration degree of farmland distribution in the three areas is high. The farmland in the Taihang Mountains is mainly distributed in the northern part of Hebei province and the southern part of Shanxi province, while it is mainly found in the southern part of the Hengduan Mountains. The farmland in karst mountains shows a distribution pattern of "more in the north and south, while less in the center". The farmland in the Taihang and karst mountainous areas decreased first, then increased and again decreased with the increase of elevation. The farmland in the Hengduan Mountains increased first, then decreased, again increased and decreased with the increase of elevation. (2) The distribution and change of agricultural water resources are mainly concentrated in low altitude areas. The agricultural water resources in the Taihang Mountains are mainly distributed in Shanxi and Henan, those in Hengduan Mountains are mainly distributed in Sichuan, and those in the karst mountains are evenly distributed in Guangxi and Guizhou. From the spatio-temporal variations, during 2000-2015, the agricultural water resources in the Taihang Mountains decreased by 6.22%, mainly in Beijing and Henan; those in the Hengduan Mountains decreased by 8.15%, mainly in Yunnan and Sichuan; the agricultural water resources in karst mountains increased by 5.52%, mainly in Guangxi. (3) The matching degree of agricultural soil and water resources in the Taihang Mountains was low, while that in the Hengduan Mountains and karst mountains was high. From 2000 to 2015, the matching degree of agricultural soil and water resources improved in the central Taihang Mountains, eastern Hengduan Mountains, and southern karst mountains, while that in southern Taihang Mountains, southwestern Hengduan Mountains, and northern karst mountains has worsened. During the study period, the conversion of the paddy field to dry land in the Taihang Mountains is prominent, and the matching degree of agricultural soil and water resources in the Taihang was the worst among the three mountainous areas. We should focus on the water pressure in the region, the maintenance of irrigation facilities and the improvement of the effective utilization coefficient of irrigation water.
The Bangladesh, India and Myanmar (BIM) region has subtropical and tropical monsoon climates. Floods frequently occur around here. Assessing the flood risk in BIM region is important for the safety construction of the BCIM-EC. Based on datasets of precipitation from 1980 to 2016, river network, elevation, land use and etc., we selected ten indexes, namely, rainy season rainfall, rainstorm days, elevation, slope, drainage density, vegetation coverage, soil erodibility, population density, GDP, and land use. A comparative study of flood risk in BIM region is presented using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and the AHP_entropy methods. Based on the assessed results, about 1.05% and 28.76% of the BIM region have high risk and moderate to high risk. High risk zones in the BIM region were primarily concentrated on the Ganges Plain in northern India, Assam State in northeastern India, most of Bangladesh and southern Myanmar. Bangladesh is the country with the highest risk among three countries. The results show that high risk areas and moderate to high risk areas take up 10.61% and 65.87% of the total area of Bangladesh, respectively. Comparisons between results from AHP and AHP_entropy show that the latter yields a wider range of high flooding risk than the former. The study could provide an effective method for other neighboring countries of China in estimating the flood hazard areas, which can promote the construction of the BCIM-EC.
This paper analyzed climatological characteristics of fog and its interaction with temperature and precipitation by methods of Man-Kendell trend analysis, abrupt change analysis and grey correlation analysis based on meteorological observations of fog, temperature, and precipitation from 1961 to 2016 in Xishaungbanna, southwest China. Results showed that, the fog mainly occurred in the early morning during the dry season in the study area. The frequency of annual fog days and annual cumulative duration of fog events decreased significantly at the significance level of 0.01, which was consistent with the insignificant decrease of precipitation, and opposite with the significant increase of temperature. The abrupt change time for annual fog days and cumulative duration of fog events were earlier than annual average temperature, but it was not obvious for annual precipitation, which suggested that fog was more sensitive to environmental changes than temperature and precipitation, and fog was one of the major indicators of environmental changes. Temperature, precipitation and fog events are closely related to each other in Xishuangbanna, which has less influences for the annual average temperature and annual precipitation on annual cumulative duration of fog than influences of annual cumulative duration of fog on annual average temperature and annual precipitation. The number of annual fog days was much affected by changes of temperature and precipitation. It has less influences for the annual fog days and annual cumulative duration of fog on annual precipitation than their influences on annual average temperature. The temperature was much affected by changes of fog events, and decreasing rainfall and rising temperature were not conductive to the formation of fog, which might result in a decrease of fog days and duration of fog events.
Loess landforms refer to the complex, diverse and orderly differentiated landform morphological combinations that are formed with unique evolution patterns. Based on analysis of mathematical morphology, this study classifies the loess landforms in Heshui county into loess plateaus, beams and loess hills, and develops corresponding classification indexes for them. Furthermore, according to morphological characteristics and classification indexes of loess morphological units, this study establishes quantitative and visual expression landform evolution models for loess plateaus, beams and loess hills, and predicts the parts of loess plateaus that are going to disappear. Roundness is found to be an important indicator to define the evolution process of the loess landform unit, and it increases as the loess landform evolution proceeds. The boundary between loess plateaus and beams can be identified by the perimeter area ratio and the average slope, while that between loess beams and loess hills can be determined by the boundary adjacency index. The transition from a loess plateau to a loess ridge actually corresponds to the evolution from a residual plateau to a branched loess ridge. It is critical to strengthen grooves and protect loess plateaus, since human beings have to rely and live on these residual loess plateaus.
With the awareness of climate change and its possible consequences to natural environment and human society, livelihood resilience has gradually become a new and key concept in our efforts to cope with the risks induced by climate change. On the basis of combing the concept of resilience in different fields, the scientific connotation and research framework of farmers' livelihood resilience to climate change are presented to improve the resilience of farmers' livelihood to climate change which mainly reflects assets, government apparatus, self-organization capacity and learning capacity. Finally, the measurement methods of livelihood resilience are summarized from aspects of qualitative and quantitative evaluation. Qualitative evaluation methods mainly include field questionnaire survey, key informants interview, key group discussion, livelihood trajectory method and case analysis. Quantitative evaluation methods mainly contain indicator substitution method, structural dynamics analysis, Bayesian network model and baseline comparison method. Future research needs to improve the evaluation method, strengthen the dynamic study and carry out regional comparative studies on the resilience of farmers' livelihood to climate change.
