As an important way to promote the rapid development of regional economy, society and new kind of urbanization, the construction of national new areas is a crucial optimization practice of territorial spatial development patterns. The research on location accessibility of national new areas has become the important prerequisite of developing scientific and reasonable regional development patterns. Considering urban agglomerations' leading role for China's regional economic development and the fundamental support for the construction of new areas, this article took China's existing 23 urban agglomerations as the research object. The evaluation framework and index system of development strategy orientation plus construction supporting conditions (1+4) was built to assess the location accessibility of national new areas. The results show that urban agglomerations of Yangtze River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Pearl River Delta, Chengdu-Chongqing, Shandong Peninsula, Liaodong Peninsula, West Coast, Wuhan, Jianghuai, Central Plains, Hohhot-Baotou-Ordos, and Harbin-Daqing-Changchun are more capable in terms of the construction supporting conditions for national new areas. However, urban agglomerations of Yangtze River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Pearl River Delta, Chengdu-Chongqing, Liaodong Peninsula, Guanzhong, West Coast, Shandong Peninsula, Central Plains, Lanzhou-Baiyin-Xining, and Central Guizhou are the best location for national new areas in terms of both regional development strategy orientation and the fundamental supporting conditions. Furthermore, one or two national new areas with different functions can be built in urban agglomerations which have the best construction supporting conditions. The assessment result matches well with the distribution pattern of the existing national new areas, which indicates the reasonability of the evaluation framework and index system on location accessibility.

：In view of the current situation that the theory study on tourism geography is relatively weak and the content relatively generalized, this paper proposes that tourism human-environment interactions should be the core of tourism geography study. It expounds the theoretical connotation of tourism human-environment interactions , and then by taking "tourism areal system" as the object of study, it defines that tourism geography is a science that studies the relationship between human tourism activities on earth surface and its geographical environment and serves man's life and social economic development. On the basis of theories related with human-environment interactions, in accordance with the requirement of developing tourism geography theory systematically and scientifically and fully considering the discipline features of tourism geography, i.e., tourism, regionality, comprehensiveness and applicability, the paper constructs the tourism geography theory framework by using tourism activity system and geographical environment system as baselines and human-environment interactions theory as the core, and by integrating theories of related disciplines. The paper also reviews the basic research content, main scientific issues and principal research methods of tourism geography, and emphasizes that the scientific spirit of geographic study should be highly promoted, and the unfavorable current research status of the low-level application orientation and the too much technique orientation should be changed. Thereby, tourism geography should be really applied to dealing with the national and regional practical tourism issues, and the theory-oriented ideological study should be intensified. Therefore, such points as the basic features, functional structure, spatial-temporal evolution, fundamental law, dynamic mechanism and regulation means, that profoundly reveal the criteria of the tourism human-environment areal system, should be the focuses of tourism geography study. On these grounds, by means of innovations in the scopes of discipline characteristics, research methods, theoretical results, research methods and application value, the paper deepens the theoretical study, advances the academic level, improves the discipline system of tourism geography and promotes the localization of modern tourism geography and the internationalization of China's tourism geographical study.

The river basin, the cradle of human civilization, is profoundly influenced by human activities. It is the cornerstone for harmonious coexistence between human activities and natural environment. As an important regional component of geographical research, it has already become a sensitive zone of regional response immediate hot focus of research. A historical river basin study restores historical evolution of the river valleys and reveals their historical dynamic processes of natural changes and human influences. In order to build the warning and compensating system, reveal the historical evolution of the river valleys and provide necessary scientific grounds for the comprehensive management of the valleys, the newly springing-up branch of geography studies the regular pattern of disasters that occurred in the valleys and the eco-security model and mechanism. As the natural and man-made disasters in many areas are closely related to historical evolution of the river basins, the historical river basin study, a recently springing-up field, attempts to explore scientific laws hidden in these phenomena. The researchers used more diversified methods and advanced technical means. Due to the fact that this study is related to many fields such as nature, history, society, management and ecology, this paper will focus on revealing the interaction of multi factors such as geographical characteristics and river basin evolution, as well as the coupling relationship between human development and river basin. Similar to geography research and its development trend, the historical river basin study is comprehensive, evolutionary, applicable and relatively stable in space. Historical river basin study under the perspective of geographical development not only helps to expand the horizon of geographical research, but also provides scientific basis for management and sustainable development of the river basins. It is hoped that river basin study can become an important branch of modern science.

Although the nationwide poverty has been basically eliminated at present in China, the contiguous and concentrated distribution pattern of underdeveloped areas has not changed significantly. In the poverty-stricken areas, generally, resources and environmental conditions have more direct and obvious impacts on the local socio-economic structure. In this paper, firstly, we analyze the spatial coupling relationship between the distribution pattern of underdeveloped areas and the basic elements of resources and environment. The classification of constrained types of resource and environmental condition in national-level poverty counties shows that 456 poverty counties are restricted prominently by the resources and environment in China, accounting for 77% of all of the national-level poverty counties (592), and the proportions of resource-constrained types, environment-constrained types and comprehensive-constrained types are 33%, 23% and 21% respectively. Secondly, based on the case studies of Xiji-Haiyuan-Guyuan area of Ningxia Hui autonomous region and Nujiang Lisu autonomous prefecture of Yunnan province, the overall resources and environment carrying capacity in underdeveloped areas is proved to be relatively weak; the resource and environmental burden is chronically overloading; the response to changes among elements is sensitive; and the potential to enhance capacity is greatly limited. Moreover, the recovery cost is tremendous once the local carrying capacity is overloaded. The results show that these factors such as the mobility and migration of overloading population, the comprehensive renovation of regional eco-environment, the construction of large-scale infrastructure projects, the interaction among regional resource and environmental elements, and the emergency of natural disasters and tendency of global warming have significantly affected resources and environment carrying capacity in underdeveloped areas. Consequently, besides the water and land conditions, eco-environment, resources endowment and other traditional factors, the uncertain factors such as technological progress, institutional and policy arrangements should be taken into consideration in the establishment process of evaluation index system of resources and environment carrying capacity.

Baoxiang river reservoir, a semi-natural water body, is characteristised by eutrophication, which is significantly harmful to regional human health and sustainable development. The sediments are sources and sinks of nutrients. In addition to providing important habitats for aquatic organisms, sediments play a significant role in determining the overall environmental quality of a watershed. Organic carbon in sediments plays an important role in release and transformation of aquatic pollutants, which is one of the main causes of eutrophication. In this study, profiles of TOC, C/N ratio, δ¹³C and grain sizes in the sediments of Baoxiang river reservoir, Dianchi watershed were used to demonstrate the sources and change of sedimentary organic matter and explore reservoir eutrophication sensitivity to human activities. Considering the characteristics of topography and human activities of the study area, with the help of GPS (Global Positioning System), two reservoir bottom sediments (A and B) profiles were collected during dry period. Our results showed that the sources of sedimentary organic matter were different in the different sampling locations. C/N ratios in the sediment A varied from 2.93 to 11.73, with bulk δ¹³C (‰) values ranging from -23.66‰ to -21.78‰. This indicated that organic matters mainly from aquatic organisms and terrestrial input contributed little to the sedimentary organic matters. The concentrations of organic matters were influenced significantly by the grain sizes. The concentrations of sedimentary organic matters and total nitrogen in the sediment B varied from 14.62 to 24.93 g・kg^-1, and 2.11 to 3.3 g・kg^-1, respectively, higher than that of the sediment A, and with bulk δ¹³C (‰) values of -28.36‰ to -26.36‰. The grain sizes were mainly composed of clay and silt. This demonstrated that organic matters in the sediment B came mainly from terrestrial input, which is an indication of the main effect of human activities, not the sediment grain size. Based on the volume percentage of sediment in each size fraction, we found that grain size in the sediment A is classified as thick, indicating poor sorting and strong water movement. The sediment B is characteristized with fine particles, with clay and fine sand as the main components and low water flow. Correlation analysis between sediment grain size and organic carbon contents showed that they were highly correlated in the sediment A. Synchronous change was found in mean sediment grain size and precipitation.

Mountain type demarcation, which is the foundation for scientifically cognizing mountain laws, is of fundamental significance to the development of mountain science. And the starting point and ultimate goal of mountain science research, is to promote sustainable development in aspects such as natural, cultural and others of mountainous areas. So division of mountainous areas, on the basis of the scientific mountain demarcation research, is a fundamental scientific basis for sustainable mountain development in mountain regions. This study uses geographic information system (GIS) technology combined with digital elevation model (DEM) data to demarcate Sichuan mountain type and to divide mountainous areas in Sichuan province. However, some problems emerged and finally are solved during the process of relief amplitude calculation which is essential for demarcation of mountains, for instance, the change point computed by applying mean change point method for the fisrt time is not the point that meets the criterion of best statistical point unit in geographical significance. Then data in line with the actual physical sense is applied to calculate the change point by using mean change point method for the second time, and the best statistical window is proved to be 9.92 km². As the result shows, the research demarcates mountain types of Sichuan to hills, low mountain, middle-low mountain, middle mountain, sub-high mountain, high mountain and extremely high mountain, and divides mountainous regions to pure hilly county, mid-mount county, quasi-mount county, apparent mount county and whole mount county. In the end, this paper suggests that governments could formulate and implement not only a series of macro policies for the whole mountainous areas but also specific policies for each type of mountainous counties to promote the development of mountainous regions.

An annually-laminated and ²³⁰Th-dated stalagmite oxygen isotope (δ¹⁸O) record from Yongxing Cave, central China, provides an average annual resolution East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) history covering from 1788-1956. The δ¹⁸O values of stalagmite show variations ranging from -9.70‰ to -7.87‰ (VPDB), with an amplitude as large as ~1.83‰. The δ¹⁸O profile exhibits clear inter-decadal oscillations over the past ~200 years. A comparison of δ¹⁸O records from Yongxing Cave and Heshang Cave, both located in the mid-low Yangtze River Valley, shows a close similarity during their contemporaneous growth periods. The two duplicated stalagmite δ¹⁸O records suggest that oxygen isotopic variations are primarily caused by climate change, possibly related to the EASM changes. Power spectral analysis of the δ¹⁸O data indicates that the EASM varies at a periodicity of ~60-70 years (above the 95% confidence level). The changes in EASM are comparable to Indian summer monsoon (ISM) changes derived from all Indian summer rainfall (JJAS) over the past ~200 years. The comparison result shows a broad similarity on inter-decadal timescale between the EASM and ISM, but in an opposite sense, with a correlation coefficient of 0.47 (n=141, P<0.001). Furthermore, the EASM and ISM records are compared to a unified ENSO proxy (UEP), which is revealed by Principal Component Analysis of 10 commonly used ENSO proxies. On inter-decadal timescale, weak/strong EASM and strong/weak ISM intervals are linked to cool/warm ENSO phases. This observation might suggest a strengthening influence of ENSO on decadal Asian monsoon variability.

Urban fractal dimension analysis is an important method for quantifying the measurement of urban morphology. With rapid urban development in China in recent two decades, the three-dimensional characteristic has been the essential feature of urban morphology. However the research of urban fractal dimension are mostly focused on the two-dimensional space, few studies have been conducted from a 3D perspective. In this paper, a three-dimensional box-counting method is proposed to estimate fractal dimension of urban form. The scale-free region is usually determined by experience in the classical urban fractal research. In the lnr-lnN(r) curve, the researchers find out a line segment with good linear relationship over a range of length scales with their experience as the scaling range. This identification method is subjective, and cannot accurately identify and calculate the fractal dimension. Moreover, for the same set of data, different scale ranges could be attained by different observers. In this paper, a method based on the second-order derivative of log-log curves is used to automatically identify the fractal scale-free range. The central urban area of Yangzhou city is selected as the case area. Two high resolution remote sensing images of 2003 and 2012, which are respectively the QuickBird data with 0.61 m resolution and the GeoEye data with 0.5 m resolution, are used to acquire Yangzhou three-dimensional morphology data. Then based on the data, the detailed process of the three-dimensional box-counting method is described. The experimental results show that: the scaling range is the basis of calculating city fractals, the second-order derivative method can automatically identify fractal scale-free range accurately; The linear regression coefficients of scale-free range R² are all over 0.996 in the two years, which demonstrates that Yangzhou three-dimensional morphology is fractal; The fractal dimension of urban morphology has increased significantly in 2012 compared with the year 2003, which indicates that the utilization of 3D spaces has become more efficient and compact; The three-dimensional box-counting algorithm proposed in this paper not only provides a new methodology in quantifying the measurement of urban spatial structure and the evolution of urban morphology, but also extends the scope of urban studies to higher dimensions.

The prosperity of modern service industry has become a remarkable feature of the modern economy. And city is the main space carrier to the development of the modern service industry. Modern service industry is closely related to urbanization; they interact and influence each other. The paper, on the basis of the analysis of the interaction between modern service industry and urbanization, with the help of coupling theory in physics, analyzes the functional mechanism of coordinative development between modern service industry system and urbanization system, and constructs the coupling evaluation model and index system of two systems. With Changshu as an example, the paper makes an empirical analysis of the coupling coordinative development relation between the two systems. We expect our research can grasp the comprehensive development level and the status quo of coordinated development of modern service industry and urbanization in Changshu. In addition, we summarize some common laws about the development of modern service industry and urbanization, and provide theoretical reference and case demonstration for the towns in economically developed areas in China. The main conclusions of this study are as follows. First, there exists the coupling relationship between modern service industry and urbanization. The comprehensive evaluation functional value of urbanization and modern service industry in Changshu generally presents an upward trend from 2003 to 2012. This illustrates that the modern service industry of Changshu have kept a sustained development. Besides, the level of urbanization also has been raised. The coupling degree has changed a little in the past ten years, being around 0.49. Coupling coordinative degree presents a rising trend, the transition from imbalance during 2003-2008 to coordination during 2008-2012. However, on the whole, the coupling coordinative degree of the two systems is very low, and it is only 0.6013 by 2012. In addition, urbanization development lags behind modern service industry for a long time. To achieve a better coordination, further studies need to be strengthened. Finally, we carry on the self-examination for the shortage of the article, and point out the direction of future efforts.

The developmental characteristics of excessive dependence on resources and energy consumption make China's manufacturing industry have great energy-saving potentiality and space. Through calculating the energy intensity and energy-saving potentiality of manufacturing industry in various provinces and cities in China, this paper analyses the regional differences and industrial differences of the energy-saving potentiality of manufacturing. The result shows that: (1) There exist obvious differences of manufacturing energy intensity in eastern, central and western China, and the manufacturing energy intensity of the eastern region is much lower than that of the central and western regions. But regional energy intensity gaps have been gradually narrowing in recent years, at the same time, the gaps between different provinces and cities in an inland region have also been narrowed. (2) There are 17 provinces' energy-saving potentialities higher than the national average energy-saving potentiality, and mainly concentrated in central and western China, in these regions, the average energy-saving potentiality of each province is over 70%, which shows that the manufacturing energy-saving space is very large in most parts of China. (3) Most industries with high energy-saving potentiality have higher requirements for energy utilization efficiency and stronger industrial forward and backward linkage effects. (4) Although there is large difference in the energy-saving potentiality of sub-industries of manufacturing in different provinces and cities, the rankings of the energy-saving potentiality of petroleum processing and coking industry, electronic and communication equipment manufacturing industry, special equipment manufacturing industry and chemical fiber manufacturing industry in various regions are all in front. (5) When making energy-saving policies and measures, the government should not only take concrete measures according to the differences of resources, energy endowment and economic development level of various provinces and cities, but also take full account of the differences between industries.

Urbanization is an inevitable trend with the development of industrialization. Exploring the response of rural development to urbanization process is of great importance to understand the urban-rural relationship, regional urbanization and rural development. Taking Bohai Rim region which includes 325 counties as the study object and using an integrated utilization of GIS, entropy method and coordination index model, this study investigated the spatial patterns of urbanization and rural development, and analyzed their coordination characteristics including statistical and spatial relations. The results show that: (1) The levels of urbanization in Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan, Shandong Peninsula and central-south Liaoning are much higher than those of west Liaoning and north Hebei, while the levels of rural development in Beijing, Tianjin and Shandong are much higher than in Hebei and Liaoning, with high-level rural development areas concentrated in Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan region and Shandong peninsula. Meanwhile, the disparity of rural development level between different regions is much lower than that of urbanization level. (2) The development of urbanization boosts the sustainable economic and social development in the rural areas to some extent, however, with the speedup of urbanization, the coordination level presents a declining trend, and the differences in rural development are generally enlarged. (3) It is necessary to analyze the coordination index based on the status of regional urbanization and rural development. Some developed areas have low level of coordination index and some undeveloped areas have higher levels. (4) To integrate urban and rural development and advance urbanization and the building of new rural areas in a coordinated manner, we should take effective measures to adapt the urban-rural dual system to the requirement of flow and linkage of urban-rural factors, promote balanced development among regions according to the policies that involve the main grain producing areas and ecological reserves, and promote urbanization based on local characteristics such as location, development stage and resources endowment.

Coordinating the urban and rural development and promoting the construction of new socialist countryside are two important strategies for Chinese modernization. In this study, urban-rural income indexes such as urban per capita income, rural per capita income and urban-rural income ratio, to a certain degree, can be used to measure the gap of urban-rural residents’ living quality and their coordinated development. This paper aims to investigate the spatial-temporal differentiation of urban-rural income in the Central Plains Region (CPR) at multiple spatial scales. Based on the three urban-rural income indicators, we use C_V, Theil Index, Moran's I and scale variance to examine the changing trends and spatial patterns of urban-rural development in CPR from 2000 to 2012 at regional, city and county levels. The results are summarized as follows. (1) From the calculation results of C_V, Theil index and Moran's I, we find that the regional difference of urban per capita income is gradually decreasing at the three spatial scales, while that of rural per capita income is gradually increasing since 2000. The indicator of urban-rural income ratio is gradually declining at regional and city levels, but increasing at county level; and the overall trend is similar to the change of rural per capita income. (2) The results of the scale variance show different patterns obviously. The variance of the urban per capita income is decreased from county level to city and regional levels; however, that of rural per capita income and urban-rural ratio is decreased from county level to regional and city levels. (3) The statistical results of Moran's I indicate positive local spatial autocorrelation patterns of urban-rural income, and tend to be stable since 2000. The maps of local Moran's I show the significant clusters: LL for both of urban and rural per capita income, and HH for urban-rural income ratio. (4) The spatial classification of the three indexes of the urban-rural income in ArcGIS 10.0 show very different results. The city level indexes demonstrate a clear clustering pattern, while the spatial structure of county level indexes is much complex, which is mainly dominated by irregular circles with different sizes. Our research illustrates that the spatial-temporal analysis of the urban-rural income is practical to measure the spatial patterns and growth trends at multiple scales, and thus it provides in-depth information for urban-rural development. The research results also provide theoretical basis for the urban-rural development strategy in CPR and other regions.

The population density pattern is a crucial economic and social feature of an urban area, and is an important basis for policy making. The study of urban population densities is an old and continuing preoccupation of urban geographers and urban economists. With the aids of the expansion methods of model construction, we formulate an econometric model to measure the development of population change in metropolitan Beijing by the introduction of time variable, and the mechanism is also discussed. Beijing, one of the most attractive cities in China, has aroused a strong attraction on labor and capital market. So, concentration is the main features of population growth from 2000 to 2010 in metropolitan Beijing. The new trend is inconsistent with the suburbanization trends which are generally accepted from 1982-2000. Population is concentrated from inner suburbs to the new town in outer suburbs, while population outflows from the outskirts of the peripheral area. The regional difference of population density distribution is increasing. The estimation results indicate the 'inverted-U' pattern of population growth from urban core to urban fringe. In the core urban area, the growth rate is the lowest, and decentralization and equalization are the main character of population growth due to the protection of Beijing old city and urban function dissemination. The greatest population growth rate is found to have occurred in the outer suburbs since 2005, and it has risen slightly in inner suburbs. So, the outer suburbs have become the main carrying space of population growth instead of the inner suburbs, while the population growth rate in peripheral outer suburbs declines. In comparison of 1984-2005 with 1984-2010, the population growth pace of the core urban area is gradually slowing down; the 'inverted-U' pattern has become a linear increasing pattern from urban core to urban fringe. Besides the urban conservation and function dissemination, this paper also discusses the factors influencing population growth, including the growth of capital economy, the rapid construction of subways, protection of mountain eco-environmental. In the end, it is recommended that to balance housing and employment, service facilities and employment opportunities in the outer suburbs should be increased, and the mixed land use should be encouraged in order to enhance population attractiveness.

On the basis of current interactive connection of railway passenger transport between 286 central cities in China and the analysis of different passenger train types-local, rapid, express, multiple units and high-speed railway, the paper intends to comprehensively deconstruct the spatial pattern of national railway passenger transport and its structure characteristics by using GIS methods based on O-D contact network, whose goal is to reveal the national railway passenger spatial contacts, distribution regularity and regional difference more clearly and profoundly, as well as new technical ideas and more data for transportation spatial connect research by means of making use of central cities' interactive connection data of "city-train-city" and overcoming the problem that traditional railway connection only has the information between origination and destination and lacks that of the intermediate stations. The results show that the spatial framework of national railway passenger transport between central cities presents an eastward tilted “kai” font shape, which mainly consists of two vertical train lines: Beijing-Shanghai to Shanghai-Shenzhen, Beijing-Guangzhou to Beijing-Harbin, and two horizontal lines: Lanzhou-Lianyungang to Lanzhou-Urumqi and Shanghai-Kunming. The linkage of national railway passenger transport between central cities is characterized by Rank-Size distribution, which belongs to the most optimal centralized distribution in natural state. The connection of national railway passenger transport between central cities generally relies on important transport axis and neighbor core cities. This study clearly demonstrates the major contact directions and corresponding intensities between inter and outer railway transports in a given subdivision types of train number. The study shows that the rapid train dominates the current railway passenger transport in China. The rapid development of the multiple units and high-speed railway technology has greatly changed the structure of Chinese railway passenger transport. The contacts of multiple units and high-speed railways concentrate in three economic regions of eastern China. However, there is a tighter linkage between Beijing and Shanghai, as well as Beijing and Guangzhou compared with that between Shanghai and Guangzhou (Shenzhen). A relative weak contact between Shanghai and Guangzhou (Shenzhen) is attributed to the infrastructure of high-speed railway facilities lagging behind.

A reasonable degree of spatial structure of urban residential land will not only affect the quality of life of residents, but also affect the development efficiency of the entire city. Residential land nature of structural changes is the change in the social structure of residential land on the spatial distribution of specific performance. Under the background of the rapid urbanization, fevelopment of National Tourist Resort also presented the phenomenon of urbanization and promoted its interior spatial variation of the formation of residential land. This article aims to examine the Dalian Jinshitan National Tourist Holiday Resort spatial differentiation of residential land-depth analysis of the phenomenon, based on the three-phase SPOT5 and satellite sensing data of Dalian Jinshitan National Tourist Holiday Resort between 2003 to 2012. This paper, by using GIS technology combined with differentiation index D and multiple-group differentiation measure model D(m), analyzes residential space differentiation process, the distribution and the driving mechanism of Jishitan in villages scales, optimizes the allocation of resources, and promotes the healthy and steady development of domestic tourism resort. Results show that: (1) Between 2003 and 2012, there were differences among the varying degrees of various types of residential land-use in Jinshitan. Rural residential differentiation gradually increased, and the differentiation of the rest of other types declined. Differentiation of the garden house ranged from 0.06 to 0.65, which showed the most dramatic fluctuation. The spatial distribution intensity of Dalian Jinshitan National Tourist Holiday Resort differed within a reasonable range. (2) In the background of the traditional residential type gradually being replaced by the new ones, the area of the garden houses, commercial residential and common residential had been growing rapidly and the distribution had been ranging, which was mainly distributed along the coastline or scenic areas, and it was becoming more widely. The number of the rural houses was increasingly decreasing, while the covering area was more and more scattered even disappeared. In general, residential land area increased significantly. (3) In the three stages of the development of housing industry, the driving mechanism of residential land differentiation in Dalian Jinshitan National Tourist Holiday Resort is multifaceted. The government decision-making is the control power. The social class differentiation is an important force. The market mechanism is the dominant force. The personal choice is the auxiliary power. These factors interact with each other, and work together on the development of tourism real estate in Jinshitan National Tourist Resort. Jinshitan National Tourist Resort is regarded as the representatives of the first state-level tourist resorts, therefore it has a profound reference for studies on its evolution and formation mechanism for the development of other similar tourist resorts.

The historical streets are important protected objects of cultural heritage because of their complex intrinsic value, but rigid protection of original culture and excessive commercialization have become two obstructions of sustainable development of historical streets. Based on the exploratory factor analysis (EFA), this study builds a hypothesis structural equation model of the influence on the support of tourism development of historical streets. The study takes Pingjiang Road of Suzhou as the example and empirically studies the factors that influence the support of tourism development of historical streets by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Then the study proposes a creative tourism development mode of historical streets, which aims to promote the sustainable development of historical streets. The results show that: (1) The coexistence of traditional culture and modern culture, the consumption demands as well as the landscape and space image are the key factors affecting the support of tourism development in historical streets. The layout and type of commercial format, street layout and function as well as expression of historical information are important factors affecting the support of tourism development in historical streets; (2) The coexistence of traditional culture and modern culture has the most significant influence on support, followed by consumption demands, showing that the integration of traditional and modern urban culture as well as the satisfaction of consumers' demands are the foundation of tourism development pattern; (3) The study builds a tourism development model with the foundation of urban culture integrated by traditional culture and modern culture, the driving force of the satisfaction of the tourists' experience and leisure needs, and the development tools of "creative", "humanization", "refinement" and "life-orientation". The model is a creative one which not only emphasizes urban culture, but also meets the leisure and experience demands of tourists in the modern society. Moreover, it merges "culturalization", "experience", "leisure", "creative", "humanization", "refinement", "life-orientation" and "characteristic".

All biological and abiotic have dual attributes in the natural ecosystems. They are the integral part of ecosystem, and basic resources for the sustainable development of the human society. Objective and accurate assessment of ecosystem, not just a scientific question of ecosystem ecology, is also a management issue of the sustainable development of the human society. To objectively find and understand change features of ecosystem by comprehensive assessment is a popular and difficult topic in ecological research field, and is one of the key propositions of sustainable development of human society. Integrated ecosystem assessment is to better serve the integrated ecosystem management and enhance the ecological system of human society support ability. In this processing and behavior, the ecosystem and its service ability for human society are analyzed, and their statuses and changes are found and understood. There are many core contents in the integrated ecosystem assessment, such as the ecosystem management, ecosystem services, ecological assets. Facing the multiple, comprehensive and open ecosystem, some countries and international organizations have carried out many explorations and practices of integrated ecosystem assessment, and put forward various evaluation frameworks. There are still many problems and challenges. This paper examines the progress of ecosystem assessment, including the concept, framework model and main content, development trends and challenges. Based on the complex “social-economic-natural” ecosystems, interactive process of society and ecosystem, concept and content of ecosystem management, ecosystem services, ecological assets and their relationship are discussed. According to the practices and cases of integrated ecological system assessment, which include lots of assessment in global, regional, and national scales, four integrated assessment framework models are summed up. They are "ecological pressure-policy responses","ecological services-human well-being", "natural benefits-ecology management", "comprehensive status-change trends". However, as ecosystems are diverse, integrated, complex, and open, lots of scientific questions should be paid more attention in the future, including integrated assessment framework and its relevant theoretical basis, indicators and methods of ecosystem assessment, observation technology integration and data assimilation methods, temporal and spatial scales.

The oceans have long been recognized as increasingly important natural resources for humans. Humans, especially coastal residents, depend on ocean systems for essential and valuable life-supporting provisions, such as ocean resources, ocean traffic, seashore tourism, etc. Oceans are extremely sensitive and vulnerable, regardless of their substantial productivity. Long-term of ocean- and land-based human activities have increasingly threatened the oceans through direct and indirect means and caused the degradation of structure, function and provision service of ocean systems. Recently, theoretical and practical studies on man-land relationship have already become a research hotspot both at home and abroad. However, there are relatively few studies on man-sea relationship. Furthermore, regional system of man-sea relationship is a complex system that constitutes two relatively independent, but interactional subsystems, human and ocean. Yet, few studies have focused on the perspective of complex system. For decades, marine economy has been rapidly developing in China, and human impact on marine is gradually deepened. In this context, studies on regional system of man-sea relationship will be of important theoretical and practical significance to the coastal regions of China. Referring information entropy and synergetic theory, this study proposes a general concept of synergetic development mechanism of regional system of man-sea relationship, and sets up the index system of development level assessment. Then, the development levels of human-society and marine resources-environment subsystems were calculated by AHP-PP model from 1996 to 2012 in coastal regions of China. Information entropy scores and order degrees of regional system of man-sea relationship are calculated by using information entropy model in the article. The results indicate that information entropy scores of regional system of man-sea relationship go down with each passing year and order degrees show an upward trend, but regional differences are noticeable in coastal regions of China. Furthermore, the synergetic development model of regional system of man-sea relationship was established for recognizing the synergetic development classification of regional systems and parameters of the model are estimated by accelerating genetic algorithm. The findings confirm that three man-sea relationship patterns are recognized in the eleven coastal provinces. The man-sea relationship of Hubei, Guangxi and Hainan are conflicting; Tianjin, Liaoning, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Fujian are predatory; and Shanghai, Shandong, and Guangdong are cooperative. The causes for these different synergetic development patterns are analyzed and countermeasures for enhancing synergetic development are briefly put forward in this study.

The information about land cover and its dynamic change is essential for the global change and regional sustainable development studies. With the development of remote sensing and land cover interpretation technology, the land cover information derived from satellite remote sensing imagery become the only way to obtain land surface information effectively and economically, especially in large-scale regions. Free global land cover products, e. g. GLOBCOVER2009, GLC2000, MODIS2000, GLOBCOVER2005, are now popularly used by worldwide scientists in many diverse fields. To get a cross-referenced research results, it is fundamental and critical for secitists to pre-estimate the accuracy of each land product and pre-assess the consistency of different land products in a specific region. Supported by the above 4 land cover products, this study aims at analyzing the consistency and heterogeneity, by using area correlation analysis, mix-up pixs analysis, spatial consistency analysis, and reference precision analysis methods. The results show: (1) The 4 land cover products have similar descriptions about the the construction of European land cover. Cropland and forestland are the dominant land cover types, followed by grassland, water body and other land cover types. (2) Cropland land and forest land have the lowest mix-up ratios and the highest consistencies, while the grassland, shrubland, and bareland have the highest mix-up ratios and low consistencies. (3) There are 75% land area in Europe owing a relative high consistency, which means at least 3 products indicate the same type among all 4 products. Specifically, in the Eastern Scandinavian Peninsula, the Central-eastern Europe plains, and the Paris basin, there are higher consistency. While in the western Scandinavian Peninsula, the Kola Peninsula, the northern Pechora River-southern Novaya Zemlya, the Iberian Peninsula and the downstream region of Volga river, there are lower consistency among different products. (4) The reference precision between different land cover products ranges from 38.56% to 77.65%. The group of GLOBCOVER2009/GLOBCOVER2005 has the highest reference precisions, which refers the error caused by land changes is largely smaller than the error caused by the interpretation process due to different institutions, sensors, land classification systems, and interpretation methods.

By using the land use/cover data for the early 1980 and 2000 in Northeast China, we carried out two 21-year (1980-2000) simulations, respectively, with the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model. This paper is aimed to investigate the effects of cropland extension on climate in Northeast China. In winter and spring, the replacement of natural grassland and forest by cropland enhanced land surface albedo, and surface net solar radiation was therefore reduced. As a consequence, the surface sensible heat flux decreased and the cooling effect occurred. Mostly, the local surface air temperature dropped by 0.1°C to 1.0°C. The cooling strength is comparable to the contemporaneous background temperature change which is induced by large circulation and sea surface temperature changes. In summer and autumn, the replacement of nature vegetation by cropland reduced land surface albedo, and surface net solar radiation was therefore increased. Meanwhile, the surface latent heat flux increased largely and the surface sensible heat flux decreased. As a result, there was also a cooling effect on local surface climate. These findings demonstrate detectable effects of land use/cover changes on local temperature. The effects of agricultural development on summer precipitation vary with background climate. In the South-Drought and North-Flood years, the decreased precipitation is detected in the Hulun Buir to central Heilongjiang province and central Jilin province and around the Liaodong Gulf while the precipitation increases in common boundary area of Heilongjiang, Jilin and Inner Mongolia. In the South-Flood and North-Drought years, the precipitation anomaly pattern is approximately reverse to the abovementioned South-Drought and North-Flood years with the exception that there is still decreased precipitation around the Liaodong Gulf. However, due to limited area with land use/cover changes, the impact on regional mean temperature is very limited.

Taking the counties as the basic spatial unit, we examine the spatio-temporal dynaimc of rurality in Northeast China by evaluating the rurality indexes quantitatively of the counties in the years of 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012, and then divide the counties into five types such as the weakest rurality, weaker rurality, moderate rurality, stronger rurality and the strongest rurality. Moreover, with the help of ArcGIS and Exploratory Spatial data Analysis method (ESDA), we identify and analyze the "hot spots" and ''cold spots'' areas of the rurality in different periods, as well as the pattern of spatio-temporal evolution. We find that the rurality indexes of the counties in Northeast China are generally high and tend to decline from 2000 to 2012, and the rurality indexes of the counties in the northern part are higher than those of the southern part, which are directly proportional to the distance of its regional central city and takes on the pattern of circularity, that is, the closer to its central city, the smaller the rurality index is. The counties whose rurality indexes are similar tend to be agglomerated, and the counties with low-low or high-high values tend to be strengthened in spatial agglomeration from 2000 to 2012, accompanied by the transformation of the "hot spots" to the northern part and the "cold spots" to the southern part. We also find that national policies, industrial structure, agricultural mechanization, increase of chemical fertilizer, and foreign direct investment are the primary factors affecting rurality and its variation of space structure.

As the consequences of urbanization trends and climate changes in recent years, the impacts and interactions of flood disasters have become significantly complicated. As a complex system engineering, flood disaster risk assessment takes on very important meaning in the theory and practice of flood control. What is more, the risk assessment model is the foundation and core of risk management and emergency response of flood disaster. So, the flood disaster assessment model has a deterministic influence on the flood disasters risk assessment results. The flood disaster risk is the consequence of the interactions between different factors in a complicated flood disaster system. According to the characteristics of flood disaster complex system, agent-based modeling (ABM) technology, belonging to complex system modeling, is employed in dynamic risk assessment for flood disaster. This paper proposed a multi-agent based theoretical model for dynamic flood risk assessment. First, the framework of dynamic risk assessment model, namely flood risk dynamical assessment multi agent system (FRDAMAS), is constructed for flood disaster based on the analysis of the complex flood disaster system from the perspective of complex system modeling. Second, based on research on each kind of agent model in FRDAMAS, a reactive agent model is used to construct single agent model of hazard environment and a deliberative agent model is used to construct the agent models of hazard factor, hazard effect object and risk analysis. Meanwhile, the procedures, the mechanism and the rules of abovementioned agents are studied. Third, taking risk analysis agents alliance as an example, we analyze interior structures and procedures of the four types of agents alliance involved in FRDAMAS, including hazard environment agents alliance, hazard factor agents alliance, hazard effect object agents alliance, and risk analysis agents alliance. Finally, the dynamic assessment of risk population during the whole process of the rain-storm flood disaster in the Huaihe River Basin is implemented using the proposed method and DEM data with a spatial resolution of 30 m on NetLogo platform. The results demonstrate that the proposed method can effectively assess the dynamic changes of population risk during the whole process of flood disaster. And it is also important that the results will have a strong guiding significance for population risk assessment, emergence response, and emergence management for flood disasters.

In recent years, some new areas of development have been proposed for natural disaster science. It is suggested that the discipline should try to attach more importance to recognizing disaster loss accumulation and amplification trends, re-evaluate the mechanisms of major natural disasters, and facilitate interdisciplinary research between natural disaster and complexity science. The 2008 Chinese ice storm struck the most populated and economically developed region of China, and direct economic losses exceeded $22.3 billion (indirect losses may have been even greater). Recognition of the formation mechanism of the 2008 Chinese ice storm will be very important for developing integrated disaster risk reduction strategies. This study employed daily temperature and precipitation data from a 0.5°×0.5° gridded dataset released by China's National Meteorological Information Center to evaluate the synthetic hazard process of the severe cold surge, ice-snow events, and corresponding frozen disasters in southern China in 2008. More specifically, we analyzed the spatial-temporal structure and complexity of the catastrophes by using bipartite networks. Results indicated that the large freezing rain and snow disaster was a typical multi-disaster overlaying event. The overlaying of freezing rain and snow amplified the risks of other hazards such as critical infrastructure failures. Moreover, the timing of the event, which occurred during the Chinese New Year, increased the vulnerability of people to exposures (i.e., they were more likely to be traveling). Low mountain-hilly terrain and high population density reduced the stability of the fostering environment. The freezing rain and snow catastrophes in 2008 showed the mathematical characteristics of small-world features. In terms of spatial data, the occurrence of hazards was clustered when the unprecedented ice struck the region; in terms of temporal data, the intervals between successive waves were too short for ice to melt or be broken, thus disaster losses were accumulated and amplified through the small-world features of the hazards. Networks of freezing rain and snow catastrophes in 2008 had a typical core-periphery structure. The spatial core nodes were Sichuan, Guizhou, Chongqing, Anhui, Hubei, Shaanxi, and Hunan (provincial units); the temporal core nodes were 1.13, 1.15, 1.17-1.22, and 1.25-2.4. Overall, these results highlight that complex network theory can be used advantageously in the analysis of the loss accumulation and amplification trends associated with multi-disaster events. Such techniques can also be used effectively to describe the spatial and temporal evolution of multi-disaster events and support the understanding of disaster dynamics.

One of the important foundations for the study of urban spatial structuring is dissecting the interactive mechanisms among the different functional urban spaces. In this paper, we focus on the following four types of functional urban spaces: residential space, industrial space, service space and ecological space, and we take Changchun city as our primary example. The land status maps and other statistics covering the years 2002, 2005, 2008, 2010 and 2012 provide the main data for this article. With the help of ArcGIS, SPSS and other analysis tools, the study examines the coupling relationship of functional urban spaces. We present two indexes: the Static Coupling Degree (expansion intensity index and coupling coefficient of land use conversion) and Dynamic Coupling Degree (Shannon-Weaver diversity index) — to study the coupling features and driving forces of interaction of functional urban spaces. In this dynamic research process, residential space is the focus of our study. Our research reveals the following: ① During the period from 2002 to 2012, urban spatial expansion in Changchun had still not escaped the ring pattern. Residential space shows excessive expansion, which is incompatible with other functional urban spaces. This gives the near field expansion of urban space a low coupling degree. ② Functional urban space coupling shows significant geographical differences. Both the dynamic and static coupling degrees of the core area are higher than those of the peripheral area, which indicates that the core area has entered a phase of reconstruction involving greater integration of the functional urban spaces. The peripheral area is still experiencing a rapid expansion, with relatively single function like residential districts or manufactory zones. ③ Implementing various coupling degree indexes and using a systematic clustering method and empirical discrimination method, we divide the central city of Changchun into six space types: completely mature functional urban space with a high coupling degree, relatively mature functional urban space with a high coupling degree, new functional urban space with a high coupling degree, relatively stable functional urban space with a low coupling degree, new functional urban space with a low coupling degree and special functional urban space with a low coupling degree. ④ The driving factors of the geographical differences of functional urban space coupling include multiple influences, such as government policy, economic development and population growth, lifestyle changes, the interaction between urban expansion and environmental protection, urban planning guidance and so on. Among these influences, urban planning plays a vital role as the bridge which allows public participation to gradually affect the evolution of functional urban spaces.

Many researchers have paid more attention to regional industrial land change in China. Industrial land change has unique characteristics in the resource exhausted cities. Daqing city, located in the southeast part of Heilongjiang province, is an important petroleum resource exhausted city. Geographical Info-Tupu is a method of processing and showing information to reflect spatial-temporal order of objects in the world. This paper, with the theory and methods of geographical Info-Tupu and GIS as a basis, establishes a grid info Tupu models by integrating TM image, large-scale topographic map, urban planning map, and other spatial data. The spatial pattern and changing law of industrial land use change pattern in Daqing are also revealed quantitatively. The results showed that: (1) Agricultural land was mainly found in outlying areas where mineral resources were not abundant, and showed an increasing trend and further concentration. (2) The most dramatic changes were in mining areas, and industrial land was gradually moving from the traditional mining zones to the new industrial zones. (3) The tertiary industry land was mainly in the city center area, which was distributed along the core neighborhoods. The tertiary industry land increased slowly in extensive development mode. This suggests that land planning plays a leading role in industrial land conversion in the resource exhausted city.

The spatial pattern of headquarters of large enterprises in a city is influenced by urban development and is also the driving force of the restructuring of urban form. The paper explores the distribution and influence mechanism of the headquarters of listed enterprises based on the detailed information of publicly listed enterprises and the location of their headquarters. The results show that, (1) Headquarters of listed enterprises in Shanghai displays an obvious polycentric pattern. Most headquarters are agglomerated in central urban districts. There are several clusters of headquarters, including Lujiazui and Caohejing development districts in central area and development zones in the suburbs. The scales of the headquarters clusters show a decreasing trend from the center to the periphery area. (2) The density of headquarters declines sharply with the growing distance from the city center. (3) The listed enterprise headquarters also tend to be located near the major traffic roads. More than 77% of the headquarters are located within 500 meters away from the major traffic lines. (4) The result of econometric model indicates that enterprise ownership, the year of the listing, scale and industry type of enterprises significantly affect the location of the headquarters of the large firms. The state-owned, larger and older enterprises are more inclined to locate their headquarters near the central area of the city, while the private-owned, smaller and newly listed firms generally locate their headquarters in the suburban area, resulting the dual structure of the spatial pattern of headquarters. (5) We argue that market oriented reform, government planning and political pecking order of firms of different ownership can explain such dual structure of the spatial pattern of the headquarters in Shanghai. Agglomeration economies and location advantages induce headquarters to be agglomerated in central districts. Urban planning is the driving force for many headquarters being located in development zones of the city. Finally, the political pecking order and the rapid rise of land rents in the inner city lead more privately-owned and smaller enterprises to locate their headquarters in the suburbs, resulting in the restructure of the spatial pattern of headquarters. (6) The spatial pattern of listed enterprises also affects the urban form and may reshape the urban structure. With the surburbanization of industry and housing, more and more new headquarters are agglomerated in the new urban districts. The spread of enterprise headquarters and the benefits of headquarters economy in new urban districts will strengthen management functions in the suburbs and help to reduce the overcrowding of inner city.

Since the implementation of "Western Region Development Program", western China has embraced a foreign trade boom. The foreign trade evolvement in western China not only creates a broader scope for the national economic development, but also completes the overall opening-up of China. Under this background, this paper uses several indices (such as trade intensity index, revealed comparative advantage, coefficient of variation, export similar index) to analyze the spatial pattern and trade structure of foreign trade in western China. The research results show that western China has witnessed a divergence in provincial foreign trade expansion. As trade of Sichuan and Chongqing grows quickly and turns into the core driving force of the whole trade in the western region, while Xinjiang, Yunnan and Guangxi have become the pioneer in the western frontier region. Second, the results illustrate that the major trade partners by scale are traditional major traders such as USA, and resource-exporters such as Australia and Kazakhstan. In contrast, neighboring countries and developing countries in Africa are the closest trade companions of western China. Third, western China has a gradually optimizing export structure with the improving proportion of mechanical and electrical equipment, whereas the most competitive commodities are still resource and labor intensive products. Fourth, provinces in western China can be divided into two export groups and three import groups based on the trade structure similarity. The first export group, including Chongqing, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Guangxi and Gansu, is featured by exporting mechanical and electrical equipment; the second group, consisting of Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Ningxia and Qinghai, mainly export textiles, clothing and chemicals. The first import group, including Chongqing, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Ningxia and Qinghai, focuses on mechanical and electrical equipment; the second import group, consisting of Guizhou, Yunnan and Gansu, with ores, slag and ash as leading imports; the third import group, including Xinjiang, Guangxi and Inner Mongolia, is featured by importing mineral fuels and its products.

The spatial distribution of the manufacturing industry based on industrial linkage has always been an important research topic. Using statistical data of 17 manufacturing industry segments in China (input-output table) and 286 prefecture-level spatial cells, this paper carries out input-output analysis and uses spatial regression models to determine the industrial linkage and spatial distribution of the manufacturing industry in China. Employing ordinary least squares (OLS), spatial lag regression model (SLM) and spatial error regression model (SEM), this paper determines whether there are correlations on spatial distribution between some manufacturing industry segments; it also aims to determine whether the distribution has strong industrial linkage to a specific segment. This paper also examines the characteristics of the industrial combinations with both strong industrial linkage and spatial correlation. Results show that, firstly, in 68 industrial combinations, 39 of these have both strong industrial linkage and spatial correlation, which proves the Marshallian externalities to some extent. Secondly, labor/labor-intensive manufacturing industries and capital/technology-intensive manufacturing industries can easily form such industrial combinations. Third, more than half of the manufacturing industry segments have positive correlations between industrial linkage and spatial correlation. Finally, "pgdp", "city", “kmt", and "zone" have good feedback, indicating that these elements have effects on the spatial distribution of the manufacturing industry in China. Apart from industrial combinations, this paper uses geographically weighted regression model (GWR) to study the spatial distribution of the degree of spatial correlation of 39 industrial combinations. Results show that industrial combinations with higher degree of spatial correlations are generally located in developing provinces (Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Hunan and Jiangxi), and not in developed provinces (Beijing, Tianjin, Jiangsu, Shanghai and Zhejiang) or under-developed provinces (Ningxia, Qinghai, Xinjiang and Tibet). Parts of the spatial distribution of the degree of spatial correlation of industrial combinations have regularities. Labor/labor-intensive manufacturing industries and capital/technology-intensive manufacturing industries differ in terms of the spatial distribution of the degree of spatial correlation. Moreover, the industrial combinations with higher degree of spatial correlations are basically the same in Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning. To ensure the future development of the manufacturing industry, the government should pay more attention to the mutual coordination and spatial correlation between manufacturing industry segments with strong industrial linkage. Formulating corresponding industrial linkages based on different manufacturing industry divisions and geographic spaces shall also play a positive role in the optimization of the spatial layout, further transforming and upgrading the manufacturing industry in China.

This paper firstly calculates the carbon emissions of tourism industry of five provinces based on the concept of "tourist consuming minus coefficient". Then it evaluates the tourism industry efficiencies and conducts a comparative analysis with the traditional DEA model and the undesirable output DEA model. The results are shown as follows. The rank of Hainan's carbon emissions of the tourism industry is always the lowest. The growth rate of Hubei' carbon emissions is the largest, and Beijing is the only declining area from 2009 to 2011. For per capita carbon emissions, Hainan tourism industry ranks first while Beijing and Hainan show a declining trend year by year. The overall level of the comprehensive and decomposition efficiencies in five provinces is high without considering carbon emissions, and it is in line with the fact that regional tourism as a pillar industry is attached great importance. The tourism industry efficiencies in the five provinces change irregularly while carbon emissions are considered. Tourism comprehensive technical efficiencies change from the regular status of decline or steadiness in 2009 to the irregular status in 2010-2011, which are determined by the combined effects between pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency. In the future, China should strengthen coordination between tourism energy conservation and optimal allocation of tourism resources, and improve the tourism industry efficiencies according to the level of local technology and market power advantages.

In the development or protection programmes related to local community, the subjective attitudes of community people influence the feasibility of planned projects directly. Finding an adaptive approach for the community opinion expression and communication with other interest groups is the key to effective community participation. Using participatory mapping technique and semi-structure interview, we investigated the perceived landscape values of 243 residents in 9 villages in Han Chang'an City Historical Site area. With the hotspot analysis, correspondence analysis and value compatibility index analysis, the mapping data and interviews were analyzed, and some features of the community landscape value were revealed, including landscape value spatial pattern, correspondence relationship of landscape value to landuse and compatibility of landscape value with the present village relocation programme. Based on those analyses, 4 potential community attitude type zones in the study area were distinguished. The results show that: ① the community attitudes indicated by compatibility of Han Chang'an City Historical Site are location-specific, and the spatial differentiation of the subjective attitudes towards local development or protection in an area provide more detailed social data for community related spatial planning, management and conflict control; ② there exist correspondence relations between the community perceived landscape values and landscape physical elements (landuse) in the case region, which will be conducive to explain social phenomena caused by landscape possible changes; ③participatory mapping and landscape value method provide a practical tool for studying perceived landscape of local community people, and cartographic visualization, statistical analysis and index modeling can be useful for revealing the spatial pattern of the landscape values.

Since the reform and opening up, the migration of floating population from rural to urban area, which rebuilds China's urban size system, is being mirrored in China. And there was a large gap of floating population among cities of different sizes. According to census data in 1990, 2000 and 2010, this paper builds up the spatial database of urban floating population and total population. Referring to the theory and the parameters meaning of urban total population rank-size rule, this paper puts forward an assumption that it is similar to explore mathematic rule of urban floating population rank-size distribution by calculating the parameters and identifying the fractal scaling region. According the coupling relationship between rank-size distributions of urban floating population and total population, this paper divided cities into four coupling types in terms of absorbing floating population, which are absolutely advanced type, relatively advanced type, absolutely lagging type and relatively lagging type. Some interesting findings are listed as follows. (1) China's urban floating population rank-size distribution was also submitted to typical power function rule, with a high-rank oriented aggregation feature. What's more, agglomeration power was stronger than dispersive power which improves the degree of aggregation. (2) Among the four types, the majority of cities have always been belonged to the absolutely lagging type, which means that the majority of Chinese cities still have rather large potential for absorbing more floating population. (3) The cities of different sizes located in southeastern coastal urban agglomeration and capital cities in central and western China were usually characterized as the absolutely advanced type or the relatively advanced type. These cities should focus on making floating population into local residents. While those cities with middle & small sizes located in northern China's coastal areas, central China, western China and Northeast China were usually characterized as the absolutely lagging type or the relatively lagging type. These cities should enhance the ability of absorbing floating population. (4) There were various factors affecting China's urban floating population rank-size distribution, including the gap of urban economy, the level of public service, the personal geographical cognition and settlement intention of floating population. Hopefully, this paper can promote the researches on urban migration and assist decision-making of urbanization policies in China.

Using the concept of "production of space", this paper analyses the relation between festivals and local cultural spaces by a case of Qianmen-Dashila District in Beijing. The methodologies are survey of landscape, questionnaire and interview. In this case study, we analyse the role of the local government in the process of space production, who has the allocation power of public resources to produce space than the ordinary people. The study also shows the nature of "third space" in this area. The conclusions of this paper are as follows. Firstly, the local government can use administrative and financial approaches to organize local festivals. It has absolute power to symbolize a physical space with new cultural meanings, then reproduce a space. Secondly, the local government tried to create non-exclusive consumption conditions of festivals, which are public goods. So the citizens could have access to festivals events freely and equally. It is an opposite case of space reproduction in capitalism system under some situations. The aim of the space reproduction in this case is not spatial exploitation. Thirdly, the festivals constructed a kind of "third space", which integrate "idea and practice", "self and others", where people can reproduce space of festivals as agents. Fourthly, the festival events root in the history of this area endowed a unique cultural image. They also increased the cultural capital by giving the replicated events in any other places. Two suggestions are extended from the conclusions. The first one is that organizers and designers of such kind of festivals should root festivals in local history, to accumulate unique and sustainable cultural capital for physical space. The second suggestion is that organizers should lead individual participants to strengthen ties between their daily practices and abstract symbols, lead them to understand the image of an area in a city, to form an integrated identity.

As regional economies develop, regional economic development models are also evolving dynamically. Due to the differences of society, economy, resources and environment, economic development models evolve differently. In this paper, we establish a theoretical framework to classify economic development models according to three dimensions: elements (resource-driven or human-capital-driven), systems (government or market), and relationship (endogenous or exogenous), based on thorough review on the existing theoretical discussion. And we identify eight kinds of economic development model, such as "Resource-Market-Endogenous" and "Resource-Government-Exogenous" models (the paper explains the meanings of the models). Then taking 16 typical economic models in China as an example, we analyze the evolutional process. We find that: (1) regional economic development models are evolving dynamically under the influence of path dependence and path creation. (2) During the evolution process of China's regional economic development models, the intangible elements, market and exogenous forces are becoming increasingly important. There has also been an obvious evolution from models such as "Resource-Government-Endogenous", "Resource-Government-Exogenous", and "Human capital-Government-Exogenous" towards "Human capital-Market-Exogenous" on the whole. (3) With mutual learning and extensive communication, regional economic development models in China have seen an evolution from differentiation to convergence. It should be noted that this convergence is mainly characterized by goal convergence, although the process is different. Elemental structure, system environment and endo-exogenous relationships have always been important aspects of regional economic development model research, however, most of which focused on one of the three aspects. This paper puts forward a comparatively thorough theoretical framework to examine all Chinese development models. It is an important supplement and development to the existing research.

Since the implementation of China's reform and opening-up policy, a hybrid institutional model has gradually evolved and been further refined to drive the country's modernization and rejuvenation. This model was built on China's dual political and economic system entailing the central government's regulation and oversight and the right of local governments to implement development programs. This duality has resulted in unique hybrid structural and spatial societal organizations that differ from those of Western and Central Eastern European countries in transition. The model comprises three components: a Danwei system, a rural system, and a marketization mechanism, each of which requires and generates its own space. Following the implementation of the reform and opening-up policy, the market space has rapidly expanded within Chinese cities, emerging as the dominant type of urban space during this transition. The new Danwei space has retained the relative concentration and stability of the spatial layouts of old sections of cities, and has, to a certain extent, spilled over into the suburbs. Conversion of rural space into developed areas has resulted in its outward sprawl. These three categories of urban space have witnessed path-dependent evolution, and displayed the self-organizing characteristics of a hybrid layout. Thus, the new Danwei space is scattered within the market space, and both are embedded within the rural space. The Danwei, market, and rural spaces correspond roughly to the following respective groups: the urban Danwei system, a group emerging from the urban Danwei system, and the so-called 'floating' and left-behind rural population. Therefore, this structure indicates sociospatial differentiation into urban, floating, and agricultural populations. In view of China's continually changing institutional environment, the three categories of urban space are undergoing a process of dynamic evolution during the current "new normal" period. The expansion trend of the market space will eventually decline. Concurrently, the new Danwei and rural spaces will gradually be stabilized. The mixed spatial structure of contemporary Chinese cities can be seen to correlate with a hybrid institutional model. This model, and its projected outcomes, should provide a theoretical basis for urban geography, and even human geography, in the Chinese context, rather than attempt to deduce the final states of urban space derived from Western models.

With the rapid socio-economic development, and the progresses of urbanization, the demand for basic public service is increasing both in rural and urban areas. Thus, regional and urban-rural non-equalization are increasingly prominent, which are critical to the development of the harmonious society. Against this background, the paper established an index system for basic public service level evaluation from six aspects, including education services, cultural services, health services, social security services, infrastructure services and information services, in order to assess the basic public service level in both urban and rural areas of China's 31 provincial level administrative units. Taking the assessment outcomes as variables, we evaluated equalizations of basic public service in urban and rural areas of China's 31 provincial level administrative units by the method of information entropy. Finally, we explored the spatial pattern of the equalization of basic public service in urban and rural areas with the method of "Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis". As a result, firstly, there are significant inter-provincial differences in the public service level between urban and rural areas. The spatial distribution of basic public service level in urban areas present the letter "T" shape, and the basic public service level decreases from east to central part then to west, while the spatial distribution of basic public service level in rural areas, in contrast, decreases from east to west then central region. These results suggested that to speed up the economic development of relatively backward areas is an effective way to improve the level of basic public service in urban areas. Secondly, equalizations of basic public service in urban and rural areas are generally low, with a significant global autocorrelation in the spatial distribution. Thirdly, the relationship between the equalization of basic public service in urban and rural areas and the basic public service level of rural areas is similar to the Matthew Effect. The influence of basic public service level of rural areas on the index of the equalization of basic public service is greater than that of urban areas. So, it is important for the improvement of the equalization of basic public service to enhance the level of basic public service of rural areas.

：As an important part of public services, the equal supply of basic medical resources contributes to realizing the equality of public services. Based on the medical statistic data of 342 prefectures in China from 1997-2012 and related studies, the regional inequalities of basic medical resources supply have been examined by coefficient of variation, Theil Index Gini Coefficient and spatial autocorrelation model. This article also explores the causes of these inequalities and recommendations for future policy. Results show that: (1) Despite the regional inequality of basic medical resources supply in China is remarkable, there is still an apparent fluctuation and reduction. (2) The analysis of spatial patterns shows that it is the great changes in spatial distribution of HH (high value agglomeration) type areas and LL (low value agglomeration) type areas, that have mainly caused the regional inequality of basic medical resources supply in China. (3) The areas that have relatively abundant supply in basic medical resources are mainly distributed at central-western and northeastern China, while their parallel areas in eastern China are in the Shandong Peninsula and Beijing-Tianjin region. (4) Compared with the disparity of regional economic development, the inequality of basic medical resources supply in China is diminishing, along with the changes of their spatial patterns. (5) The regional inequality of medical services is regarded as the result of the medical and health system reform, the changes of nation's regional policy, large-scale population migration and unsuited resources supply system, and the special income elasticity of medical service requirement. To make proportional supply of basic medical resources, the departments concerned should establish a national unified social security system and increase the input of basic medical resources on the basis of resident population of each area. Besides, introducing the social and foreign capital into the security system should also be considered.

The construction of trans-strait bridge or fixed link can greatly stimulate the transport and economic connection of the urban agglomerations separated by the strait, and exert a potential influence on population mobility, land use, industry transformation and upgrading, regional structure and so on. This research aims to modify the theatrical model studied by Matthiessen and set up the spatial impacts model for trans-strait fixed links in the Pearl River Delta, and assess the comprehensive impacts of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (HZMB) and Shenzhen-Zhongshan Bridge (SZB) on the accessibility and regional economic linkages. With the help of GIS analysis tools, we first calculate weighted average time of the Pearl River Delta and obtain the time cost matrix of 8 cities on the east and west sides of the Pearl River estuary. Then we use the gravity model to calculate the interurban economic linkages, and analyze the distribution of the total economic linkage. The results indicate that: (1) The analysis results confirm the modified spatial impacts model, which is more suitable for the circumstance in the Pearl River Delta. (2) The fixed links improve the regional weighted average time from 1.710 h to 1.654 h, and the core region (including Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Donguan and Zhongshan) realizes significantly high weighted average time compared with the peripheral area (including Huizhou and Jiangmen). The spatial change of weighted average time by different fixed links differs in the region, the south part of the region (including Macao, Zhuhai, Hong Kong, Shenzhen and south of Huizhou) has the biggest improvement, while the north part (including Guangzhou, Foshan and Dongguan) experiences a much lower accessibility variability. (3) The east side occupies 3/4 of the regional economic linkages under different scenarios. Shenzhen and Hong Kong are the main directions of the regional economic linkage. The fixed links in the Pearl River Delta greatly improve the regional economic linkages. The east side of Shenzhen and Hong Kong, and the west side of Zhongshan and Macao have become the biggest beneficiaries. The fixed links also accelerate regional restructuring and lead to a more integrated and complex economic linkage network, which has a positive influence on regional development. (4) The clearance time exerts a negative impact on regional economic linkage, which accounts for about 1/4 of regional economic linkage. In particular, Hong Kong, Macao and Zhuhai are affected by the clearance to 40% of the economic linkage. So it is necessary to establish a more convenient customs clearance procedures in the future.

Traffic flow acts as a major carrier of other flows (including people, goods, capital, etc.), thus the study on traffic flow is of great significance to understand intercity interaction. Based on the 321 cities at prefecture level or above, this article explores spatial linkage of China's city network using intercity linkage data of road, rail and air transport. The research results show that: (1) The spatial correlation of city network based on road linkage displays strong spatial dependence, which is very useful to identify urban agglomerations and assess developments. Besides the most developed regions including Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomerations, some important urban agglomerations have emerged, such as Zhongyuan, Harbin-Daqing-Qiqihar, Central Jilin, Central-southern Liaoning, Shandong Peninsula, Guanzhong, West coast of Taiwan Straits, Wuhan, Central Yunnan, Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan. (2) The railway linkage flow reflects intercity external connection pattern, regional element relevancy and regional accessibility along with national railway artery. "Two horizontal and three longitudinal" zonal distribution patterns composed of Beijing-Guangzhou, Beijing-Harbin, Beijing-Shanghai Railway and Longhai-Lanxin, Shanghai-Kunming Railway, constitute the urban network backbone and have become the most important economic axial belts for national territorial development. (3) The "diamond structure" as the core framework basically forms the skeleton of urban network system from the perspective of air passenger flow, whose vertices are Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou-Shenzhen and Chengdu-Chongqing. Generally speaking, different types of traffic flows reflect different patterns of intercity linkage, namely, there also exists internal relationship. Air passenger flow constitutes the backbone of intercity linkage pattern, railway linkage flow acts as supporting axis belts for the core framework, and road linkage is a bridge connecting main skeleton and supporting belts. All types of traffic flows collectively form interdependent and indispensable element correlation and spatial relationship among regions.

The immense and towering Tibetan Plateau (TP) acts as a heating source and shapes the climate of not only the Eurasian continent but also the entire world. Currently, air temperature of the plateau is usually obtained from discrete meteorological observational data using a series of statistical analyses and spatial interpolation. However, the interpolation accuracy is low due to the scarcity of meteorological observation stations, and little is quantitatively known about the detailed temperature pattern of the TP. According to Modis-based estimated air temperature data, this paper firstly studies the detailed spatial pattern of air temperature of the TP; Then it analyzes the spatial changes of isotherm altitudes of -10℃, -5℃, 0℃, 5℃, 10℃ for every month. Isotherm altitudes are extracted from Aster GDEM; Thirdly, this paper discusses the implication of air temperature of TP for treelines and snowlines based on 148 snowline data and 267 treeline data. The results show that: 1) isotherms have a trend of rising from the eastern and northeastern edges of the plateau to the interior and about 500-2000 m higher in the interior than in the eastern and northeastern edges; 2) the northwestern plateau, or the Qiangtang plateau and the Hoh Xil region, are the coldest regions of the TP, where air temperatures are below 0℃ for seven months and lower than -10 ℃ for three or four months in a year; the southern and central plateau, especially the north flank of Himalaya - the south flank of Gangdisê Mts., the north flank of Gangdisê Mts. - the south flank of Tanggula Mts., and the great river valleys, are quite warm, with monthly mean air temperatures between 5-10 ℃ for five months and above 10 ℃ for three months in a year; especially, air temperature of the coldest month is above 0℃ below the elevations of 3500-4500 m at Lhasa, Linzhi and Zuogong. 3) The highest treeline and snowline of the Northern Hemisphere are distributed in the southeastern and southwestern parts of the plateau, respectively, revealing a significant effect of air temperature on the geo-ecological pattern of the TP.

The Tibetan Plateau and its surroundings contain the largest number of glaciers outside the Polar Regions and are known as the world's "third pole". Glacial and lake changes in the third pole not only lead to changes in atmospheric circulation patterns in the region and the northern hemisphere but also affect agriculture, power generation and the water supplies of 1.5 billion people in the surrounding areas across ten countries. Hence, the situation of the glaciers and lakes of the third pole has attracted attention worldwide. While the Himalaya glaciers are largely retreating, the recent evolution of the Karakoram glaciers, widely acknowledged as peculiar, remains poorly understood. Glacial lakes showed a trend of expansion and the great lakes were shrinking in the Himalayas; but lakes in the Karakoram were considered stable. The causes and mechanisms of the complex and regionally heterogeneous behavior of glacier and lake change between the Karakorum and Himalayas are poorly understood. The Songmuxi Co Basin lies in the transitional zone between the Karakorum and Himalayas, and the glaciers and lakes have a significant impact on the local water supply and ecosystem. In this work, glacial and lake changes in the Songmuxi Co Basin, southern Karakoram Mountains were detected based on 1:50000 topographic maps, Landsat MSS/TM/ETM+/OLI remote sensing data and GIS techniques. The annual temperature, precipitation, potential annual evaporation at Shiquanhe, Hetian and Yutian stations from 1968 to 2013 were used to analyze climate change and its impact on glaciers and lakes area change. The results can be drawn as follows. (1) From 1968 to 2013, the total glacier area decreased from 139.25 km² to 137.27 km², a total loss of 1.98 km², or 1.42% of the entire glacial area in 1968. In addition, there has been an accelerating trend of glacier retreat since 2001. (2) The area of Songmuxi Co expanded from 25.05 km² in 1968 to 32.62 km² in 2013. The overall increase was 7.57 km², which was 30.22% of the lake area in 1968. The lake area expansion and glaciers retreat have a good coupling on a decadal scale. (3) From 1968 to 2013, the decreased potential evapotranspiration in the lake and increased precipitation are of the first and second factors which lead to lake area expansion. The increase in melt water from glaciers and frozen soil due to climate warming had no great impact on lake area expansion on the interannual scale while it may had some impact on the decadal one.