Faced with global biodiversity loss and degradation of ecosystems, rewilding, a new concept, method, and application in the field of ecological protection and restoration, aims to restore the structure and function of native ecosystems through reducing human intervention, and has become a focal topic in promoting the paradigm shift between humans and nature and ecological governance. This paper systematically reviews the development trajectory and research progress of rewilding, summarizes the achievements made in the current stage, and proposes future prospects for expanding and deepening rewilding. The research findings indicate that: (1) The theoretical guidance of rewilding in practice needs to be strengthened. While the range of involved disciplines continues to expand, there remains a lack of unified concepts, clear connotations, and a solid theoretical foundation. (2) The method of identifying and evaluating relies on the building of an index system; however, the research remains confined to macro- and meso-scales and largely static, single-time-point studies. It has yet to reveal fine-grained, micro-scale dynamics or their continuous long-term evolutionary trends. (3) The analysis of influencing factors and the underlying mechanism of rewilding remains underdeveloped. Existing studies predominantly concentrate on identifying specific causes in typical cases, while often overlooking the influence of social and institutional backgrounds. (4) The research on the effects of rewilding is mainly focused on qualitative descriptions of the impact on biodiversity and the ecosystem itself, and the comprehensive regional effects assessment and quantitative method construction for achieving sustainable development goals need to be expanded. (5) The optimization of governance for rewilding needs to pay more attention to the behavior of stakeholders, and the study of the application of rewilding in a complex system that takes into account the process of harmony between man and nature needs to be deepened. Based on the research results, the paper builds an integrated framework of “theoretical analysis➝process analysis➝mechanism analysis➝effect analysis➝optimized governance”, identifies key research directions for future emphasis, and aims to provide new insights and pathways for improving China's ecological protection system and advancing harmony between humans and nature.

The protection and regeneration of ancient capital cities constitute vital pathways for advancing cultural renaissance and sustaining cultural inheritance.Adopting a dual perspective that integrates multi-level structures and multi-scale spatial effects, this study develops an analytical framework to examine how the “individual-community” cultural environment shapes residents' place attachment. Taking 155 communities in Kaifeng as the study area, the study employs multi-source data, including urban health examination satisfaction survey data, street view data (SVI), and points of interest (POI), to examine how individual perceptions of the cultural environment and objective community cultural environments influence place attachment. The analysis utilizes Hierarchical Linear Models (HLM) and Hierarchical Spatial Autoregressive Models (HSAR). The results show that: (1) At the individual level, individual perceptions of cultural environment play a significant role in enhancing place attachment. Specifically, four factors significantly enhance place attachment: satisfaction with urban cultural heritage preservation and utilization (X₁), public cultural facilities (X₂), traditional cityscape (X₃), and traditional cultural activities (X₄). (2) The community cultural environment significantly strengthens the positive effect of individual perceptions of the cultural environment on place attachment. (3) At the community level, community cultural environment (C₃ traditional cityscape index) exerts a significant dual spatial effect on place attachment. The direct effect shows that the community's traditional cityscape significantly enhances the place attachment of its residents. In contrast, the indirect effect reveals that the traditional cityscape of neighboring communities has a notable inhibitory effect on place attachment within the community, highlighting a negative spatial spillover effect. This study not only highlights the positive impact of ancient capital city protection and regeneration practices, but also offers theoretical and empirical support for urban health examination, the optimization of regeneration strategies, and cultural policy-making.

The theory of the city as a living organism is one of the core foundations of urban health examination, essentially conceptualizing the city as an organism composed of multiple systems that continuously exchange with internal and external environments through metabolic processes. However, current urban health examination frameworks remain limited in their application of metabolic theory, as they emphasize outcome-based indicators while overlooking processual, multi-scalar, and spatial characteristics that are fundamental to metabolism. To enhance the effectiveness of urban health examination in urban governance, this study systematically reviews theoretical approaches to urban metabolism and reveals the limitations of its current application in health examination practices. Drawing on geographical theories and methods, it proposes integrating the concept of urban metabolism into urban health examination from a three-dimensional perspective of “process-scale-space”. Accordingly, it constructs an evaluation system characterized by full-cycle, multi-scale, and comprehensive spatial coverage. Using carbon metabolism as an example, the study systematically demonstrates a feasible pathway for implementing a metabolic-oriented urban health examination system, spanning from indicator system construction and model development to result evaluation and feedback mechanisms. This work deepens the application of metabolic theory within geography, provides a theoretical basis and practical guidance for its effective incorporation into urban health examination frameworks, and offers important implications for strengthening urban governance capacity and advancing the sustainable development goals.

Cities serve as the primary locations for human daily activities. Investigating the influence of urban street landscapes on residents' psychological and emotional perception can provide objective references for urban planning, construction, and renewal. This study takes the core urban area of Taiyuan City as an example, constructing a dataset by crawling street view images. Deep learning and machine learning models are employed to quantitatively assess urban street landscapes and psychological emotions, while the spatial statistical model is used to identify the correlation between the perception of urban street landscapes and residents' psychological emotions. The results indicate that: (1) The spatial distribution characteristics of artificial elements in urban street landscapes are closely associated with urban land use patterns; natural elements exhibit a gradient structure characterized by “aggregation along the central axis-diffusion around the periphery”. Among traffic-related elements, the pedestrian-vehicle factor demonstrates spatial complementarity and similarity with the sidewalk factor. (2) The Psychological Emotional Index (PEI) exhibits significant spatial heterogeneity, presenting an overall distribution pattern of “high in the northwest - low in the southeast”. (3) Among the physical elements of urban streets, the order of elements positively impacting residents' psychology is as follows: road > sky > tree > building > grass > fence > sidewalk; the ranking of elements negatively affecting residents' psychology is: person > wall > car > plant > signboard. The research results contribute to a deeper understanding of the spatial differentiation characteristics of urban street landscape perception, offering valuable reference for the transformation and sustainable development of resource-based cities. Additionally, they provide a novel perspective for promoting urban spatial equity and justice.

Chinese county urbanization faces three interconnected challenges: the separation of household registration (hukou) from actual residence, the physical separation of family members, and family instability. These phenomena run counter to the fundamental, people-centered principle of urbanization. This study logically proposes that the core and ultimate purpose of Chinese people-oriented county urbanization are to accomplish family urbanization (the family consists of core members of immediate family: parents ← couples → children). Grounded in the logic of balancing demand and supply—specifically, the “multiple needs of family members” and the “diversified spatial supply in counties”—this study develops an analytical framework centered on the “all-round development of family members” (full employment, development, and living) and “diversified spatial opportunities in counties” (employment, built environment, and consumption). This approach enables us to construct the contemporary connotation, theoretical framework, and promotion logics for people-oriented county urbanization in the new era of China. It points out that: (1) Citizenization represents the concrete realization of the “people-oriented” concept. Its global development process, mainly featured by the Western contexts, exhibits a temporal and staged characteristic: a shift from “object-centerted” to “people-centered”. Citizenization process in China during this time can be roughly divided into four stages: the stage of the urbanization of registered population → the stage of the urbanization of permanent population → “the first stage of the people-oriented urbanization: the stage of object-centerted” → “the second stage of the people-oriented urbanization: the stage of people-centered”. Currently, China is still in the early stage. (2) In the Western context, homo-urbanicus contains the logic of a closed-loop development of “entering cities → completing urbanization”, but this imported concept is more closely related to the localized interpretation of “family urbanization” in the Chinese context. (3) Based on the logical relationship of the goal of meeting the “family needs” through “county supply”, the implementation of high-quality development of Chinese people-oriented county urbanization is confronted with practical difficulties such as insufficient supply impetus, supply of low level, weak supply guarantee capacity, and imperfect supply system arrangement in the new era. (4) With the above analyses, this study carries out the concrete promoting logics and strategies from the aspects of target setting, methods and approaches, development concepts, governance logics, and formulation of supporting policies. This study is a reflection on the localization of people-oriented county urbanization in China, and is expected to provide strong support for the implementation of Chinese modernization and high-quality development in the new era.

Extreme weather characterized by heatwaves poses a serious threat to the safety of people's lives and social economy around the world. Examining the spatio-temporal differentiation pattern of urban heat risk and diagnosing its obstacle factors are of great significance for coping with heat environment disasters and building climate-adaptive resilient cities. Taking the 41 cities in the Yangtze River Delta region as an example, this paper first constructs a four-dimensional heat risk assessment framework of “exposure-hazard-sensitivity-adaptation”. Then, it calculates the heat risk index from 2000 to 2020. Furthermore, spatio-temporal statistical methods such as the Mann-Kendall test and the weighted standard deviation ellipse are used to examine the spatio-temporal differentiation process of heat risk. Finally, based on the heat risk assessment results, we diagnose the dominant obstacle factors. The results show that: (1) The urban heat risk index in the study area presents a pattern of “high in the core and low in the periphery”, mainly with medium and relatively low risks, and the heat risk levels generally decrease from the center to the periphery according to the zonal structure. (2) The heat risk levels of 95% of the cities show a significantly rising trend over time. Moreover, the heat risks of various cities experience large fluctuations from 2000 to 2005 and from 2010 to 2015. The spatial distribution of heat risks presents a distinct northwest-southeast direction, with notable agglomeration characteristics. (3) The dimension of thermal sensitivity and the indicator of overall population density present the highest obstacle degrees in their respective categories. Moreover, the inhibitory effect of thermal sensitivity and overall population density on the heat risk growth of weakens over time.

A scientific and rational township-level administrative division setup is fundamental for promoting the modernization of grassroots governance systems and capacities. This study develops an analytical framework for understanding the evolution of township-level administrative divisions from the perspective of urbanization. Drawing on a long-term empirical case study of Jiangsu Province, it traces the transformation of township-level divisions since the reform and opening-up and identifies the mechanisms through which urbanization has driven this evolution. The findings reveal that: (1) Urbanization has been the primary force driving changes in township-level administrative divisions. Between 1984 and 2023, the total amount of such divisions in Jiangsu decreased by 45.6%, while the number of urban units (i.e. towns and subdistricts) increased significantly. The structure evolved from a township-dominated system to one centered on towns, and eventually to a balanced configuration of towns and subdistricts. (2) The dynamic tension and adjustment between urbanization and administrative structures shaped the trajectory of reforms. The rapid rise of small towns clashed with the township-based structure, leading to adaptive adjustments such as the abolishment of townships and establishment of towns. Further contradictions, such as the excessive number of townships and the limited capacity of designated towns to spur rural development, spurred a more proactive strategy of merging townships and towns. More recently, the need to optimize county-level urban systems and to extend urban governance across different urban areas has driven a new phase of reform involving the merging of townships and establishment of subdistricts. (3) The evolution has been comprehensively driven by national urbanization strategies, administrative division policies, county-level spatial planning, metropolitan governance restructuring, reform of development zone management, and the advancement of refined urban governance.

The decoupling of new-type urbanization and carbon emissions is an important pathway for achieving high-quality Chinese-style modernization and a critical link in realizing the “dual-carbon” goals. Based on measurements of new-type urbanization levels and carbon emission data, this paper employs Tapio decoupling analysis, spatial autocorrelation, and the RF-SHAP model to investigate the spatiotemporal characteristics of this decoupling and the factors influencing it. Taking 89 counties in Zhejiang Province as the empirical setting, the findings indicate that: (1) The overall decoupling effect at the county level in Zhejiang has shown a trend of continuous optimization and accelerated improvement. The spatial clustering of counties with high decoupling levels has evolved from a “scatter” pattern to a “cluster” pattern, enhancing regional linkages and spillover effects. (2) The spatial clustering characteristics of county-level decoupling reveal regional migration and differentiation trends, with high-high clustering areas shifting from northwestern to southeastern Zhejiang, and low-low ones shifting from western to northeastern Zhejiang. (3) In different periods, the influence of new-type urbanization indicators on the decoupling effect varies significantly: environmental urbanization predominates from 2007 to 2012, economic urbanization from 2012 to 2017, and population urbanization from 2017 to 2022. (4) The dominant factors at different stages exert varying impacts on decoupling, with specific threshold values that effectively promote decoupling within a reasonable range. Significant differences in the value ranges of key influencing factors are observed between counties with higher and lower decoupling levels.

This research aims to advance urban-rural integration in China by offering a robust theoretical framework. This is achieved by elucidating the principles of territorial spatial function differentiation along the urban-rural gradient, investigating spatial spillover effects across the urban core, expansion, and rural zones, and systematically examining the mechanisms underlying urban-rural disparities. This paper establishes an assessment framework for territorial “production-living-ecological” (PLE) functions based on functional gradients, and, using Nanjing as a case study, examines the urban-rural gradient disparities and spatial spillover effects of these functions from 2012 to 2022. The main conclusions are as follows:(1) The production function in the urban core areas exhibits superior performance compared to both the urban expansion areas and the rural regions. Along the urban-rural gradient, the living function demonstrates a gradual decline, whereas the ecological function shows a reverse trend of enhancement. The disparity in the mean values of comprehensive functions is narrowing, indicating a convergence in functional levels across different zones. Furthermore, the functional levels within each gradient segment vary significantly. (2) Overall, the coupling and coordination levels of the “production-living-ecological” functions are becoming increasingly balanced and coordinated. (3) There are notable differences in the spatial spillover effects of individual functions on the comprehensive function. Specifically, the intensity of the positive influence exerted by the production function diminishes along the urban-rural gradient. The direct effect of the living function is more pronounced in the expansion area, while its spatial effect is weaker in the urban core area. Conversely, the spatial effect of the ecological function displays a gradient characteristic, with its intensity diminishing from the periphery towards the urban core. In conclusion, this research proposes three crucial directions for optimizing “production-living-ecological” functions and advancing urban-rural integration: enhancing ecological function supply in urban cores, promoting functional transformation and upgrading in urban expansion areas, and strengthening the endogenous driving force of rural development.

Deepening international patent cooperation as an effective way means to promote technological exchange in countries along the Belt and Road and an important approach to accelerate technological innovation, industrial upgrading, and regional collaborative development. Based on the PATENTSCOPE database, this study employs the Mann-Kendall trend test method, social network analysis, and Geodetector model to explore the evolution and influencing factors of patent cooperation networks in countries along the Belt and Road from 1990 to 2021. The results indicate that: (1) Patent cooperation among these countries evolved in three stages: slow growth (1990-1995), rapid growth (1996-2012), and transformation toward quality (2013-2021). The overall density of the patent collaboration network is low, with China as the core and Singapore, South Korea, Italy and Russia as secondary hubs. (2) Collaboration between China and countries along the Belt and Road remains largely confined to similar technological fields, with cross-disciplinary cooperation still underdeveloped. IPC-based cooperation concentrates mainly in H04W, H04L, H04B, communication technology services, and intellectual property royalties show significant positive effects on enhancing patent. Moreover, intellectual property royalties, population size, R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP, public education expenditure as a percentage of GDP, GDP per capita, and the distance between capitals exhibits strong positive synergistic effect. The frequency and intensity of cooperation display a spatial hierarchy: Southeast Asia > Eastern Europe> East Asia > Western Europe> West Asia and North Africa > South Asia > Sub-Saharan Africa > South America > Central America > Oceania > Central Asia, revealing significant intercontinental disparities. Both Chinese domestic enterprises and multinational corporations within countries along the Belt and Road have increased in number, while the proportions of research institutions and other entities have declined. (3) Studying 32 representative sample countries captures the factors influencing the evolution of patent cooperation networks between China and countries along the Belt and Road. Sensitivity analysis confirms the robustness of the conclusions. Factors such as R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP, the number of R&D researchers, resident patent applications, exports of information and communication technology services, and intellectual property royalties show significant positive effects on enhancing patent. Moreover, intellectual property royalties, population size, R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP, public education expenditure as a percentage of GDP, GDP per capita, and the distance between capitals exhibits strong positive synergistic effect.

Against the backdrop of regional economic growth increasingly relying on industrial co-agglomeration, governmental industry venture capital funds (GVCFs), as an emerging investment tool, play a key role in promoting industrial co-agglomeration. Theoretically, this paper explores the impact and transmission mechanism of GVCFs on urban industrial co-agglomeration. Empirically, using 2011-2021 city-level panel data, it applies difference-in-differences (DID), chain multiple mediation, and spatial econometric models to examine GVCFs' impact, heterogeneity, mechanism, and spatial spillover effect on urban industrial co-agglomeration. The findings are as follows: (1) GVCFs significantly promote urban industrial co-agglomeration, with the conclusion robust to robustness and endogeneity tests. (2) GVCFs' impact exhibits multidimensional heterogeneity, being more pronounced in central, peripheral, and resource-based cities. (3) GVCFs exert a significant positive chain multiple mediation effect through improving resource allocation efficiency and boosting urban innovation and entrepreneurship vitality. (4) GVCFs have significant positive spillover effects, raising industrial co-agglomeration levels in both pilot and neighboring cities. This paper provides a theoretical basis and policy reference for GVCFs to promote urban industrial co-development.

Most research on enterprise location operates under the assumption of equivalence between a firm's physical location and its registered address. In reality, the separation of the two has become increasingly common, leading to a divergence in the conceptual meaning and empirical measurement of enterprise location. Based on the theoretical analysis framework of “corporate entity location (headquarters)-registered address”, this study investigates the cross-city migration of headquarters and registered address of A-share listed companies from 2001 to 2023 and its influencing factors. The findings are as follows: (1) There are significant differences in the characteristics of the migration between the headquarters and the registered address. Compared to changes in registered addresses, headquarters exhibit a higher frequency of cross-city relocation, a predominantly upward migration pattern (from less to more developed regions), and notably shorter average migration distances. (2) There is a significant deviation in the statistics of headquarters migration data by registered address, and the error rates of the number of companies, migration frequency and the number of cities moved out and moved in are 22.34%, 27.75%, 16.30% and 13.95% respectively. (3) While enterprise-level indicators have consistent directional effects (positive or negative) on both headquarters and registered address migration, their magnitude differs significantly. The average influence coefficient on registered address transfer is 38.87% higher than that on headquarters migration. Different migration combination modes substantially change the action mechanism of independent variables. The results reveal obvious differences in the migration patterns locational migration and locational determinants between a firm's headquarters and its registered address. These findings suggest that using registered addresses as a proxy for headquarters in existing research may be problematic. Consequently, future studies should explicitly account for this distinction.

Rice, as a staple food for more than half of the global population, accounts for approximately 10% of anthropogenic methane emissions. The spatiotemporal pattern of its planting area is crucial for ensuring global food security and achieving carbon neutrality objectives. However, previous studies, limited by the long-term and extensive data, lacked a comprehensive understanding of the dynamics and drivers of rice planting areas worldwide. This study collected the Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) global rice planting area dataset from 1961 to 2020 and used trend analysis, turning-points detection, and random forest method to reveal the spatiotemporal evolution patterns, periodic characteristics, and drivers of the global rice planting areas over the past six decades. The results showed that: (1) Globally, the rice cultivation area reached 16,309 × 10⁴ hm² in 2020, with Asia accounting for the vast majority of this total (85.56%), followed by Africa (9.41%) and Americas (3.64%). (2) Regarding long-term trends, the global rice planting area showed an upward trend (69×10⁴ hm²/yr), with a cumulative increase of 4,773×10⁴ hm², of which India and low-income developing countries in Africa were the core areas of growth. (3) In terms of regional transformation and differences in turning points, the interannual breakpoints of rice cultivation area varied across regions, with the turning points in Asian and African countries concentrated around the year 2000, while those in American countries occurred earlier, around 1990. (4) In terms of driving factors, labor costs (characterized by the proportion of rural population) and expected return levels (measured by per capita GDP) predominantly influenced changes in rice planting area. Meanwhile, the impact of agricultural input costs (reflected by fertilizer application per unit area) showed a consistent upward trend, whereas the effect of climate risk factors on planting area remained relatively weak. These results provide critical insights for assessing food security risks, optimizing low-carbon agricultural land use, formulating sustainable land management policies under the dual pressures of global climate change and population growth, and the support for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The farming-pastoral ecotone in northern China represents a transitional zone between semi-humid agricultural areas and semi-arid pastoral regions, characterized by ecological fragility. Understanding vegetation resilience and its response to climate change in this region is crucial for elucidating ecological adaptability and promoting regional sustainable development. Taking the key regions of the northern farming-pastoral ecotone as defined by the Ministry of Agriculture in 2016 as the study area, based on the kernel normalized difference vegetation index (kNDVI) dataset and combined with contemporaneous meteorological data, methods such as the lag-1 autocorrelation and the random forest model were employed to systematically analyze the spatiotemporal variation characteristics of vegetation resilience and its relationship with climatic factors in the key regions of China's northern farming-pastoral ecotone from 2001 to 2023. The results show that: (1) Vegetation in the key regions of the farming-pastoral ecotone in northern China showed an overall growth trend, while vegetation resilience exhibited fluctuating characteristics of “waxing and waning”. (2) Vegetation showed a declining trend from southwest to northeast, with significant increases concentrated in the western part, while notable improvements in vegetation resilience were observed in the central and eastern parts. The relationship between vegetation and resilience was predominantly characterized by a highly significant negative correlation (43.43%). Over the 23-year period, their trends fluctuated and were not always consistent, featuring periods of concurrent loss and growth. (3) Climatic factors exhibited distinct spatiotemporal thresholds, with temperature being the primary indicator of fluctuations in vegetation resilience, reflecting ecosystem adaptability to climate change. The challenges posed by global warming to this region warrant vigilance, and the nonlinear threshold effects suggest that improvements in vegetation resilience cannot be simplistically attributed to temperature and precipitation alone. This study provides insights into regional ecological resilience, monitoring and assessment paradigms, and frameworks for adaptive management.

Drought events, as one of the important stresses affecting carbon sequestration in terrestrial vegetation ecosystems, have a significant impact on the composition, structure, and function of vegetation ecosystems. Monitoring the resistance and resilience of ecosystem carbon sink to drought events is of great significance for achieving China's “dual carbon” goals. This study is based on net ecosystem productivity (NEP) and ERA5 Land data, using methods such as run length theory and elasticity assessment to explore the resistance and resilience of ecosystem carbon sink to drought events in China from 1982 to 2019. The results showed that: ① In the past 40 years, the overall carbon sink area (NEP>0) of ecosystem in China has exceeded 90%, mainly distributed in the humid and dense vegetation areas in the south, with East China and Northeast China as the main carbon source areas (NEP<0). However, under the influence of drought events, less than 40% is positively anomalous, and it is mainly located in the humid and dense vegetation areas in the south. ② The areas with strong vegetation resistance are mainly concentrated in northern cultivated land and southern forest land, while natural grasslands and southern cultivated land generally have weaker resistance. The time scale with the greatest impact of drought events on the accumulation of ecosystem carbon sink resistance is SPEI-1. ③ The strong vegetation restoration is mainly concentrated in the cultivated land in Northeast China and the forest land in the south, while the weak restoration is mainly distributed in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and the eastern coastal areas. The time scale where drought events have the greatest impact on the accumulation of ecosystem carbon sink restoration is the short-term drought. This study provides scientific support for understanding the response of ecosystem carbon sink in China to global climate change and drought events, and provides scientific guidance for regional ecological environment protection.

Chinese-style rural modernization constitutes a vital component of China's modernization process. In this new stage of comprehensively advancing rural revitalization and integrated urban-rural development, its theoretical construction and practical exploration urgently require deepening and innovation. With the continuous advancement of globalization, urbanization, industrialization, and digitalization, the research on rural modernization has exhibited new trends and characteristics marked by interdisciplinary convergence. This paper systematically traces the phased evolution and key domains of China's rural modernization, analyzes structural obstacles in rural areas amid shifting urban-rural relations and pathways to overcome them, and explores the reshaping mechanism of rural economic and social space by in-situ urbanization and rural digitalization. Simultaneously, anchored in a comparative global perspective on rural modernization practices, it further examines China's localized explorations in rural gradient division of labor, diversified development pathways, and agricultural industrial system innovation. At the institutional and governance levels, this paper focuses on the practical bottlenecks and mechanism innovations in rural land transfers and the market-based allocation of urban-rural factors, while delving into the construction of multi-stakeholder modern rural governance system. The study concludes that China's rural modernization currently faces practical challenges including sluggish industrial upgrading, ineffective governance, and insufficient endogenous driving. Future research should strengthen the theoretical construction of Chinese rural modernization by grounding in the local characteristics like the “small-scale farming in a large country” model, breaking through from Western theoretical dependence, and establishing an autonomous theoretical paradigm. Its research framework should revolve around core dimensions such as theoretical innovation and spatial restructuring, human-earth coordination and urban-rural integration, and dynamic transformation and governance innovation, systematically elucidating the connotations, mechanisms, and pathways of rural modernization. Methodologically, it should promote integrated innovation across disciplinary paradigms. Practically, it should emphasize the precise alignment and implementation effectiveness of policies. This approach aims to provide theoretical support and practical solutions for comprehensively promoting the modernization of rural areas with Chinese characteristics, and contributing Chinese wisdom to the sustainable development of rural areas worldwide.

Rural industrial transformation plays a pivotal role in rural modernization. However, leveraging rural industrial transformation to drive modernization involves numerous uncertainties. Grounded in the theoretical framework of “factor restructuring-structural upgrading-functional leap”, this study meticulously constructs a five-dimensional evaluation system for rural industrial transformation, encompassing efficiency, marketization, integration, greening, and technology dimensions. The spatial panel Durbin model and the spatio-temporal geographically weighted regression model are applied to analyze the spatial interaction effects among 273 prefecture-level cities in China from 2010 to 2022. The following findings are obtainedas follows: (1) Spatially, the high-value areas of rural industrial transformation have shifted from Jiangsu, Shandong, Hebei, and southern Liaoning to the Yangtze River Delta, forming a “unipolar agglomeration” pattern centered on southern Jiangsu, while the high-high agglomeration areas of rural modernization have remained stably locked in Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, southern Liaoning, and eastern Hubei. (2) There are dimensional differences in the transmission mechanism. Efficiency and market-oriented transformation generate positive spillover effects through industrial chain diffusion. However, integration exhibits negative spatial spillover owing to the siphoning effect, and technologization is locally locked by the dual constraints of geography and the system. (3) Concerning the spatial heterogeneity of the mechanism, the coefficients of efficiency and marketization increase from the northeast to the southwest in accordance with topographic fragmentation and traffic accessibility. The coefficients of integration and greening decrease from the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region to the periphery due to policy gradients and market attraction. Technology forms a high-value zone in the northeast and the west as a result of environmental coercion.

As the main body of agricultural production, the transformation of the scale and structure of the rural population has a profound impact on farmland non-grain production in China. Exploring the impact mechanism of rural population transformation on farmland non-grain production is crucial for formulating targeted prevention and governance strategies. Therefore, this study revealed the phased characteristics of rural population transformation, as well as the correlation between the spatiotemporal evolution and pattern characteristics of farmland non-grain production and rural population transformation. The results indicated that rural population transformation in China from 2000 to 2020 was characterized by an accele-rated decrease in both total rural population and agricultural employment, coupled with rapidly intensifying aging, and a slowdown in the growth of average education years and the downsize of farmer households. Based on regional characteristics, the transformation of rural population in China can be clustered into three areas: rural employment non-agricultural area, rural population aging area, and rural education popularization area. Spatially, non-grain production in China showed a distribution pattern of “higher in the Northwest and Southeast, lower in the Northeast and North China; increasing in the Northwest and Southwest, decreasing in the Northeast and North China”. Temporally, a downward trend was observed before 2015, follow-ed by a significant annual increase of 0.44 percentage points thereafter, particularly in areas with widespread rural education. The spatio-temporal pattern of farmland non-grain production was primarily shaped by the total rural population, agricultural employment, total dependency ratio, and rural aging, showing spatio-temporal differences in these effects. Farmland non-grain production was strongly inhibited by a shrinking rural population, an increasing dependency ratio, and intensifying rural aging. A reduction in agricultural employ-ment exacerbates the shift toward non-grain use of cultivated land, particularly in areas experi-encing significant rural non-agricultural employment growth and widespread educational attain-ment. Imple-menting three key measures—establishing a collectively managed farmland trans-fer platform, increasing rural pensions, and creating more local non-farm job opportunities—can effectively curb the trend of farmland non-grain production.

Analyzing and understanding the complex mutual-feedback relationship between rural land use and industrial transitions is of great significance for deciphering the intrinsic dynamics of rural territorial systems and formulating effective rural development policies. This paper firstly constructs a theoretical framework for the mutual feedback between rural land use and industrial transitions; to this end, it establishes respective evaluation index systems and, finally, employs a linkage equation model and a mediation effect model to examine their interactive effects. The results found that: (1) Rural land use and industrial transitions exhibit a direct positive interaction. Specifically, a positive interaction exists between arable land use transition and agricultural transition, as well as between construction land transition and the integration of secondary and tertiary industries. Every 1% increase in the transition level of arable land will promote a 0.559% increase in the transition level of agriculture; every 1% increase in the transition level of agriculture will bring about a 0.594% increase in the transition level of arable land; every 1% increase in the transition level of construction land leads to a 0.560% increase in the transition level of the integration of the secondary and tertiary industries; and every 1% increase in the transition level of the integration of the secondary and tertiary industries leads to a 0.190% increase in the transition level of construction land. (2) Land use transition also exerts an indirect influence on industrial transition. Specifically, arable land use transition indirectly affects the integration of secondary and tertiary industries, with a mediation effect size of 0.138; and construction land use transition indirectly influences agricultural industry transition, with a mediation effect size of 0.231. Rural development policies should be oriented towards actively leveraging the mutual feedback between land use and industrial transitions. The goal is to foster their positive interaction, optimize the interactive pathways, and ultimately transform this synergy into an intrinsic driver for rural transition, thereby advancing rural revitalization.

The integrated urban-rural development is an inevitable requirement of Chinese modernization. Rural population is the key subject in promoting rural modernization and urban-rural integration, and the study of rural population rheology is not only related to the coordinated development of rural human-land relations, but also the core issue in efficiently promoting rural construction. The rural population under the guidance of tourism development is being influenced by the flow of multiple factors, showing the phenomena of diversification of subjects, diversification of structure, and polymorphism of distribution. Through a systematic review of domestic and international literature on rural tourism destinations population research, it is found that there is a lack of a theoretical framework for the population rheology in rural tourism destinations from the perspective of rheology, and that the expression of spatial and temporal population rheology at a fine scale through the integration of multi-source data remains underdeveloped. This study establishes a theoretical foundation for population rheology in rural tourism. First, we define its scientific connotation and development trends. Second, we integrate theories from rheology and computational social science to construct a multi-phase analytical framework. This framework, grounded in the integration of multi-source social, temporal, and spatial data, comprises four phases: scale, structure, quality, and trend. Finally, we propose key future research directions, including multidimensional differentiation, spatiotemporal characteristics, influencing factors, evolution patterns, dynamic mechanisms, and guiding policies for population rheology. The aim is to provide theoretical and practical references for optimizing population structure, facilitating orderly flow, and promoting rational distribution in rural tourism destinations, thereby contributing to rural revitalization, urban-rural integration, and the modernization of agriculture and rural areas.

Exploring the optimization and reorganization of rural territorial functions in China, as well as the organizational mechanism, in the new period is of great practical significance for promoting urban-rural integrated development and comprehensive rural revitalization. Based on analyzing the evolution of rural territorial functions and organizational characteristics with in the dynamics of urban-rural relationship in China, this paper defines the conceptual connotation of rural organization, explores the organizational demand logic for rural territorial function optimization and reorganization, and deeply analyzes the organizational mechanism of rural territorial function optimization and reorganization oriented towards urban-rural integration. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) China's urban-rural relationship has experienced four stages: the establishment of urban-rural division and dualism, the aggravation of urban-rural dualism and imbalance, the overall planning and coordinated development between urban and rural areas, and the integrated urban-rural development. Correspondingly, the functional characteristics of rural areas have evolved in four stages: from a singular focus on agricultural production to serve industrial development; to functional differentiation driven by urban-rural factor circulation; to diversified transformation in line with integrated urban-rural planning; and finally, to compound, coordinated development aimed at urban-rural integration. With the intensification of urban-rural interactions, rural social organization exhibits a complex duality: on the one hand, a trend toward high organization and reorganization; on the other, a trend toward disorganization and a weakening of traditional organizational systems. (2) Rural organization is to meet the needs of rural development and the requirements of the times. Various types of actors integrate scattered individuals or resources in rural areas into a structured and orderly system, so as to realize the optimal allocation and restructuring of urban and rural resources and elements. The diverse forces within the state, the market and the countryside accelerate the realization of rural organization by integrating and utilizing urban and rural elements, reshaping rural regional structures and deconstructing and reorganizing spatial organization. The organizational demand logic for the optimization and reorganization of rural territorial functions is reflected in the cross-border reorganization and optimal allocation of urban and rural elements, and the improvement of rural organization to adapt to the changes of internal and external environment of rural areas. (3) Under the background of urban-rural integration, the jointly strengthening of rural basic functions by production entities, the extension of industrial chains to enhance rural economic functions, the innovation of property rights system to explore rural characteristic functions, and the co-governance of multiple entities to promote the coordinated development of rural functions, jointly constitute the core organizational mechanism for the optimization and reorganization of rural functions. Rural organization has reshaped the interface relationship of the exchange of urban-rural elements, and promoted the optimization and reorganization of rural territorial functions, as well as the two-way flow of value between urban and rural areas.

Urban-rural integration has accelerated factor flows, giving rise to a reverse commuting pattern where individuals live in cities but work in villages. Leveraging mobile signaling data and SVM algorithms, this study develops a “function-role” taxonomy to decode commuter patterns and spatial dynamics in Guangzhou. Key findings include: (1) Urban-to-rural reverse commuting in Guangzhou involves nearly 350,000 people daily, accounting for approximately 12.30% of rural employment, emerging as a new commuting type. (2) Urban-to-rural reverse commuting exhibit long distances yet avoid extremes, featuring intra-suburban flows dominated, supplemented by central-to-inner and inner-to-outer suburb movements, with rare cross-ring flows from outer suburban to inner rural areas. (3) Rural multifunctionality and urban amenities jointly shape five commuter types via SVM classification: rural consumption-oriented business operators, rural consumption-oriented service workers, industrial enterprise operators, industrial enterprise service workers, and public service providers. (4) Urban-rural residency gaps require upgraded rural services; prioritize local consumption industries with urban industrial relocation; optimize job-housing layouts for efficient resource flow. This study reveals urban-rural reverse commuting patterns, analyzes their characteristics and underlying causes, and proposes corresponding solutions. Key policy implications include job-housing optimization, rural functional transformation, and the reallocation of services under urban-rural integration.

The classification and interaction of production-living-ecological (PLE) spaces in rural areas present urgent spatial issues in advancing the modernisation of rural areas with Chinese characteristics. Using finely detailed 2023 POI data, high-precision land use data, and agricultural enterprise density data, this paper applies a coupling coordination model and a bivariate spatial autocorrelation model to analyse the distribution and coordination of PLE space functions in Yanling County, Henan Province, a region notable for its advanced agricul-tural industrialization. In addition, it employs a multi-scale geographically weighted regression model to identify the driving factors behind the coordination level of PLE space functions. The study found that: ① The PLE space functions in Yanling County's villages exhibit a radial layered structure centred on the county seat, with production functions forming a “one centre with multiple points” layout, living functions showing a decreasing gradient from the center, and ecological functions maintaining a high-value, ubiquitous distribution. ② The coordination level of village PLE space functions shows a layered graded coordination with spatial differentiation. ③ The values of PLE space functions and their coordination levels have significant spatial correlation and heterogeneity, with production and living space functions highly integrated and positively correlated with coordination levels, while the ecological space shows a significant negative correlation, presenting a dispersed pattern; ④ The distance from the central town, road density, population density, nighttime light index and distribution of agricultural enterprise impact the coordination level of village PLE space functions significantly and exhibit multi-scale geographic differentiation mechanisms. Overall, the study's conclusions contribute to a more fined classification and mechanistic analysis of village PLE space functions, providing a scientific reference for efficient micro-scale land use and for delineating the “Three Zones and Three Lines”.

Specialized villages and towns (SVTs), as micro-scale carriers of industrial clusters in rural areas, represent a critical pathway for achieving agricultural and rural modernization and serve as a key driver for implementing the rural revitalization strategy. Henan Province, a major agricultural region in China, provides a typical case for exploring the spatial agglomeration mechanisms of rural industries through its development of SVTs. However, current research has primarily focused on global driving factors and linear relationships, while the spatial heterogeneity across regions and nonlinear mechanisms remain underexplored. To address this gap, we examine 254 provincial-level “One Village, One Product” (OVOP) demonstration villages and towns in Henan Province, employing kernel density analysis, multiscale geographically weighted regression (MGWR), and XGBoost machine learning to systematically investigate their spatial distribution patterns and underlying driving mechanisms.The findings reveal three key insights: (1) The spatial distribution of SVTs exhibits a “gap ring-shaped” agglomeration pattern centered around Zhengzhou, the provincial capital. High-density clusters are concentrated in the border areas of Xuchang, Luohe, and Kaifeng, with agglomeration intensity decreasing radially from the ring zone toward both the core and peripheral regions, forming a spatial gradient structure characterized by “initial enhancement followed by decline”. (2) The MGWR results indicate that natural factors, such as elevation, exert a stable and significantly inhibitory effect across the study area. In contrast, socioeconomic factors demonstrate pronounced spatial heterogeneity and “regional adaptability”: factors like distance to the provincial capital and urbanization rate suppress the formation of specialized villages in economically developed regions (e.g., central and northern Henan), while exhibiting a facilitative effect in less developed southeastern Henan. (3) The XGBoost model further uncovers nonlinear mechanisms, identifying distance to the provincial capital as the most critical driver. Most socioeconomic variables exhibit an “inverted U-shaped” relationship with the distribution of specialized villages, indicating a threshold effect where marginal benefits peak within a specific range before transitioning to suppression. High-value concentration zones predominantly occur in the “urban-rural transitional interface”, defined by an optimal interplay between distance to the provincial capital and other factors, highlighting this zone's dual advantages of market accessibility and land availability for specialized village development.

Globally, rural development is becoming increasingly complex, attracting attention to the concept of rural resilience. This study systematically reviews the academic history of rural resilience research, explores its diverse interpretations and practical implications, and identifies four key findings: (1) The concept of resilience has undergone three significant transitions, exhibiting a multi-faceted and interdisciplinary nature, with rural resilience inheriting it. (2) The diverse understanding of rural resilience can be categorised into three types according to the varying degrees of normativity: neutral perspectives, positive stances, and discourse critiques. Neutral understanding stems from ecological resilience, emphasising resilience as a process; positive stance is influenced by psychological resilience, emphasising resilience as a state or “quality”; discourse critique focuses on resilience as a discourse, highlighting its political and economic logic. (3) There are three different practices of rural resilience globally: self-governance, hybrid-drive, and government-leadership. (4) Spatial justice, bottom-up development approaches, and diverse agencies are universal propositions for different practices of rural resilience, centred around arguments such as the politics of scale, local empowerment, materiality, and more-than-human geography. The diversification of rural resilience cognitions and the differentiation of practices fundamentally reflect the divergence in rural development pathways. This study calls for a closer examination of China's unique institutional and policy practices, an expansion of rural resilience understanding from social and cultural geography perspectives, and an interpretation of rural resilience within the framework of new development pathways. These efforts aim to enhance the academic framework of rural resilience studies and provide theoretical support for the modernisation of rural China.

The integration of smallholders into modern agriculture represents a crucial pathway for rural revitalization. However, the impact of this integration on changes in cultivated land use, particularly on non-grain conversion, remains unclear. Based on micro-survey data from Sichuan Province, this study systematically examines the effect of smallholders' integration into modern agriculture on non-grain use of cultivated land and its underlying mechanisms from the perspective of rural industrial convergence. The findings reveal that farmers' deeper participation in rural industrial convergence effectively prevents cultivated land from being shifted to cash crops or abandoned, while exacerbating its conversion to non-agricultural and landscaping uses. When cultivation decision-making rights are transferred to convergence entities, large-scale entities show a stronger preference for grain cultivation, whereas small-scale entities tend to opt for non-grain uses. Rising land rents generally strengthen the non-grain inclination of convergence entities. When farmers retain decision-making rights, their level of participation in convergence activities suppresses non-grain conversion. This effect is mediated by the synergy between non-agricultural income growth and agricultural social services, and it varies nonlinearly with the degree of participation. Agricultural socialized services significantly positively moderate the shift toward grain-oriented planting structures. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that farmers' participation in production and processing links promotes grain-oriented land use, whereas involvement in sales and services leads to the opposite. Participation in industrial chain extension models significantly restrains non-grain conversion, while engagement in tourism expansion and technology penetration models exacerbates it.

The persistent constraints of locational disadvantages and inefficient factor allocation have long hindered the development of underdeveloped mountainous villages. Exploring their counter-adversity transformation pathways is of great significance for advancing Chinese-style agricultural and rural modernization as well as common prosperity. This study integrates the theoretical perspectives of “negative lock-in” and “resource-focused action” to construct a comprehensive analytical framework. Using Yanbo Village in Guizhou Province as a case, the study applies qualitative research methods to examine the stage-based evolution and driving mechanisms of its counter-adversity transformation. The findings reveal that: (1) The counter-adversity transformation of Yanbo Village in overcoming negative lock-in can be divided into three stages: breakthrough, expansion, and elevation. Resource-focused action evolved from basic resource bricolage, to systematic resource choreography, and eventually to multidimensional resource orchestration, forming a diversified development system aligned with local realities and market demands. (2) The village's transformation has relied on a synergistic mechanism of “internal resource integration and external resource acquisition”, which has driven the optimization of resource structures and the conversion of development potential across four dimensions: human capital, benefit distribution, governance, and external support. (3) The essence of Yanbo Village's counter-adversity transformation does not lie in the external infusion of a single resource, but rather in a systemic process grounded in local agency, characterized by multi-resource synergy and the progressive optimization of development mechanisms. This transformation embodies a logic of internal integration, external linkage, and collaborative value enhancement. This study expands the theoretical understanding of rural transformation under the dilemma of negative lock-in and provides practical insights for the development of similar regions.

Preventing and mitigating the risk of relative poverty is both a key entry point for establishing a long-term governance mechanism and essential for creating standardized anti-poverty systems in underdeveloped mountainous areas. This paper constructed a multidimensional analysis framework for relative poverty risk among rural households based on the human-land-industry dimensions. Taking Shizhu County in Chongqing as an example, this paper measured the relative poverty risk of rural households from 2013 to 2023, and explored the spatiotemporal variations and structural characteristics of relative poverty risk. The interdependencies among risk categories were analyzed, and the evolution trend of relative poverty risk was simulated. The study shows that: (1) From 2013 to 2023, the overall relative poverty risk of rural households remains stable, with notably high financial risk and natural risk, and rapid growth in labor capacity shock and financial risk. (2) Households engaged in traditional farming and self-operated livelihood exhibited higher relative poverty risk, while those reliant on policy support experienced a sharp increase in such risk. Rural households in remote mountainous areas faced higher risk level, whereas those in alpine regions showed a declining trend. (3) The risk structure was predominantly characterized by dual weaknesses and external disturbance types. The transition from physiological vulnerability, geographical disadvantage, and market competitiveness to relation advantage/disadvantage drove the evolution of rural households' risk structures, reflecting the dynamic changes in relative poverty risk patterns. (4) Significant correlations and transmission characteristics were observed between labor capacity shock, health risk, and financial risk, as well as between natural risk and operational risk. (5) Policy interventions should prioritize mitigating financial and natural risks, alleviating educational and policy-related pressures, and addressing the risks faced by independent and traditional farming households. Additionally, policies should aim to prevent the escalation of risks among migrant laborers and policy-dependent households, while continuously enhancing preferential support for households in remote mountainous areas.

This study investigates whether specialized agricultural development can resolve the structural paradox confronting China's hilly and mountainous areas, which function simultaneously as “economic depressions but ecological highlands”. We treat geographical indication (GI) certification as a quasi-natural experiment and employ a staggered difference-in-differences model to assess the economic and ecological effects of GI certification for agricultural products in hilly and mountainous areas. Our analysis employs a comprehensive county-level panel dataset (2004-2021) covering 1,373 hilly counties, which integrates socio-economic statistics with satellite remote sensing data. The results demonstrate that GI certification generates significant synergistic effects. Certified counties exhibit an average increase of 1.7% in rural per capita disposable income, accompanied by a 10.7% rise in forest coverage and a 0.3% improvement in the biodiversity index. These findings remain robust to an array of robustness checks, including parallel trend tests, placebo tests, and variable substitution tests. Mechanism analysis reveals that economic benefits primarily derive from GI-induced fixed-asset investment and employment multiplier effects generated through industrial linkages. Ecological improvements are mainly attributable to optimized land-use structure and enhanced environmental consciousness among stakeholders.Notably, these synergistic effects exhibit spatial heterogeneity and governance dependency. Economically advanced hilly and mountainous areas demonstrate stronger economic performance but face potential ecological trade-offs, whereas government-led governance models prove more effective in achieving balanced outcomes. The findings confirm that well-designed specialty agriculture can benefit both economies and ecosystems. We recommend establishing county-led management platforms, creating tailored local policies, strengthening green standards with digital tracking, and promoting industrial integration. This integrated approach will sustain the gains and advance rural revitalization.

Supply chain synergy is a critical frontier research issue that needs urgent attention in the study of rural e-commerce development and growth in the field of geography. This study adopts methods such as coupling coordination analysis to measure the level of supply chain synergy development in each region of the country, reveals its spatial differentiation through exploratory spatial data analysis, and explores the mechanism by which supply chain synergy affects the development of rural e-commerce on this basis. The study indicates that the development level of the production segment in e-commerce supply chains shows significant regional differentiation, with high-value areas concentrated in the eastern coastal regions. The high-value areas of the distribution segment highly overlap with provincial capital cities, while the delivery segment exhibits a pattern of regional heterogeneity but intra-provincial homogeneity. The level of supply chain collaborative development exhibits a clear gradient distribution pattern, with significant differences between different regions, and high-coordination areas are primarily concentrated in economically developed regions dominated by the three major urban agglomerations. The results of the regression analysis indicate that the level of regional supply chain collaborative development has a robust and significantly positive impact on the development of rural e-commerce. Supply chain collaboration exhibits a negative spillover effect, and there is strong regional heterogeneity between the eastern and western regions.

The Yellow River has been a central focus of river governance for successive central governments, thus becoming a significant element in historical records and traditional maps. The library of the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, houses a long scroll ancient map of the Yellow River, which is unique and not found in other versions. This traditional landscape style map contains rich details. The research results show that: (1) The map is well preserved. Its creator, Liu Shilin of Shaoxing, was the second grandson of Liu Zongzhou, a renowned Neo-Confucian scholar and anti-Qing official in the late Ming Dynasty. Liu Shilin mainly lived during the Kangxi reign. (2) The map was drawn around the mid-Kangxi reign, with a broad perspective from the viewpoint of Ming Dynasty survivors, illustrating the state of the Yellow River between the 38th (1699) and 39th (1700) years of the Kangxi reign. (3) The map's depiction of the Yellow River's source region and upper reaches is vague, but that of the lower reaches is detailed. Its practical value lies in its potential to reconstruct the early Qing Dynasty's management of the lower Yellow River and the relationship between the Yellow River, Huaihe River and Grand Canal. (4) The map's appended Essentials on River Management proposes three strategies for managing the Yellow River and criticizes the river management policies of the time. In summary, beyond its historical and practical value, the map also displays diverse values in the aspects of science, edition, and arts, warranting a comparative study with other Yellow River maps in the Qing Dynasty.

The development of vertical joints and strong upright characteristics in loess often leads to the formation of steep cliff landforms. Loess cliffs serve not only as lateral landscapes for various landform features such as gullies and landslides but also as critical windows for systematically mapping the evolutionary processes of loess landforms. However, due to the limitations in the resolution of traditional digital elevation model (DEM) data, loess cliff landforms have often exhibited concealed planar characteristics, thereby restricting the precision in understanding the extent and distribution of geological hazards. This study focuses on a typical region of the Loess Plateau, utilizing hillshade method and high-resolution DEM data derived from the UAV photogrammetry. A landform element based method for loess cliff extraction was developed, dividing the landforms into three elements: the cliff crest, cliff slope, and cliff foot. The results were compared with those extracted using the slope threshold method to evaluate the planar latent characteristics of loess cliff landforms. The findings reveal that: The planar morphology of loess cliffs exhibits significant diversity, with cliffs in different geomorphic settings displaying distinct shapes. Within the study area, 5,093 cliffs were identified, with a cliff density of 853 per square kilometer. Of these, only 2,145 cliffs (42.12%) were detected using the slope threshold method and are referred to as apparent cliffs, while the remainder are classified as latent cliffs. The slope threshold method primarily targets the cliff slope, with its extraction results overlapping 95.2% of the cliff slope areas. In contrast, the landform element based approach encompasses all three elements of loess cliffs, enabling the inference of cliff presence even when the cliff slope is concealed through analysis of the cliff crest and foot. Furthermore, the slope threshold method often yields fragmented pixel distributions within cliffs, whereas the landform element based method maintains the structural integrity necessary for statistical analysis of cliffs. Apparent and latent cliffs exhibit significant differences. The correlation between area and the square of height is stronger for apparent cliffs compared to latent cliffs. Apparent cliffs generally have larger areas and greater heights, whereas latent cliffs are predominantly smaller in area and lower in height, with cliffs under 10 m² in area and 15 m in height being more likely to remain hidden. The area and height of artificially created cliffs are smaller than those of naturally formed cliffs. There is a relatively high proportion of hidden cliffs that are artificially created. The introduction of landform elements for loess cliffs provides a more precise scientific basis for identifying geological hazards and potential soil erosion risks in loess regions.

The Yellow River Basin (YRB) is a critical national ecological security barrier and a key economic development zone in China. Its ecological security and socio-economic development play a crucial strategic role in the construction of ecological civilization and the sustainable development of the national economy. Accurate prediction of future terrestrial water storage anomalies (TWSA) is of great significance for integrated water resource management at the national scale. In this study, historical TWSA data for the YRB derived from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and GRACE Follow-On (GRACE-FO) satellite missions were used. Variational mode decomposition (VMD) was employed to the original TWSA time series to reduce noise and alleviate its non-stationarity and complexity. Subsequently, Long-short Term Memory (LSTM) and Transformer models were separately constructed to predict each decomposed modal sub-series, and the optimal predictive model was selected based on multiple performance metrics, including Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), Correlation Coefficient (R), and Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE). The results demonstrated that the VMD-LSTM hybrid model outperforms the VMD-Transformer model across all evaluation metrics. Projections based on the VMD-LSTM model suggest a gradual declining trend in terrestrial water storage in the YRB during the future period of 2022-2031, implying persistent pressure on water resources development and utilization in the region.

Understanding the geographical patterns of rural industrial development is crucial for achieving rural revitalization. Leveraging extensive big data on rural enterprises from Tianyancha, this study applies DBSCAN and K-means clustering algorithms to comprehensively analyze the development trajectory, typical agglomeration areas, and spatial differentiation mechanisms of China's rural industries since the beginning of the 21st century. The findings reveal four distinct developmental phases: a slow accumulation stage (2000-2005), a rapid enhancement stage (2006-2013), a high-speed development stage (2014-2017), and a steady advancement stage (2018-2023). In terms of spatial agglomeration, rural industries in China are categorized into four major types: grain cultivation-specialized, cash crop-dominated, those with enhanced secondary and tertiary industries and functionally balanced industries. Notably, a gradient distribution pattern emerges as the distance from central cities increases, characterized by a sequential shift from “dominance of secondary and tertiary industries → superiority of cash crop cultivation → prevalence of grain cultivation → resurgence of cash crop cultivation”. Fundamentally, the spatial differentiation of rural industrial agglomerations represents a dynamic configuration process. This process results from the nonlinear interaction of four key driving forces: natural resource endowment, land use regulations, economic market attraction, and rural population migration. These findings enhance the scientific understanding of the evolutionary trends of rural industries and provide critical insights into the spatial structure and combinatorial patterns within China's rural industrial system. This knowledge offers valuable guidance for formulating effective industrial revitalization strategies.

In the context of the coordinated promotion of new urbanization and rural revitalization strategy, the rural labor force has presented a new pattern of “two-way flow”. Returning migrants engaged in farming represent an important supplement to the rural working-age population and human capital. By reallocating land resources, they profoundly shape cultivated land use patterns, and their behavioral decisions may offer a key pathway toward resolving the dilemma of farmland “non-grainization”. Based on the survey data of 1125 rural households in Sichuan Province, this paper empirically tests the mechanism and heterogeneity of the impact of returning labor for farming on the non-grainization of cultivated land by using 2SLS and other models. The results indicate that labor return to farming significantly inhibits the non-grainization of cultivated land. Specifically, this effect is achieved through three forms of land scale operation—transfer of land, connected transfer, and block transfer—which mediate the relationship. Furthermore, heterogeneity analysis reveals that the inhibitory effect varies with the development level of village factor markets and local topographic conditions. In regions characterized by well-developed socialized service and land transfer markets, as well as in plain areas, labor return to farming significantly inhibits the “non-grainization” of cultivated land. In contrast, in regions with less developed land transfer markets and in mountainous areas, labor return to farming significantly exacerbates cultivated land “non-grainization”. Further analysis reveals that both passive returnees and long-term returnees tend to significantly inhibit this trend. Based on this, it is suggested that the local governments implement targeted policies—such as improving the land transfer market system, strengthening the precision of social service provision, and adopting regionally differentiated guidance strategies for returning laborers—so as to fully activate the dual potential of these returnees in promoting scale operation and ensuring food security across different regions.

The traditional villages of southern Hunan have distinct regional feature and profound historical culture accumulation. Exploring its landscape genes lineage structure, the synthesis of rules and organic renewal and utilization will contribute to the research on traditional villages and the practice of rural revitalization. In this paper, based on the composite perspective of “geography-culture”, the Banliang village in Yongxing county of Hunan province is taken as an example. This article constructs a landscape genes recognition theory framework and indicator system of the traditional villages in southern Hunan, and proposes the principles of the landscape genes engineering, classification editing mechanism and activation updating path. The conclusions are as follows: (1) Under the profound influence of all aspects on geography, culture and human-land relationship, the identification system of landscape genes include two main types on dominant genes and recessive genes and multiple spatial scales and dimensions. (2) The Banliang traditional village have the wisdom of man and nature in harmonious coexistence construction. The village layout shows high degree of integrity and clan identity. The character of vernacular architecture is distinctive in the action of geographic environment and social system. Public spaces encompass various types and exhibit rich spatial layers. The social culture presents confucianism and religious cultural landscape and characteristic on traditional cultivation culture of southern Hunan. (3) Under the new geography and culture environment, based on landscape genetic engineering and catalyst theory, we systematically analyze the existing problems and needs of village genes, and construct classification editing and expression mechanisms according to different contexts, which contribute to the scientific inheritance and organic renewal of settlement genes and space context. (4) It is necessary for Banliang village to carry out landscape genes repair under the integrality and security, implement genes splicing by combining coordination and functionality, implanting genes aligns with modernity and locality, carry on genes replication and expression by fusing concreteness and flexibility, thereby effectively promoting preservation, revitalization, and development of ancient villages.

This study identifies the key factors affecting rural household well-being and offers targeted optimization strategies. These findings provide a theoretical foundation for advancing comprehensive rural revitalization. Based on 522 household survey data from two typical townships in the Dabie mountainous region in 2022, this study constructed an ISM-BN model to explore the key factors affecting the well-being of rural households from two system dimensions, namely, livelihood of rural households and rural site conditions, and conducted a multi-scenario optimization simulation. The study found that (1) among the well-being measures, employment satisfaction maximizes the impact of the level of well-being of rural households on their well-being with a variance reduction of 12.1%, followed by life satisfaction (5.31%), basic material security (2.03%) and housing satisfaction (1.9%). (2) The results of the sensitivity analysis show that rural household income, livelihood diversity and off-farming are internal livelihood system factors affecting the level of well-being of rural households, and housing type, supermarket accessibility, government dependency risk, social security, environmental enhancement services, and medical and health services are external rural site condition factors. (3) Under different simulated optimization scenarios, the probability of achieving high well-being increases by 0.581% under the risk aversion scenario, by 5.31% when rural site conditions are optimized, and by 1.929% when rural household livelihoods are improved, respectively. In light of these conclusions, several policy recommendations are proposed: providing diverse livelihood incentives, optimizing social security to reduce dependency on government assistance, and upgrading environmental services and healthcare homogenization.

Influenza, a global health threat, is a typical infectious disease with a widespread impact in China. The spatial characteristics of the spread of influenza are closely related to the meteorological factors and population mobility. This paper develops a research framework on the interaction of meteorological factors and population mobility affecting influenza infection in populations. Using Spearman's correlation analysis and Generalized Additive Model, we investigate the mechanism of influenza in China through the interaction of meteorological factors and population mobility. The results show that: (1) Meteorological factors and population mobility demonstrated significant correlations, with temperature and population mobility showing the strongest correlation with influenza. (2) Both meteorological factors and population mobility were significantly non-linearly associated with influenza. The influence degree of the factors was arranged in a descending order of sunshine duration, wind speed, precipitation, temperature, barometric pressure, relative humidity, the mobility between cities, and the mobility-within-city. Among the three modes of population mobility, long-distance bus travel has the greatest impact on the incidence of influenza. (3) The interaction of the modes “low temperatures and high the mobility between cities” and “low humidity and high the mobility between cities” had the largest impact on influenza. In China, regions including Northeast China, the Bohai Rim region, the Guanzhong Plain, the Shaanxi-Shanxi-Inner Mongolia-Gansu region, Southwest China, Northwest China and Southeast Coastal Areas were highly influenced by each interaction combination. This paper reinforced the use of the factor-interaction perspective and GAM model in the spatio-temporal study of infectious diseases. This study not only provides an empirical test basis for promoting the interdisciplinary integration of health geography and the development of a knowledge system, but also provides important scientific support and policy references contributing to the Healthy China strategy, influenza prevention and control, and the development of prediction and early warning standards.

Studying healthcare construction and service levels from a resilience perspective enables a comprehensive assessment of a region's capacity to prevent and mitigate medical risks. This paper constructs an evaluation index system for healthcare service resilience and, using social network analysis methods, analyzes the spatial association network structure and characteristics of healthcare service resilience in China's provincial-level regions (hereafter provinces) based on modified gravity models. Additionally, it examines the driving mechanisms behind the formation and evolution of the spatial association network of healthcare service resilience through QAP regression analysis. The results show that: (1) High-value clusters of healthcare service resilience are mainly distributed in eastern coastal provinces such as Shandong and Jiangsu, while low-value ones are primarily located in southwestern China like Sichuan and Chongqing. The interprovincial equilibrium of healthcare service resilience has been continuously strengthening over time. (2) From an overall perspective, the spatial association network of healthcare service resilience in the eastern region is relatively dense with close internal connections, whereas internal linkages in central and western regions are relatively sparse. Individual network analysis reveals that some provinces in the central and western regions exhibit higher intermediary centrality, with Chongqing playing a pivotal hub role in the spatial association of healthcare service resilience. (3) Block model analysis indicates that net beneficiary blocks and broker blocks are predominantly found in eastern provinces, while bidirectional spillover blocks encompass all regions, with net spillover blocks mainly concentrated in the central and western provinces. Over time, the spillover phenomenon of healthcare service resilience in the central and western regions has significantly weakened. (4) Geographic proximity, urbanization levels, research endowment, and physician compensation play positive roles in the spatial association of healthcare service resilience, while population aging and hospital tier exert negative effects. Various factors exert spatial correlation effects on healthcare service resilience through multiple mechanisms, thereby influencing the structural characteristics of its spatial correlation network. This study can provide theoretical references for promoting balanced regional healthcare service development and enhancing resilience.

With the evolution of the abnormal trend of the world political and economic pattern and the implementation of China's “double cycle strategy”, free trade ports have gradually become the “frontier sensitive area” for the implementation of the concept of high-quality development. Based on the perspective of “economy, opening up, innovation, society and ecology”, this paper constructs an evaluation index system for the high-quality development of free trade ports, and makes an empirical comparison between Hainan, Hong Kong SAR and Singapore in terms of high-quality development level and obstacle factors from 2012 to 2022 by comprehensive use of entropy method and obstacle degree model. The results show that: (1) Since the establishment of Hainan Free Trade Port in 2020, the comprehensive level gap of high-quality development between Hainan and Hong Kong SAR and Singapore has been significantly narrowed. (2) In terms of economic development, Hainan's overall scale and vitality remain relatively limited, although its industrial structure has seen some improvement. On the other hand, while the province has made notable progress in enhancing its tax incentive policies, other dimensions of opening-up—such as trade, investment, finance, risk prevention, and the cross-border movement of personnel and goods—continue to operate at a relatively low level. In innovation, Hainan still lags behind Hong Kong SAR and Singapore in input, output, and the overall innovation environment. In social development, while Hainan's healthcare level is improving rapidly, its sanitation standards remain below those of Singapore, its education level is lower that of Hong Kong SAR, and the gap in cultural development between Hainan and the two comparators is even more pronounced. In ecological performance, although Hainan has achieved a relatively high level of greening, its performance in resource consumption and pollution reduction is significantly weaker than that of Hong Kong SAR and Singapore. (3) Hainan has long been at the forefront of openness and innovation. However, indicators such as international tourist arrivals and R&D investment intensity remain major obstacles to its high-quality development. Accordingly, this paper puts forward some countermeasures to promote high-quality development of Hainan: developing light industry and upgrading service industries such as tourism and logistics; reducing foreign exchange control, tariffs and market access threshold to enhance openness, increasing investment in scientific research funding and talent development, and developing characteristic tourism projects with ecological advantages.