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Urban tourism is considered a complex system, and multiscale exploration of the organizational patterns of attraction networks has become a topical issue in urban tourism, so exploring the multiscale characteristics and connection mechanisms of attraction networks is important for understanding the linkages between attractions and even the future destination planning. This paper uses geotagging data to compare the links between attractions in Beijing, China during four different periods: the pre-Olympic period (2004–2007), the Olympic Games and subsequent 'heat period' (2008–2013), the post-Olympic period (2014–2019), and the COVID-19(Corona Virus Disease 2019) pandemic period (2020–2021). The aim is to better understand the evolution and patterns of attraction networks at different scales in Beijing and to provide insights for tourism planning in the destination. The results show that the macro, meso-, and microscales network characteristics of attraction networks have inherent logical relationships that can explain the commonalities and differences in the development process of tourism networks. The macroscale attraction network degree Matthew effect is significant in the four different periods and exhibits a morphological monocentric structure, suggesting that new entrants are more likely to be associated with attractions that already have high value. The mesoscale links attractions according to the common purpose of tourists, and the results of the community segmentation of the attraction networks in the four different periods suggest that the functional polycentric structure describes their clustering effect, and the weak links between clusters result from attractions bound by incomplete information and distance, and the functional polycentric structure with a generally more efficient network of clusters. The pattern structure at the microscale reveals the topological transformation relationship of the regional collaboration pattern, and the attraction network structure in the four different periods has a very similar importance profile structure suggesting that the attraction network has the same construction rules and evolution mechanism, which aids in understanding the attraction network pattern at both macro and micro scales. Important approaches and practical implications for planners and managers are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the continuous development of urbanization in China, the country's growing population brings great challenges to urban development. By mastering the refined population spatial distribution in administrative units, the quantity and agglomeration of population distribution can be estimated and visualized. It will provide a basis for a more rational urban planning. This paper takes Beijing as the research area and uses a new Luojia1–01 nighttime light image with high resolution, land use type data, Points of Interest (POI) data, and other data to construct the population spatial index system, establishing the index weight based on the principal component analysis. The comprehensive weight value of population distribution in the study area was then used to calculate the street population distribution of Beijing in 2018. Then the population spatial distribution was visualize using GIS technology. After accuracy assessments by comparing the result with the WorldPop data, the accuracy has reached 0.74. The proposed method was validated as a qualified method to generate population spatial maps. By contrast of local areas, Luojia 1–01 data is more suitable for population distribution estimation than the NPP/VIIRS (Net Primary Productivity/Visible infrared Imaging Radiometer) nighttime light data. More geospatial big data and mathematical models can be combined to create more accurate population maps in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a heterogeneity stochastic frontier model (HSFM), we empirically investigated the economic efficiency of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei from 2003 to 2016 and its influencing factors. The key findings of the paper lie in: 1) in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the overall economic and technological efficiency tended to increase in a wavelike manner, economic growth slowed down, and there was an obvious imbalance in economic efficiency between the different districts, counties and cities; 2) the heterogeneity stochastic frontier production functions (SFPFs) of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei were different from each other, and investment was still an important impetus of economic growth in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei; 3) economic efficiency was positively correlated with economic agglomeration, human capital, industrial structure, infrastructure, the informatization level, and institutional factors, but negatively correlated with the government role and economic opening. The following policy suggestions are offered: 1) to improve regional economic efficiency and reduce the economic gap in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, governments must reduce their intervention in economic activities, stimulate the potentials of labor and capital, optimize the structure of human resources, and foster new demographic incentives; 2) governments must guide economic factors that are reasonable throughout Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and strengthen infrastructure construction in underdeveloped regions, thus attaining sustainable economic development; 3) governments must plan overall economic growth factors of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and promote reasonable economic factors (e.g., labor, resources, and innovations) across different regions, thus attaining complementary advantages between Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The key to studying urban sustainable development depends on quantifying stores, efficiencies of urban metabolisms and capturing urban metabolisms' mechanisms. This paper builds up the metabolic emergy account and quantifies some important concepts of emergy stores. Emphasis is placed on the urban metabolic model based on the slack based model (SBM) method to measure urban metabolic efficiencies. Urban metabolic mechanisms are discussed by using the regression method. By integrating these models, this paper analyzes the urban metabolic development in Beijing from 2001 to 2010. We conclude that the metabolic emergy stores of Beijing increased significantly from 2001 to 2010, with the emergy imported accounting for most of the increase. The metabolic efficiencies in Beijing have improved since the 2008 Olympic Games. The population, economic growth, industrial structures, and environmental governance positively affect the overall urban metabolism, while the land expansion, urbanization and environmentally technical levels hinder the improving of urban metabolic efficiencies. The SBM metabolic method and the regression model based on the emergy analysis provide insights into the urban metabolic efficiencies and the mechanism. They can promote to integrate such concepts into their sustainability analyses and policy decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the urban expansion and economic restructuring, the jobs-housing relationship has become an important issue in studies on urban spatial structure. This paper employed a job accessibility model, which is an evaluation instrument to measure the jobs-housing relationship in Beijing Metropolitan Area from a job accessibility perspective. The results indicate that the population in the central city is declining, whereas the population in the suburbs is consistently growing and forming new population centers. However, the distribution pattern of employment is still highly centralized. Job accessibility varies in different locations, but the inner-city areas (within the Third Ring road) have seen improved job accessibility over time while job accessibility in the suburbs (especially outside the Fourth Ring road) has decreased, and this has led it to become a primary area of residential and employment mismatch. At the same time, the new towns in the outer suburbs have not yet demonstrated great potential to attract more jobs. In addition we find that, to some extent, urban planning changes the jobs-housing relationship, but a polycentric urban spatial structure is not yet evident. The floating population and related housing policy also affect the jobs-housing relationship. We propose some measures to resolve the spatial mismatch as well as some future research directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Air pollution is a problem that directly affects human health, the global environment and the climate. The air quality index (AQI) indicates the degree of air pollution and effect on human health; however, when assessing air pollution only based on AQI monitoring data the fact that the same degree of air pollution is more harmful in more densely populated areas is ignored. In the present study, multi-source data were combined to map the distribution of the AQI and population data, and the analyze their pollution population exposure of Beijing in 2018 was analyzed. Machine learning based on the random forest algorithm was adopted to calculate the monthly average AQI of Beijing in 2018. Using Luojia-1 nighttime light remote sensing data, population statistics data, the population of Beijing in 2018 and point of interest data, the distribution of the permanent population in Beijing was estimated with a high precision of 200 m × 200 m. Based on the spatialization results of the AQI and population of Beijing, the air pollution exposure levels in various parts of Beijing were calculated using the population-weighted pollution exposure level (PWEL) formula. The results show that the southern region of Beijing had a more serious level of air pollution, while the northern region was less polluted. At the same time, the population was found to agglomerate mainly in the central city and the peripheric areas thereof. In the present study, the exposure of different districts and towns in Beijing to pollution was analyzed, based on high resolution population spatialization data, it could take the pollution exposure issue down to each individual town. And we found that towns with higher exposure such as Yongshun Town, Shahe Town and Liyuan Town were all found to have a population of over 200 000 which was much higher than the median population of townships of 51 741 in Beijing. Additionally, the change trend of air pollution exposure levels in various regions of Beijing in 2018 was almost the same, with the peak value being in winter and the lowest value being in summer. The exposure intensity in population clusters was relatively high. To reduce the level and intensity of pollution exposure, relevant departments should strengthen the governance of areas with high AQI, and pay particular attention to population clusters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic clusters have been a central focus of current urban and regional research, policies and practices. However, a methodology to identify and analyze policy-relevant economic cluster dynamics is still not well developed. Based on input-output (I-O) data of 1987, 1992, 1997, 2002 and 2007 of Beijing, this article presents an adapted principle component analysis for identifying the evolution of local economic cluster patterns. This research addresses the changes of economic interaction of industries with complementary and common activities over time. The identified clusters provide an insight into the reality of economic development in a diversifying urban economy: the increasing importance of services and the growing interaction between service and manufacturing industries. Our method therefore provides the analysts with a better understanding of the emergence, disappearance and development of economic clusters citywide. The results could be used to assist monitoring urban economic development and designing more practical urban economic strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aiming for the restoration of degraded ecosystems, many ecological engineering projects have been implemented around the world. This study investigates the ecological engineering project effectiveness on vegetation restoration in the Beijing-Tianjin Sand Source Region (BTSSR) from 2000 to 2010 based on the rain use efficiency (RUE) trend in relation to the land cover. More than half of the BTSSR experienced a vegetation productivity increase from 2000 to 2010, with the increasing intensity being sensitive to the indicators chosen. A clear tendency towards smaller increasing areas was shown when using the net primary productivity (NPP, 51.30%) instead of the accumulated normalized difference vegetation index (59.30%). The short-term variation in the precipitation and intra-seasonal precipitation distribution had a great impact on the remote sensing-based vegetation productivity. However, the residual trends method (RESTREND) effectively eliminated this correlation, while incorporating the variance and skewness of the precipitation distribution increased the models′ ability to explain the vegetation productivity variation. The RUE combined with land cover dynamics was valid for the effectiveness assessment of the ecological engineering projects on vegetation restoration. Particularly, the result based on growing season accumulated normalized difference vegetation index (ΣNDVI) residuals was the most effective, showing that 47.39% of the BTSSR experienced vegetation restoration from 2000 to 2010. The effectiveness of the ecological engineering projects differed for each subarea and was proportional to the strength of ecological engineering. The water erosion region dominated by woodland showed the best restoration, followed by the wind-water erosion crisscross regions, while the wind erosion regions dominated by grassland showed the worst effect. Seriously degraded regions still cover more area in the BTSSR than restored regions. Therefore, more future effort should be put in restoring degraded land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]