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It is an important way to realize rural revitalization and sustainable development to guide rural settlement transition (RST) in an appropriate way. This paper uses actor network theory (ANT) to construct a theoretical framework for the study of RST. Taking two typical villages with different transition paths in rural areas of North China Plain as examples, this paper reveals the mechanism of RST and makes a comparative analysis. The results show that: 1) after identifying problems and obligatory passage point, key actors recruit heterogeneous actors into the actor network by entrusting them with common interests, and realize RST under the system operation. 2) Rural settlements under different transition paths have similarities in the problems to be solved, collective actions and policy factors, but there are differences in the transition process, mechanism and effect. The actor network and mechanism of RST through the path of new rural community construction are more complex and the transition effect is more thorough. In contrast, the degree of RST of retention development path is limited if there is no resource and location advantage. 3) Based on the applicable conditions of different paths, this paper designs a logical framework of 'Situation-Structure-Behavior-Result' to scientifically guide the identification of RST paths under the background of rural revitalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has resolved its overall regional poverty in 2020 by attaining moderate societal prosperity. The country has entered a new development stage designed to achieve its second centenary goal. However, ecological fragility and risk susceptibility have increased the risk of returning to ecological poverty. In this paper, the Liupan Mountain Region of China was used as a case study, and the counties were used as the scale to reveal the spatiotempora differentiation and influcing factors of the risk of returning to poverty in study area. The indicator data for returning to ecological poverty from 2011–2020 were collected and summarized in three dimensions: ecological, economic and social. The autoregressive integrated moving average model (ARIMA) time series and exponential smoothing method (ES) were used to predict the multidimensional indicators of returning to ecological poverty for 61 counties (districts) in the Liupan Mountain Region for 2021–2030. The back propagation neural network (BPNN) and geographic information system (GIS) were used to generate the spatial distribution and time variation for the index of the risk of returning to ecological poverty (RREP index). The results show that 1) ecological factors were the main factors in the risk of returning to ecological poverty in Liupan Mountain Region. 2) The RREP index for the 61 counties (districts) exhibited a downward trend from 2021–2030. The RREP index declined more in medium- and high-risk areas than in low-risk areas. From 2021 to 2025, the RREP index exhibited a slight downward trend. From 2026 to 2030, the RREP index was expected to decline faster, especially from 2029–2030. 3) Based on the RREP index, it can be roughly divided into three types, namely, the high-risk areas, the medium-risk areas, and the low-risk areas. The natural resource conditions in low-risk areas of returning to ecological poverty, were better than those in medium- and high-risk areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

It is common to observe the epidemic risk perception (ERP) and a decline in subjective well-being (SWB) in the context of public health events, such as Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). However, there have been few studies exploring the impact of individuals' ERP within living space on their SWB, especially from a geographical and daily activity perspective after the resumption of work and other activities following a wave of the pandemic. In this paper, we conducted a study with 789 participants in urban China, measuring their ERP within living space and examining its influence on their SWB using path analysis. The results indicated that individuals' ERP within their living space had a significant negative effect on their SWB. The density of certain types of facilities within their living space, such as bus stops, subway stations, restaurants, fast food shops, convenience shops, hospitals, and public toilets, had a significantly negative impact on their SWB, mediated by their ERP within living space. Additionally, participation in out-of-home work and other activities not only increased individuals' ERP within living space, but also strengthened its negative effect on their SWB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to interpret the connotation of high-quality development of tourism economy (HQTE) from the perspective of the new development concepts of innovation, coordination, green, openness and sharing, and then to evaluate the spatial differentiation of China's HQTE based on provincial panel data from 2009 to 2018. Specifically, we employ the spatial convergence model to explore the absolute and conditional β convergence trends of HQTE in the whole country and the eastern, central and western regions of China. Our empirical results reveal that: 1) within the decade, from 2009 to 2018, regions of China with the highest HQTE index is its eastern region followed by the central region and then the western region, but the fastest growing one is the western region of China followed by the central region and then the eastern region. 2) Whether or not the spatial effect is included, there are absolute and conditional β convergence in HQTE in the whole country and aforementioned three regions. 3) The degree of government attention as well as the level of economic development and location accessibility are the positive driving factors for the convergence of HQTE in the whole country and the three regions. The degree of marketization and human capital have not passed the significance test either in the whole country or in the three regions. The above conclusions could deepen the understanding of the regional imbalance and spatial convergence characteristics of HQTE, clarify the primary development objects, and accomplish the goal of China's HQTE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Firms are embedded in complex networks, where diverse ideas combine and generate new ideas. Shareholders of firms are often seen as critical external resources that have significant influence on firm innovation. The current literature tends to focus on the relationship between firms and their shareholders, while paying less attention to the connections between firms with the same shareholders. This article identifies two types of network spillover effects, intra-city network effect and inter-city network effect, by visualizing the co-ownership networks in China's electric vehicle (EV) industry. We find that firms with the same shareholders, which are defined as co-owned EV firms, are more innovative than non-co-owned ones. Furthermore, there are two dominant types of firm co-ownership ties formed by corporate and financial institution shareholders. While corporate shareholders help exploiting local tacit knowledge, financial institutions are more active in bridging inter-city connections. The conclusion is confirmed at both firm and city levels. This paper theorizes the firm co-ownership network as a new form of institutional proximity and tested the result empirically. For policy consideration, we have emphasized the importance of building formal or informal inter-firm network, and the government should further enhance the knowledge flow channel by institutional construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studying the impact of urbanization on agricultural development in shrinking areas is important for maintaining food security and promoted agricultural development in China. Based on the measurement results of the shrinking cities in the three provinces of Northeast China, this paper selects 15 shrinking cities as the research object, and constructs a multi-dimensional index system to explore the impact of the urbanization level of the shrinking areas on the agricultural development in the region since 2007–2019, analyzes the influencing factors and their differences by using the geographically-weighted regression model and Geodetector, and proposes a targeted regulation strategy. The results show that: 1) overall, there is a negative correlation between the urbanization level and the agricultural development level in the contracted areas of the three northeastern provinces. The urbanization level in these areas has a certain negative impact on the overall level of agricultural development; 2) regarding the time dimension, the impact of urbanization level on the agricultural development level in the contracted areas of the three northeastern provinces gradually increases over time; 3) regarding the spatial pattern, the overall impact of shrinking urbanization levels in the three provinces of Northeast China on the agricultural development shows a significant distribution pattern of high in the east and low in the west; 4) the total population and natural population growth rate at the end of the year were the main factors influencing a certain level of urbanization on agricultural development in the shrinking cities while population density and the urban fixed asset investment rate were the secondary factors; and 5) the main reasons why the level of agricultural development in different cities was affected by the level of urbanization were different. However, they can be categorized into areas of population loss and spatial construction, which can be further divided into area of population loss in the northeast, areas of negative population growth in the west, and areas of urban spatial change in the south. According to the causes of the impact, this paper adopted targeted regulation strategies and formulated relevant policies and solutions that cater to local conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agro-pastoral ecotone of northern China is the prominent area for agricultural production, but it is also the most typical ecological fragile area with frequent drought disasters. Taking Yulin City at Shaanxi Province in China as the case area, the paper aims to investigate the spatio-temporal changes of agricultural vulnerability to drought in China's agro-pastoral ecotone in the period 2000 to 2020. The results show that: 1) the agricultural vulnerability to drought in Yulin City has shifted from high vulnerability in the period 2000–2010 to low vulnerability in the period 2011–2020. 2) There exist obvious spatio-temporal differences of the agricultural vulnerability to drought in Yulin City during the research period. 3) Four sensitive events and 14 resilient events were identified in the research and the crops of Yulin had become more resilient to drought. Finally, the paper put forward with policy implications to make adaptive strategies of agriculture to climate change in China's agro-pastoral ecotone in the future, e.g., carrying out agricultural zoning based on agricultural production conditions, intensifying the construction of disaster prevention and relief system, and integrating with modern agricultural technology to develop new type agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land is the space carrier for the existence and flow of other development factors. Activating rural land and promoting the circulation of other development factors through land management innovation is necessary to realize rural vitalization. This paper identifies the connotation of factor flow in the rural vitalization context, the action mechanism of land management innovation to boost the flow of development factors, the issues and obstacles restricting factor circulation, and the realization mechanism of the flow of development factors in rural vitalization. Based on the analytic paradigm constructed in the paper, the successful practice of promoting the flow of development factors through innovative land management in a model village is examined. The results show that: 1) the unreasonable systems characterized by the land use system in rural areas are the main obstacles causing circulation issues in development factors. It is essential to engage in comprehensive reform to break down these long-lasting obstacles to the smooth flow of development factors. 2) The land should play a leading role in the circulation of development factors in the background of rural vitalization; the main purpose of land management innovation is to activate the land factor, thereby promoting the circulation of other factors. 3) The activated land factor will act as a 'trigger' to promote capital and technology in rural settings and use capital and technology to attract the inflow of talents and the return of migrant workers, whereby the population factor will act as a 'catalyst' for the cultivation of rural culture, bringing about the integration of various development factors. 4) The innovation of land use and management, increased funding, and new technologies have brought multiple talents to Tengtou Village. The high-frequency mutual feedback between the village's own and the external development factors resulted in its successful integration of industrial development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reorganization of the global production network and the increased mobility of urban-rural elements have accelerated the differentiation of rural spaces, resulting in a trend towards specialization in rural areas. This paper focuses on the concept of specialization, and takes a renowned bonsai specialized village in Guangzhou City, China as a typical case to explore its transformation and development process, action logic and coupling mechanism with the social governance. The results show that: 1) the development of rural specialization in Ruiling Village is shaped by several key actors, such as local governments, grassroots organizations, villagers, social organizations, policies, markets and infrastructure. The transfer of these key actors and the reconstruction of actor-networks in different stages have an important influence on the transformation and realization of rural development goals. 2) Through subjects-driven, organization management and resource connection, social governance supports the specialization of rural industrial organization, operation, technology and mode. The governance structure shifts from decentralization to networking, refinement and integration. A coupling community of social governance and specialization is created by the social governance system of 'local government-grassroots organizations-economic cooperatives-villagers', which links industries, industrial chains and cooperatives. 3) Social governance integrates into the value chain extension process of rural specialized development with a central, multi-level organizational structure. It promotes the construction of the whole value chain through organizational planning, resource integration and image shaping, thus realizing the value, branding and organization of the industry, as well as the integration of rural sustainable development and governance mechanism. Social governance has a profound impact on the development of rural specialization in terms of subject, structure and mode, and participates in the construction of the whole value chain of rural areas. This paper provides a new perspective for understanding the coupling effect of social governance in the rural development transformation, and promotes the rural sustainable development and governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The literature on urban vitality tends to focus on the built environment. This paper argues that some important processes in shaping vitality may be overlooked without examining the intensity and diversity of economic and human activities. Using newly developed spatial big data and adopting the methods of multi-indicator measurement and spatial analysis methods, we analyzed the pattern of urban vitality in Chongqing, a provincial city in western China and, on this basis, evaluated the creation and maintenance of urban vitality from the economic and human activities perspective. Our findings indicate that the impacts of economic and human activities are positive and significant. Among the three intensity and diversity indicators, economic intensity and population density show an effect on urban vitality stronger than that of economic diversity. However, economic diversity has the strongest superposition or interactive effect, and is thus an important foundation dynamic. The positive effect of population density on urban vitality is largely a result of Chongqing's jobs-housing balance. The case of Chongqing highlights the importance of topographic features, historical inheritance, large-scale migration, and cultural activities in shaping the distinctive vitality pattern of a city. This study contends that the creation and maintenance of urban vitality can not be fully explained without incorporating the impacts of economic and human activities. It contributes to a comprehensive measurement of urban vitality and enriches its connotations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local climate zones (LCZs) are an effective nexus linking internal urban structures to the local climate and have been widely used to study urban thermal environment. However, few studies considered how much the temperature changed due to LCZs transformation and their synergy. This paper quantified the change of urban land surface temperature (LST) in LCZs transformation process by combining the land use transfer matrix with zonal statistics method during 2000–2019 in the Xi'an metropolitan. The results show that, firstly, both LCZs and LST had significant spatiotemporal variations and synchrony. The period when the most LCZs were converted was also the LST rose the fastest, and the spatial growth of the LST coincided with the spatial expansion of the built type LCZs. Secondly, the LST difference between land cover type LCZs and built type LCZs gradually widened. And LST rose more in both built type LCZs transferred in and out. Finally, the Xi'an-Xianyang profile showed that the maximum temperature difference between the peaks and valleys of the LST increased by 4.39°C, indicating that localized high temperature phenomena and fluctuations in the urban thermal environment became more pronounced from 2000 to 2019. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Public environmental concern (PEC) is an important bottom-up force in building an environmentally sustainable society. Guided by attitude theory, this paper innovatively constructed a PEC evaluation index system, while introducing entropy weighted-TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) to realize the assessment of PEC. Exploratory spatial data analysis was used to portray the spatio-temporal evolution patterns of PEC in 362 Chinese cities at prefecture-level and above from 2011 to 2018. Furthermore, the Geodetector model was performed to identify the multi-dimensional determinants of PEC from the perspective of spatial heterogeneity. The results indicated that: 1) PEC in China exhibited a fluctuating upward trend, consistent with the spatial distribution law of 'Heihe-Tengchong Line' and 'Bole-Taipei Line'; 2) the driving effect of each factor varied dynamically, but in general, economic development level, population size, industrial wastewater, and education level were the dominant driving factors explaining the spatial variation of PEC; 3) risk detection revealed that four factors, government environmental regulations, PM2.5, vegetation coverage, and natural resource endowment, had nonlinear effects on PEC; 4) the interactions between factors all demonstrated an enhancement in explaining the spatial differentiation of PEC. PEC was driven by the comprehensive interaction of four-dimensional factors of economy, society, pollutant emissions, and ecology. Among them, population agglomeration accompanied by a high level of regional economy and information technology can explain the increase in PEC to the greatest extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since China's reform and opening up in 1978, the acceleration of industrialization and urbanization in China had led to dramatic changes in the pattern of urban-rural land use. In this paper, we focused on the rural industrialized areas in central China (Xinxiang County and Changyuan City of Henan Province). We used the average nearest neighbor index, spatial statistical analysis, and a structural equation model to analyze the spatiotemporal evolution and influencing factors of urban-rural construction land based on multi-source spatial data and survey data. The results showed that: 1) from 1975 to 2019, the spatial distribution of urban-rural construction land in rural industrialized areas had evolved from homogeneous distribution to local agglomeration. In terms of comparative analysis of cases, the spatial distribution of urban-rural construction land in Changyuan City had shown a trend from diffusion to agglomeration, and Xinxiang County had overall shown a spatial change from homogenization to agglomeration and then to regional integration development. 2) The hot spots with increased urban-rural construction land significantly expanded, and they had a high degree of spatial overlap with industrial development. Among them, Xinxiang County was concentrated in central and marginal areas, and Changyuan was mainly concentrated in central urban areas. 3) From the evolution of spatial proximity of urban-rural construction land, rural industrialized areas generally decline, showing the characteristics of internal differentiation in the rate of change. 4) Industrial development, social economy, the policy environment, and urban development played a positive role in promoting the expansion of urban-rural construction land in rural industrialized areas. To promote the optimal use of regional land and the integrated development of urban-rural areas, we should combine the advantages of regional endowment, formulate development strategies according to local conditions, and adjust the way that land is used in a timely manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural green development is an essential direction for global sustainable agriculture. The academic literature, however, needs to place greater emphasis on studying the factors influencing agricultural green development performance and how such performance can be improved. A theoretical framework for agricultural green development performance was constructed in this paper using the Super-SBM model, which considers undesirable outputs, to measure the agricultural green development performance of 330 cities at or above the prefecture level in China (excluding Tibet Autonomous Region, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan of China) from 2007 to 2018. Furthermore, the influencing mechanism of agricultural green development performance was then analyzed using a spatial econometric model. The results show that: 1) from 2007 to 2018, China's agricultural green development performance experienced three stages of evolution: 'rise, decline and rise'. 2) The regions with high performance agricultural green development are mainly distributed in eastern China, northeastern China, and southern Qinghai Province. 3) The agricultural economic level, industrialization process, and labor quality play significant roles in promoting local agricultural green development performance, while such performance is obviously inhibited by the openness level and the government's environmental regulations. Local agricultural green development performance is significant inhibited by the agricultural economic level and accelerated industrialization process in neighboring cities, while significantly promoted by the agricultural industrial structure in neighboring cities. Some suggestions for improving agricultural green development performance are proposed based on these research results, which can provide scientific references for promoting sustainable agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Settlements and cultivated land are important production and living spaces in promoting rural revitalization. However, few studies have explored the relationship between rural settlements and cultivated land from spatiotemporal interaction perspective. This paper analyzed the spatiotemporal conversion and the interactive mechanism between rural settlements and cultivated land in a karst mountainous area (Qixingguan District of Guizhou Province) with fragile ecological environment in China during 2009–2018. The results showed that the expansion of rural settlements and the loss of cultivated land coexisted in Qixingguan District. Only 2.68% of the new cultivated land was reclaimed from rural settlements, whereas 85.45% of the new rural settlements occupied cultivated land. Six spatial expansion modes of rural settlements when occupying cultivated land were identified. Among these six modes, the area of the edge-expansion & along traffic roads (EA) mode accounted for 52.75%. The occupation by rural settlements made the cultivated land landscape more fragmented. The area ratio index of cultivated land to rural settlements (ARICR) of Qixingguan District averaged 18.75 in 2009 and 17.21 in 2018, respectively. The ARICR reduced in all township administrative regions. Cultivated land with suitable slope condition for farming or without rocky desertification was more likely to be occupied by rural settlements. The probability of cultivated land occupied by rural settlements increased with the decrease of the distance to traffic roads, towns, and old rural settlements. The better the economic and social development of the township administrative regions, the more the ARICR decreased, while the richer the agricultural resources and the better the rural development of the township administrative regions, the less the ARICR decreased. The optimal reconstruction path of rural settlements, the comprehensive conservation path of cultivated land and the urban-rural integration development path in karst mountainous area were proposed. The findings would contribute to our understanding of the spatiotemporal interaction between rural settlements and cultivated land, and would provide a theoretical basis for promoting the coordinated development of rural man-land relationship and rural revitalization in karst areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploring the synergy types and optimization paths between Poverty Alleviation Effectiveness and Rural Revitalization is necessary for achieving the two centenary goals. Taking poverty alleviation counties in Hunan Province, China as an example, our study proposed an indicator to measure the synergistic development between Poverty Alleviation Effectiveness and Rural Revitalization using the multi-index integrated evaluation method. Then, the coupling types were classified based on both the proposed indicator and regional characteristics. Besides, the corresponding optimization path for each coupling type was proposed to promote the synergistic development of Poverty Alleviation and Rural Revitalization. Results are as follows: 1) Lower synergy focused on the southwestern Hunan, while low synergy is widely distributed (such as the west, southwest, northwest, and midland). Moderate synergy is in the midland, such as Huaihua and Chenzhou cities. High synergy is distributed in Yongzhou, Huaihua, Xiangxi cities, etc. Besides, only Hecheng City belongs to the higher synergy. 2) This paper proposes corresponding development paths for different development characteristics and main problems from multiple perspectives of the protection system, industrial planning, and rural market. Continuously consolidate and enhance the effectiveness of Poverty Alleviation and Rural Revitalization to achieve coupled and synergistic development of the two systems. Our research results can provide theoretical support for implementing Poverty Alleviation and Rural Revitalization in Hunan Province, China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addressing the issue of the healthy and coordinated development of the population and economic factors in rural areas will not only help consolidate and expand the achievements of poverty alleviation, but will also lay a foundation for comprehensive rural revitalization. In this paper, the spatial coupling relationship between the population and economic factors in rural areas in the Qinling-Daba Mountains, China, is explored to provide a reference for rural revitalization and regional sustainable development in poverty areas. Sixty-eight county units in rural areas in the Qinling-Daba Mountains, as well as the population and economic factors in rural areas, are used to study the spatial coupling relationship between population and economy, as well as the driving mechanism, in rural areas in the Qinling-Daba Mountains from 2010 to 2020. The results show that a population contraction phenomenon occurred in the rural areas in the Qinling-Daba Mountains, and the spatial agglomeration trends of the population and economic factors were consistent. The agglomeration was mainly located in the suburban areas of the municipal area, and the agglomeration degree was significantly higher in these areas than in other areas. In terms of the spatial distribution, the economic development level of the rural areas in the northeastern part of the Qinling-Daba Mountains was generally higher than that in the central and western parts, and the unbalanced trends of the population and economic spatial differentiation in the eastern and western regions were significant. The spatial coupling relationship between the population and economy changed from coordinated development to economic advancement. This was mainly due to the mutual restriction and joint actions of the industrial structure, capital situation, natural environment, policies, and institutional regulations, among which the industrial structure and capital status had significant effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil moisture plays an important role in crop yield estimation, irrigation management, etc. Remote sensing technology has potential for large-scale and high spatial soil moisture mapping. However, offline remote sensing data processing is time-consuming and resource-intensive, and significantly hampers the efficiency and timeliness of soil moisture mapping. Due to the high-speed computing capabilities of remote sensing cloud platforms, a High Spatial Resolution Soil Moisture Estimation Framework (HSRSMEF) based on the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform was developed in this study. The functions of the HSRSMEF include research area and input datasets customization, radar speckle noise filtering, optical-radar image spatio-temporal matching, soil moisture retrieving, soil moisture visualization and exporting. This paper tested the performance of HSRSMEF by combining Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2 images and in-situ soil moisture data in the central farmland area of Jilin Province, China. Reconstructed Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) based on the Savitzky-Golay algorithm conforms to the crop growth cycle, and its correlation with the original NDVI is about 0.99 (P < 0.001). The soil moisture accuracy of the random forest model (R2 = 0.942, RMSE = 0.013 m3/m3) is better than that of the water cloud model (R2 = 0.334, RMSE = 0.091 m3/m3). HSRSMEF transfers time -consuming offline operations to cloud computing platforms, achieving rapid and simplified high spatial resolution soil moisture mapping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building a more resilient response system to climate change for sustainable development and reducing uncertainty in China's food markets, requires access to historical research gaps and mapping future research progress for decision making. However, the lack of quantitative and objective analyses to ensure the stability and development of agroecosystems increases the complexity of agro-climatic mechanisms, which leads to uncertainty and undesirable consequences. In this paper, we review the characteristics of climate change in China (1951–2020), reveal the mechanisms of agroecosystem structure in response to climate, and identify challenges and opportunities for future efforts in the context of research progress. The aim is to improve the scientific validity and relevance of future research by clarifying agro-climatic response mechanisms. The results show that surface temperature, precipitation, and frequency of extreme weather events have increased to varying degrees in major agricultural regions of China in 1951–2020. And they have strong geographic variation, which has resulted in droughts in the north and floods in the south. Moreover, climate change has complicated the mechanisms of soil moisture, Net Primary Productivity (NPP), soil carbon pool, and crop pest structure in agroecosystems. This lends to a reduction in soil water holding capacity, NPP, soil carbon content, and the number of natural enemies of diseases and insects, which in turn affects crop yields. However, human interventions can mitigate the deterioration of these factors. We have also realized that the methodology and theory of historical research poses a great challenge to future agroecosystem. Historical and projected climate trends identified current gaps in interdisciplinary integration and multidisciplinary research required to manage diverse spatio-temporal climate change impacts on agroecosystems. Future efforts should highlight integrated management and decision making, multidisciplinary big data coupling, and numerical simulations to ensure sustainable agricultural development, ecological security, and food security in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to achieve a rapid and accurate identification of soil stratification information and accelerate the development of smart agriculture, this paper conducted soil stratification experiments on agricultural soils in the Mollisols area of Northeast China using Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) and obtained different types of soil with frequencies of 500 MHz, 250 MHz, and 100 MHz antennas. The soil profile data were obtained for 500 MHz, 250 MHz, and 100 MHz antennas, and the dielectric properties of each type of soil were analyzed. In the image processing procedure, wavelet analysis was first used to decompose the pre-processed radar signal and reconstruct the high-frequency information to obtain the reconstructed signal containing the stratification information. Secondly, the reconstructed signal is taken as an envelope to enhance the stratification information. The Hilbert transform is applied to the envelope signal to find the time-domain variation of the instantaneous frequency and determine the time-domain location of the stratification. Finally, the dielectric constant of each soil horizon is used to obtain the propagation velocity of the electromagnetic wave at the corresponding position to obtain the stratification position of each soil horizon. The research results show that the 500 MHz radar antenna can accurately delineate Ap/Ah, horizon and the absolute accuracy of the stratification is within 5 cm. The effect on the soil stratification below the tillage horizon is not apparent, and the absolute accuracy of the 250 MHz and 100 MHz radar antennas on the stratification is within 9 cm. The overwhelming majority of the overall calculation errors are kept to within 15%. Based on the three central frequency antennas, the soil horizon detection rate reaches 93.3%, which can achieve accurate stratification of soil profiles within 1 m. The experimental and image processing methods used are practical and feasible; however, the GPR will show a missed detection for soil horizons with only slight differences in dielectric properties. Overall, this study can quickly and accurately determine the information of each soil stratification, ultimately providing technical support for acquiring soil configuration information and developing smart agriculture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forests and the dynamic changes play decisive roles in soil erosion prevention, biodiversity conservation and climate warming mitigation, and are crucial for China to achieve carbon neutrality because of the ability for carbon uptake. China's forests experienced a substantial change over the past century, primarily since the forest conservation and restoration programs were implemented. In this paper, the progress of China's forest change and the similarities and differences of the spatio-temporal patterns from multi-dimension coupling with ground surveys and satellite observations were reviewed comprehensively, and the drivers of forest change were discussed. Our review reported that: 1) China's forests experienced an extensive forest gain/restoration in vegetation greenness, forest cover, and aboveground biomass since the 1970s. 2) Changes in various forest parameters suggested distinctive spatiotemporal patterns in China. Consistent hotspots of forest gain clustered in the Loess Plateau and the southwestern China from most studies, while controversial conclusions about forest loss/degradation were found in the spatial distribution. 3) The geographic discrepancy of forest changes may be related to climate change, human activities, and forest disturbances. Variations in forest dynamics are prerequisites to exploring the effects of natural conditions and forestry policies on forest cover, and strengthening understanding of the carbon cycle. These findings can provide valuable insights for various ecological services in further studies and a scientific basis for forest management and policy-making in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) pollution is the main source of water pollution in the Huaihe River watershed in China, it is important to understand how TN and TP pollution affect the relationship between water supply and demand. Quantifying their impacts and describing the spatiotemporal distribution of this relationships are necessary for furtherly deepening the theory of TN and TP pollution on water bodies, and this information is also particularly essential for managing water resources regionally. In this study, based on the potential water supply, the water demand and the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (In-VEST) water purification models, we estimated the TN and TP pollution from agricultural fertilizer, livestock and poultry breeding, and rural residents in the Huaihe River watershed and simulated TN and TP impacts on the relationship between water supply and demand. We found that if the impact of TN and TP pollution on water supply was not taken into account, on average, there was excess water supply in 79.20% of the watershed and excess demand in 20.80% of the rest during 1980–2018. Under the TN concentration limit, Grade-II (The water quality meets the secondary level of water body qualified in GB3838-2002, classified as Grade-II) water was the main water-supply type in 1980–2018, followed by Grade-I and Grade-III water. The total water shortage showed an inverted V-shaped trend: first increasing and then decreasing at the same period. The proportion of the water shortage of Grade-I water in the total water shortage was the largest, followed by Grade-II and Grade-III water. Areas with excess demand were located on the north bank of Wang-Beng, Yishuhe, and Huxi regions, although the water in these sub-watersheds met the water quality standards of Grade-I water. Under the TP concentration limit, Grade-II and Grade-I water were the main water-supply types. The overall water shortage trend first increased and then decreased, exhibiting an inverted V-shape from 1980 to 2018. The water shortages of Grade-I and Grade-II water showed similar inverted V-shape trend over time. Areas that met the water quality standard of Grade-I included the north banks of Wang-Beng and Huxi regions, where there was a surplus of demand. This paper suggests a way to analyze the interaction between water pollutants and the water supply-demand ratio as the example of TN and TP pollution at a watershed scale, which can broaden water pollution theory for relative water resources departments when water supply and demand will be evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The continuous development of agricultural technologies and produces trade and updated state reforms strongly shape the dominant organizing styles of local agriculture production. Since the end of the 1970s, rural China has witnessed a drastic agriculture transformation featured by de-collectivization, and recently in Taicang, a developed city in the eastern China, a kind of new cooperative farms have replaced the smallholders by pooling households' contracted farmland, signaling a new shift tendency towards agriculture recollectivization that is distinctive compared to other countries. Given the state governance's leadership in promoting this latest transformation, drawing on the theoretical concept of 'governmentality' that is powerful in understanding how to govern the society to meet certain objectives, this paper examines the accurate processes of agriculture re-collectivization in Taicang City based on the methods of semi-structured interview and participant observation. Our research shows that the China's tax-sharing and relevant reforms in the 1990s framed a new governance structure in line with the new mode of 'governmentality' closely linked to 'advanced liberalism', creating the responsibility shift from central to local governments and a set of evaluation technologies, and guiding various actors to engage in the agriculture re-collectivization practice in Taicang. Importantly, the considerable subsidies and the impressive extension services in terms of farming personnel training and agricultural techniques diffusion underpin the normal running of cooperative farms and contribute to the local implementation of national strategy of agriculture modernization. We argue that the combination of distinctive institutional arrangement of rural land owned by village collectives in China and the burgeoning local economy allows the developed areas to re-collectivizing the agriculture production for ensuring grain self-sufficiency rather than capturing more share in global agriculture products trade, and that the cooperative farms in our case have been deeply integrated into the 'modern procurement system' and become more sensitive to market fluctuation, requiring rural extension service to transform towards farms' capacity building for maintaining the long-term development momentum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For mankind's survival and development, water, energy, and food (WEF) are essential material guarantees. In China, however, the spatial distribution of WEF is seriously unbalanced and mismatched. Here, a collaborative governance mechanism that aims at nexus security needs to be urgently established. In this paper, the Yellow River Basin in China with a representative WEF system, was selected as a case. Firstly, a comprehensive framework for WEF coupling coordination was constructed, and the relationship and mechanism between them were analyzed theoretically. Then, we investigated the spatiotemporal characteristics and driving mechanisms of the coupling coordination degree (CCD) with a composite evaluation method, coupling coordination degree model, spatial statistical analysis, and multiscale geographic weighted regression. Finally, policy implications were discussed to promote the coordinated development of the WEF system. The results showed that: 1) WEF subsystems showed a significant imbalance of spatial pattern and diversity in temporal changes; 2) the CCD for the WEF system varied little and remained at moderate coordination. Areas with moderate coordination have increased, while areas with superior coordination and mild disorder have decreased. In addition, the spatial clustering phenomenon of the CCD was significant and showed obvious characteristics of polarization; and 3) the action of each factor is self-differentiated and regionally variable. For different factors, GDP per capita was of particular importance, which contributed most to the regional development's coupling coordination. For different regions, GDP per capita, average yearly precipitation, population density, and urbanization rate exhibited differences in geographical gradients in an east-west direction. The conclusion can provide references for regional resource allocation and sustainable development by enhancing WEF system utilization efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of urban agglomerations in northwest arid and semiarid regions of China, the scope of the urban heat island (UHI) effect has gradually expanded and gradually connected, and has formed a regional heat island (RHI) with a larger range of impact to the regional environment. However, there are few studies on the heat island effect of urban agglomerations in arid and semiarid regions, so this paper selects the urban agglomeration of Hohhot, Baotou and Ordos (HBO) of Inner Mongolia, China as the study area. Based on the 8-day composite Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) surface temperature data (156 scenes in all) and land use maps for 2005, 2010, and 2015, we analyze the spatiotemporal distributions of regional heat (cool) islands (RH(C)I) and the responses of surface temperatures to land-use changes in the diurnal and interannual surface cities. The results showed that: 1) from 2005 to 2015, urban areas showed the cold island effect during the day, with the area of the cold island showing a shrinking feature; at night, they showed the heat island effect, with the area of the heat island showing a first decrease and then an increase. 2) From 2005 to 2015, the land development (unutilized land to building land) brings the greatest temperature increase (ΔT = 1.36°C) during the day, while the greatest temperature change at night corresponds to the conversion of cultivated land to building land (ΔT = 0.78°C) exhibited the largest changes at night. From 2010 to 2015, the land development (grassland to building land) bring the greatest temperature increase (ΔT = 0.85°C) during the day, while the great temperature change at night corresponds to the conversion of water areas to building land (ΔT = 1.38°C) exhibited the largest changes at night. Exploring the spatial and temporal evolution of surface urban heat (cool) islands in urban agglomerations in arid and semiarid regions will help to understand the urbanization characteristics of urban agglomerations and provide a reference for the formulation of policies for the coordinated and healthy development of the region and co-governance of regional environmental problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Karst environmental issues have become one of the hot spots in contemporary international geological research. The same problem of water shortage is one of the hot spots of global concern. The peak-cluster depression basins in southwest of Guangxi is an important water connotation and ecological barrier areas in the Pearl River Basin of China. Thus, studying the spatial and temporal variations and the influencing factors of its water yield services is critical to achieve the sustainable development of water resources and ecological environmental protection in this region. As such, this paper uses the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) model to assess the spatial and temporal variabilities of water yield services and its trends in the peak-cluster depression basins in southwest of Guangxi from 2000 to 2020. This work also integrates precipitation (Pre), reference evapotranspiration (ET), temperature (Tem), digital elevation model (DEM), slope, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), land use/land cover (LULC) and soil type to reveal the main factors that influence water yield services with the help of Geodetector. Results show that: 1) in time scale, the total annual water yield in the study area show a fluctuating and increasing trend from 2000 to 2020, with a growth rate of 7.3753 × 108 m3/yr, and its multi-year average water yield was 538.07 mm; 2) in spatial pattern, with high yield areas mainly distributed in the south of the study area (mainly including Shangsi County, Pingxiang City, Ningming County, Longzhou County and Jingxi County), and low yield areas mainly distributed in Baise City and Nanning City; 3) the dominant factor of water yield within karst and non-karst landforms is not necessarily controlled by precipitation, and the explanation degree of DEM factors in karst areas is significantly higher than that in non-karst areas; 4) amongst the climatic factors, Pre, ET and Tem are dominant in the spatial pattern of region water yield capacity. among which Pre has the highest explanatory power for the spatial heterogeneity of annual water production, with q values above 0.8, and each driver showed a significant interaction on the spatial distribution of water yield, with Pre exhibiting the strongest interaction with LULC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban functional area (UFA) is a core scientific issue affecting urban sustainability. The current knowledge gap is mainly reflected in the lack of multi-scale quantitative interpretation methods from the perspective of human-land interaction. In this paper, based on multi-source big data include 250 m × 250 m resolution cell phone data, 1.81 × 105 Points of Interest (POI) data and administrative boundary data, we built a UFA identification method and demonstrated empirically in Shenyang City, China. We argue that the method we built can effectively identify multi-scale multi-type UFAs based on human activity and further reveal the spatial correlation between urban facilities and human activity. The empirical study suggests that the employment functional zones in Shenyang City are more concentrated in central cities than other single functional zones. There are more mix functional areas in the central city areas, while the planned industrial new cities need to develop comprehensive functions in Shenyang. UFAs have scale effects and human-land interaction patterns. We suggest that city decision makers should apply multi-sources big data to measure urban functional service in a more refined manner from a supply-demand perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global value chains have become the core skeleton of the global economy. As a large-scale international cooperation initiative, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI hereafter) may have a significant impact on the global economic landscape. In this context, the spatiotemporal pattern and evolution of the value chain connection of the Silk Road countries and whether the BRI will promote the value chain connections between China and these countries are important research questions for understanding the changing global economic landscape. This paper employs input-output analysis, network analysis and difference-in-differences based on Propensity Score Matching (PSM-DID) to conduct an in-depth quantitative study of these questions. The results show that, first, the overall value chain connection between China and the Silk Road countries has been rising since 2001. From the perspective of geographical distribution, Southeast Asia is the highest value chain connection region with China, and the growth in the central and eastern Europe is the most significant, whereas the central Asia is the lowest value connection region. From the perspective of complex network analysis, China's position in the network of value flow among the Silk Road countries has been increasing continuously, and it has been in the lead position since 2008. Besides, the implementation of the BRI has had a significant positive influence on the overall value chain connection between China and the Silk Road countries, but this positive influence is limited to the central and eastern Europe region, whereas it is not significant in other regions. Finally, this paper suggests that to promote the development of value chain connection, the Silk Road countries need to develop more specific policies related to value chains. Policymakers need to be able to correctly identify the comparative advantages of the region and the types of value chains that are compatible with them and then find suitable partners and formulate targeted promotion policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) is the most unique region of human-land relations, and its main factor is population. By building a population and space dataset of the QTP at the township level from 1982 to 2017, this paper presents the pattern evolvement and regional distribution characteristics of township-level population in the QTP in detail for the first time. By using Geodetector method to analyze the influencing factors of township-level population change in the QTP, this paper provides scientific foundations for studying the Third Pole, ecological environment protection of the QTP, and human-land relations. The conclusions are as follows: 1) The population spatial distribution is not balanced at the township level, presents the regional differentiation characteristics of 'dense in southeast and sparse in northwest' along the 'Qilian-Jilong Line', and demonstrates the phenomenon of population center of gravity moving to the hinterland of the plateau at an accelerated speed; 2) The township-level population develops in a decentralized trend in general, and the cold- and hot-spot distribution of population has prominent spatial distribution characteristics. The population hot spots are concentrated in the surrounding areas of Xining, Golmud, Hotan and Lijiang; 3) The population of the QTP is increasing, and the inter-annual change of township population has a relatively stable regional regularity; 4) The level of per capita income is the leading factor in the change of township population, and its effect intensity is increasing continuously. The relative effect intensity of urbanization level and location conditions on population change has decreased significantly after 2000. The adaptability of living environment, such as topography and climate, has little influence on population change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evapotranspiration (ET) is the key to the water cycle process and an important factor for studying near-surface water and heat balance. Accurately estimating ET is significant for hydrology, meteorology, ecology, agriculture, etc. This paper simulates ET in the Madu River Basin of Three Gorges Reservoir Area of China during 2009–2018 based on the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model, which was calibrated and validated using the MODIS (Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer)/Terra Net ET 8-Day L4 Global 500 m SIN Grid (MOD16A2) dataset and measured ET. Two calibration strategies (lumped calibration (LC) and spatially distributed calibration (SDC)) were used. The basin was divided into 34 sub-basins, and the coefficient of determination (R2) and Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency coefficient (NSE) of each sub-basin were greater than 0.6 in both the calibration and validation periods. The R2 and NSE were higher in the validation period than those in the calibration period. Compared with the measured ET, the accuracy of the model on the daily scale is: R2 = 0.704 and NSE = 0.759 (SDC results). The model simulation accuracy of LC and SDC for the sub-basin scale was R2 = 0.857, R2 = 0.862 (monthly) and R2 = 0.227, R2 = 0.404 (annually), respectively; for the whole basin scale was R2 = 0.902, R2 = 0.900 (monthly) and R2 = 0.507 and R2 = 0.519 (annually), respectively. The model performed acceptably, and SDC performed the best, indicating that remote sensing data can be used for SWAT model calibration. During 2009–2018, ET generally increased in the Madu River Basin (SDC results, 7.21 mm/yr), with a multiyear average value of 734.37 mm/yr. The annual ET change rate for the sub-basin was relatively low upstream and downstream. The linear correlation analysis between ET and meteorological factors shows that on the monthly scale, precipitation, solar radiation and daily maximum and minimum temperature were significantly correlated with ET; annually, solar radiation and wind speed had a moderate correlation with ET. The correlation between maximum temperature and ET is best on the monthly scale (Pearson correlation coefficient R = 0.945), which may means that the increasing ET originating from increasing temperature (global warming). However, the sub-basins near Shennongjia Nature Reserve that are in upstream have a negative ET change rate, which means that ET decreases in these sub-basins, indicating that the ‘Evaporation Paradox’ exists in these sub-basins. This study explored the potential of remote-sensing-based ET data for hydrological model calibration and provides a decision-making reference for water resource management in the Madu River Basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigating urban expansion patterns aids in the management of urbanization and in ameliorating the socioeconomic and environmental issues associated with economic transformation and sustainable development. Applying Harmonized Defense Meteorological Satellite Program-Operational Line-scan System (DMSP-OLS) and the Suomi National Polar-Orbiting Partnership-Visible Infrared Imagery Radiometer Suite (NPP-VIIRS) Nighttime Light (NTL) data, this paper investigated the characteristics of urban landscape in West Africa. Using the harmonized NTL data, spatial comparison and empirical threshold methods were employed to detect urban changes from 1993 to 2018. We examined the rate of urban change and calculated the direction of the urban expansion of West Africa using the center-of-gravity method for urban areas. In addition, we used the landscape expansion index method to assess the processes and stages of urban growth in West Africa. The accuracy of urban area extraction based on NTL data were R2 = 0.8314 in 2000, R2 = 0.8809 in 2006, R2 = 0.9051 in 2012 for the DMSP-OLS and the simulated NPP-VIIRS was R2 = 0.8426 in 2018, by using Google Earth images as validation. The results indicated that there was a high rate and acceleration of urban landscapes in West Africa, with rates of 0.016 0, 0.017 3, 0.018 9, and 0.068 6, and accelerations of 0.31, 0.42, 0.54, and 0.90 for the periods of 1998–2003, 2003–2008, 2008–2013, and 2013–2018, respectively. The expansion direction of urban agglomeration in West Africa during 1993–2018 was mainly from the coast to inland. However, cities located in the Sahel Region of Africa and in the middle zone expanded from north to south. Finally, the results showed that the urban landscape of West Africa was mainly in a scattered and disordered 'diffusion' process, whereas only a few cities located in coastal areas experiencing the process of 'coalescence' according to urban growth phase theory. This study provides urban planners with relevant insights for the urban expansion characteristics of West Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dislocation between regional innovation and economic development directly influences the economic effect of regional innovation. However, no in-depth researches have been made on how to solve this problem. Using data from Henan Province, China, employing geographical detector technology, this paper focuses on testing whether the industry-university-research cooperation can contribute to coordinating the relation between regional innovation and economic development. It is shown that: 1) the industry-university-research cooperation in Henan Province is increasing gradually, and the network presents a core-edge structure, and the coupling degree between regional innovation and economic development is spatially unbalanced, which is similar to the spatial distribution of the intensity of industry-university-research cooperation; 2) as an important approach to effectively connect scientific researches with market demands, the industry-university-research cooperation can help form an interactive, interconnected, coupled and coordinated virtuous relation between regional innovation and economic development. Compared with the cooperation between organizations of the same type and the separate innovation of organizations, the improvement of the industry-university-research cooperation level can better coordinate the relation between regional innovation and economic development; 3) the cooperative innovation model between enterprises and universities can better promote the coupling between regional innovation and economic development, compared with many industry-university-research cooperation models. For underdeveloped areas lacking local knowledge base, industry-university-research cooperation should be considered as a long-term development strategy, especially using the knowledge sources of external universities and scientific research institutions to enhance innovation capability and achieve economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accelerating the promotion of high-quality development of tourism (HQDT) is of great significance to the sustainable development of tourism. This paper defined the concept of HQDT, and then built an evaluation system for HQDT measurement to analyze the spatio-temporal evolution characteristics of China's HQDT based on provincial panel data from 2010 to 2019, using Geodetector to explore the similarities and differences between driving factors of HQDT and tourism development scale (TDS). The results show that: 1) Taking the development concepts of innovation, coordination, green, openness and sharing as the guidance, and considering the organic unity of quantity and quality, the evaluation index system of the HQDT consists of six dimensions of economic stability, innovation driving, coordination and linkage, green and sustainability, openness and cooperation, and sharing and harmony, which respectively represent the basis, momentum, means, orientation, direction and purpose of the HQDT; 2) The level of China's HQDT shows an upward trend, presenting the characteristics of eastern region > central region > western region > northeastern region in 2019. The regional differences in China's HQDT show a downward trend, and the intra-regional differences have replaced the inter-regional differences as the main source of regional differences; 3) China's HQDT shows the characteristics of higher in the east and lower in the west along the Hu line, while the improvement speed of HQDT shows the characteristics of faster in the west and slower in the east, making the decline of east-west differentiation of China's HQDT and the movement of the gravity center towards southwest; 4) Both HQDT and TDS are obviously driven by tourism capital investment and regional consumption. In terms of differences, the HQDT is more driven by government guidance, innovation driving force, and opening up, while the main driving factors of TDS are more biased toward capital elements and hardware facilities, including informatization, tourism resource, traffic, and eco-environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among cancers, lung cancer is the most common cause of death in China. For the prevention and control of lung cancer, it is necessary to investigate the spatial and temporal distribution of lung cancer mortality, as well as the changes in the trend and the affecting mechanism. Based on statistics and auto-correlation analysis, this paper studied the spatial and temporal distribution of lung cancer mortality in Yuhui District, Bengbu, Huaihe River Basin, from 2017 to 2020. In addition, Spearman's Rank Correlation Assessment Model and Geographic Detector Model were used to examine the relationship between environmental factors and lung cancer mortality to identify impact factors and their mechanisms. The findings indicated that: 1) from the characteristics of temporal distribution, the number of lung cancer deaths exhibited a linear growth tendency, with the highest mortality in winter; 2) from the characteristics of spatial distribution, lung cancer mortality showed a strong spatial agglomeration form, concentrating on two clustering areas, located in the old city and the central city of Bengbu, near the Huaihe River; 3) from the point of view of the whole research area, there were 15 impact factors with significant correlation in the built and natural environment factors. The significant impacting factors in the built environment included land use, road traffic, spatial form and blue-green space, which could indirectly affect lung cancer mortality, while air pollution and temperature constituted the significant impacting factors in the natural environment; 4) the influence of screened environmental factors on lung cancer mortality was different. Spatial stratified heterogeneity assessment, the interaction among environmental factors demonstrated statistical significance, it was found that the interaction between environmental factors in pairs had a significant enhancement effect on lung cancer mortality. To some extent, urban planning and policies could reduce lung cancer mortality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Algal blooms in lakes have become a common global environmental problem. Nowadays, remote sensing is widely used to monitor algal blooms in lakes due to the macroscopic, fast, real-time characteristics. However, it is often difficult to distinguish between algal blooms and aquatic vegetation due to their similar spectral characteristics. In this paper, we used modified vegetation presence frequency index (VPF) based on Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) imagery to distinguish algal blooms from aquatic vegetation, and analyzed the spatial and temporal variations of algal blooms and aquatic vegetation from a phenological perspective for five large natural lakes with frequent algal bloom outbreaks in China from 2019 to 2020. We simplified the VPF method to make it with a higher spatial transferability so that it could be applied to other lakes in different climatic zones. Through accuracy validation, we found that the modified VPF method can effectively distinguish between algal blooms and aquatic vegetation, and the results vary from lake to lake. The highest accuracy of 97% was achieved in Hulun Lake, where the frequency of algal outbreaks is low and the extent of aquatic vegetation is stable, while the lowest accuracy of 76% was achieved in Dianchi Lake, which is rainy in summer and the lake is small. Analyses suggests that the time period when algal blooms occur most frequently might not coincide with that when they have the largest area. However, in most cases these two are close in terms of time period. The modified VPF method has a broad scope of application, is easy to implement, and has a high practical value. Furthermore, the method could be established using only a small amount of measured data, which is useful for water quality monitoring on large spatial scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to the debate on the nexus between informal economies and the environment by investigating the long-term dynamic impacts of China's informal economies on pollution and considering regional differences in informal economies' pollution. This paper uses the Multiple Indicators Multiple Causes (MIMIC) model to estimate the size of informal economies and employs econometric models to examine their relationships to pollution based on provincial-level panel data from 2000 to 2017. The results indicate that informal economies' effects on environmental pollution are not purely positive or negative. Rather, our model indicates that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between informal economies and pollution in the long run in China; this means that the level of environmental pollution increases at first and then decreases with the growth of informal economies. Further analysis shows that while this inverted, U-shaped relationship is significant in different regions of China, it is affected by different environmental impact factors. The paper concludes by discussing the policy implications for environmental protection and sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 14th Five-Year Plan period is a critical period for China to achieve high-quality development. Based on super-efficiency slacks-based measure (SBM) model, grey-related analysis (GRA) and other models, this paper studies the heterogeneity of the coupling relationship among technological innovation, industrial transformation and environmental efficiency in the Huaihai Economic Zone during the period of 2005–2019. In addition, it analyzes the coupling mechanism of single and binary systems to the ternary system, which is of great significance for the collaborative symbiosis among systems. The findings are as follows. 1) The technological innovation, industrial transformation and environmental efficiency (TIE) systems of the Huaihai Economic Zone had significant spatial-temporal heterogeneity. Although their evaluation value fluctuated, the development trends are all positive. Ultimately, technological innovation is characterized by being high in the northeast and low in the southwest around Xuzhou, while other systems are relatively staggered in space. 2) The coupling of TIE systems is in transition, lack of orderly integration and benign interaction. However, the developing trend of interaction is also upward, and a spatial pattern driven by Xuzhou and Linyi as the dual cores has gradually formed. Moreover, the coupling is mostly manifested as outdated technological innovation and industrial transformation. Except for the final coordination of regenerative cities, the other resource types are all in transition. Cities in all traffic locations are still in transition. The overall system interaction of cities on Longhai Line (Lanzhou-Lianyungang Railway) is relatively optimal, and cities on Xinshi Line (Xinxiang-Rizhao Railway) are accelerating toward synergy. 3) The coupling status of TIE systems depends on the development of the single system and the interaction of the binary (2E) system. The coupling is closely related to technological innovation and Technology-Industry system, and is hindered by the inefficient interaction of Technology-Environment system. Specifically, the synergy of regenerative cities is attributed to the advantage of a single system and the effective integration of 2E systems. Beneficial from the advantages of environmental efficiency, the cities on Xinshi Line promote the synergy of the 2E and TIE systems. Therefore, while the Huaihai Economic Zone stimulates the development potential of the single and 2E systems, it is necessary to amplify the superimposition effect of systems in accordance on the basis of resource and location. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

City cluster is an effective platform for encouraging regionally coordinated development. Coordinated reduction of carbon emissions within city cluster via the spatial association network between cities can help coordinate the regional carbon emission management, realize sustainable development, and assist China in achieving the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals. This paper applies the improved gravity model and social network analysis (SNA) to the study of spatial correlation of carbon emissions in city clusters and analyzes the structural characteristics of the spatial correlation network of carbon emissions in the the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) city cluster in China and its influencing factors. The results demonstrate that: 1) the spatial association of carbon emissions in the YRD city cluster exhibits a typical and complex multi-threaded network structure. The network association number and density show an upward trend, indicating closer spatial association between cities, but their values remain generally low. Meanwhile, the network hierarchy and network efficiency show a downward trend but remain high. 2) The spatial association network of carbon emissions in the YRD city cluster shows an obvious ‘core-edge’ distribution pattern. The network is centered around Shanghai, Suzhou and Wuxi, all of which play the role of ‘bridges’, while cities such as Zhoushan, Ma’anshan, Tongling and other cities characterized by the remote location, single transportation mode or lower economic level are positioned at the edge of the network. 3) Geographic proximity, varying levels of economic development, different industrial structures, degrees of urbanization, levels of technological innovation, energy intensities and environmental regulation are important influencing factors on the spatial association of within the YRD city cluster. Finally, policy implications are provided from four aspects: government macro-control and market mechanism guidance, structural characteristics of the ‘core-edge’ network, reconfiguration and optimization of the spatial layout of the YRD city cluster, and the application of advanced technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scale is the range or measurement unit of the characteristics of natural or human ontology in the temporal or spatial dimension and is widely used in daily life and the study of various disciplines. Scale effect pertains to certain laws and characteristics that can only be reflected on a specific scale, so choosing the appropriate scale remains the basic premise of scientific research. The concept of the urban spatial system is complex and has the characteristics of scale dependence, and the selection of an appropriate spatial scale is important for the accurate estimation and description of urban issues. In this paper, we discuss spatial scale in urban research using cases that primarily come from the Chinese experience, provide some examples that demonstrate the importance of appropriate scale in urban research, including urban shrinkage, and highlight problems in spatial research. Ultimately, we suggest that scale consciousness should be the basic consciousness required in empirical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the transformation of China's industry and demographic structure, urban shrinkage, especially the resource-based cities due to their single industrial structure, tend to emerge gradually. Using empirical and quantitative methods, this paper explores the evolution mechanism of urban shrinkage in Hegang, a resource-based city in China. Our findings suggest that there are many correlations or cyclic relationships among variables, which provide an empirical confirmation for the complexity of urban shrinkage process. The result shows there is a time delay of about four to five years between the mining industry and the changes of demographic profile, economic performance and built environment variables. The development of Hegang has formed a path dependence on resource-based industries. Furthermore, the time lags between demographic profile and economic performance variables are not obvious, and the real estate market has a certain sensitivity to perceive population loss and economic change. Besides, market led public service facilities are more sensitive to the changes of population outflow and economic recession than government led public service facilities. The study findings could offer insights for other resource-based cities in developing countries to employ on the economic development policies issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National nature reserves are an important part of classification management on ecological protection in China. Taking the national nature reserves of Jilin Province as examples, this paper introduced the stability index by referring to the intensity model of land-use and land-cover change (LUCC), and analyzed the overall stability of land-use and land-cover (LULC) in the study area from the time interval level and land category level. The stability of LULC in different types of nature reserves was tracked and identified by extracting land-use change trajectory, and the land-use change trajectory was divided into three types: stable type, sub-stable type and unstable type. The impact of LUCC on regional ecosystem services was studied by using hotspot analysis and gravity center analysis. The results showed that: 1) The LULC in the study area was stable on the whole, and the proportion of stable land area reached 86.08%. The intensity of LUCC showed an increasing trend in recent 20 years, and the conversion of cultivated land and construction land was active in continuous time interval. 2) The stability of LULC in forest ecological reserves and wildlife reserves in the eastern part of Jilin Province was the highest, while that in inland wetland reserves and geological relic reserves in the central and western part of Jilin Province was lower. 3) The LUCC in national nature reserves not only changed the value of its own ecosystem service function, but also affected the ecosystem service function of the whole region. The combination of intensity analysis and land-use change trajectory was used to identify the characteristics of stability of LULC in nature reserves, which was conducive to deeply understand the process of LUCC in national nature reserves and provided reasonable suggestions for regional ecological protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biodiversity offsetting plays a crucial role in managing the impacts of development on natural habitats. Developers, conservation groups, governments and financial institutions have used biodiversity offsetting to design measurable conservation actions to compensate for significant residual adverse biodiversity impacts arising from development. However, the concepts and methodologies of biodiversity offsetting have rarely been systematically reviewed, and best practices are still lacking. This hinders the development and applications of this field, and makes it difficult for new researchers to learn, develop, and apply biodiversity offsetting. This paper aims to review research progress on biodiversity offsetting during the period of 1992 to 2019. We mainly used bibliometric analysis and social network analysis methods to expose the topic diversity, development and promotion of this research field, and assess collaboration among biodiversity offsetting scholars. Our research identified 1190 records, and revealed that the total number of publications increased rapidly since 2002. The most productive journal, country, and author were Biological Conservation, USA, and Dr. Maron M of University of Queensland, respectively. Co-author analysis identified that the 23 authors most relevant to biodiversity offsetting were involved in a collaboration network. And they were mainly from 30 countries in a collaboration network, and the authors from USA, Australia and the United Kingdom have the most cooperation, which mainly driven by policy related to biodiversity offsetting. Our review shows that biodiversity offsetting research is at an early stage of rapid development with topically diverse and collaborative science domains. The majority of studies focus on terrestrial environments, which makes the implementation of aquatic ecosystem is more difficult. Theoretical problems and the implications of research evolution and social network in biodiversity offsetting are discussed, and further development of the theory and methodologies of biodiversity offsetting and management was recommend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aviation industry has become one of the top ten greenhouse gas emission industries in the world. China's aviation carbon emissions continue to increase, but the analysis of its influencing factors at the provincial level is still incomplete. This paper firstly uses Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence and Technology model (STIRPAT) model to analyze the time series evolution of China's aviation carbon emissions from 2000 to 2019. Secondly, it uses the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LDMI) model to analyze the influencing characteristics and degree of four factors on China's aviation carbon emissions, which are air transportation revenue, aviation route structure, air transportation intensity and aviation energy intensity. Thirdly, it determines the various factors' influencing direction and evolution trend of 31 provinces' aviation carbon emissions in China (not including Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan of China due to incomplete data). Finally, it derives the decoupling effort model and analyzes the decoupling relationship and decoupling effort degree between air carbon emissions and air transportation revenue in different provinces. The study found that from 2000 to 2019, China's total aviation carbon emissions continued to grow, while the growth rate of aviation carbon emissions showed a fluctuating downward trend. Air transportation revenue and aviation route structure promote the growth of total aviation carbon emissions, and air transportation intensity and aviation energy intensity have a restraining effect on the growth of total aviation carbon emissions. The scope of negative driving effect of air transportation revenue and air transportation intensity on total aviation carbon emissions in various provinces has increased. While the scope of positive driving influence of aviation route structure on total aviation carbon emissions of various provinces has increased, aviation energy intensity mainly has negative driving influence on total aviation carbon emissions of each province. Overall, the emission reduction trend in the areas to the west and north of the Qinling-Huaihe River Line is obvious. The decoupling mode between air carbon emissions and air transportation revenue in 31 provinces is mainly expansion negative decoupling. The air transportation intensity effect shows strong decoupling efforts in most provinces, the decoupling effort of aviation route structure effect and aviation energy intensity effect is not prominent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientific collaboration has become an important part of the people-to-people exchanges in the Belt and Road initiative, and remarkable progress has been made since 2013. Taking the 65 countries along the Belt and Road (BRI countries) as the research areas and using collaborated Web of Science (WOS) core collection papers to construct an international scientific collaboration matrix, the paper explores the spatial structure, hierarchy and formation mechanisms of scientific collaboration networks of 65 countries along the Belt and Road. The results show that: 1) Beyond the Belt and Road regions (BRI regions), Central & Eastern Europe, China and West Asia & North Africa have formed a situation in which they all have the most external links with other countries beyond BRI regions. China has the dominant role over other BRI countries in generating scientific links. The overall spatial structure has changed to a skeleton structure consisting of many dense regions, such as Europe, North America, East Asia and Oceania. 2) Within the Belt and Road regions, Central & Eastern Europe has become the largest collaboration partner with other sub-regions in BRI countries. The spatial structure of scientific collaboration networks has transformed from the 'dual core' composed of China and the Central & Eastern Europe region, to the 'multi-polarization' composed of 'one zone and multi-points'. 3) The hierarchical structure of scientific collaboration networks presents a typical 'core-periphery' structure, and changes from 'single core' to 'double cores'. 4) Among the formation mechanisms of scientific collaboration networks, scientific research strength and social proximity play the most important roles, while geographical distance gradually weakens the hindrance to scientific collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate estimations of evapotranspiration (ET) are essential for understanding land-atmosphere coupling and atmosphere-underlying surface energy and water vapor exchanges. Based on input data processing, this paper simulates the temporal and spatial variation of ET in the Dajiuhu Basin from 1990 to 2018 using the BEPS-TerrainLab V2.0 model. Compared with the ET measured by an eddy covariance (EC) tower, the model explained 80.1% of the ET variation. From 1990 to 2018, the average annual ET in the Dajiuhu Basin was 1262.7 mm/yr indicating a downward trend (−27.12 mm/yr). In 2005, a sudden change point was observed based on the Mann-Kendall (MK) test and 3-year moving t-test. Around 2005, the downward trend in ET slowed and the proportional trend of ET to precipitation changed from upward trend to downward trend. Regarding spatial distribution, the ET in the basin's central part was smaller than that in the basin's surrounding area, the ET of the southern slope was higher than that of the northern slope, and the decrease in the ET rate on the sunny side was lower than that on the shady side. ET decreased as the elevation increased, with the fastest decrease observed between 2184 and 2384 m. For different landcover types, the average ET exhibited the following order: deciduous forest > mixed forest > wetland > grass > agriculture land. Decreased solar radiation is the main reason for the decreased ET in the Dajiuhu Basin, followed by increased wind speed and relative humidity, which together contribute 83.9% to the ET trend. This paper provides a theoretical basis for the study of ET changes and the mechanism of ET and provides a decision-making reference for water resource management in the Dajiuhu Basin and even the South-to-North Water Transfer Project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the trends of Chinese rural transformation development, and the sustainable development goals for resources and environment, reasonable arranging the potential development space and the ecological space, so as to optimize the distributions of rural settlement would be the key challenge for rural areas in ecologically fragile regions. From the perspective of maintaining regional ecological security, this paper takes Da'an City, a typical ecological fragile region in Jilin Province, as the case area, constructing the comprehensive ecological security pattern (ESP) on basis of landscape ecology, and applying the landscape pattern indexes to quantitative analysis the spatial distribution characteristics of rural settlements. Then, different optimization directions and management strategies are put forward for rural settlements in each secure zone under the comprehensive ESP. The experimental results showed that 1) the area of the low security zone, the general security zone, the moderate security zone and the extreme security zone was 1570.18 km2, 1463.36 km2, 1215.80 km2 and 629.77 km2, representing 32.18%, 29.99%, 24.92% and 12.91% of the total area of the target area, respectively. 2) The rural settlements in Da'an City were characterized by a high degree of fragmentation with a large number of small-scale patches. 3) The area of rural settlements in the ecological relocation zone, the in situ remediation zone, the limited development zone and the key development zone was 22.80 km2, 42.31 km2, 36.28 km2 and 19.40 km2, accounting for 18.88%, 35.03%, 30.04% and 16.06% of the total area of rural settlements, respectively. Then, different measures were proposed for settlements in different optimization zones in order to scientifically plan important ecological space, production space and living space in rural areas. This paper aims to provide fundamental support for rural settlements based on redistribution from the perspective of landscape ecology and provide insights for rural planning and rural habitat environmental improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The high environmental pollution load caused by the massive pollutant emissions and the accumulation of endogenous and cross-regional pollution has become an important obstacle to the current ecological civilization construction in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) in China. Taking the YREB as an example, by using four environmental pollutant emission indicators, including chemical oxygen demand (COD), ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and nitrogen oxides (NOx), this paper established an environmental pollution load index (EPLI) based on the entropy-based measurement. Moreover, the Spatial Durbin Model was used to quantitatively analyze the drivers and spatial effects of environmental pollution load. Finally, specific scientific references were provided for formulating environmental regulations of pollution source control in the YREB. The results showed that: 1) During 2011–2015, the EPLI in the YREB was reduced significantly and the environmental pollution load increased from upstream to downstream. Among them, the pollution load levels in the Upper Mainstream subbasin, Taihu Lake subbasin, and Lower Mainstream subbasin were the most prominent. 2) The environmental pollution load situation in the YREB was generally stable and partially improved. High load level areas were mainly concentrated in the Yangtze River Delta Region and the provincial borders in upstream, midstream, and downstream areas. The high load level areas already formed in Chengdu and Chongqing were also the key regulatory points in the future. 3) The degree of local environmental pollution load was apparently affected by the adjacent cities. The population size, industrialization level, and the fiscal decentralization not only drove the increase of the local environmental pollution load level, but also affected the adjacent areas through the spatial spillover effects. The land development intensity mainly drove the increase in the local EPLI in the YREB. While factors such as economic development level and agricultural economic share could only act on the environmental pollution load process in adjacent cities. 4) According to the differentiation characteristics of drivers of each city, the YREB was divided into seven zones based on k-medoids cluster method, and targeted zoning control policy recommendations for alleviating environmental pollution load in the YREB were proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the leading urban agglomeration in China, the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) is experiencing a factor-driven to innovation-driven transition. However, the dynamics of regional innovation growth are not yet fully understood. This paper combines the complex network methodology with spatial econometrics to disentangle the contributions of innovation endowments, innovation network flows, and innovation network positions to regional innovation growth, as well as their spatial spillover effects. The primary findings suggest that regional innovation growth results from the networked agglomeration economies, which is shaped by the interactions between agglomeration factors and network factors. Specifically, agglomeration factors play a fundamental role in regional innovation growth. In contrast, network factors, such as the network flows and network positions, may contribute to new path creation by promoting access to external innovation resources. Additionally, the institutional factors show multiplexity in fostering regional innovation patterns. Such findings indicate that the YRD region should shift the innovation growth pattern from competitive involution to mutually beneficial cooperation to reduce regional disparities. In this regard, the institutional capacity of organizing network flows and fostering reciprocal inter-city partnerships has become increasingly critical for promoting sustainable innovation and regional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between urbanization and economic development has become a hot topic in the scientific community due to its great practical significance, and economic and social value. However, this relationship continues to change dynamically. In the new stage of urbanization, it is urgent to reveal the causal relationship quantitatively and diagnose the future direction systematically. Based on this, this paper calculates the contribution rate of China's urbanization to economic development from 1978 to 2019 and uses the panel data cointegration test method to explore the causal relationship between urbanization and economic development in China. The study has three principal results. First, the contribution rate of urbanization to economic growth has maintained the overall growth trend from 1978 to 2019, but the growth rate of urbanization's contribution to economic growth has been relatively low since 2012. It is an important reason that the real estate sector has moved into a new stage of transformation. Second, the cointegration test shows that economic development is a significant factor in advancing urbanization and the urbanization is the product of economic development. Urbanization has a positive feedback effect on economic development, but this effect does not pass the 5% significance level test. The impulse response function shows that the impact of urbanization on economic development is relatively small and stable, indicating that it is limited that the boost of economic development by land-centered urbanization. Third, China's urbanization and economic development have both shown rapid growth for some time, but their relationship is still the low level of coordination, which has also led to a downward trend in the contribution of new-type, people-oriented urbanization to economic growth in recent years. In the future, China's urbanization and economy need to maintain relatively medium-low speed growth in the medium-long term, and we should boost the coordinated development of urbanization and economy from low level to high level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]