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Three types of spatial function zoning is an effective measure for regional environmental protection and orderly development. For ecological and economic coordinated development, spatial function zones should be divided scientifically to clear its direction of development and protection. Therefore, based on ecological constraints, a beneficial discussion would be about the key ecological function areas adopting the concept of ecological protection restriction and supporting socioeconomic development for spatial function zoning. In this paper, the researchers, taking Tacheng Basin, Xinjiang of China as an example, choose township as basic research unit and set up an evaluation index system from three aspects, namely, ecological protection suitability, agricultural production suitability, and urban development suitability, which are analyzed by using spatial analysis functions and exclusive matrix method. The results showed that: 1) This paper formed a set of multilevel evaluation index systems for three types of spatial function zoning of the key ecological function areas based on a novel perspective by scientifically dividing Tacheng Basin into ecological space, agricultural space, and urban space, which realized the integration and scientific orientation for spatial function at the township scale. 2) Under the guidance of three types of spatial pattern, the functional orientation and suggestions of development and protection was clearly defined for ecological protection zones, ecological economic zones, agricultural production zones, and urban development zones. 3) A new idea of space governance is provided to promote the coordinated and sustainable development between ecology and economy, which can break the traditional mode of thinking about regional economic development, and offers a scientific basis and reference for macro decision-making. [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]

Urban comprehensive carrying capacity is an important guarantee and external representation of regional sustainable development. Based on urban comprehensive carrying capacity, this paper constructed a performance evaluation index system of urban comprehensive carrying capacity, and used entropy method, urban comprehensive carrying capacity measurement model and urban sustainable development model to measure spatial and temporal comprehensive carrying capacity of Harbin City in Heilongjiang Province from 2012 to 2017. The results show that: 1) index weight analysis suggested the regional development mode in Harbin still followed an epitaxial development mode, which pursued the expansion of scale and the growth of total amount of regional development, neglecting the effective utilization of resources and the improvement of structural benefits. 2) In the pressure system, the index of resource support has dropped sharply. The index of environmental capacity and social progress has risen circuitously, while the degree of agglomeration and the value of transportation facilities have risen steadily; in the pressure system, the index of population development and economic growth tended to fluctuate, while energy consumption and environmental pollution showed a more synchronous change in characteristics, and the livable demand remained at a high level. 3) The carrying capacity index of resources and environment in Harbin has been declining, and the acquired carrying capacity index fluctuated. The long-term regional development model has severely impaired the carrying capacity of resources and environment. 4) The comprehensive carrying capacity of Harbin has clear spatial differentiation characteristics. Finally, the paper proposes that location conditions, economic development level, government regulation, and science and technology are the main factors influencing the spatial differentiation of urban comprehensive carrying capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

National urban planning, construction, and management levels have undergone qualitative changes in China since 2000. Nonetheless, problems caused by rapid urbanization are becoming increasingly prominent. The concept of the city health examination appears to tackle these problems and is being gradually implemented, starting from the implementation of a national strategy and leading to the concrete practice of high-quality urban development. This paper elaborates on the basic philosophy and theory of the city health examination, briefly explains indicator selection and aims, and comprehensively illustrates examination methods. It then describes the empirical research that operationalized the dataset collected from a satisfaction survey administered during the 2020 city health examination. It aims to provide a reference for the standardization, specialization, analysis, and application of the results of the city health examination in China; this may help promote a smooth elimination of 'urban diseases' and allow for the development of high-quality livable cities. This research shows that city residents are generally more satisfied with the landscape features, ecological livability, and security resilience; it also shows that residents are generally more dissatisfied with traffic issues. Residents with different characteristics showed different satisfaction levels toward different indicators. Residents were also shown to be more sensitive to innovation vitality, ecological livability, and health and comfort in considering whether to stay in their current city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, O2O e-commerce, represented by online group-buying, has developed vigorously, which had significant impacts on urban commercial space. Zhengzhou City is a rising national central city in China, and its e-commerce development level is ahead, but relevant researches are rare. Therefore, the data of online retailers of Meituan.com was collected and combined with Baidu map and Baidu heat map data. Then, we adopted the methods such as spatial statistics and geodetector to explore the geography and determinants of O2O online retailers in Zhengzhou urban area. The main conclusions are 1) The spatial development of O2O online retailers is characterized by significant global high-value agglomeration. 2) The agglomeration areas of different types of O2O online retailers are different. Most of them are concentrated in the old urban area within the Third Ring Road of Zhengzhou City, forming five comprehensive agglomeration areas. 3) The areas with the high e-commerce development level are mainly concentrated in the northeast and southwest of the x-shaped region formed by the intersection of Lianyungang-Lanzhou and Beijing-Guangzhou railways. Erqi Square and Guomao 360 Plaza are at the highest development level, followed by Zhongyuan Wanda Plaza and Daxue Middle Road. The development level at other areas is relatively low. 4) Zhengzhou's O2O commercial pattern is highly dependent on physical business. The population distribution, especially the population distribution during the nightlife period, plays a vital role in its spatial development, followed by accessibility. The influences of physical distance are slightly larger than that of time cost, but the difference between them is little. In addition, travelling costs have the least impact. This paper could provide certain references for urban commercial planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development zones have been an important spatial approach to promoting economic development since China's reform and opening-up. They have also been major contributors to the processes of China's industrialization and urbanization. Along with improvements in the worldwide industrial division of labor and the gradual implementation of China's development zones' Go Global strategy, it is necessary for Africa, a hot spot of global industrialization in recent years, to learn from China's development zone model. By attracting China's capital, technology and enterprises to Africa via Sino-African co-built development zones, a pattern of high complementarity and mutual development between China and Africa can be formed which does favor further improvement of the global industrial division of labor. In order to study the applicability and prospect of China's development zone model in Africa as per the above-mentioned international situation, this paper first sorts out the development course of China's development zones and discusses their roles in China's industrialization and urbanization. Subsequently, this paper analyzes the status quo of industrial development in Africa as a whole and the differences in industrial development between China and Africa, aiming to justify the timing of industrial transfer from China to Africa by constructing Sino-African co-built development zones. Lastly, this paper analyzes the current situation of six Sino-African co-built development zones by focusing on their operation modes, industry types and investment promotion models. In the authors' view, Sino-African co-built development zones can function as a new window of China-African cooperation, a new carrier of African industrialization, and a new engine of global industrial restructuring. China should adhere to the general principles of 'Sino-African Integration, Multi-Cooperation, Mutual Benefit, Scientific Location, Systematic Planning, Cluster Growth and Open Development' in the planning and construction of development zones in Africa, effectively promoting Africa as the very important part of the global industry system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coordinated development of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei has been elevated as China's important strategy. And, the priority in considering how to bring the maximum effect of their coordinated development into play is to delineate the spheres of urban influence with regard to the cities in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Metropolitan Region. By building an evaluation index system of urban comprehensive strength, this paper applies the principal component analysis method to determine centrality strength of the cities, and the breakpoint theory and weighted Voronoi diagram to identify the spheres of urban influence in all central cities of the region. Results show that 13 central cities within the region greatly differ in strength, which can be classified into four tiers and that the spheres of urban influence do not have a high goodness of fit with administrative jurisdiction scope. Cities like Beijing, Tianjin, Shijiazhuang and Handan have larger spheres of urban, spheres of urban influence in Tangshan and Qinhuangdao are basically consistent with their administrative jurisdiction scopes, and seven cities including Langfang and Baoding have smaller spheres of urban influence. So according to these cities' comprehensive strength and spheres of influence, the region can be divided into five plates: Beijing, Tianjin, Shijiazhuang, Tangshan and Handan. The major influence factors for inconsistency between spheres of urban influence and spheres of jurisdiction include difference in urban administrative ranking, small number of central cities with weak strength, discrepancy in the number of counties under jurisdiction, unreasonable spheres of jurisdiction and diversity in topographical conditions. In order to solve the imbalance in the spheres of urban influence and those of jurisdiction and better facilitate the coordinated development of the region, it is advised to adjust administrative areas so as to obtain more optimized urban spatial layout and more reasonable urban scale hierarchy system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

a result of environmental degradation, urban green space has become a key issue for urban sustainable development. This paper takes Liaoyang City in Northeast China as an example to develop green space planning using the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model, landscape ecological principles and Geographical Information System (GIS). Based on the influencing factors of topography, building density and orientation, Shou Mountain, Longding Mountain and the Taizi River were selected as the urban ventilation paths to promote wind and oxygen circulation. Oxygen concentration around the green spaces gradually decreased with wind speed increase and wind direction change. There were obvious negative correlation relationships between the oxygen dispersion concentration and urban layout factors such as the building plot ratio and building density. Comparison with the field measurements found that there was significant correlation relationship between simulated oxygen concentration and field measurements ( R = 0.6415, p < 0.001), moreover, simulation precision was higher than 92%, which indicated CFD model was effective for urban oxygen concentration simulation. Only less than 10% areas in Liaoyang City proper needed more green space urgently to improve oxygen concentration, mainly concentrated in Baitai and west Wensheng districts. Based on landscape ecology principle, green space planning at different spatial scales were proposed to create a green space network system for Liaoyang City, including features such as green wedges, green belts and parks. Totally, about 2012 ha of green space need to be constructed as oxygen sources and ventilation paths. Compared with the current green space pattern, proposed green space planning could improve oxygen concentration obviously. The CFD model and research results in this paper could provide an effective way and theory support for sustainable development of urban green space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5) pollution and public health are closely related, and concerns regarding PM2.5 are widespread. Of the underlying factors, the urban morphology is the most manageable. Therefore, investigations of the impact of urban three-dimensional (3D) morphology on PM2.5 concentration have important scientific significance. In this paper, 39 PM2.5 monitoring sites of Beijing in China were selected with PM2.5 automatic monitoring data that were collected in 2013. This data set was used to analyze the impacts of the meteorological condition and public transportation on PM2.5 concentrations. Based on the elimination of the meteorological conditions and public transportation factors, the relationships between urban 3D morphology and PM2.5 concentrations are highlighted. Ten urban 3D morphology indices were established to explore the spatial-temporal correlations between the indices and PM2.5 concentrations and analyze the impact of urban 3D morphology on the PM2.5 concentrations. Results demonstrated that road length density (RLD), road area density (RAD), construction area density (CAD), construction height density (CHD), construction volume density (CVD), construction otherness (CO), and vegetation area density (VAD) have positive impacts on the PM2.5 concentrations, whereas water area density (WAD), water fragmentation (WF), and vegetation fragmentation (VF) (except for the 500 m buffer) have negative impacts on the PM2.5 concentrations. Moreover, the correlations between the morphology indices and PM2.5 concentrations varied with the buffer scale. The findings could lay a foundation for the high-precision spatial-temporal modelling of PM2.5 concentrations and the scientific planning of urban 3D spaces by authorities responsible for controlling PM2.5 concentrations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The middle class in metropolitan Chinese cities has become an important social group. With the rapid development of urbanization and constant advancement of suburbanization, the middle class has increasingly come to influence city traffic. Research into middle-class commuting activities thus has practical significance for improving traffic congestion and reducing the commuting burden in metropolitan cities. Based on a dataset formed by 816 completed surveys, this paper analyzes the commuting mode, time and distance of middle-class residents in Guangzhou City using the descriptive statistical method. The results indicate that private cars are the main commuting mode, followed by public transport. Meanwhile, middle-class residents mainly undertake medium-short time and medium- short distance commuting. The study subsequently uses multilevel logistic regression and multiple linear regression models to analyze the factors that influence commuting mode choice, time and distance. The gender, age, number of family cars, housing source and jobs-housing balance are the most important factors influencing commuting mode choice; housing, population density, jobs-housing balance and commuting mode significantly affect commuting time; and transport accessibility, jobs-housing balance and commuting mode are the notable factors affecting commuting distance. Finally, this paper analyzes what is affecting the commuting activities of middle-class residents and determines the differences in commuting activity characteristics and influence factors between middle-class and ordinary residents. Policy suggestions to improve urban planning and urban management are also proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban air pollution is a prominent problem related to the urban development in China, especially in the densely populated urban agglomerations. Therefore, scientific examination of regional variation of air quality and its dominant factors is of great importance to regional environmental management. In contrast to traditional air pollution researches which only concentrate on a single year or a single pollutant, this paper analyses spatiotemporal patterns and determinants of air quality in disparate regions based on the air quality index (AQI) of the Yangtze River Delta region (YRD) of China from 2014 to 2016. Results show that the annual average value of the AQI in the YRD region decreases from 2014 to 2016 and exhibit a basic characteristic of 'higher in winter, lower in summer and slightly high in spring and autumn'. The attainment rate of the AQI shows an apparently spatial stratified heterogeneity, Hefei metropolitan area and Nanjing metropolitan area keeping the worst air quality. The frequency of air pollution occurring in large regions was gradually decreasing during the study period. Drawing from entropy method analysis, industrialization and urbanization represented by per capita GDP and total energy consumption were the most important factors. Furthermore, population agglomeration is a factor that cannot be ignored especially in some mega-cities. Limited to data collection, more research is needed to gain insight into the spatiotemporal pattern and influence mechanism in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sri Lanka is experiencing speedy urbanization by converting the agriculture land and other natural land cover into built-up land. The urban population of Sri Lanka is expected to reach to 60% by 2030 from 14% in 2010. The rapid growth in urban population and urban areas in Sri Lanka may cause serious socioeconomic disparities, if they are not handled properly. Thus, planners in Sri Lanka are in need of information about past and future urban growth patterns to plan a better and sustainable urban future for Sri Lanka. In this paper, we analyzed the characteristics of past land use and land cover trends in Matara City of Sri Lanka from 1980 to 2010 to assess the historic urban dynamics. The land use change detection analysis based on remote sensing datasets reveal that the conversion of homestead/garden and paddy into urban land is evident in Matara City. The historic urban trends are projected into the near future by using SLEUTH urban growth model to identify the hot spots of future urbanization and as well as the urban growth patterns in Matara City up to the basic administrative level, i.e., Grama Niladari Divisions (GND). The urban growth simulations for the year 2030 reveal that 29 GNDs out of 66 GNDs in Matara City will be totally converted into urban land. Whereas, 28 GNDs will have urban land cover from 75% to 99% by 2030. The urban growth simulations are further analyzed with respect to the proposed Matara city development plan by the Urban Development Authority (UDA) of Sri Lanka. The results show that the UDA's city development plan of Matara will soon be outpaced by rapid urbanization. Based on the calibration and validation results, the SLEUTH model proved to be a useful planning tool to understand the near future urbanization of Sri Lankan cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the artificial neural network (ANN) model was used to evaluate the degree of intensive urban land use in Nanjing City, China. The construction and application of the ANN model took into account the comprehensive, spatial and complex nature of urban land use. Through a preliminary calculation of the degree of intensive land use of the sample area, representative sample area selection and using the back propagation neural network model to train, the intensive land use level of each evaluation unit is finally determined in the study area. Results show that the method can effectively correct the errors caused by the limitations of the model itself and the determination of the ideal value and weights when the multifactor comprehensive evaluation is used alone. The ANN model can make the evaluation results more objective and practical. The evaluation results show a tendency of decreasing land use intensity from the core urban area to the periphery and the industrial functional area has relatively low land use intensity compared with other functional areas. Based on the evaluation results, some suggestions are put forward, such as transforming the mode of urban spatial expansion, strengthening the integration and potential exploitation of the land in the urban built-up area, and strengthening the control of the construction intensity of protected areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanization development quality (UDQ) of urban agglomeration (UA) is one of the important indexes to evaluate if the UA urbanization speed is reasonable, if the population urbanization process is sound, if the economic urbanization process is efficient, if the social urbanization process is harmonious and fair, which is generally composed of three parts, including economic urbanization development quality, social urbanization development quality and spatial urbanization security quality. With the research of evolution rules of UDQ, through the analysis on the interactive coordination relation between UDQ and urbanization level, the paper proposes three dimensional index ball and standard value of comprehensive measures of UDQ, which is composed of three categories of indexes. By introducing Atkinson model, this paper constructs the sub-element measure model and segmental measure model of UDQ, and further makes an overall evaluation on the characteristic of UDQ of UAs in China. Results show that: 1) UDQ of UAs lied at optimization and upgrading phase during 1995-2008 and the quality was low. Population urbanization level did not reflect the UDQ of UAs; 2) the improving speed of the spatial urbanization security quality was higher than the social urbanization development quality, and the improving speed of economic urbanization development quality was the lowest; 3) the coordination between UDQ and urbanization level was not so good; 4) there was a weak correlation relation between UDQ and UA scale, and it was not true that the bigger the UA was, the better the UDQ was. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper intends to investigate the urban spatial patterns of Hubei Province and its evolution from three different perspectives: urban nodes, urban connections and urban clusters. The research adopts nighttime light imagery of cities in Hubei Province, the viewpoint of ′point-axis-area′ in the ′point-axis system′ theory, and employs light index model, gravity model and social network analysis. The findings are as follows: 1) In terms of urban nodes, the urbanization process of Hubei has been carried out mainly on the basis of external expansion rather than internal increasing. The polarization trend of urban connection network is strengthening. 2) As for urban connections, the estimation of urban connections using light index model is capable of containing various actual flow, and the connections are getting increasingly closer. 3) In regard to urban groups, seven urban groups of varying sizes have formed. On that basis, three stable and relatively independent urban groups as the centers, namely Wuchang, Yichang and Xiangyang emerge as well. But the structures of ′Wuhan Metropolitan Area′, ′Yichang-Jingzhou-Jingmen City Group′ and ′Xiangyang-Shiyen-Suizhou City Group′, which are defined by local development strategy in Hubei Province, are different from the above three urban groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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

By focusing on Guangzhou, this paper examines how different concepts of city in terms of urban-rural relationships are shaped in transforming China since 1949, and explores how they influence the way in which urban planning are practiced. In the pre-reform era, the city was defined as a productive space under the system of urban-rural segregation established for securing rapid industrialization. Urban planning was thus only concerned with the development of urban areas. In the 1980s and 1990s after the reform, institutional change and economic transformation mobilized the urban-rural linkages. The development of suburban areas was then considered by urban planning, but this consideration was a passive response to urban problems such as population explosion and water resources protection. Since the new millennium, the agenda for sustainable development and problems of uneven urban-rural development have called for the development of urban-rural integration. In this context, the city is conceptualized as a complex of mountain, city, river, farmland and sea, reconstructing the ideology of urban-rural division in defining urban development. Urban planning has therefore sought in an active way to develop a sustainable city embracing rural and natural elements, and to balance economic growth and environmental protection. It is argued that developing the concept of city as a complex of urban and rural elements contributes to the urban planning for sustainable urban development, while this conceptualization relies on the recognition of the integrated urban-rural relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the rapid urbanization worldwide, Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect has been a severe issue limiting urban sustainability in both large and small cities. In order to study the spatial pattern of Surface urban heat island (SUHI) in China's Meihekou City, a combination method of Monte Carlo and Random Forest Regression (MC-RFR) is developed to construct the relationship between landscape pattern indices and Land Surface Temperature (LST). In this method, Monte Carlo acceptance-rejection sampling was added to the bootstrap layer of RFR to ensure the sensitivity of RFR to outliners of SUHI effect. The SHUI in 2030 was predicted by using this MC-RFR and the modeled future landscape pattern by Cellular Automata and Markov combination model (CA-Markov). Results reveal that forestland can greatly alleviate the impact of SUHI effect, while reasonable construction of urban land can also slow down the rising trend of SUHI. MC-RFR performs better for characterizing the relationship between landscape pattern and LST than single RFR or Linear Regression model. By 2030, the overall SUHI effect of Meihekou will be greatly enhanced, and the center of urban development will gradually shift to the central and western regions of the city. We suggest that urban designer and managers should concentrate vegetation and disperse built-up land to weaken the SUHI in the construction of new urban areas for its sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the spatiotemporal patterns of three-dimensional urban forms, especially building height, can have important implications for improving urban air quality and mitigating the urban heat island effect by optimizing urban planning and management policies. This study investigated building height evolution and its influencing factors over approximately half a century (1960–2017) in Guangzhou, China. The results indicated that the logarithmic declines in height, quantity, and area of urban buildings followed Zapfs law, which restricts the three-dimensional shape of the urban form. The urban building height decreased from the center to the periphery of the city and decreased with decreasing altitude and increasing distance from main roads. These characteristics constituted the three main spatial differentiation rules of building height in the central district of Guangzhou, and all exhibited a logarithmic decrease, which gradually strengthened over time. The development of a double-layered height structure of low-rise and high-rise buildings between 1990 and 2017 was a notable manifestation of the increase in vertical urban height over time. The three factors of city center, altitude, and accessibility, which represent centrality, low relief, proximity to water, and proximity to road networks, highlighted the roles of traffic accessibility and commercial attraction in building height evolution. The importance of location macroscopically depends on the combined effect of the geographical pattern, urban planning, and market forces of cities located on a plain near hill or by a river. The principle of profit orientation restricted spatiotemporal building height patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban agglomeration research has received increasing attention in China's national development strategies, and has become a hot topic in academic research. This study develops a theoretical framework that explores the formation mechanism and expansion process of urban agglomerations from the perspective of industrial evolution, and identifies the development issues and their causes by taking Yangtze Delta and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomerations as case studies. In the process of urban agglomeration formation within a free market, as has happened in Yangtze Delta region, the central city develops first, its secondary industry is then transferred to its neighboring cities, and the work division and cooperation with the neighboring cities is gradually established. However, in the 1990s, aiming to become an international metropolis, Beijing implemented a series of administrative policies to encourage the reduction of the secondary industry and the development of the tertiary industry, before its secondary industry were fully developed and transferred to its neighboring cities. This delayed the integration process and the development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration. This study builds a good foundation for the construction of the theoretical system's urban agglomeration study, and provides references for decision making in an urban agglomeration development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to explore the role of spatial heterogeneity in ridership analysis and examine the relationship between built environment, station attributes and urban rapid transit ridership at the station level. Although spatial heterogeneity has been widely acknowledged in spatial data analysis, it has been rarely considered in travel behavior studies. Four models (three global models-ordinary least squares (OLS), spatial lag model (SLM), spatial error model (SEM) and one local model-geographically weighted regression (GWR) model) are estimated separately to explore the relationship between various independent variables and station ridership, and identify the influence of spatial heterogeneity. Using the data of built environment and station characteristics, the results of diagnostic identify evidence the existence of spatial heterogeneity in station ridership for the metro network in Nanjing, China. Results of comparing the various goodness-of-fit indicators show that, the GWR model yields the best fit of the data, performance followed by the SEM, SLM and OLS model. The results also demonstrate that population, number of lines, number of feeder buses, number of exits, road density and proportion residential area have a significant impact on station ridership. Moreover, the study pays special attention to the spatial variation in the coefficients of the independent variables and their statistical significance. It underlines the importance of taking spatial heterogeneity into account in the station ridership analysis and the decision-making in urban planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Forest can be taken as a natural therapy to alleviate perceived anxiety of visitors. Given the geographical difference between urban and rural forest environments, little is known about the urban forest therapy effect of anxiety alleviation with reference to the rural forest. In this study, forty-three university students (aged from 19 to 23) were recruited as participants to visit the forest parks at urban and rural areas of Guiyang City on 21 and 23 December 2016. The forest experience was separated by four sceneries. Participants were asked to complete questionnaires by self-evaluating specific anxiety change from 12 questions with scores from 1 to 10 at both entrance and exit of the parks. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test and paired t-test were used to compare the change of anti-anxiety scores during forest bathing and between urban and rural forests, respectively. Results revealed that forest bathing in the urban park can alleviate the anxiety from financial state (P = 0.0028), exam-pass pressure (P = 0.0040) and love-affair relationship (P = 0.0286). Although rural forest bathing can also alleviate the anxiety from financial state (P = 0.0222), meanwhile, it maintained the anxiety about campus life (P < 0.0001). Forest tree richness tended to be higher in the rural forest park than in the urban one, which in contrast decreased the anxiety alleviation from inter-communication in the rural forest park (P = 0.0487). Principle component analysis indicated that participants tended to perceive more decline of anxiety from social contact in the urban forest. In conclusion, university students were recommended to pay a short visit to the urban forest with partners if they felt anxious about personal affairs and felt necessary to talk with others. For general people's visiting, urban forest trees can be controlled in diversity to some extent to look orderly and alleviate perceived anxiety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If urban sprawl is to be avoided in China in the next ten years, it is not only crucial to understand the overall history, current status, and future trends of urban expansion there, but also these differences, and this is presently lacking. In this study, remotely sensed images with approximately 30 m spatial resolution were used to quantitatively assess the spatial and temporal patterns of urban expansion of 60 Chinese cities (1973-2013). Urban-expansion-process curves of the cities studied were drawn using annual expansion area as an indicator. Curve similarity analysis generated four basic process modes of urban expansion in China. These included cities that: 1) peaked around 2004 and then decelerated; 2) peaked around 2010 and then decelerated; 3) showed sustained acceleration, and 4) showed continued deceleration. Four basic process modes represented cities under different levels of development stage. Geographic location was found to be the most related characteristic to urban expansion process. Regional development policies at the national level in each region also showed highly temporal consistency with fluctuation characteristics of urban expansion process. Urban characteristic such as population size and administrative level were not found to be significantly related to urban expansion-process modes. Understanding the basic process-mode categories well is extremely important for future regional-balance planning and development of macroeconomic policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultivated land transition and its driving mechanism are the hotspots among studies on land use change. In this study, we constructed a framework to study the driving mechanism of cultivated land transition from the quantitative perspective. Based on the vector data of land use in 1990, 2000 and 2009 of Yantai Proper, Shandong Province China, 11 explanatory variables were chosen from two aspects: the elevation, slope, cost distance to major water area and cost distance to minor water area, which presented physical factors; cost distance to district center, cost distance to town center, cost distance to city expansion center, cost distance to major roads, cost distance to city roads, cost distance to county roads and cost distance to rural roads, which presented the socio-economic factors. Combined with spatial analysis tools and Logistic regression analysis model, we construct Logistic regression analyses with four objectives that were urban construction land, rural residential land, orchard and other lands. The results show that, cost distance to district center, cost distance to town center, cost distance to city expansion center and cost distance to city roads are the significant explanatory variables for the transition of cultivated land into urban construction land. The main explained factors on the transition of cultivated land into rural residential land are slope, cost distance to town center, cost distance to county roads and cost distance to rural roads. Slope, cost distance to minor water area, cost distance to town center, cost distance to county roads and cost distance to rural roads are the significant explanatory variables for the transition of cultivated land into orchard land. Elevation, slope, cost distance to major water area and cost distance to minor water area are the main explanatory variables on the transition of cultivated land into other land uses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cellular Automata (CA) is widely used for the simulation of land use changes. This study applied a vector-based CA model to simulate land use change in order to minimize or eliminate the scale sensitivity in traditional raster-based CA model. The cells of vector-based CA model are presented according to the shapes and attributes of geographic entities, and the transition rules of vector-based CA model are improved by taking spatial variables of the study area into consideration. The vector-based CA model is applied to simulate land use changes in downtown of Qidong City, Jiangsu Province, China and its validation is confirmed by the methods of visual assessment and spatial accuracy. The simulation result of vector-based CA model reveals that nearly 75% of newly increased urban cells are located in the northwest and southwest parts of the study area from 2002 to 2007, which is in consistent with real land use map. In addition, the simulation results of the vector-based and raster-based CA models are compared to real land use data and their spatial accuracies are found to be 84.0% and 81.9%, respectively. In conclusion, results from this study indicate that the vector-based CA model is a practical and applicable method for the simulation of urbanization processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the reform and opening-up program started in 1978, the level of urbanization has increased rapidly in China. Rapid urban expansion and restructuring have had significant impacts on the ecological environment especially within built-up areas. In this study, ArcGIS 10, ENVI 4.5, and Visual FoxPro 6.0 were used to analyze the human impacts on vegetation in the built-up areas of 656 Chinese cities from 1992 to 2010. Firstly, an existing algorithm was refined to extract the boundaries of the built-up areas based on the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Operational Linescan System (DMSP_OLS) nighttime light data. This improved algorithm has the advantages of high accuracy and speed. Secondly, a mathematical model (Human impacts (HI)) was constructed to measure the impacts of human factors on vegetation during rapid urbanization based on Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) NDVI. HI values greater than zero indicate relatively beneficial effects while values less than zero indicate proportionally adverse effects. The results were analyzed from four aspects: the size of cities (metropolises, large cities, medium-sized cities, and small cities), large regions (the eastern, central, western, and northeastern China), administrative divisions of China (provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities) and vegetation zones (humid and semi-humid forest zone, semi-arid steppe zone, and arid desert zone). Finally, we discussed how human factors impacted on vegetation changes in the built-up areas. We found that urban planning policies and developmental stages impacted on vegetation changes in the built-up areas. The negative human impacts followed an inverted' U' shape, first rising and the falling with increase of urban scales. China's national policies, social and economic development affected vegetation changes in the built-up areas. The findings can provide a scientific basis for municipal planning departments, a decision-making reference for government, and scientific guidance for sustainable development in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To shed light on the general patterns and trends in urban sprawl research, and to provide reference for future study, bibliometric analysis and refined analysis are conducted for publications in this area from 1991 to 2011. The general publication output, the global geographical distribution of the authors, the funding and institutions involved, the research areas, and the source titles are analyzed and discussed. Scholars in the United States and China have produced most of the documents in urban sprawl and these two countries are also the largest contributors in terms of funding and institutions. 'Environmental Sciences & Ecology', 'Urban Studies', and 'Geography' are the most common research areas, and the journal titled Urban Studies has contributed the most articles. Furthermore, the refined analyses on the 500 top-cited and most relevant publications have revealed that research on urban sprawl is closely associated with the categories of 'Urban form and development', 'Land use/land development' and 'environment/ecology/biology'. Conclusions are made with respect to the basic paradigm of research on urban sprawl. The multi-disciplinary research into urban sprawl are expected to be more diversified and integrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban construction land suitability evaluation (UCLSE) is a complex system engineering and the basis for rational use of the limited urban land resources in China. It has an important practical value on urban construction land use planning and management from the angle of methodology. As a widely used technique, traditional multi-criteria evaluation based on GIS (MCE-GIS), is not suitable for UCLSE. This study develops an improved MCE-GIS method which could be more suitable for UCLSE based on urban complex ecological system theory and the summary of the shortcomings of traditional MCE-GIS. The improvements include three aspects: a composite evaluation index system rather than natural indexes alone, an index weight calculated by using fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method rather than the common AHP method, and the integrated overlay rule, which includes selecting the minimum value, weighted linear combination (WLC) and simple summation. The main advantage of this improved technique is that it can make UCLSE more comprehensive, more operational and more reasonable. It can provide a scientific basis for decision making in the planning and management of urban construction land use. The improved MCE-GIS system has been adopted in the New Hefei City, Anhui Province, China. Based on the results of UCLSE in New Hefei, three functional areas including construction-appropriate areas, construction-restricted areas and construction-forbidden areas could be worked out, in which 36.90% of the total study area could be developed as urban construction land and the remaining 63.10% should be protected as reserves land or as ecological land. Furthermore, the results can provide scientific decision support for spatial planning and eco-environment protection in New Hefei. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanization is a comprehensive concept, a trinity process that is based on the interactions and mutual influences among the population urbanization, economic urbanization and space urbanization, in which, people are the central and leading players in this process, while economic activities serve as the driving force and space is the carrier—the physical or material setting as well as the product. So the coordination among these processes is crucial for a country or region’s sustainable development. China is experiencing rapid growth of cities and a surge in urban population, with the basic national condition of many people and little land, which calls for a systematic study of the issue of coordinated urbanization from theoretical, methodological and practical perspectives. Based on the concept of urbanization and non-coordination of urbanization, this article built a quantitative method to identify and evaluate the urbanization and non-coordination of urbanization, and made an empirical analysis in China between 2000 and 2008. The results show that the non-coordination overall level of China’s urbanization declined during the study period, because population urbanization, economic urbanization, and space urbanization exhibited different trajectories of change. This study also reveals that performance assessment system, household registration system, and urban land expropriation system, etc., are the main affecting factors. At the end, we put forward some suggestions to achieve sustainable development of China’s urbanization from the aspects of improving the local government’s objective function, implementing the urban planning system, enforcing public participation aspects and so on. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban internal structure is essential information for urban geography researchers and urban planners or managers. This research aims to examine the spatial structure changes of internal urban land use based on the interpreted datasets of 1984 and 2008. Spatio-temporal patterns of internal land use conversion and urban expansion are analyzed, and then dominant driving factors (e.g., social economy, population growth and urban planning) were identified. The results indicate that Beijing's intra-urban layout has experienced tremendous adjustment from compact to disperse configure, otherwise its function objects have shifted from the major economic and industrial development before the 1990s to the combination with cultural, high-technological and inhabitable city at present. The dominant urban land use transformations include the relocation of industrial lands from core districts to suburban or other provinces, and the accelerating expansion of residential areas and green spaces for supplying the demand of housing and ecological protection. Although Beijing's urban planning has experienced three major adjustments and improvement since the 1980s, its optimization of urban internal patterns still remains a challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban sprawl is driven by a myriad of factors, the predominant one of which is the development of residential land. Selecting part of Jinan City for a case study, we use the landscape metric of percent of landscape (PLAND) to capture residential land growth and density changes in 1989, 1996 and 2004 to illuminate the dynamic process of residential land development. The results indicate that the moving window method and the landscape metrics method are efficient ways to describe residential land density. The residential land showed the greatest change among the built-up land with 1995.68 ha from 1989 to 2004, which is mainly transformed from agriculture land and green space. The urban center area of study area is primarily covered with medium density residential land, and surrounded by high density residential land. The development pattern of residential land exhibited both fill-in (new growth occurs through infilling the free spaces within the developed area) and sprawl processes, influenced by a series of factors, such as urban development policy, conservation of springs, recreational and aesthetic amenities. The findings of the study will help to guide urban planning with a focus on the management and protection of the environment and resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vulnerability is a new field and analytical tool in the study of urban safety. Analysis and assessment of vulnerability provide a new basis for urban planning. This study constructed a quantitative index system for assessing vulnerability, based on the city's sensitivity and emergency response capacity. City size, density, and spatial form influence a city's sensitivity to crises and risks, to which vulnerability is positively related. Levels of socio-economic development, infrastructures, and emergency management contribute to a city's emergency response capacity, with which vulnerability is inversely associated. Vulnerability of 19 large Chinese cities was assessed. Harbin and Shenzhen demonstrated the highest and lowest vulnerability among 19 cities, while Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou ranked the 5th, the 9th and the 12th. Spatially, northern cities tended to be more vulnerable than southern cities. And the differences in vulnerability among cities were explored based on cities' physical geography conditions, level of socio-economic development, infrastructures, regional status, history of disaster, history of urban planning and development, government policies, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]