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Urbanization becomes the primary source of carbon emissions and energy demand growth in China with industrialization entering the middle-later stages. With the current highconsumption and high-emission urban development model, the resulting resource consumption and carbon emissions become a major environmental issue and a sustainability problem. Based on the panel data of the bay area economic zone of Zhejiang province from 2003 to 2017, this paper analyzed the overall spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of carbon emissions of the economic zone. The main sources of carbon emissions will be studied in detail by incorporating the urbanization level, energy consumption structure, land use, economic development level, industrial structure, population agglomeration, openness, and technological progress into the STIRPAT (the Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence, and Technology) extended model. We further investigated the driving mechanism of carbon emissions and spatial and temporal heterogeneity of carbon emissions from the perspective of urbanization using the geographically and temporally weighted regression (GTWR). The results showed that: (1) The scale of carbon emissions has increased with time, but the growth rate has not been large with a decreasing growth rate. Carbon emissions in different regions are significantly different. The carbon emission is less intense through the years with a spatial distribution pattern of increasing from the southwest to the northeast. (2) The level of economic development and the degree of openness to the outside world are the dominant factors that affect the carbon emission level, followed by energy consumption structure, technological progress, and urbanization. (3) These influencing factors show substantial spatiotemporal heterogeneity that the direction and intensity of the fluctuations of various driving factors vary from time to time and region to region. This paper analyzed the impact of the driving factors of carbon emissions in the economic zone of Zhejiang Bay Area explicitly, providing scientific support for the implementation of regionally differentiated carbon emission reduction strategies. It is necessary to fully examine the actual development of each region to formulate a differentiated carbon emission reduction regulation strategy. In particular, these measures should be taken into consideration for reducing carbon emissions in the area: enhancing the efficiency of comprehensive utilization of resources by accelerating the construction of science and technology innovation corridors, and promoting the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries by fully introducing modern service industries and high-end manufacturing based on information technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, China is promoting the modernization of territorial space governance, and the territorial space planning system is also being reconstructed. As a response, the spatial planning of metropolitan area is facing the transformation of political logic oriented by ecological civilization and development logic constrained by resources and environment. Based on the transformation of planning logics, the paper clarifies that the spatial planning of metropolitan area is a special planning with the focus on coordinated development of space as the core in the system of territorial space planning, and puts forward the technical framework of the spatial planning of metropolitan area from the two perspectives, namely, corresponding demand objectives and coordination of local conditions. Based on the above new requirements, the paper considers that the planning should focus on the formulation of conduction and coordination- oriented index system, the optimal allocation and regulation of liquidity factor resources, the planning of spatial pattern of coordinated control and utilization, and the spatial cooperation of cross- border groups. In view of the lack of a unified implementation subject, this paper puts forward the organizational mode of spatial planning compilation in different types of metropolitan areas. Regional cooperation mechanism, dynamic monitoring of the plan, and co-construction of information platform for management, are also proposed. Through the systematic discussion on the spatial planning of metropolitan area, this paper will provide theoretical basis and methodological guidance for the compilation of the forthcoming spatial planning and the modernization of the spatial governance of metropolitan area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The compact urban construction is a new way to avoid the disorderly spread of the city, improve the quality of urban development and realize the efficient use of land resources. Therefore, it is essential to coordinate the relationship between urban compactness and urbanization level. Based on this, this paper takes 30 provincial capital cities and municipalities directly under the Central Government as the research object, and comprehensively uses the entropy method and capacity coupling coefficient model to measure the comprehensive level of provincial capital compactness and urbanization, and analyzes the coupling and coordination relationship between them. The results show that: (1) The compactness of China's provincial capitals continued to increase between 2006 and 2016. The compactness of the eastern provincial capitals was slightly higher than that of the central and western cities, showing the characteristics of the current situation of the east, the middle, and the west. (2) The city of compactness is gradually decreasing, and the number of the cities with medium and low compactness is increasing. (3) The relationship between compactness and urbanization of most provincial capital cities in China is mainly on the verge of coordination, and the overall transition changes from disordered state to coordinated state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climatic comfort or human thermal comfort has a far- reaching impact on human settlements and human activities. A number of thermal indexes are widely applied in the fields of architectural design, urban planning, human health, and tourism development. As an indispensable and critical part of climatic comfort assessment, scale of thermal sensation not only greatly affects the validity of a thermal index, but also makes the comparison among different thermal indexes possible. At present, a few traditional scales of thermal sensation are generally used for the climatic comfort assessment in different regions without any localized adjustment. Alternatively, experimental investigation and questionnaire survey are adopted to formulate the scale of thermal sensation for a certain area. Therefore, a new approach named "seasonal anchor method" is proposed in this paper, which includes 4 steps --"grading, naming, anchoring, and projecting". Furthermore, based on the long term daily meteorological data (from 1981 to 2010) from 814 national basic meteorological observing stations throughout China, a case study is carried out. In this study, a 7- level scale of thermal sensation, which includes "torrid, hot, warm, neutral, cool, cold, and frozen", is proposed. Meanwhile, the threshold values of each level of thermal sensation for THI (temperature and humidity indexes) and WEI (wind effect index), which can be adopted as a national standard, are generated. Finally, climate-comfortable period and climate-uncomfortable period in China are evaluated, which brings us some meaningful discoveries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The urban-rural integrated development is the key measure to realize rural vitalization and promote new-type urbanization, while the land market is an important channel to realize the flow of urban-rural development elements, also a key link to connect urban-rural development. This paper analyzes the scientific connotation and substantial characteristics of urban- rural integrated development, and then explores the driving mechanism of land market on urban- rural integrated development. Based on these foundation, we quantitatively analyze the evolution law of land market and urban- rural integrated development in 273 cities at prefecture level or above in China. Furthermore, the relationship between land market and urban-rural integrated development was tested based on the panel data model to give a feasible proposal for the integration of urban and rural development from the perspective of land market. Main conclusions are drawn as follows: (1) The urban-rural integrated development is a process of the reconstruction of urban- rural values aiming at removing the obstacles hindering urban- rural development. It helps to promote the free flow and equal exchange of urban- rural elements, and achieve the convergence of returns from urban- rural development elements. The essence is to achieve the overall optimization of urban-rural regional functions through urban-rural integrated development and complementarity. (2) The effect of land market on urban- rural integration is a balance of advantages and disadvantages, and the direction depends on whether the land market is benign. Under the urban-rural dual distribution system and the curtain wall of society, the distorted land market impedes the urban- rural integrated development. (3) From 2005 to 2013, the scale of land market, land market price and land marketization degree increased by 113.66%, 274.09% and 37.07%, respectively, while the level of urban-rural integrated development in 59.34% cities have declined. Steadily developing land market and low level of urban-rural integrated development in China presented stark contrast and obvious spatio-temporal differentiation. (4) Currently, land market is more of a hindrance to urban-rural integrated development, but there is a "low level trap" between land market and urban-rural integrated development. Breaking the suppression inflection point of 88.64%, land market can then play a positive role on promoting urban- rural integration. So, reshaping the healthy value orientation of the land market development, accelerating the land marketization reform and exploring the mechanism of population-land linkage are important parts for followup work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]