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Tourist satisfaction has always been a crucial research issue in the tourism economy. This paper utilizes the Spatial Durbin Model (SDM) to analyze the impact of urban tourism satisfaction on urban macroeconomics from a macro perspective, using quarterly data on tourist satisfaction in 35 large and medium-sized cities along with major urban macroeconomic variables. This study is quite distinct from previous research that focused on constructing a tourist satisfaction index and analyzing the influence factors of tourism satisfaction from the perspective of the micro-level internal composition of tourism. The empirical results show: Firstly, in respect of the impact of urban tourists' satisfaction on the GDP income of cities, the SDM and the SDM with a lagged first-order dependent variable (SDM_dlag) show that the short-term and long-term indirect effects of log-tourist satisfaction are significantly positive, indicating that city satisfaction has a significant positive spatial spillover effect on GDP growth in other cities; Secondly, in respect of the influence of urban tourist satisfaction on the cost of urban life in the SDM, the long-term direct and indirect effects of logarithmic satisfaction are significantly positive, implying, in the long run, that tourist satisfaction has a positive intraregional spillover effect and spatial spillover effect on urban living costs; Finally, the SDM_dlag for the regression of urban tourist satisfaction on the cost of urban daily life shows that the short-run direct and indirect effects of city tourist satisfaction are significantly negative, indicating that tourist satisfaction has intra-regional and spatial spillover effects, and its rise will reduce the cost of living expenses in local and other cities in the short term. Overall, we have further elucidated the role of different levels of urban tourist satisfaction in city macroeconomics from the spatial dimension, thereby enriching the existing research on tourist satisfaction to some certain extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil sealing (loss of soil resources due to extensive land covering for the purpose of house building, road construction etc.) and subsequent soil landscape pattern changes constitute typical environmental problems in many places worldwide. Previous studies concentrated on soil sealing in urbanized regions, whereas rural areas have not been given sufficient attention. Accordingly, this paper studies soil landscape pattern dynamics (i.e., landscape pattern changes in response to rural anthropogenic activities) in the Tiaoxi watershed (Zhejiang province, eastern China), in which surface sealing is by far the predominant component of human forcing with respect to environmental change. A novel approach of quantifying the impacts of rural anthropogenic activities on soil resources is presented. Specifically, quantitative relationships were derived between five soil landscape pattern metrics (patch density, edge density, shape index, Shannon’s diversity index and aggregation index) and three rural anthropogenic activity indicators (anthropogenic activity intensity, distance to towns, and distance to roads) at two landscape block scales (3 and 5 km) between 1985 and 2010. The results showed that the Tiaoxi watershed experienced extensive rural settlement expansion and high rates of soil sealing. Soil landscapes became more fragmented, more irregular, more isolated, and less diverse. Relationships between soil landscape pattern changes and rural anthropogenic activities differed with the scale (spatial and temporal) and variable considered. In particular, the anthropogenic activity intensity was found to be the most important indicator explaining social development intensity, whereas the other two proximity indicators had a significant impact at certain temporal interval. In combination with scale effects, spatial dependency (correlation) was shown to play a key role that should be carefully taken into consideration in any relevant environmental study. Overall, the findings of this work suggest that soil sealing can be a critical human forcing issue with considerable consequences deserving serious attention by the experts, the public and the government alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]