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As natural backwater structures, landslide dams both threaten downstream human settlement or infrastructure and contain abundant hydro-energy and tourism resources, so research on their development feasibility is of great significance for permanently remedying them and effectively turning disasters into benefits. Through an analysis of the factors influencing landslide dam development and utilization, an index system (consisting of target, rule, and index layers) for evaluating development feasibility was constructed in this paper. Considering uncertainty and randomness in development feasibility evaluation, a cloud model-improved evaluation method was proposed to determine membership and score clouds based on the uncertainty reasoning of cloud model, and a cloud model-improved analytic hierarchy process (AHP-Cloud Model) was introduced to obtain weights. Final evaluation results were obtained using a hierarchical weighted summary. The improved method was applied to evaluate the Hongshiyan and Tangjiashan landslide dams and the results were compared with the maximum membership principle results. The results showed that the cloud model depicted the fuzziness and uncertainty in the evaluation process. The improved method proposed in this paper overcame the loss of fuzziness in the maximum membership principle evaluation results, and was capable of more directly presenting evaluation results. The development feasibility of the Hongshiyan landslide dam was relatively high, while that of the Tangjiashan landslide dam was relatively low. As suggested by these results, the evaluation model proposed in this paper has great significance for preparing a long-term management scheme for landslide dams.

The accurate identification of urban functional areas is of great significance for optimizing urban spatial structure, rationally allocating spatial elements, and promoting the sustainable development of the city. This paper proposes a method to precisely identify urban functional areas by coupling Open Street Map (OSM) and Point of Interest (POI) data. It takes the central urban area of Hangzhou as a case study to analyze the spatial distribution characteristics of the functional areas. The results show that: (1) The central urban areas of Hangzhou are divided into 21 functional areas (6 single functional areas, 14 mixed functional areas and 1 comprehensive functional area). (2) The single functional areas and the mixed functional areas show the geographical distribution characteristics of the looping stratification, which means “Core-periphery” differentiation is obvious, and the comprehensive functional area is relatively scattered. (3) The mixed degree of regional function with ecological function and production function is low while comprehensive functional areas are usually associated with higher potential and vitality. (4) The identification results are in great agreement with the actual situation of Hangzhou central urban area, and the method is feasible. Therefore, this paper can provide a reference for urban development planning and management.

Three-dimensional landscape patterns are an effective means to study the relationship between landscape pattern evolution and eco-environmental effects. This paper selects six districts in Xi’an as the study area to examine the spatial distribution characteristics of the three-dimensional architectural landscape in the city’s main urban area using three-dimensional information on the buildings in 2020 with the support of GIS. In this study, two new architectural landscape indices—landscape height variable coefficient and building rugosity index—were employed in landscape pattern analysis, whilst a system of rigorous and comprehensive three-dimensional architectural landscape metrics was established using principal component analysis. A mathematical model of weighted change of landscape metrics based on the objective weighting method was applied to carry out scale analysis of the landscape patterns. Spatial statistical analysis and spatial autocorrelation analysis were conducted to comprehensively study the differentiation of three-dimensional architectural landscape spatial patterns. The results show that the characteristic scale of the three-dimensional landscape pattern in Xi’an’s main urban area is around 8 km. Moreover, the three-dimensional landscape of the buildings in this area is spatially positively correlated, exhibiting a high degree of spatial autocorrelation whilst only showing small spatial differences. The layout of the architectural landscape pattern is disorderly and chaotic within the second ring, whilst the clustering of patch types occurs near the third ring. Moreover, the building density in the Beilin, Lianhu, and Xincheng districts is large, the building height types are rich, and the roughness of the underlying surface is high, such that these are key areas to be improved through urban renewal. The height, volume, density, morphological heterogeneity, and vertical roughness of the architectural landscape vary amongst functional areas within the study area. This paper is the first to apply the study of spatial heterogeneity of three-dimensional landscape patterns to Xi’an. It does so in order to provide a quantitative basis for urban landscape ecological design for urban renewal and the rational planning of built-up areas, which will promote the sustainable development of the city’s urban environment.

Drawing on fine particulate matter (PM2.5) from satellite raster data and matching with the county-level socio-economic data from 2008 to 2015 in China, this paper investigates the impacts of the establishment of National Key Ecological Functional Zones (NKEFZ) on environmental quality by employing the difference-in-differences method, which was stablished in June 2011. The results indicate that the establishment of the NKEFZ significantly decreased the concentration values of PM2.5, a drop of about 20% during the study period, after the paper controls for other factors affecting air quality. The robustness tests using the maximum and medium concentration values of PM2.5 show similar results. Through further analysis, the paper finds that the establishment of NKEFZ can improve the ecological utilization efficiency of land.

Through the online booking platform, 10,543 big data of spatial and temporal distribution of Beijing hotel industry has been obtained in this paper. Then, the methods of GIS and the geographical detector are used to study the spatiotemporal evolution process and the influencing factors of Beijing hotel industry during 2003-2018. The results are as follows: a. During the period of 2003-2018, the hotel industry in Beijing maintained a high growth rate and had three growth peaks in 2008, 2010 and 2014. Meanwhile, major historical events, such as the Olympic Games had a significant influence on the development of the hotel industry. b. Between 2003 and 2018, the hotel industry in Beijing gradually developed from the centripetal agglomeration to aggregation + diffusion, and also from the single center to the multi-center. Besides, various hotels presented two characteristics of city orientation and scenic orientation. c. The natural geographical environment had shaped the overall pattern and characteristics of the spatial distribution of the hotel industry in Beijing, and the socio-economic factors such as commercial activities, public facilities, tourism services and traffic conditions significantly influenced the location selection of the hotel industry. Therefore, the urban center is the ideal area for the spatial layout of the hotel industry. d. Geographical detector research showed that the factors, such as administrative organs, road network density, leisure and recreational facilities, and companies have strong explanatory power for hotel location selection, which is an important reference index for hotels to select the micro location. This paper is a beneficial supplement to the existing research and has certain guiding significance for the sustainable development of Beijing hotel industry.

Eco-cities have witnessed rapid growth in these years worldwide. As the Eco-cities entering operation stage gradually, more and more researchers have found that users (who are living or working in the Eco-cities) satisfaction is one of the most important factors to determine the success or failure of Eco-cities. Therefore, it is very important to investigate the user demands to attract more citizens willing to live or work in the Eco-cities, which will make the development of Eco-cities more sustainable and solid. The recent researches on user demands investigation and analysis in the Eco-cities mainly focused on understanding the user need itself, yet lack of research on the relationship between the user demand and user satisfaction. This paper initially introduced the Kano model analysis method to the research field of user demands in Eco-city, to explore the relationship between the user demand and user satisfaction. After proposing user demands library in Eco-city (including Land use, Ecological environment, Green building, Energy utilization, etc.), the user demands classification and importance analysis methods of Eco-city were proposed based on Kano model. The questionnaire survey for users of two Eco-cities in China as case study was conducted, consisted of user demand items questionnaire based on the Kano model and a questionnaire on the importance of the user demand items. By utilizing the integration of quantitative analysis methods based on the Kano model and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method, the final ranking of user demands importance was obtained. Comparing with the existing literatures in terms of user demands research for Eco-city, the user demands analysis method based on Kano model of this paper, is able to reveal the influence degree of user satisfaction towards the facilities and services provided in the Eco-city. The user demands analysis method can be used for other researchers worldwide to investigate and quantitively analyze user demands according to their local development situation and preference of Eco-city. The user demands analysis results obtained through this method, can benefit different stages of Eco-city.

Biocapacity of a region exhibits spatial differences owing to the limitations of regional scale and natural conditions. Based on the multi-scale perspective, we comprehensively studied and analyzed the temporal and spatial differences of the biocapacity of a region in an attempt to establish the groundwork for optimizing urban development and its utilization framework. By adopting the ecological footprint model along with multi-scale difference evaluation method, the municipal and county scales are incorporated into a unified analysis framework in this paper, thereby facilitating the exploration of the temporal and spatial differences in the biocapacity of Shenyang—a city in China—from 2005 to 2019. The results demonstrated that: 1) At the municipal scale, the biocapacity per capita fluctuated between 1.35 hm2/person and 2.22 hm2/person. It revealed an “up-down-up” trend, which appeared consistent with the Kuznets cycle; at the county scale, the biocapacity depicted spatial differences, while those of downtown and surrounding districts/counties developed a two-level ascending hierarchical structure. 2) The time series of footprint size and depth first ascended and then declined, and can be classified into four types: closed type, inverted U-type, S-type, and M-type. Among them, S-type and M-type have the phenomenon of over-utilizing the stock capital. 3) For a long time, the regional difference of biocapacity has mostly dwelt on two scales with an evident scale effect, and the biocapacity of Liaozhong District was the worst.

A scientific measurement of the amount of tradable water rights forms the premise for reaching an agreement in water rights trading. However, the existing measurement methods, based on water saving potential, still have problems caused by large computation workload and difficult-to-control errors. Conflicts also easily emerge between transferor and transferee during the execution of transaction agreements. This paper proposes a new method for measuring tradable water rights from the perspective of an assessment of the risk of water shortage for the transferor. The following describes the basic idea: An index system is established for the assessment of the water shortage risk of the transferor to identify water shortage risk categories. The impact of the water rights transaction volume on the transferor’s water shortage risk category is analyzed under different incoming water frequencies. The transferor’s water shortage risk threshold is set and a simulated annealing algorithm is designed to calculate the theoretical value of tradable water rights. The following summarizes the innovation of the proposed method: The water resource shortage risk evaluation index of the transferor is constructed based on water resource endowment, water supply, water demand, and water ecological environment of the transferor; then, a risk classification evaluation model of water resource shortage is established and a measurement method of tradable water rights is introduced. Comprehensive analysis of a case analysis of Helan County in the Ningxia Autonomous Region, China, shows that the recommended value of tradable water rights of Helan County is 40 million m3. Various methods are used to calculate the weights of evaluation indexes, which are compared to the measured results of tradable water rights; moreover, the sensitivity of the results is analyzed. The obtained results show that the use of water-saving potential to measure the amount of tradable water rights is feasible.

The Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration is the leading and demonstration area for the high-quality development of culture tourism (HDCT) in China. It is of great significance to study the spatiotemporal characteristics and impact mechanism of the HDCT for revealing the internal law of HDCT and promoting the collaborative innovation of culture tourism among cities. Based on the scientific construction of the evaluation system of HDCT, this paper made a quantitative analysis of 26 cities’ HDCT by using coupling coordination degree model, Lisa spatiotemporal transition and spatial Durbin model (SDM). The results show that: The overall level of 26 cities’ HDCT shows a fluctuating upward trend, and presents a "Z" pattern in space. More than 80% of the cities are at the medium and high level. Shanghai has obvious advantages in the primacy degree. There is a significant positive spatial autocorrelation among cities with high-quality of culture tourism development. The spatial clustering and proximity of the same kind are increasing, and the radiation effect is gradually obvious. The local spatial association patterns are mainly HH and LL agglomeration, and the characteristics of polarization are gradually prominent. The local spatial correlation structure of HDCT has strong stability, the transfer inertia between types is prominent, and the overall spatial evolution is lack of integration with obvious path dependence and lock-in effect. The spatiotemporal evolution of the HDCT is a complex process under the interaction of multiple factors, and there is a significant spatial spillover effect (0.256). The level of economic development, technological innovation, professional talent allocation are the three main factors. According to the dominant factor, it can be divided into economy stabilizing type, industry optimizing type, innovation driving type and traffic impacting type. These findings have implications for local governments and tourism management departments to achieve high-quality innovative development of cultural tourism.

The quantitative relationship between the spatial variation of building’s height and the associated land surface temperature (LST) change in six Chinese megacities is investigated in this paper. The six cities involved are Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chongqing, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. Based on both remote sensing and building footprint data, we retrieved the LST using a single-channel (SC) algorithm and evaluate the heating/cooling effect caused by building-height difference via correlation analysis. The results show that the spatial distribution of high-rise buildings is mainly concentrated in the center business districts, riverside zones, and newly built-up areas of the six megacities. In the urban area, the number and the floor-area ratio of high to super high-rise buildings (>24m) account for over 5% and 4.74%, respectively. Being highly urbanized cities, most of urban areas in the six megacities are associated with high LST. Ninety-nine percent of the city areas of Shanghai, Beijing, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Tianjin are covered by the LST in the range of 30.2~67.8°C, 34.8~50.4°C, 25.3~48.3°C, 29.9~47.2°C, 27.4~43.4°C, and 33.0~48.0°C, respectively. Building’s height and LST have a negative logarithmic correlation with the correlation coefficients ranging from -0.701 to -0.853. In the building’s height within range of 0~66m, the LST will decrease significantly with the increase of building’s height. This indicates that the increase of building’s height will bring a significant cooling effect in this height range. When the building’s height exceeds 66m, its effect on LST will be greatly weakened. This is due to the influence of building shadows, local wind disturbances, and the layout of buildings.

In this paper, entropy, coupling coordination degree, spatial auto-analysis, LISA time path, and other methods have been used to analyze the coupling coordination degree of urban resilience and urbanization quality of 14 cities in Liaoning Province from 2009 to 2019. The results show that: 1. The number of highly resilient cities accounts for 14.3% of the total number of cities in Liaoning Province, and the overall resilience degree is low; the spatial distribution shrinks along the Shenyang–Dalian Economic Belt toward both sides, with obvious “core-margin” characteristics. 2. The average score of urbanization quality increased from 0.0574 to 0.0966, showing a fluctuating upward trend; the regional difference was significant, and the “dual-core” characteristic was prominent. 3. During the study period, the 14 cities of Liaoning Province were in a state of imbalance, and there was a positive correlation between the coupling degree and the coordination degree. Moran’s I decreased from 0.237 to 0.220 and the spatial agglomeration characteristics also weakened. Further analysis of the spatial and temporal linkage characteristics of the coupling relationship shows that the relative length of LISA time path presents characteristics of protrusion in the central region and shrinkage on the East and West sides, and the curvature presents characteristics that are smaller in the North and larger in the South.

To provide a theoretical basis for sustainable land resource utilization and a reference for areas with similar natural conditions, an evaluation index for land-based ecological security was constructed based on the Driving force-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) model and the improved analytic hierarchy process (IAHP) and entropy methods, and the land-based ecological security status of Xingtai city from 2006 to 2017 was evaluated. Then, the obstacles to land-based ecological security were diagnosed. The results show that the values of the comprehensive evaluation index of land-based ecological security were 0.28–0.66 in the period from 2006 to 2017. The value of the index of land-based ecological security was low in the first seven years and gradually improved in the last five years of the study period. However, the overall situation was grave, and the ecological security conditions were poor. The main obstacles to land-based ecological security were the usage of pesticides, investment in environmental pollution treatments, the degree of machine cultivation, the rate of cultivation and the usage of fertilizer in Xingtai city. Based on the results of the land-based ecological security evaluation and the main obstacles identified in Xingtai city, this paper proposes management strategies and suggestions for improving land-based ecological security in Xingtai city. The specific proposals are as follows: vigorously develop green agriculture, increase investment in environmental pollution control, increase input in science and technology, and strengthen supervision and management of land use.

It is vast significance to explore the spatial and temporal evolution characteristics and influencing factors of herbivorous animal husbandry industry based on the context of China's agriculture pursuing high-quality development. In this paper, we analyze the spatial and temporal evolution of the layout of China's herbivorous animal husbandry industry and its influencing factors based on the spatial autocorrelation analysis, standard deviation ellipse, and spatial Durbin model with data from 1980 to 2017. The results show that there are significant positive autocorrelation characteristics of "high-high" aggregation and "low-low" aggregation in the Chinese herbivorous animal husbandry industry. To be specific, in the past four decades, the spatial distribution center of China's herbivorous animal husbandry industry has moved towards the northeast, crossing the boundary between agriculture and animal husbandry in China, presenting a clear trend of moving from pastoral area to agricultural area; the gradual narrowing of the spatial distribution range indicates the gradually increased degree of aggregation within the industry; the east-west stretch of spatial distribution has been strengthened, and the azimuth angle shows clockwise change, suggesting that the industrial expansion in the northeast-southwest direction is prominent; the influencing factors of changes in the spatial distribution of the industry reveal that the quantity and production capacity of productive land, people's income and living standards, and the level of mechanization will promote the development of China's herbivorous animal husbandry industry, and are essential factors influencing industrial distribution and transfer, while policy factor has small or even not significant impact on industrial aggregation, reflecting that the policy has not played the expected role, and policy support needs to be further intensified.

The Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau (YGP) is a typical ecologically fragile region in southwest China. Water-erosion desertification (WED) is one of the most significant environmental and socio-economic issues on the YGP and has seriously restricted the socio-economic development of this region. However, the research on monitoring of the desertification trends in this region has been limited to long time-series Landsat imagery. The objectives of this research were to monitor the WED trends on the YGP using time-series Landsat imagery data from 1989 to 2016. In this paper, we present a multi-indicator rule-based method, which was used to map the WED on the YGP during this period. The results show that the addition of multiple indicators improved the WED classification accuracy to 90.61%. Overall, the following results were obtained by using the proposed method. (1) The slight desertification area on the YGP increased from 89,617.09 km2 in 1989 to 100,976.47 km2 in 2016 with an annual growth ratio (AGR) of 0.48%, the moderate desertification area increased from 80,276.65 km2 in 1989 to 90,768.39 km2 in 2016 with an AGR of 0.50%, and the severe desertification area increased from 8149.3 km2 in 1989 to 13,220.16 km2 in 2016 with an AGR of 2.39%. (2) The WED expansion on the YGP can be divided into three stages. Firstly, the total WED area increased slowly from 17.80×104 km2 in 1989 to 17.98×104 km2 in 2010 with an AGR of 0.05%. Then, the WED rapidly expanded from 17.98×104 km2 in 2010 to 20.28×104 km2 in 2013 with an AGR of 4.26%. Finally, the WED increased slightly from 20.28×104 km2 in 2013 to 20.50×104 km2 in 2016 with an AGR of 0.36%. The total areas of the different degrees of WED decreased in 1992, 1998, 2001, and 2004. (3) The driving factors of WED were analyzed based on the Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) model. We found that precipitation, vegetation area, and gross domestic product have key roles in the processes of desertification reversion and development. However, the regression coefficients between WED and these factors exhibited considerable spatial variations. The regression coefficients of the key driving factors showed different spatial distributions based on the GWR model in the YGP. The research results can provide scientific reference information for the prevention and control of WED in the YGP.

The green development of coastal urban agglomerations, which are strategic core areas of national economic growth in China, has become a major focus of both academics and government agencies. In this paper, China's coastal urban agglomeration is taken as the research area, aiming at the serious air pollution problem of coastal urban agglomeration, geographic information system (ArcGIS10.2) spatial analysis and the spatial Dubin model were applied to National Aeronautics and Space Administration atmospheric remote sensing image inversion fine particulate matter (PM2.5) data from 2010-2016 to reveal the temporal and spatial evolution characteristics and Influence mechanism of PM2.5 in China's coastal urban agglomerations, with a view to providing a reference value for coordinating air pollution in the coastal cities of the world. From 2010-2016, the PM2.5 concentration in China's coastal urban agglomerations decreased as a whole, and large spatial differences in PM2.5 concentration were observed in China's coastal urban agglomerations; the core high-pollution areas were the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Shandong Peninsula, and Yangtze River Delta urban agglomerations. Large spatial differences in PM2.5 concentration were also observed within individual urban agglomerations, with higher PM2.5 concentrations found in the northern parts of the urban agglomerations. Significant spatial autocorrelation and spatial heterogeneity were observed among PM2.5-polluted cities in China's coastal urban agglomerations. The northern coastal urban agglomerations formed a relatively stable and continuous high-pollution zone. The spatial Dubin model was used to analyze the driving factors of PM2.5 pollution in coastal urban agglomerations. Together, meteorological, socioeconomic, pollution source, and ecological factors affected the spatial characteristics of PM2.5 pollution during the study period, and the overall effect was a mixed effect with significant spatial variation. Among them, meteorological factors were the greatest driver of PM2.5 pollution. In the short term, the rapid increase in population density, industrial emissions, industrial energy consumption, and total traffic emissions were the important driving factors of PM2.5 pollution in the coastal urban agglomerations of China.

Climate / weather factors are important factors for tourists to choose tourist destinations. With the public’s attention to the influence of haze, air quality will have a profound impact on the development of tourism in tourist destinations. Based on the Epsilon-based Measure (EBM) super-efficiency model and Global Malmquist–Luenberger index analysis method, this paper aims to study the tourism development efficiency of 58 major cities in China from 2001 to 2016 and analyse the total factor productivity in the development of urban tourism and the changing driving factors in consideration of the undesirable output of haze characterised by PM2.5 emission concentration. The study findings show that the overall efficiency of tourism development of 58 cities is not high in 2001–2016, but the tourism development efficiency of all cities is increasing year by year. Under the constraint of haze, the efficiency of urban tourism development is not directly proportional to the degree of urban development. The overall redundancy rate of each input index is slightly high, and the redundancy of PM2.5 emission concentration has a considerable effect on the efficiency of urban tourism development. The overall change trend in total factor productivity in the development of urban tourism is improved, mainly due to the improvement of technological progress factors. On this basis, the corresponding policy implications are concluded according to high-efficiency and high-quality development of tourism in 58 major cities.

Taking the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration, with its rapid economic and social development and dramatic changes in land use, as an example with which to conduct this research, this paper analyzes the influence of traffic accessibility on land use and socioeconomic development by using Internet maps, points of interest (POI), and data about land use and socioeconomic development. The results of this study are as follows: (1) the calculation results of traffic accessibility can reflect the real situation because spatial distribution has an obvious feature of circle-like structure, and the development level of each township has high consistency; (2) major change characteristics in land use are that cultivated and forest lands are decreasing, and construction land is increasing, and it is obvious that the increase of construction land is featured by spatial autocorrelation and clusters of construction areas along the city borders; (3) traffic accessibility has a significant impact on land use status and changes and socioeconomic development, while the number of facilities has weak impact on land use, which is a reflection of advanced infrastructure in the urban agglomeration; and (4) the construction of transport infrastructure promotes the transformation of land use from water to construction land, therefore, more emphasis should be placed on protecting the river system in future infrastructure construction so as to improve the ecological benefits in the river basin.

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.

As the capital and one of the metropolises in China, Beijing has met with a number of serious so-called "urban diseases" in the process of rapid urbanization such as blind expansion of urban areas, explosion of population and the increase of urban heat island effect. To treat these “urban diseases” and make the metropolis develop healthful and sustainable in Beijing in the future, the spatial characteristics of metropolis developments in Beijing are explored in this paper. The urban built-up areas in Beijing are extracted using the DMSP-OLS nighttime light data from 1992 to 2013. The characteristics of the urban developments of Beijing are studied, including spatial and temporal scales of urban developments, urban barycenter of Beijing and its transfer trajectory, variations of urban spatial forms and the differences of urban internal developments. The results have shown that the built-up areas had been increasing and circling extending from the central urban areas to the outer spaces in the last 21 years. The built-up area had expanded by 878km2 in 1992–2013, and the built-up area in 2013 had expanded to three times comparing to that of 1992. The expanding area of the built-up area in the northeast is the largest. The expansion of the urban had mainly occurred in 1996–2007, and the expanded area had accounted for 92% of the total research period. During the whole research period, the urban barycenter of Beijing had moved 5000.71 meters towards Northeast 28° of its original place from Dongcheng District to Chaoyang District. The development level of each municipal district had been increasing year by year, and the development differences among the municipal districts had been gradually reduced; the spatial forms of Beijing had been alternately changed between extensive and intensive expansion. The results of this study can help to plan urban land use and people migration of Beijing.

Oceans and their resources are experiencing immense pressure because of human exploitation. The intensive use of sea areas has become an important method in solving the contradiction between ocean supply and demand, thereby ensuring sustainable marine economy development, tapping potential sea-area utilization, reasonably allocating sea-area utilization structures, and increasing marine economic benefits. This paper explores the definition and connotation of intensive sea-area use and constructs an evaluation index system based on marine input intensity, marine utilization structure, marine economic benefit, and marine ecological environment. Multi-objective variable fuzzy set theory and fuzzy decision analysis methods were used to evaluate the intensive sea-area utilization in the Liaoning Coastal Economic Zone of China during 2004–2016. The spatial differentiation characteristics of intensive sea-area use were analysed using cluster analysis. The research result showed that: (1) Intensive utilization level of the Liaoning coastal economic zone has gradually increased, while it is still in a moderately weak level; (2) Sea area intensive utilization varied in degrees and fluctuates in the six cities under the jurisdiction of the Liaoning coastal economic zone; and (3) Marine input intensity, marine utilization structure, marine economic benefit, and marine sustainability indexes have increased in the cities, thereby exhibiting improvements in the Liaoning coastal economic zone.

The emerging Bicycle Sharing System (BSS) provides a new social microscope that allows us to "photograph" the main aspects of the society and to create a comprehensive picture of human mobility behavior in this new medium. BSS has been deployed in many major cities around the world as a short-distance trip supplement for public transportations and private vehicles. A unique value of the bike flow data generated by these BSSs is to understand the human mobility in a short-distance trip. This understanding of the population on short-distance trip is lacking, limiting our capacity in management and operation of BSSs. Many existing operations research and management methods for BSS impose assumptions that emphasize statistical simplicity and homogeneity. Therefore, a deep understanding of the statistical patterns embedded in the bike flow data is an urgent and overriding issue to inform decision-makings for a variety of problems including traffic prediction, station placement, bike reallocation, and anomaly detection. In this paper, we aim to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the bike flow data using two large datasets collected in Chicago and Hangzhou over months. Our analysis reveals intrinsic structures of the bike flow data and regularities in both spatial and temporal scales such as a community structure and a taxonomy of the eigen-bike-flows.

Mitigating extreme heat in urban areas is beneficial and sometimes critical to human health. Thriving plant communities in community parks play an important role in mitigating extreme heat through providing cooling effect, while inevitably affecting how people perceive the benefits of using community parks for recreation. Thus, the impacts of plant communities on the thermal environment should be quantified to determine the optimal structure of the plant community. The goal would be to harmonize the functions of improving the thermal environment with the preferences people have related to the recreational benefits of plant communities with various levels of vegetation density. In this paper, the correlations between the structural characteristics of plant communities and their function in mitigating the thermal environment were investigated on calm summer days in Xincheng Central Park, Minhang District, Shanghai, China. In addition to analyzing the plant communities present and their effects on the park microclimate, a questionnaire was employed to determine the plant community preferences of recreational park users. The results showed that plant communities could reduce the air temperature by 1.23-2.42 °C and increase the relative humidity by 2.4-4.2% during the daytime. The microclimate conditions in plant communities with varying vegetation densities were significantly different. The canopy density and leaf area index primarily controlled the temperature reduction, while the canopy density and total canopy cover ratio primarily controlled the increase in humidity; meanwhile, these correlations varied at different times of the day. Moreover, most of the park users preferred a moderately dense plant community which met their environmental perceptions for recreation in parks. Age or education level variables of park users would also predict preferences for different plant community densities. Ultimately, one plant community pattern with appropriate canopy density (60%), leaf area index (≥3) and canopy cover ratio (total 0.80-1.20, with 0.6-0.75 for trees and 0.20-0.45 for shrubs/woodland area) was recommended, which would harmonize the functions of the mitigation of the thermal environment with most people's perception of a desirable vegetation density.

Drawing upon the Landsat satellite images of Nanjing from 1985, 1995, 2001, 2007, and 2013, this paper integrates the convex hull analysis and common edge analysis at double scales, and develops a comprehensive matrix analysis to distinguish the different types of urban land expansion. The results show that Nanjing experienced rapid urban expansion, dominated by a mix of residential and manufacturing land from 1985 to 2013, which in turn has promoted Nanjing's shift from a compact mononuclear city to a polycentric one. Spatial patterns of three specific types of growth, namely infilling, extension, and enclave were quite different in four consecutive periods. These patterns result primarily from the existing topographic constraints, as well as government-oriented urban planning and policies. By intersecting the function maps, we also reveal the functional evolution of newly-developed urban land. Moreover, both self-enhancing and mutual promotion of the newly developed functions are surveyed over the last decade. Our study confirms that the integration of a multi-scale method and multi-perspective analysis, such as the spatiotemporal patterns and functional evolution, helps us to better understand the rapid urban growth in China.

Effective and timely quantification of the spatiotemporal pattern of urban expansion in China is important for the assessment of its environmental effects. However, the dynamics of the most recent urban expansions in China since 2012 have not yet been adequately explained due to a lack of current information. In this paper, our objective was to quantify spatiotemporal patterns of urban expansion in China between 1992 and 2015. First, we extracted information on urban expansion in China between 1992 and 2015 by integrating nighttime light data, vegetation index data, and land surface temperature data. Then we analyzed the spatiotemporal patterns of urban expansion at the national and regional scales, as well as at that of urban agglomerations. We found that China experienced a rapid and large-scale process of urban expansion between 1992 and 2015, with urban land increasing from 1.22 × 104 km2 to 7.29 × 104 km2, increasing in size nearly fivefold and with an average annual growth rate of 8.10%, almost 2.5 times as rapid as the global average. We also found that urban land in China expanded mainly by occupying 3.31 × 104 km2 of cropland, which comprised 54.67% of the total area of expanded urban land. Among the three modes of growth—infilling, edge expansion, and leapfrog—edge expansion was the main cause of cropland loss. Cropland loss resulting from edge expansion of urban land totalled 2.51 × 104 km2, accounting for over 75% of total cropland loss. We suggest that effective future management with respect to edge expansion of urban land is needed to protect cropland in China.

“The Belt and Road” initiative has been expected to facilitate interactions among numerous city centers. This initiative would generate a number of centers, both economic and political, which would facilitate greater interaction. To explore how information flows are merged and the specific opportunities that may be offered, Chinese cities along “the Belt and Road” are selected for a case study. Furthermore, urban networks in cyberspace have been characterized by their infrastructure orientation, which implies that there is a relative dearth of studies focusing on the investigation of urban hierarchies by capturing information flows between Chinese cities along “the Belt and Road”. This paper employs Baidu, the main web search engine in China, to examine urban hierarchies. The results show that urban networks become more balanced, shifting from a polycentric to a homogenized pattern. Furthermore, cities in networks tend to have both a hierarchical system and a spatial concentration primarily in regions such as Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta region. Urban hierarchy based on web search activity does not follow the existing hierarchical system based on geospatial and economic development in all cases. Moreover, urban networks, under the framework of “the Belt and Road”, show several significant corridors and more opportunities for more cities, particularly western cities. Furthermore, factors that may influence web search activity are explored. The results show that web search activity is significantly influenced by the economic gap, geographical proximity and administrative rank of the city.

International audience; Pigs have played a major role in the economic, social and symbolic systems of China since the Early Neolithic more than 8,000 years ago. However, the interaction between the history of pig domestication and transformations in Chinese society since then, have not been fully explored. In this paper, we investigated the co-evolution from the earliest farming communities through to the new political and economic models of state-like societies, up to the Chi-nese Empire, using 5,000 years of archaeological records from the Xiawanggang (XWG) and Xinzhai (XZ) sites (Henan Province). To trace the changes of pig populations against husbandry practices, we combined the geometric morphometric analysis of dental traits with a study of the stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios from bone collagen. The domestication process intensified during the Neolithic Yangshao, prompted by greater selective pressure and/or better herd control against wild introgression. After that, pig farming , in XWG, relied on local livestock and a gradual change of husbandry practices overtime. This was characterized by a gentle increase in millet foddering and animal protein intake, until a complete change over to household management during the Han dynasty. The only rupture in this steady trend of husbandry occurred during the Longshan period, with the appearance of small sized and idiosyncratic pigs with specific feeding practices (relying on millet and household scraps). From three exploratory hypothesis, we explored the possibility of anti-elite pig production in XWG during the Longshan period, as a means to resist incorporation into a new economic model promoting intensified domestic production. This exploratory hypothesis is the most suitable to our dataset; however, numerous areas need to be explored further in order to adequately document the role of pigs in the rise of China's complex societies.

Objective - The paper examines whether out-of-pocket health care expenditure also has regional discrepancies, comparing to the equity between urban and rural areas, and across households. Method - Sampled data were derived from Urban Household Survey and Rural Household Survey data for 2011/2012 for Anhui Province, and 11049 households were included in this study. The study compared differences in out-of-pocket expenditure on health care between regions (urban vs. rural areas) and years (2011 vs. 2012) using two-sample t-test, and also investigated the degree of inequality using Lorenz and concentration curves. Result - Approximately 5% and 8% of total household consumption expenditure was spent on health care for urban and rural populations, respectively. In 2012, the wealthiest 20% of urban and rural population contributed 49.7% and 55.8% of urban and rural total health expenditure respectively, while the poorest 20% took only 4.7% and 4.4%. The concentration curve for out-of-pocket expenditure in 2012 fell below the corresponding concentration curve for 2011 for both urban and rural areas, and the difference between curves for rural areas was greater than that for urban areas. Conclusion - A substantial and increasing gap in health care expenditures existed between urban and rural areas in Anhui. The health care financing inequality merits ample attention, with need for policymaking to focus on improving the accessibility to essential health care services, particularly for rural and poor residents. This study may provide useful information on low income areas of China.