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Taxi as a door-to-door, all-weather way of travel is an important part of the urban transportation system. A fundamental understanding of temporal-spatial variation and its related influential factors are essential for taxi regulation and urban planning. In this paper, we explore the correlation between taxi demand and socio-economic, transport system and land use patterns based on taxi GPS trajectory and POI (point of interest) data of Qingdao City. The geographically weighted regression (GWR) model is used to describe the influence factors of spatial heterogeneity of the taxi demand and visualize the spatial distributions of parameter estimations. Results indicate that during the peak hours, there are some differences in taxi demand between workdays and weekends. Residential density and housing prices increase the number of taxi trips. Road density, parking lot density and bus station density are positively associated with the taxi demand. It is also found that the higher of the proportion of commercial area and public service area, the greater of the taxi demand, while the proportion of residential area and the land use mix have a negative impact on taxi demand. This paper provides some references for understanding the internal urban environmental factors generating from the taxi travel demand, and provides insights for reducing the taxi vacancy rate, forecasting taxi temporal-spatial demand and urban public transportation system planning., 1. Introduction Statistics show that by the end of 2017, there were 584,400 public transport vehicles (tram, rail transit) in China and the number of taxis was 1,395,800, which means [...]

The existing research outputs paid less attention to the relationship between land use and passenger demand, while the taxi drivers' searching behavior for different lengths of observation period has not been explored. This paper is based on taxi GPS trajectories data from Shenzhen to explore taxi driver's operation behavior and passengers' demand. The taxi GPS trajectories data covers 204 hours in Shenzhen, China, which includes the taxi license number, time, longitude, latitude, speed, and whether passengers are in the taxi vehicle, to track the passenger's pick-up and drop-off information. This paper focuses on these important topics: exploring the taxi driver operation behavior by the measurements of activity space and the connection between different activity spaces for different time duration; mainly focusing on eight traffic analysis zones (TAZs) of Shenzhen and exploring the customer's real-time origin and destination demands on a spatial-temporal distribution on weekdays and weekends; taxi station optimization based on the passenger demand and expected customer waiting time distribution. This research can be helpful for taxi drivers to search for a new passenger and passengers to more easily find a taxi's location., 1. Introduction Urban land use and built environment have been considered to affect residents' travel demand with three dimensions: design, density, and diversity [1]. Traffic engineers and urban planners have [...]

Rain-fed cultivation in drylands--especially in arid and hyper-arid areas--is often considered to play a minor role in human subsistence. Drawing upon the results of ethnoarchaeological research in North Africa, this paper reviews non-irrigated agricultural practices in the absence of anthropogenic water-harvesting structures, and presents a proposal for how such practices can be identified in the drylands of the past. An improved understanding of the long-term development of rain fed cultivation augments our knowledge of past land-use strategies and can inform future models of sustainable agriculture in some of the world's driest regions. Keywords: Sahara, Al Khiday, rain-fed cultivation, drylands, resilience, phytoliths, Introduction Today, drylands cover approximately 40 per cent of the world's land area and host around 40 per cent of the world's population. The United Nations Environment Programme defines drylands [...]

The forest transition describes a reversal or turnaround in long-run land-use trends for a country or region from a period of net forest area loss to net gain. Following North, this paper constructs a model to show that effective institutions may impose additional costs on a representative economic agent converting forests to agriculture in a tropical developing country. The main outcome to emerge from the model is that an improvement in institutions accelerates the onset of a forest transition. This hypothesis is tested by examining the probability of a forest transition occurring for 101 tropical developing countries over 1990 to 2015. The empirical results suggest that the hypothesis cannot be fully rejected. However, not all the institutional indicators analyzed affect the likelihood of the forest transition, and one economy-wide indicator appears to delay the transition. Nevertheless, the results illustrate the importance of understanding how institutional indicators affect the decisions of economic agents concerning land clearing as well as forest management practices and policies. Keywords Developing countries * Forestpolicy * Forest transition * Tropical deforestation JEL Classification Q23 * Q24 * O13, Introduction The forest transition describes a reversal or turnaround in long-run land use trends for a country or region from a period of net forest area loss to net gain [...]

Many large cities rely on Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) to increase passenger mobility. For efficiency, MRT stations should be arranged to attract maximal number of travelers. It is therefore important to develop methods for estimating MRT ridership forecasting models, which are important for policies on land use development or new MRT lines. Direct ridership models (DRMs) at the station level are superior in estimating the benefits of transit-oriented development policies. In this paper, a principal component regression (PCR) is proposed to overcome the issue of multicollinearity that widely occurs in multivariate regression analyses for DRM modeling, especially the ordinary least squares regression. Based on the analysis of 72 MRT stations in Wuhan, China, four principal components are obtained to explain the potential linkage to MRT ridership, which include built-environment related factors, jobs-housing spatial structure related factors, station attributes, and the large compound. Nineteen significant determinants have been identified, among which the four factors of office building area, land use mix, the number of restaurants, and financial institutions are the most influential factors. Built- environment-related factors exert more significant impact on MRT ridership than others. The distance to city center and the number of bus lines around stations have negative association with MRT demand. The proposed PCR-based DRM provides insights for forecasting transit demand brought about by new metro lines and forecasting the consequences of land use development., 1. Introduction Chinese planners and government agents are actually aware that Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) occupies an important place in urban transport systems. MRT has valuable benefits for densely populated [...]

Macrolevel crash modeling has been extensively applied to investigate the safety effects of demographic, socioeconomic, and land use factors, in order to add safety knowledge into traffic planning and policy-making. In recent years, with the increasing attention to regional traffic management and control, the safety effects of macrolevel traffic flow parameters may also be of interest, in order to provide useful safety knowledge for regional traffic operation. In this paper, a new spatial unit was developed using a recursive half-cut partitioning procedure based on a normalized cut (NC) minimization method and traffic density homogeneity. Two Bayesian lognormal models with different conditional autoregressive (CAR) priors were applied to examine the safety effects of traffic flow characteristics at the NC level. It was found that safety effects of traffic flow exist at such macrolevel, indicating the necessity of considering safety for regional traffic control and management. Furthermore, traffic flow effects were also examined for another two spatial units: Traffic Analysis Zone (TAZ) and Census Tract (CT). It was found that ecological fallacy and atomic fallacy could exist without considering traffic flow parameters at those planning-based levels. In general, safety needs to be considered for regional traffic operation and the effects of traffic flow need to be considered for spatial crash modeling at various spatial levels., 1. Introduction Macroscopic safety evaluation was often conducted, with the purpose of finding factors that could be improved or controlled at the planning stage or during policy-making process. Traditional macroscopic [...]

To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2009.01356.x Byline: DAVID L. STOKES ([dagger]*), MARIAN F. HANSON ([dagger]), DEBORAH D. OAKS ([dagger]), JAIME E. STRAUB ([dagger]), AILEEN V. PONIO ([dagger]) Keywords: biodiversity; community values; conservation flagships; habitat conservation; land-use planning; salmon; urbanization; Washington Abstract: Abstract: Because habitat loss due to urbanization is a primary threat to biodiversity, and land-use decisions in urbanizing areas are mainly made at the local level, land-use planning by municipal planning departments has a potentially important-but largely unrealized-role in conserving biodiversity. To understand planners' perspectives on the factors that facilitate and impede biodiversity conservation in local planning, we interviewed directors of 17 municipal planning departments in the greater Seattle (Washington, U.S.A.) area and compared responses of planners from similar-sized jurisdictions that were 'high' and 'low performing' with respect to incorporation of biodiversity conservation in local planning. Planners from low-performing jurisdictions regarded mandates from higher governmental levels as the primary drivers of biodiversity conservation, whereas those from high-performing jurisdictions regarded community values as the main drivers, although they also indicated that mandates were important. Biodiversity conservation was associated with presence of local conservation flagship elements (e.g., salmonids) and human-centered benefits of biodiversity conservation (e.g., quality of life). Planners from high- and low-performing jurisdictions favored different planning mechanisms for biodiversity conservation, perhaps reflecting differences in funding and staffing. High performers reported more collaborations with other entities on biodiversity issues. Planners' comments indicated that the term biodiversity may be problematic in the context of local planning. The action most planners recommended to increase biodiversity conservation in local planning was public education. These results suggest that to advance biodiversity conservation in local land-use planning, conservation biologists should investigate and educate the public about local conservation flagships and human benefits of local biodiversity, work to raise ecological literacy and explain biodiversity more effectively to the public, and promote collaboration on biodiversity conservation among jurisdictions and inclusion of biodiversity specialists in planning departments. Abstract (Spanish): Planificacion Local del Uso de Suelo para Conservar la Biodiversidad: Perspectivas de Planificadores Sobre Lo que Funciona Resumen: Debido a que la perdida de habitat por la urbanizacion es una amenaza primaria para la biodiversidad y las decisiones sobre uso del suelo en areas urbanizadas se toman principalmente a nivel local, la planificacion del uso de suelo por los departamentos municipales de planificacion tiene un papel potencialmente importante-pero no realizado-en la conservacion de la biodiversidad. Para entender las perspectivas de los planificadores sobre los factores que facilitan e impiden la conservacion de la biodiversidad en la planificacion local, entrevistamos a los directores de 17 departamentos de planificacion municipal en Seattle (E.U.A.) y comparamos las respuestas de los planificadores de jurisdicciones de tamano similar que tenian un desempeno 'alto' y 'bajo' respecto a la incorporacion de conservacion de biodiversidad en la planificacion local. Los planificadores en jurisdicciones con desempeno bajo consideraron a los mandatos de niveles de gobierno mas altos como los principales impulsores de la conservacion de la biodiversidad, mientras que los planificadores en jurisdicciones con desempeno alto consideraron a los valores de la comunidad como los principales impulsores, aunque tambien indicaron que los mandatos eran importantes. La conservacion de la biodiversidad se asocio con la presencia de elementos bandera para la conservacion (e. g., salmonidos) y beneficios derivados de la conservacion de biodiversidad (e. g., calidad de vida). Los planificadores de jurisdicciones con desempeno alto y bajo favorecieron diferentes mecanismos de planificacion para conservacion de la biodiversidad, quiza reflejando diferencias en financiamiento y personal. El desempeno alto reporto mas colaboraciones con otras entidades sobre temas de biodiversidad. Los comentarios de planificadores indicaron que el termino biodiversidad puede ser problematico en el contexto de la planificacion local. La educacion publica fue la accion recomendada por la mayoria de los planificadores para incrementar la conservacion de la biodiversidad en la planificacion local. Estos resultados sugieren que, para avanzar en la conservacion de la biodiversidad en la planificacion local del uso de suelo, los biologos de la conservacion deben investigar y educar al publico sobre las banderas para la conservacion local. Author Affiliation: ([dagger])Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences Program, University of Washington Bothell, Bothell, WA 98011, U.S.A. Article History: Paper submitted December 5, 2008; revised manuscript accepted June 30, 2009. Article note: (*) email dstokes@u.washington.edu

To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2007.00846.x Keywords: animal movement; animal tracks; habitat fragmentation; habitat remnants; human disturbance; urban open space; urbanization Abstract: Abstract: Habitat remnants in urbanized areas typically conserve biodiversity and serve the recreation and urban open-space needs of human populations. Nevertheless, these goals can be in conflict if human activity negatively affects wildlife. Hence, when considering habitat remnants as conservation refuges it is crucial to understand how human activities and land uses affect wildlife use of those and adjacent areas. We used tracking data (animal tracks and den or bed sites) on 10 animal species and information on human activity and environmental factors associated with anthropogenic disturbance in 12 habitat fragments across San Diego County, California, to examine the relationships among habitat fragment characteristics, human activity, and wildlife presence. There were no significant correlations of species presence and abundance with percent plant cover for all species or with different land-use intensities for all species, except the opossum (Didelphis virginiana), which preferred areas with intensive development. Woodrats (Neotoma spp.) and cougars (Puma concolor) were associated significantly and positively and significantly and negatively, respectively, with the presence and prominence of utilities. Woodrats were also negatively associated with the presence of horses. Raccoons (Procyon lotor) and coyotes (Canis latrans) were associated significantly and negatively and significantly and positively, respectively, with plant bulk and permanence. Cougars and gray foxes (Urocyon cinereoargenteus) were negatively associated with the presence of roads. Roadrunners (Geococcyx californianus) were positively associated with litter. The only species that had no significant correlations with any of the environmental variables were black-tailed jackrabbits (Lepus californicus) and mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus). Bobcat tracks were observed more often than gray foxes in the study area and bobcats correlated significantly only with water availability, contrasting with results from other studies. Our results appear to indicate that maintenance of habitat fragments in urban areas is of conservation benefit to some animal species, despite human activity and disturbance, as long as the fragments are large. Abstract (Spanish): Relaciones entre Perturbacion Humana y Uso de Suelo para Vida Silvestre en Fragmentos de Habitat Urbano Resumen: Los remanentes de habitat en areas urbanizadas tipicamente conservan la biodiversidad y sirven para los propositos de recreacion y espacios urbanos abiertos de las poblaciones humanas. Sin embargo, estas metas pueden entrar en conflicto si la actividad humana afecta negativamente a la vida silvestre. Por lo tanto, cuando se considera a los remanentes de habitat como refugios de conservacion es crucial entender como afectan las actividades humanas y usos de suelo al uso de esas areas por la vida silvestre. Utilizamos datos de huellas (huellas de animales y sitios de descanso y madriguera) de 10 especies de animales y la informacion sobre la actividad humana y los factores ambientales asociados con la perturbacion antropogenica en 12 fragmentos de habitat en el Condado de San Diego, California (E.U.A.) para examinar las relaciones entre las caracteristicas del fragmento de habitat, la actividad humana y la presencia de vida silvestre. No hubo correlaciones significativas de la presencia y abundancia de especies con el porcentaje de cobertura de plantas par todas las especies o con diferentes intensidades de uso de suelo para todas las especies, excepto Didelphis virginiana, que prefirioareas con desarrollo intensivo. Neotoma spp. y Puma concolor se asociaron significativa y positivamente y significativa y negativamente, respectivamente, con la presencia y prominencia de servicios. Neotoma spp. Tambien se asociaron negativamente con la presencia de caballos. Los mapaches (Procyon lotor) y coyotes (Canis latrans) se asociaron significativa y negativamente y significativa y positivamente, respectivamente, con el volumen y permanencia de plantas. Puma concolor y Urocyon cinereoargenteus se asociaron negativamente con la presencia de caminos. Los correcaminos (Geococcyx californianus) se asociaron positivemente con basura. Las unicas especies que no tuvieron correlaciones significativas con alguna variable ambiental fueron Lepus californicus y Odocoileus hemionus. Se observaron huellas de Lynx rufus mas frecuentemente que de Urocyon cinereoargenteus y L. rufus se correlaciono significativamente solo con la disponibilidad de agua, lo que contrastac con los resultados de otros estudios. Nuestros resultados parecen indicar que el mantenimiento de los fragmentos de habitat en areas urbanas tiene beneficios de conservacion para algunas especies de animales, no obstante la actividad y perturbacion humana, siempre y cuando los fragmentos sean grandes. Author Affiliation: (*)Department of Biology, San Diego State University, 5500 Campanile Drive, San Diego, CA 98192-1416, U.S.A. ([dagger])San Diego Tracking Team, P.O. Box 502345, San Diego, CA 92150-2345, U.S.A. (s.)Department of Biology, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521, U.S.A. Article History: Paper submitted January 29, 2007; revised manuscript accepted July 16, 2007. Article note: ([double dagger]) Address correspondence to H. M. Regan, email helen.regan@ucr.edu

To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9787.2008.00544.x Byline: Eckhardt Bode (1) Abstract: ABSTRACT. This paper proposes an approach to delineating metropolitan areas that is more general than the standard approaches in three respects: First, it uses the fraction of land prices attributable to economies of urban agglomeration instead of using commuting intensities as an indicator of economic integration between metropolitan centers and their hinterlands. Second, it identifies metropolitan centers endogenously instead of determining them exogenously. And third, it takes metropolitan subcenters explicitly into account. An empirical illustration is used to show that the approach tends to delineate fewer but larger metropolitan areas in densely populated regions, and smaller metropolitan areas in sparsely populated regions. Author Affiliation: (1)Kiel Institute for the World Economy D-24100 Kiel. E-mail:eckhardt.bode@ifw-kiel.de Article History: Received: August 2006; accepted: July 2007.

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2006.07.014 Byline: J. Cihlar Keywords: Carbon sequestration; Earth observation; GHG policy Abstract: This paper addresses some issues related to the carbon cycle and its utilization by society. Traditional uses for agriculture, forestry, as a source of fuel and other products, and for pastoral farming, among others, have recently been supplemented by identifying its potential for mitigating the increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Through the Kyoto Protocol, carbon has become a commodity and the CO.sub.2-absorbing capability of the vegetation and soils an economically valuable asset. The multi-facetted roles of the C cycle and its sensitivity to human activities present a demand for techniques that permit accurate, timely and affordable characterization of the various components of this cycle, especially on land where most human activities take place. Such techniques must satisfy a range of demands in terms of purpose, clients for the information, and biosphere properties. However, if successful, they offer the potential to support monitoring, reporting, policy setting, and management of terrestrial biospheric resources. The context for these requirements and possibilities is illustrated with reference to the China Carbon Sequestration Project and its findings. Author Affiliation: ZEMKON INC., 201 Johnston Road, RR3, Picton, Ont., Canada K0K 2T0 Article History: Received 30 April 2006; Revised 20 July 2006; Accepted 30 July 2006

Byline: Hualou Long (a)(b), Guoping Tang (c), Xiubin Li (a), Gerhard K. Heilig (b) Keywords: Land-use change; Driving forces; Urbanization; Land management measures; The Yangtze River Delta; China Abstract: This paper analyzes characteristics, major driving forces and alternative management measures of land-use change in Kunshan, Jiangsu province, China. The study used remote sensing (RS) maps and socio-economic data. Based on RS-derived maps, two change matrices were constructed for detecting land-use change between 1987 and 1994, and between 1994 and 2000 through pixel-to-pixel comparisons. The outcomes indicated that paddy fields, dryland, and forested land moderately decreased by 8.2%, 29% and 2.6% from 1987 to 1994, and by 4.1%, 7.6% and 8% from 1994 to 2000, respectively. In contrast, the following increased greatly from 1987 to 1994: artificial ponds by 48%, urban settlements by 87.6%, rural settlements by 41.1%, and construction land by 511.8%. From 1994 to 2000, these land covers increased by 3.6%, 28.1%, 23.4% and 47.1%, respectively. For the whole area, fragmentation of land cover was very significant. In addition, socio-economic data were used to analyze major driving forces triggering land-use change through bivariate analysis. The results indicated that industrialization, urbanization, population growth, and China's economic reform measures are four major driving forces contributing to land-use change in Kunshan. Finally, we introduced some possible management measures such as urban growth boundary (UGB) and incentive-based policies. We pointed out that, given the rapidity of the observed changes, it is critical that additional studies be undertaken to evaluate these suggested policies, focusing on what their effects might be in this region, and how these might be implemented. Author Affiliation: (a) Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research (IGSNRR), Chinese Academy of Sciences, 11A Datun Road, Anwai, Beijing 100101, PR China (b) International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria (c) Department of Geography, University of Oregon, OR 97403, USA Article History: Received 9 May 2005; Revised 3 April 2006; Accepted 7 April 2006

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2006.01.004 Byline: Alexander S. Mather (a), Gary Hill (b), Maria Nijnik (b) Abstract: Post-productivism is a contested concept, and some argue that it should be abandoned. In this paper, a more focused definition for post-productivism is suggested. Evidence for change in forestry and agriculture that could be categorised as post-productivist is presented, in relation to both the narrower definition and to characterisations suggested by other authors. A reduced (relative) emphasis on material production, combined with an increased emphasis on the provision of environmental services, has characterised rural land use at the end of the 20th century in parts of the developed world. In this sense, post-productivism is a reality, and should not be abandoned. It may have utility in relation to our understanding of land-use change in developed countries, and in that respect to the generating of questions that would amount to a formidable research agenda. Author Affiliation: (a) Department of Geography and Environment, School of Geosciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB24 3UF, Scotland (b) Macaulay Land Use Research Institute, Craigiebuckler, Aberdeen AB15 8QH, Scotland

The access that state highways provide to adjacent land enables the development of that land. Although access alone does not ensure that development will occur, land with access from a state highway has considerably greater development potential than land without such access. City, governments regulate the development of the land, while state Departments of Transportation (DOTs) wield authority over the adjacent state highways. This separation of authority creates a significant challenge for state DOTs as they work to expand state highway facilities in a bid to stay apace with the explosive growth of U.S. metropolitan areas. This paper identifies methods adopted by local governments and state DOTs to coordinate land use policies and manage development along state highways. We find that. regardless of whether a state has legislation that supports state-local cooperation, the city government's willingness to partner with the DOT remains a critical factor in the success of coordination efforts for managing land use along state highways. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9488(2005)131:1(10) CE Database subject headings: Interagency cooperation: Land usage: State government: Local governments: Highway planning.