Search

Global warming has caused the Arctic Ocean ice cover to shrink. This endangers the environment but has made traversing the Arctic channel possible. Therefore, the strategic position of the Arctic has been significantly improved. As a near-Arctic country, China has formulated relevant policies that will be directly impacted by changes in the international relations between the eight Arctic countries (regions). A comprehensive and real-time analysis of the various characteristics of the Arctic geographical relationship is required in China, which helps formulate political, economic, and diplomatic countermeasures. Massive global real-time open databases provide news data from major media in various countries. This makes it possible to monitor geographical relationships in real-time. This paper explores key elements of the social development of eight Arctic countries (regions) over 2013–2019 based on the GDELT database and the method of labeled latent Dirichlet allocation. This paper also constructs the national interaction network and identifies the evolution pattern for the relationships between Arctic countries (regions). The following conclusions are drawn. (1) Arctic news hotspot is now focusing on climate change/ice cap melting which is becoming the main driving factor for changes in geographical relationships in the Arctic. (2) There is a strong correlation between the number of news pieces about ice cap melting and the sea ice area. (3) With the melting of the ice caps, the social, economic, and military activities in the Arctic have been booming, and the competition for dominance is becoming increasingly fierce. In general, there is a pattern of domination by Russia and Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the implementation of the economic reform and opening up policy in 1978, China has miraculously created long-term high-speed economic growth, but has also had to face the problem of excessive consumption of resources as well as an intensification of environmental pollution. As a result, China is now facing a slowdown in development. China must maintain a certain speed of development to realize its goal of being a powerful nation, and becoming a developed country by 2050. To this end, China is facing a transformation of its economic development. There is a need to agree on an expected economic growth rate, along with the corresponding development modes or means of regulation in the medium- and long-term periods. This study developed a systematic-dynamic model to simulate the coupling relationship between economic growth, development modes, and the environmental supply system, and explored the possible options for future economic growth as well as the resource use and environmental protection requirements (the main factors). The results showed that to achieve the development goal of becoming a developed country by 2050, while maintaining a good ecological environment, the suitable growth rate for China's economy is 3.8%–6.3%. Within this range, a growth rate of 3.8%–4.4% was found to be relatively safe, while a growth rate of 4.4%–6.3% required further technical progress. This study provides an early warning in regard to China's environmental and development status. The study was a response to the "Future Earth" framework document and, in terms of development speed, it developed a theoretical system for the determination of resource and environmental carrying capacity (RECC). [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]

With the degradation of natural resources and environment caused by industrial development in some developing countries, the requirement of implementing a "social ecological" approach to development is imminent. Resource and environment carrying capacity provides a means of assessing regional development potential by measuring regional sustainable development in terms of economy, population and resources & environment. This study develops a conceptual framework for resource and environment carrying capacity estimation to support the co-development planning of industries, population and resources & environment. First, the framework constructs an index system for evaluating importance of industry or influence based on the role of industry played in the local socio-economic system. Then, the framework computes the quantitative relations through the importance of local industry, population size and resource utilization and environment effects, and subsequently estimates the resource and environment carrying capacity of the study area. With a particular attention to its land resources, water resources and environment, the Tibet case study shows that: the non-ferrous metal mining, tourism, liquor and refined tea industries play a pillar role in the Tibet's socio-economic system; under each industrial structure, land resource carrying capacity is the weakest, and water resources carrying capacity is the strongest; to focus on tourism will improve local resource and environment carrying capacity. The research results provide a solid guide for Tibet government's co-actions in industrial restructuring, ecological protection, and the pursuit of economic development. This study will contribute to bridge the gap between theoretical research and practical applications of resource and environment carrying capacity, and help local governments plan the regional "socio-ecological" sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is now experiencing rapid urbanization. Powerful tools are required to assess its urban spatial policies before implemented toward a more competitive and sustainable development paradigm. This study develops a Land Use Transport Interaction (LUTI) model to evaluate the impacts of urban land-use policies on urban spatial development. The model consists of four sub-models, i.e., transport, residential location, employment location and real estate rent sub-models. It is then applied to Beijing metropolitan area to forecast the urban activity evolution trend based on the land-use policies between 2009 and 2013. The modeling results show that more and more residents and enterprises in the city choose to agglomerate on outskirts, and new centers gradually emerge to share the services originally delivered by central Beijing. The general trend verifies the objectives of the government plan to develop more sub-centers around Beijing. The proposed activity-based model provides a distinct tool for the urban spatial policy makers in China. Further research is also discussed at the end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'High-Level Forum of the Development of China's Human Geography Under the Background of Change' was held in Beijing on January 22-23, 2016. More than 30 professors attended this forum. At this conference, they discussed the major progress made towards developing China's human geography, as well as the existing problems, limiting factors, opportunities, international collaborations, emerging directions, and prospects in the development of this discipline. In recent years human geography has boomed, generating many important opportunities for its development. Establishing an academic community for joint research on major research issues and collaborative innovation is a promising and important route to take. We should embrace both domestic and international characteristics, to promote China's human geography onto the world stage. Meanwhile, the cultivation of various scholarly talents is also of great value to enrich and advance the discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing studies about the modeling of urban housing price have figured out sets of factors and the main focus is on the relative spatial location. Generally, this line of research is descriptive rather than modeling in nature. The underlying reasons for the distribution of housing price are largely unexplored and more research is needed. The paper therefore attempted to systematically explore the spatial heterogeneities of urban housing price based on the urban activity interaction rule. Using Beijing as a case study, this study first developed a new measurement of accessibility which directly depicts the cost and possibilities to access opportunities of different activities such as employments, educational, shopping and medical services. From the perspective of demands of different households, the paper then modelled the relationships between urban housing price and these accessibilities and found that the distribution pattern of housing price can be relatively well represented by this model that the R could achieve 0.7. We investigated the relationship between housing price and the demands of different kinds of households categorized by households of one-generation, two-generation, three-generation and four-and-plus-generation and found that the demands of household of four-and-plus-generations is the most highly correlated with housing prices. The reason might be that this kind of household has more household members and the demands are more diverse and complex, which is more similar to the distributions of all kinds of activity opportunities in the real world. In the end of the paper, some implications for policy-making are proposed based on the results of the analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese cities face high and rapidly increasing exposure to disasters. Reducing disaster vulnerability is a direct and effective countermeasure for disaster management and risk reduction, which requires first and foremost objective assessment of the vulnerabilities of societies and economies. Assessment of economic vulnerability is a significant step in risk evaluation, a prerequisite for effective disaster prevention planning and an important base for emergency management. This paper develops a model for assessing economic vulnerability, which takes into account of the size of enterprises, the vulnerability and importance of various industrial sectors and economic density. Based on the model, this paper develops an urban economic vulnerability evaluation system and applies it to Haidian District in Beijing, the results help identify where in its 647 blocks are highly and very highly vulnerable in terms of economies, and it provides useful and practical information for pre-disaster prevention planning, disaster preparedness and emergency management. The economic vulnerability assessment model and the system developed in this study make it possible for the government to quickly evaluate the general economic vulnerability and identify the specific vulnerable areas, making contribution to disaster management information system and decision support system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The key to studying urban sustainable development depends on quantifying stores, efficiencies of urban metabolisms and capturing urban metabolisms' mechanisms. This paper builds up the metabolic emergy account and quantifies some important concepts of emergy stores. Emphasis is placed on the urban metabolic model based on the slack based model (SBM) method to measure urban metabolic efficiencies. Urban metabolic mechanisms are discussed by using the regression method. By integrating these models, this paper analyzes the urban metabolic development in Beijing from 2001 to 2010. We conclude that the metabolic emergy stores of Beijing increased significantly from 2001 to 2010, with the emergy imported accounting for most of the increase. The metabolic efficiencies in Beijing have improved since the 2008 Olympic Games. The population, economic growth, industrial structures, and environmental governance positively affect the overall urban metabolism, while the land expansion, urbanization and environmentally technical levels hinder the improving of urban metabolic efficiencies. The SBM metabolic method and the regression model based on the emergy analysis provide insights into the urban metabolic efficiencies and the mechanism. They can promote to integrate such concepts into their sustainability analyses and policy decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]