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Farmland property rights allocation such as farmland transfer has an important impact on economic development in rural areas and farmers’ livelihoods in developing countries. Examining the impacts of the external socioeconomic conditions helps realize the desired farmland transfer. This study attempts to analyze the underlying influencing factors of farmland transfer in urbanizing China. In particular, 18 underlying influencing factors are selected to describe urbanization and natural condition. Pearson correlation coefficients are computed to measure the linear relationships between underlying influencing factors and farmland transfer. The geographical detector method is further employed to quantify the individual effects of urbanization on farmland transfer and the interaction effects of urbanization on farmland transfer by assessing the degrees of spatial stratified heterogeneity. We discover that the effects of urban–rural basic living allowance gap, regional GDP per capita, urban population proportion on the proportion of transferred farmland area, proportion of farmland transferred to non-farmer users and proportion of transferred farmland cultivated non-grain crop are the strongest, respectively. The indices of urbanization level present have higher effects on farmland transfer than those of the urban–rural gap. Meanwhile, the interaction effect between two urbanization indices enhances the effect on the farmland transfer. Our study is believed to deepen the understanding of urbanization on farmland property rights allocation in rapidly urbanizing areas. It offers new insights into realizing the sustainable land use strategy in the socioeconomic transition in developing countries.

Social and economic factors relate to the prevention and control of infectious diseases. The purpose of this paper was to assess the distribution of COVID-19 morbidity rate in association with social and economic factors and discuss the implications for urban development that help to control infectious diseases. This study was a cross-sectional study. In this study, social and economic factors were classified into three dimensions: built environment, economic activities, and public service status. The method applied in this study was the spatial regression analysis. In the 13 districts in Wuhan, the spatial regression analysis was applied. The results showed that: 1) increasing population density, construction land area proportion, value-added of tertiary industry per unit of land area, total retail sales of consumer goods per unit of land area, public green space density, aged population density were associated with an increased COVID-19 morbidity rate due to the positive characteristics of estimated coefficients of these variables. 2) increasing average building scale, GDP per unit of land area, and hospital density were associated with a decreased COVID-19 morbidity rate due to the negative characteristics of estimated coefficients of these variables. It was concluded that it is possible to control infectious diseases, such as COVID-19, by adjusting social and economic factors. We should guide urban development to improve human health.

Environmental noise has a major negative impact, causing interference for people to communicate, rest, sleep, and general annoyance. In order to control urban environmental noise, simulation-based optimisation for urban environmental noise is conducted. On the basis of the current acoustic environment of Zhaohui Campus of Zhejiang University of Technology, three optimisation plans that include noise barrier optimisation, greenbelt optimisation, and a combination optimisation of noise barrier and greenbelt are proposed. These scenarios are simulated using NoiseSystem software to obtain their ability to reduce noise and determine auditory perception by using different control measures. To determine the visual perception of the optimisation plan, 100 people of different age groups were randomly selected, and each person scored the noise barrier and the greenbelt in the simulated scenarios. Results of the comprehensive evaluation of auditory and visual perception show that noise barriers can provide better auditory feelings, but greenbelts can provide a better auditory and visual subjective experience. Therefore, in addition to the application of noise control measures, their visual design must be fully considered. Moreover, the visual perception of plants is stronger than that of others.