The process and mechanism of soil quality change along vegetation succession in degraded karst regions has been the research focus of soil science and ecology in China for the last 10 years. Topsoil samples were collected from selected eco-tesserae along a vegetation succession in Stone Forest, Yunnan, China. Soil nutrient pools of organic carbon and total nitrogen and those parameters of biological activity such as microbial biomass carbon, BR, PR, and qCO₂ increased and evidenced the changes in soil function for ecosystem health along the vegetation succession. Bacterial community structures measured by molecular method (PCR-DGGE), as molecular footprint, traced sensitively soil quality and health changes caused by vegetation succession. These results demonstrated that, compared to bare land, vegetation restoration has not only enlarged soil nutrient pool, but also enhanced soil microbial biomass, diversity and activity, leading to a soil ecosystem with higher productivity and stability. In general, compared to cypress plantation, natural restoration (grassland and shrub) was an effective approach to improving soil quality indicated by soil biochemical properties. It was interesting that rate of soil quality recovery was faster at the early stage of vegetation restoring (thin grassland layer from bare land ), which meant good basal soil conditions built up for degraded karst ecosystem further restoration.

Under plastic film drip irrigation is extensively employed in cotton crop planting in Xinjiang, China. Fertigation is one of the core techniques of water saving irrigation. The ideal fertilizer used for fertigation should be highly dissoluble in order to avoid blocking of dripping tunnel of drip pipe. Cotton special fertilizers are kinds of novel compound fertilizer which well fit the drip irrigation system and nutrition need of cotton crop under drip irrigation. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the mobility of N, P and K elements of both special fertilizer and formal fertilizer in soil and cotton use efficiency under drip irrigation. Field experiments were conducted in Shihezi, Xinjiang in 2006. The results indicated that N, P and K elements of special fertilizer were more movable in soil than that of formal fertilizer under fertigation and their distributions in soil were fit for cotton root distribution. Use efficiency of N, P and K of special fertilizer were enhanced to some degree by fertigation. Physiological use efficiencies of N, P and K of special fertilizer compared with that of normal fertilizer were increased by 3.62%, 4.18% and 1.45%, respectively. Agronomic efficiency of N, P and K of special fertilizer compared with that of normal fertilizer were increased by 29.37%, 29.2% and 29.38%, respectively. Compared with normal fertilizer applying treatment, the seed cotton yield of special fertilizer one was increased by 6.9%.

Water shortage, especially in Liaoning province, has become the major bottle-neck for the regeneration of major old industrial bases in China. The total-factor decomposition model was constructed in this paper to measure the economic growth effect, industrial construction effect and water utilization intensity effect of driving mechanism for water utilization change in Liaoning Province from 1994 to 2007. The contribution ratio of each effect on water utilization change was calculated, and the temporal differences of these effects were analyzed. The total-factor decomposition model was also applied to measure the three kinds of effect of 14 cities in Liaoning for the period 1994-2007, and combining the ISODATA cluster model to cluster the effect in space, the spatial difference of effects was carried out. The results showed that: economic growth increased the amount of water and water utilization intensity, while industrial construction decreased water utilization. The results of this paper have significance for exactly understanding the relation of water utilization and economic development, and also has a certain reference significance for the regulation of industrial policies and sustainable development.

In order to probe into each region's virtual water research and practice in China, the quantitative evaluation of indicator system method and matrix categories of mutually exclusive method were conducted to classify China's provincial regions. First, three senior function regional types were divided, namely, virtual water import region (13 provinces), virtual water output region (9 provinces) and virtual water equilibrium region (9 provinces) according to the index of water resource gift, which was built up by three indicators of multi-year average precipitation, per capita water resources and runoff. Second, 12 secondary function regions were identified according to combinations of the various indexes of agricultural product trade which was constructed by three indicators of proportion of agricultural output, per capita food production and per capita meat production and non-agricultural water resource demand pressure index which was constructed by four indicators of urbanization rate, proportion of urban domestic water utilization, proportion of urban industrial water utilization and proportion of industrial output. The 12 secondary function regions are typical virtual water import (output) area, inner optimization area, growing virtual water import (output) area, composite type area, potential virtual water import (output) area and reality virtual water import (output) area. Third, the authors pointed out that it should raise the commodity rate of water-intensive industrial and agricultural products in the virtual water import regions, and reduce water-intensive industrial step by step in the virtual water output regions. However in the virtual water equilibrium regions, it is not suitable to adopt virtual water strategy. Furthermore, some suggestions were put forward on the orientation of water-density industrial development and virtual water studies in each secondary region.

A Multi-Parameter Sensitivity and Uncertainty Analysis (MPSUA) method is developed to evaluate the relative importance of parameters and model performance. The idea of MPSUA is to couple the Generalized Likelihood Uncertainty Estimation (GLUE) with the Multi-Parameter Sensitivity Analysis (MPSA) based on Monte Carlo simulation. The implementation of MPSA includes the following steps:(1) Running the model using randomly generated parameter sets; (2) Computing the objective function values, which are defined as the sum of squared errors between 'observed' and simulated values. The observed values are the output from model simulations using the median of the characteristic range for each parameter. (3) Identifying the 'acceptable' and 'unacceptable' parameter sets by comparing the objective function values to a given criterion, e.g., the 50% division of all sorted objective functions. The objective function value which is less than the criterion is classified as 'acceptable', otherwise it is classified as 'unacceptable'. (4) Measuring the separating degree between two cumulative distribution curves for "acceptable" and "unacceptable" parameters. Larger discrepancy means higher sensitivity. The case study in the Chaobai River Basin of North China showed that the model performance can be evaluated based on MPSUA, even though the optimum parameter values were unknown. For example, the same model could reach a higher modeling precision for the Chaohe River Basin than that for the Baihe River Basin. Such a difference in model performance is likely caused by both the uncertainty from model structure and the uncertainty from input data. The consistency between parameter optimization by SCE-UA algorithm and MPSUA also illustrated the rationality of the methodology applied in this paper. Further studies can take into account multiple objectives into the MSPUA.

The hypsometric integral (HI) of a drainage basin is a morphometric parameter for describing basin geomorphology. Lately the HI has become an index to infer activities of active tectonics in some orogenic belts. Some scholars take the hypsometric integral as an index to deduce the regional active tectonism.This paper examines two issues related to the HI:area dependence and space dependence. Our study calculates and analyzes the 10 rivers' hypsometric integrals of the Northern Tianshan Mountains, and the relations of the HI influencing factors. The result shows that there are x-logarithmic negative correlations not only between the average HI and the average area, but also between the average HI and the average drop, sorted by the different threshold accumulations of the drainage sub-basins in the Northern Tianshan Mountains. Moreover, there are higher HIs on moutain-type subbasins at upper stream and lower HIs on hill-type subbasins at piedmont.The three east-west trending thrust-fold belts along the southern flank of the Jungar basin divide the study area based on HIs into several regions with the same tendency of the three thrust-fold belts. It opens out the spatial dependence of the HI. The abnormal districts of the HI in the smaller drainage basin, present the remarkable influence of the rocky ingredient and the lithologic difference. In Manas river basin, by overlaying lithologic and tectonic maps on different drainage areas of subbasin groups, we found that the HIs of subbasins showed the effect of lithology and tectonics using a threshold less than 9km². However, the HIs showed almost entirely the effect of tectonic elements using a threshold more than 20km².

Spatial information was obtained for different periods and different types of desertified land Duolun County, Inner Mongolia. In this paper, the intrinsic mechanism of mutual conversion of different types of desertified land is revealed by computing relationship between perimeter and area of patches, fractal dimensions and stability indexes etc. on the basis of principles and methods of fractal theory. The results show that the types of desertified land in different periods in Duolun County, Inner Mongolia, have fractal structure, with the average values being 1.3988~1.5635, which are close to random value, thus desertified land are prone to a flowing trend. The desertified land is identified into four types, i.e., weak, median, serious and more seriously desertified land, among them, fractal structure of weak desertification has increased in the form of fluctuation, suggesting that spatial structure of weak desertification has become more and more complex and that the stability has decreased; while the stability of spatial structure of seriously desertified land has increased since 1987, and the stability is relatively high. Analysis of spatial structure of desertification land in this paper can provide the basic theory for the governments to control desertification.

The inbound tourism market in mainland China can be divided into two parts. One is overseas Chinese and compatriots from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan; the other is foreigners (including the overseas Chinese who have foreign nationalities). With the strengthening communication across the Taiwan strait, Taiwan tourists will play an increasingly important role in mainland China tourism market. The author analyses the data of tourism market (1998~2008) of different provinces (cities, districts) in mainland China, using the methods of geographic analysis, indexes of seasonal intensity, seasonal variation, geographic concentration, dynamical degree, and GIS to analyse the spatial and temporal distribution patterns of tourists and its evolution. (1) Viewing from time dimension, the change in the number of tourists from Taiwan Island to the mainland during the year is not obvious. The peak seasons are mainly February, April, July, and October, and the off-peak seasons are mainly January, March, June, September, December and other months. The yearly change can be described as a clear "double M" shaped curve, and this "Double M" shaped curve become more and more obvious over time (except the year 2003). The number of tourists from Taiwan to mainland China is increasing in a wave-shape type, and its share number of inbound tourists in mainland China increased from 1.38% in 1988 to 3.37% in 2008. Tourism development is in line with general economic development cycle, and there are Kitchin cycle, Juglar cycle, and Kuznets cycle. (2) Viewing from the spatial distribution, the overall number of tourists from Taiwan was mainly concentrated in the east instead of the middle and west China, covering 60%~70%. Spatial patterns characterized by the "W"-shaped type tended to be the "U"-shaped type. The geographic concentration of tourists from Taiwan is consolidated, and the difference among the provinces is gradually expanding, and the east-oriented trend remains. Provinces with the changing rate in the number of tourists from Taiwan above the national average (20.01%) are mainly in the eastern coastal zone, northeast region, central region and Tibet. Tibet had the maximum changing rate, which is 270.66%. This study is practical and significant in guiding and promoting the tourism development between Taiwan and mainland China, especially in tourism planning, tourism products upgrading tourism marketing and tourism management services, and so on.

Diffusion and distribution of religions were often influenced by geographical environment, so the subject has been a long-term topic of religious geography. In the mainland of China, the study is still to be strengthened on the religious diffusion pattern in the specific area and during the course of social changes. On the analysis of the spread of Protestants in the 19th and the first half of the 20th century in Guangdong, four diffusion patterns were presented at least, including point-axis relocation diffusion, hierarchical diffusion, contagious diffusion, and springboard diffusion. The spread of Protestants in the point-axis relocation diffusion pattern relies on the constant movement of missionaries, thus MRCs (Missionary Residential Centers) extended from port to inland along the axis (usually a traffic line). However, the existence of obstacles in the middle may also cause the veer of the developing axis. Hierarchical diffusion of Protestants launched on the level of population, of transport node and of administrative area, especially for the foremost two. In general, MRCs will spread by the grade, but also vice versus in some periods. According to the different types of media, different characteristics of space-time were shown in the pattern of infection diffusion. In the history, Hong Kong became not only a springboard, but also a resource for the Protestants' diffusion in Guangdong. This is called island-based springboard pattern, with the character of point (island) to point (seaport). It is noticeable that all of these patterns evolve from the classic cultural diffusion ones, but may be different from them more or less. The research tries to explain the classic cultural diffusion patterns, and to provide a good case for the cultural diffusion theory of "hinterland-port-market".

Ecology provided a new viewpoint to the development study of regional industry. According to the theory of ecology, regional industrial departments could be viewed as a kind of industrial population based on life organism of enterprise while regional industrial system could be taken as industrial community organically composed of different populations. The regional industrial ecology is an organic ecosystem with interactions between the regional industrial cluster and both the internal and external regional environments. Regional industrial ecology and its spatial structure are elaborated via ecological niche approaches. Again from two aspects, firstly, market niche founding on region demonstrates the interaction within industrial populations and that between them and their environments, the essence of which indicates the regional capability of exploiting the environmental resources. Secondly, spatial niche founding on location demonstrates the spatial distribution of different industrial populations in a region, the essence of which indicates the capability of using spatial resource by different industrial populations. In order to satisfy the need of development in "Wuhan settlement groups", a calculation of regional market niche and spatial niche was performed based on statistics of 20 categories of major industries in different cities within this region. Several definite pathways of achieving ecological transformation of regional industry and space optimization were also raised in this dissertation. The results show that the ecological evolution of regional industry experienced four major stages, including formation, reinforcement, retrogression and adjustment. The traditional industrial ecology in "Wuhan settlement groups" is a mode of "inlaid ecology" driven simplex by the investment with spatial discreteness of the regional industrial cluster. However, on the condition that significant changes occur in external economic environment, it is suggested that the regional industrial ecology should be a shift into an "embedded ecology" mode driven by innovations which enable it to reach a state of spatial integration during their regional economic development. Both the construction of the regional innovation environment and the cultivation of specific regional innovative culture help to transit ecologically the regional industrial development; the construction of the complex cluster net and the development of the distinctive industries with competitive advantages would facilitate the space optimization process of the regional industrial development.

It is a prerequisite to keep an optimal and efficient industrial structure for urban socio-economic development. In order to put forward scientific advice for upgrading the industrial structure and changing the way the economy grows, this paper constructs spatio-temporal assessment models for urban industrial restructuring, basing on Data Envelopment Analysis model and Factor Analysis model to build corresponding indicator systems. Then taking Beijing city as an example for empirical analysis, the results can be concluded as follows. Firstly, in the past 30 years since China's reform and opening-up in 1978, Beijing's industrial structure is basically at a relatively high level, excepting the years of 1991 and 2004, which over-use resources and decrease returns to scale, and the years of 1987, 1995 and 1996, which use resources ineffectively and increase returns to scale. Secondly, level of industrial efficiency, industrial benefit, industrial science and technology, and industrial comparative advantage are main factors determining industrial structure optimization of the 18 districts and counties in Beijing. Thirdly, owing to high level in industrial efficiency as well as its great contribution rate, industrial structure optimization in center regions and suburbs of Beijing is higher than that in outer suburban districts. Finally, it is quite discrepant in the comparative advantages of the four factors in the 18 districts and counties in Beijing, so it is imperative to take differentiable development paths to promote urban industrial restructuring.

The researches of shopping behavior in urban geography and planning mainly focus on how to manage urban residential non-work travel, how to regulate and optimize commercial spatial structure, and how to improve residential everyday life quality. In this paper, we put forward the conceptual model of the shopping decision-making behavior on the perspective of intra-household interaction. Hereby, using the first-hand data from a activity-travel daily survey of Beijing in 2007, we derive and formulate a multinomial logit model (MNL) for shopping timing decision-making, and a conditional logit model (CLM) for shopping destination choice, to interpret the behavioral diversity among different groups and evaluate the spatial policies. The results indicate that: First, the influences of the factors about intra-household interaction and different decision-making levels on the shopping space-time decision-making process are more significant than that of traditional socio-demographic characters. Therefore, the characters of household-based decision should be paid more attention by the studies of activity-travel behavior. Then, the groups travelling in the morning peak period seem to be low-income or exurb-living, with non-motor mode or longer shopping duration. Also, the dwellers travelling in the evening peak period seem to be with family companions, suburb-living or choosing the tour mode of HWSH. Moreover, it does mean to attract more shopping activities with higher commercial density. At the weekend, residential shopping activities are mostly concentrated within 6 km far from the home, or appear at the high-density CBD. Furthermore, the impacts of personal characters on the destination choice give more attention to the home-to-shop distance, rather than the density of the shopping district. Finally, the results from estimation and simulation evaluation show that the policy of mixed land-use might indeed reduce the travel time, but increase the probability of multi-purpose shopping tour, which will more probably choose the peak-time travelling, then aggravate the traffic jam. Besides, suppose that the commercial establishment would be uniformly distributed, the more shopping activities will be concentrated surrounding the home. Although the cities have commercial hierarchical structure, it would be better to use the policy of decentralization, rather than aggregation, to improve the urban transportation and advance the residential everyday life quality.

Tobler's First Law is the core and the basis of spatial autocorrelation statistics. Spatial weight matrix is decided by the traditional spatial autocorrelation in the way of proximity or the given distance function. The rapid transportation networks are becoming saturated; hence, the meaning of spatial distance changes essentially. The connotation of proximity should be extended from "spatial proximity" to "spatial-temporal proximity". Based on such connotation, we propose a new concept-spatial autocorrelation of spatial-temporal proximity, and construct the corresponding calculation method. This study applies the above concept and method to regional economic disparity in the Yangtze River Delta, focusing on the index of accessibility. By examining the indexes of Global Moran's I and Local Moran's I, we have the following findings: (1) In terms of GISA, spatial autocorrelation of spatial-temporal proximity is a better approach to the dynamic change of relations between different geographic units than the traditional spatial autocorrelation. (2) For LISA, proximity has better robustness when temporal distance is in a reasonable range. (3) However, there are differences in spatial autocorrelation between spatial-temporal proximity and space proximity to a certain extent. So the combination of the above-mentioned two concepts is helpful to reveal the laws behind the dynamics of spatial relationship among geographic units.

The development of coal-mining cities in Northeast China is the hot topic which the country pays attention to. The article carries out the vulnerability appraisal of coal-mining cities in Northeast China from three levels of natural system, economic system, social system and from three description angles of exposure, sensitivity, and resilience. In 2000, Hegang city belongs to relatively low vulnerability district, and other coal-mining cities belong to intermediate ones. In 2005, all the coal-mining cities belong to intermediate vulnerability districts, in which vulnerability indexes in Jixi and Qitaihe cities are nearly 0.5701 and 0.5568, respectively. At the same time, it points out the vulnerability phenomenon, the approach to reduce vulnerability and diagnoses the vulnerability of natural system, economic system and social system, as well as the existing problems. Vulnerability of natural system is presented in ecological environment deterioration, water pollution, air pollution and forest resource destruction. Culture and community employment structure in coal-mining cities closely relate to urban economic structure and shortage of labor skills of mining industry, which have aggravated the unemployment and the difficulty of re-employment. Besides, the high pressure causes urban poverty and disadvantaged groups to get jobs, which have caused social vulnerability. Some other problems may cause the economic vulnerability, such as the unreasonable resource utilization, unreasonable productivity distribution and single industrial structure, Regional natural system, economic system and society system affect each other. This article discusses the coupling mechanism from the aspects of ecology, humanity and society. The intrinsic agents which affect the coal-mining cities are the limited resources and the changed exploitation capacity, and they are the key aspects to restrict vulnerability of human-land system. Then some models are put forward to reduce vulnerability, such as comprehensive development model, anticipation cultivation model, connection development model and harmonious society model. Finally, it puts forward some sustainable development countermeasures which provide the valuable reference for the reforming, ecology construction and community development of coal-mining cities. Besides, it is suggested that the development model could be built for coal-mining cities specifically in different development stages and vulnerability phenomenon.

Since the reform and opening up, China has achieved unprecedented economic growth, and made considerable progress in reducing poverty. However, with the rapid economic growth, the income inequality also increases significantly in China. On the one hand, the economic growth pattern affects the trend of inequality; on the other hand, the degree of inequality and imbalance will affect the subsequent reduction rate of poverty. Therefore, the economic growth pattern and the trend of inequality in the interaction affect the overall development of China. This study focuses on the economic growth patterns and poverty reduction of China over the past decade. Poverty can be divided into absolute poverty and relative poverty, with the latter meaning the income gap or inequality. Besides, this article analyzes the income inequality in unit of city. The authors use the poverty growth curve (PGC) to analyze the pattern of China's economic growth, according to the population and GDP in unit of city at prefectural level between 1994 and 2006. In general, the regional disparity was restrained when China's average GDP growth was high. From 1998 to 2000, China's witnessed the immiserizing economic growth, with the lowest GDP growth rate and rapid expansion of regional disparity due to the Asian financial crisis. Between 2003 and 2004, China's economic growth presented a pro-poor growth curve, with the highest GDP growth rate after the Asian financial crisis and shrinkage of regional disparity. During the other periods, China has undergone the trickle-down economic growth, and along with economic growth, although absolute poverty has been alleviated, people in poorer areas have received proportionally less benefits than the non-poor, and regional disparity has been widened. The paper suggests that governance should be essential in the process of the economic growth patterns and poverty reduction in China.

In response to contemporary global environmental change and its impact on human society, and promoted by the development of other disciplines, physical geography has taken on a new look. Understanding the new situation of physical geography helps to grasp the academic front. Contemporary physical geography not only researches various elements of the natural environment, their interactions and composition, and their spatial process and regional differentiation, but also studies variety of processes and their various relationships with the passage of time, infers results at a certain temporal or spatial scale to other scales, and applies the research results to solve practical resources and environmental management issues. The new fields of international physical geography can be summed up as physical geographical system, physical geographical process, landscape and environmental change, human activity and environmental change, global physical geography and cultural physical geography. Modern physical geography in China grows from the traditional Chinese geography and is impacted by geographical disciplines of Europe-America and Russia. Generally speaking, physical geography in China has moved from empirical science into experimental science, from the macro structure research to the research of macro pattern combining micro process and mechanism, from the research of elements and process separation to integrated studies. It has achieved good progress in comprehensive study of physical geography, the natural process of surface studies, urban and regional development research, and basic research application-oriented to social reality. Physical geography in China has outstanding performance in meeting the national and social need, but the independent contribution and self-innovation inadequate in academic thinking, theory and methods. This situation is not proportionate with the unique physical geographical advantages of China, and not proportionate with the vast research team of physical geography in China. Every major breakthrough in the development course of science and technology began with innovations in new ideas, new theories, new methods and their applications. Lack of innovation awareness and systematic research of scientific ideas and methods has been not only severely restricting the innovation capability of physical geography in China, but also limiting the ability of solving practical problems. In the future, Chinese physical geography will have a trend towards more comprehensive and more global perspectives, as well as a deeper discovering of key processes and their dynamics and mechanism, more application of high-technology, and closer serving for regional sustainable development. One of the important tasks is to strengthen the research and innovation of scientific thinking, scientific methods and scientific tools.

This study shows that the national energy supply system could extend its spatial bordering as the increasing demands for the fuels, especially oil and gas, due to the uneven distribution of mineral resources of the whole world. According to the long-term practices of national industrialization in both the United States and China, the domestic resources dominated the energy supply in the early days, but the international resources come to play a more and more important role eventually as the national economy is mature. According to statistics, the ratio of net energy import in the United States was 0.3% in 1950 and quickly increased to 62.8% in 2005. That means when the structure of production and consumption diversified up to 0.1%, the international flow of fossil fuels for the United States had an increase of 0.9%. In the meantime, however, the change pattern of fossil fuels' flow in China between 1952 and 2005 witnessed that the country's energy supply, just about a half size of that in the United States, experienced a spatial expansion by 39% when its imported oil increased rapidly in the last 15 years. Such a change strongly implies only when the increase of energy consumption, labeled as the time course, is in harmony with the effective space expansion of supply, titled as the space course, can the national energy supply system develop eventually.

The coastal zone is the cross-zone between land environment and marine environment. Because of its rich resources, predominant natural conditions, good location and the unique land and sea commonness, coastal zone has become the most concentrated area of human activities. About 60% of the people in the world live in this relatively small area with high productivity and high-value dynamics. The usage structure of the coastal zone is directly related to the developmental ways of natural and human resource, which has two structural elements, one is the ecosystem of land and sea, and the other is system of human society. The coastal zone is the basis of human development on oceans. Based on Liaoning coastal zone's types, resources, environment and marine economic development, this paper mainly analyzes the characteristics of the usage structure of the coastal zone in Liaoning in accordance with the international classification of the usage structure of the coastal zones. At the same time, development and utilization of marine resources coastal zones and the reasons of marine economy regional differences are mainly analyzed by applying methods of quantitative analysis, such as variation coefficient, concentration index, Theil coefficient and so on.

Rural hollowing is one of the special patterns of rural areal system evolvement in the process of urban-rural transitional development. Recently, the evolvement trend of rural hollowing is quickened by the speedy regional urbanization and non-agricultural population growth, thus to research the lifecycle of rural hollowing evolvement, driving forces of rural hollowing development, rural space reconstructions and rural hollowing regulation thoroughly are the new historical tasks for geographical study in the new epoch. By the comparative study methods, this paper reviews and forecasts the study progress of rural hollowing, points out flaws in the existing studies and predicts the key points in future studies. Results indicate that the existing studies of "hollowed village" mainly focus on the conception, characteristics, space model, different stages and process of rural settlement hollowing, main driving forces, some problems resulted from village hollowing, and countermeasures to control the trend of hollowed village development. The influencing factors of rural hollowing evolvement include four aspects, namely, resource environment, economy and society, mechanism and institution, management and policy. Under the background of ensuring the warning line of cultivated land, guiding new countryside construction, reconstructing optimal rural space and regulating rural hollowing evolvement, the studies should be enhanced in the future on the formation mechanism, regional types and developmental ways; scenario simulation of new countryside construction and potential assessment of "hollowed village" under the condition of urban and rural harmonious development; technical system of "hollowed village" consolidation.

This paper is an empirical study of the urban expansion of Nanchong by applying the urban fractal theory. Based on multi-temporal Landsat TM remote imaginary data and Geographical Information System, this paper systematically discusses the spatial layouts and patterns of Nanchong city in selected periods since the 1980s through the 2000s via analyzing the response to urban fractal theory and examining the expansion feature in all directions from the city center. As methodology, we extract the geometric data from the remote images of years including 1988, 1993, 1999, 2002, and 2007, and overlap the extracted images by GIS as to conduct comparison over periods. On the one hand, as response to the urban fractal theoretical analysis, the city shows no significance in urban fractal features, but with two sections with evident difference in fractal dimension parameter. In accordance to the findings, we diagnose the distinct share of driving forces of urban expansion in relevant periods--that the natural growth force dominates in early stage of urban expansion, but the comprehensive growth force, combining natural growth and mechanical growth, dominates the period thereafter. On the other hand, Nanchong city has been growing in particular direction since the 1980s--both to the northeast and to the southwest, displaying the stability over time and indicating the potential growth corridor in the future. Based on those findings, a spatial model is established to formulate the expansion patterns.

The comprehensive treatment of spatial blind areas in urban crime is a fundamental effective way to solve the urban crime problem. Its research provides new ideas and methods for the anti-crime in urban planning, construction and management, opens a new research area for crime geography and urban geography. According to the existence shape and the difference of the influence to urban crime, the city crime spatial blind areas may be divided into 5 kinds, public, private, marginal, moving and virtual spatial blind area. In the foundation of the summary and commentary on the spatial research of overseas city crime, the paper constructs a theory platform for the study on the comprehensive treatment of spatial blind areas in urban crime, expounds and proves the non-interchangeability of the comprehensive treatment of spatial blind areas in urban crime, proposes basic theory main points and application theory main points for the comprehensive treatment. The formation of spatial blind areas in urban crime has a series of profound spatial position factors, the comprehensive treatment research should have the explicit research aim and directions, scientific technical route, method and key technologies. The paper's main conclusions are: First, the positive spatial anti-crime is able to put spatial blind areas under the effective government, and the urban crime problem can be under the effective control overall. Second, the theory of the spatial anti-crime is the theory premise and foundation for the comprehensive treatment of the spatial blind areas, and even the essential theory platform for the study on the comprehensive treatment. This theory contains 3 basic theory main points and 3 application theory main points. Third, the comprehensive treatment of spatial blind areas in urban crime is an effective way to create the defensible space for cities, which is guided by the theory of the spatial anti-crime. The study on the comprehensive treatment is an important scientific sphere with theoretical and practical significance, and its core research content is the public order way, implementation plan and measure for the comprehensive treatment of spatial blind areas in urban crime.

Dameisha and Xiaomeisha coastal resorts are adjacently located in eastern Shenzhen, Guangdong province. Through random sample questionnaire survey and deep interview, the paper finds there are differences in the tourists' behavior and attitude of two resorts. Firstly, Xiaomeisha is likely to attract tourists of higher level of education and income than Dameisha. Secondly, tourists from Dameisha and Xiaomeisha are both expressing high satisfaction with the overall beach environment and facilities. Thirdly, the influences of tourists' demographic characteristics on beach environment and facilities perception are not as distinctive as explored in western case studies. Fourthly, tourists from Xiaomeisha take more consideration on sea water cleanness, beach environment, rescue facility and comprehensive tourist service, while tourists from Dameisha are more sensitive to the price of resort entrance ticket. Finally, tourists from Xiaomeisha are more supportive of charging tickets on Dameisha in order to prevent it from overcrowdness, while its counterparts of Dameisha are more negative. The city government should deeply understand and try to coordinate these differentiated kinds of beach leisure demands. Public goods as free beach parks should be provided by the government to the public. On the other hand, some themed and commercialized beach leisure spaces of higher quality should also be properly planned by governments and established by private sectors to upgrade the beach development.

The hierarchical and spatial structures of recreation sites in Suzhou city are studied during the socioeconomic transformation in China using fractal theory and methods. The system of recreation sites are divided into three recreation subsystems in the ancient city, new city and outer city areas, which are the three levels of urban regional structure based on the 2008 general planning of Suzhou city. Then, using the Zipf fractal dimension, spatial correlation dimension and traffic length-radius dimension as indexes, the hierarchical, spatial and traffic structures of the recreation sites are studied separately. It is found that both the recreation site system and transportation system of Suzhou city have good fractal characteristics. The fractal index depicts recreation system structure well and can be used for its optimization. Both the hierarchical and spatial structures of Suzhou city exhibit a gradient tendency from a loose core to a compact extended structure. Meanwhile the decentralization phenomenon of self-organization ability is distinct. Accordingly, the tracking analysis of structure evolvement of recreation site system and its optimization, as well as the strengthening guidance and improvement of its self-organization ability, are necessary for the harmonious urban planning and development. In addition, combining the previous research conclusions about the fractal in tourism, the result reveals and verifies the significant differences between fractal structure and self-organization evolvement in both recreation site system and tourism attraction system.

In this paper, we estimate the nationwide soil organic carbon stock in China during the three time periods of 1988-2000, 2000-2012 and 2012-2020 with CENTURY model and analyze soil organic carbon stock changes of cropland in the nine agro-ecological zones, with the support of DLS which provides future land use pattern data. In order to estimate the dynamics of soil organic carbon stock, the CENTURY model, in which a soil organic matter decomposition sub-model, a water budget sub-model, a grassland/crop sub-model, a forest production sub-model, and a couple of management and events scheduling functions are encapsulated, was customized and used in this study. In the customized CENTURY model, the flow of carbon was simulated. In addition, the pixel specific area changes of cropland for the period between 2010 and 2012 and the period between 2010 and 2020 were predicted by using the DLS model. DLS model consists of three sub-modules, the sub-module for simulating the dynamics of land systems at a regional extent, the sub-module to explore and represent the driving mechanism of land use change and the sub-module to generate the equilibrium of demands and supply of land area by sectors and by grid pixel and finally to export the maps to identify the temporal and spatial changes of cropland patterns which are the input variables for simulating the soil organic carbon stock in the prediction period. The research results show that soil organic carbon of cropland during 1988-2000 in China experienced a rising trend in most parts of the Chinese Mainland. The aggregated estimation results of CENTURY model show that China had an increase of 3.3×10⁸ t for the soil organic carbon stock of cropland. By contrast, during the period of 2000-2012, the soil organic carbon stock of cropland declines as much as 1.5×10⁹ t. In some regions such as Northeast China, the carbon stock decrease accounts for more than one third of the total carbon missed in China. And during the period of 2012-2020, although the soil organic carbon stock is still marked by a downward trend, the magnitude of the decrease declines significantly. The findings in this paper would provide valuable information for the decision makings to mitigate the impacts of climate changes as well as to spur the sustainable agriculture development.

The Tibetan Plateau, the third pole of the earth, is one of the least human-disturbed regions in the world. Its outstanding topographic feature and ecological characteristics have significant effects on modern atmospheric circulation and climate, so the greenhouse gases emission and absorption are linked to climate changes at local, regional and even global scales. Also, to examine or estimate the actual magnitude of carbon uptake or release from this terrestrial ecosystem has become the central issue in global carbon cycle researches. However, relatively few studies have been reported in the literatures about the carbon contributions of the alpine grassland area on the Tibetan Plateau. In this paper, we use a mechanistically based ecological simulation model to describe and analyze the spatial pattern of terrestrial net primary productivity (NPP), carbon fluxes and net ecosystem productivity (NEP) in this alpine steppe area. The NASA-CASA (Carnegie-Ames-Stanford Biosphere) model is designed to simulate seasonal patterns in net carbon fixation and allocation, litterfall, and soil nutrient mineralization, and soil CO₂ emissions. Our fundamental approach is to use CASA to estimate net primary production (NPP) in the alpine steppe area on the Tibetan Plateau. We combined MODIS data and CASA to estimate NPP, and soil carbon emissions were calculated by the regression formula obtained in the pre-study. Upon these, we estimated the carbon budget for each of the 0.05° latitude×0.05° longitude grid cells in the alpine steppe area. The potential annual net primary productivity (NPP) of this alpine steppe area is estimated to be 20.57×10¹²g · a^-1 of carbon. The annual NPP has the distinct spatial distribution, whereas vegetation NPP decreased gradually from southeast to northwest due to the temperature and precipitation gradients. Soil carbon emission (heterotrophic respiration) is estimated to be 8.07×10¹²g · a^-1. Net ecosystem productivity (NEP), an indicator for carbon budget, is the difference between annual net primary productivity (NPP) and annual soil respiration. Determination of net ecosystem productivity showed that the alpine steppe ecosystem acts as a distinct carbon sink (12.50×10¹² g · a^-1 of carbon), although this carbon reservoir is quite small.

Aquatic ecoregions are increasingly used as a spatial unit for planning and environmental management, and they have become an indispensable condition for environmental assessment and modern water resource management, and also are the basis of delineating the polluted control units oriented on the water equality targets management in basin scale. In this paper, factor analysis approach was selected and used to delineate the level I aquatic ecoregions in the Taihu lake basin under the guidance of the aquatic ecoregion delineation principles, mainly including principle of regional genesis, principles of integrity and relative consistency, principle of regional differentiation, principles of the combination of comprehensiveness and dominance, principle of regional hierarchy, principle of conjugation, etc. The results of analyzing DEM data, climate data, soil data and other related data, with the help of spatial analysis of geographic information system and expert judgment, indicated that topography was the main indicator of the level I aquatic ecoregions delineation. And then the Taihu lake basin was divided into two typical level I aquatic ecoregions, namely, western hill aquatic ecoregion and eastern plain aquatic ecoregion. Moreover, the characteristics of the two aquatic ecoregions in the Taihu Lake basin were summarized. Finally, the aquatic ecoregion delineation system in the Taihu lake basin was discussed. The aquatic ecoregion delineation system has a hierarchical framework, which can be divided into several levels, and different levels have different spatial scales. The delineation methods of aquatic ecoregion can be classified into two categories: direct and indirect methods of delineation, and the direct method of delineation can be further divided into the approaches of factor analysis and function analysis. The selection of environmental factors and methods used in the delineation of aquatic ecoregions at different levels will vary, and depend on the feathers of the aquatic ecosystems in different spatial scales in the Taihu lake basin.

Mahuangling watershed is located in Danzhou city in northwest Hainan province, China, facing to the Beibu Bay of the South China Sea, with a total area of about 52.7 km². In the 1990s incorrect forestation of eucalyptus resulted in large area of soil erosion of bare land, higher vulnerability of ecosystem and degradation of soil environment and decrease in biodiversity and other ecological problems in the watershed area. To reconstruct the ecosystem in this area, we carried out surveys on ecological geographical groups of soil fauna from December, 2005 to December, 2007. The results of our research can provide a scientific basis for the government to carry out ecosystem reconstruction as well as ecological and economic sustainable development in Mahuangling watershed. By comparison of eco-geographical groups of soil animals in eucalyptus plantations with those of other soil animals under different land use patterns, we deeply discussed the significance of soil animal diversity, focusing on the role of eco-geographical groups of soil animals in balancing of soil ecosystem. In our research, a total of 2036 samples of soil fauna under 3 Phylums, 7 classes, 18 groups were tested, of which Acarina and Collembola were the dominant groups, while Hymenoptera and Homoptera were common groups, and the remaining 14 groups were the rare ones. The result indicates that soil animal groups in Mahuangling watershed were not rich in type and quantity, and the ecosystem there was fragile. Compared to the corresponding virgin bush land, the Jaccard coefficient of eco-geographical groups of soil animal in the watershed was only 0.375; group number and population of soil animal decreased by 53.33% and 62.74% respectively; community complexity index (Cj) decreased by 1.056; soil fauna density-group index (DG) declined by 4.620. Further study showed that: 1) Eco-geographical groups of soil animal changed significantly in eucalyptus artificial woodland there with the large amount of biodiversity loss in the soil fauna. 2) The loss of soil animal diversity in eucalyptus plantations had done serious harm to the ecological function of the soil fauna in soil ecosystems in the area, making the forest litters hold up, material circulation system disrupted, nutrition substances not added, fertility declined, and the soil ecosystem continually deteriorated.

The purpose of this paper is to study regional large scale temperature elevation phenomenon in the Pearl River Delta using MODIS (Moderate-resolution Imaging Spetroradiometer) land surface temperature data. The result shows that MODIS data can reflect the change of regional land surface thermal environment in the rapid urbanization process. Land surface temperature (LST) relates to land cover types and NDVI. Corresponding temperature of urban land use is the highest, while that of the woodland is the lowest. The higher the NDVI, the lower the LST is. This trend is similar to the air temperature change. In the large-scale continuous urbanization process, non-urban land around urban areas is impacted by urban land use, causing LST rising and then large area of the regional temperature rising, thus regional heat island forms. In this study, there are about 46% of the non-urban areas where regional heat island effect occurs, while the percentage is about 75% for urban areas where RHI effect happens. The space pattern of RHI is highly interrelated with space layout of urban land use. Large cities or city groups are often the center of RHI. The circumferences of these regions have evident RHI phenomena. Towns in the southwest and northeast of the research region are distributed separately, where the RHI phenomena are not so evident. Therefore, regional urban pattern has an important effect on the intensity and spatial form of RHI. The result is useful for urban planning. Obviously, the better pattern for the metropolitan areas is small towns with large area green belts, which can mitigate the RHI effect. The result of the study also indicates that the MODIS data have some merits for monitoring the RHI effect, which includes large area coverage, high resolution, and easy access to the data. However, the shortage for MODIS is that it is likely to be affected by the cloud. Only when the air temperature is derived from the land surface temperature with MODIS data, can the study on urban heat island and regional heat island make a sound progress.

The meteorological data of 6 national stations covering the 49-year period from 1956 to 2004 were analyzed to understand the spatial-temporal characteristic about temperature variation in winter over Zhangye city, by employing the approach of linear trend analysis as well as Mann-Kendall rank analysis, wavelet analysis and spatial interpolation. It was observed that there was an obvious ascending tendency of winter air temperature from 1956 to 2004 at the α=0.1 significant level ( β＝0.08) in this region, or a warming rate of 0.56℃/10a in winter. The result indicated that the winter temperature of this region increased by 2.8℃ in the last five decades. Besides, it was also found that the winter warming contributed 89% to that of the whole year. Compared with Northwest China and the whole country, the warming rate was similar to the former but higher than the latter. During the study period, there was a lowest average winter temperature point in 1967 and a highest one in 1987 with an abrupt change point in 1985, prior to the point was a cool stage and after it a warm stage emerged especially after 1987, which was similar to the winter temperature variation of Hexi Corridor. In the last half century, there was typical oscillation such as 6a and 22a in winter temperature variation, particularly, the 22a oscillation dominated. Spatial variation of winter temperature indicated that there was an obvious ascending tendency from southeast to northwest in the study area. By Mann-Kendall analysis it was found that six subregions showed a similar warming trend at the α=0.1 significance level, compared with the other five. Shandan station experienced the highest warming trend with β＝0.21 and a warming rate 0.94℃/10a. Generally speaking, winter temperature warming mainly appeared in the last 20 years and the warming rate of the eastern part was higher than that of the western. Additionally, some problems to be solved in future were briefly analyzed.

Rural residential land consolidation is one of the most important parts in new countryside construction. In rural residential land consolidation, it is of great practical significance to develop a deep regionalization research into rural residential land arrangement. Taking the 136 counties of Hebei as research units, this thesis zones the rural residential land based on level screening method. First, according to the differences of natural conditions, regional economy strength and the desire to land consolidation, eight factors are selected to construct the evaluation index system in zoning the rural residential land consolidation. Then, entropy method and comprehensive evaluation model are employed to attain the weights and the assessment values respectively. Finally, five types, including prior consolidation area, key consolidation area, moderate consolidation area, ecological consolidation area and optimization leveling area, come into being based on the status of rural residential land per capita and the comprehensive assessment values. For prior consolidation area, the desire to land consolidation is the highest thanks to its favorable geographical location and advanced economy, and its suitable consolidation model is population concentration, industrial agglomeration, and scale land use. For key consolidation Ⅰarea and moderate consolidation area, agriculture is the first priority for consolidated land, while for key consolidation Ⅱ area and ecological consolidation area, ecological environment should receive special attention. As to the optimal consolidation area, countermeasures in controlling the trend of village hollowing are a matter of the utmost importance. The method employed in this paper will provide a scientific basis for land consolidation planning, the setting of land consolidation project and the implementation of land consolidation.