With the population increase and food consumption upgrade in China, the issue of food self-sufficiency attracts much attention from both Chinese government and international society. Under the circumstances of inadequate cropland resources supply and plenty of cropland occupied by urban construction, improving the utilization efficiency of arable land resources and increasing the cropland productivity have become the fundamental strategies of agricultural development in China. Since 1988, cropland improvement projects (medium-yield and low-yield field improvement and high-standard cropland construction) have been launched and implemented on a large scale, therefore a spatially explicit map for the distribution of high-, medium- and low-yield cropland was essential for cropland improvement planning. In this study, a new method for recognizing high-, medium- and low-yield field is developed based on cropland productivity, which is calculated by using a light use efficiency model and MODIS data with a 500-m resolution. This method can not only reflect the regional heterogeneity of cropland condition, but also express the spatial differences on a grid scale. At the same time, it effectively overcomes the shortage of statistical data based method in a county unit. The results show that the proportion of high-yield, medium-yield and low-yield cropland in China is 20.66%, 39.56% and 39.78%, respectively. About 3/4 of low-yield cropland is located in the hilly and mountainous regions, while 53% of the high-yield cropland is located in plain area. The five provinces with the largest area of high-yield cropland are Henan, Shandong, Jiangsu, Hebei and Anhui, which are all located in the Huang-Huai-Hai region. The sum of the high-yield cropland area in these five provinces accounts for 41.75% of the national total high-yield cropland area. In Heilongjiang province, Sichuan province and Inner Mongolia autonomous region, where the cropland area ranks the top three of China, the proportion of high-yield cropland area in each province only accounts for not more than 15%.

A total of 21 typical coupled large samples were chosen from areas in the nature reserves and their surroundings on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) with large-sample-comparison method (LSCM). To evaluate the protection effectiveness of the nature reserves, we compared the alpine grassland net primary production (NPP) of these coupled samples and analyzed the differences between them before and after their establishment as protected areas. The results show that: (1) In view of alpine grassland NPP, the ecological and environmental conditions of most nature reserves were more fragile than those of their surrounding areas and also lower than the average values for the TP. (2) Of the 11 typical nature reserves selected, the positive trend of NPP in Manzetang is the most significant, while in Taxkorgan, the trend is not obvious. Moreover, with the exception of Selincuo, the annual NPP growth rate in nature reserves covered by meadow and herbaceous wetland is higher than that in nature reserves consisting of steppe and desert grassland. (3) Some notable findings existed in 21 typical coupled samples: (a) After the establishment of nature reserves, the annual NPP increase rate in 76% of samples inside nature reserves and 82% of samples inside national nature reserves are apparently higher than that of corresponding samples outside nature reserves. (b) The ecological protection effectiveness in Central Kunlun, Changshagongma, Zoige Wetland, and Siling Co nature reserves is significant; in most parts of the Three Rivers' Source and Qiangtang nature reserves, the protection effectiveness is relatively significant, while in south-east Manzetang and north Taxkorgan, the protection effectiveness is not obvious. (c) The ecological protection effectiveness is significant in nature reserves consisting of meadow; however, it is weak in nature reserves covered by steppe.

Recently, domestic and international economic situations have changed significantly. The Pearl River Delta (PRD) area in this period of transition is facing unprecedented challenges, and development strategies for the PRD need to be reconsidered. This article reviews the development process of the PRD and analyzes its development situation. Then, the PRD is compared with the urban agglomerations at home and abroad. The results show that in 2000-2013, the economic development and the population growth of the PRD have slowed down; the disparity of regional economic development has gradually narrowed; the industrial development tends to be more advanced; and economic globalization has decreased. At present, the level of development and competitiveness of the PRD is much weaker than world-class urban agglomerations. Compared with the Yangtze River Delta and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Uban Agglomerations, the speed of development in the Pearl River Delta area has decreased. The PRD should attach greater importance to technology innovation of industries, intensification of land-use, innovation of population policy, regional cooperation, and humanistic concerns under the new conditions.

Simulation and quantitative analysis of urban land-use change dynamics are an effective way to understand the evolution of spatial structure in urban systems. Cellular automata (CA) has drawn continuous and increasing interest of researchers in the field of land use and land cover change simulation. Neighborhood rules are a core component of the urban CA model, with varied neighborhood effects among different land use combinations. Most urban CA models constructed with neighborhood rules consider only a small neighborhood scope under a specific spatial resolution. However, the extended enrichment factor indicates that there are still obvious neighborhood effects in large neighborhoods with a particularly long distance to the central cell. Based on a measured extended enrichment factor for a large neighborhood, we applied particle swarm optimization (PSO) to obtain the parameter settings of neighborhood rules, including various sub-neighborhoods at different distances within the large neighborhood. The extracted neighborhood rules were integrated into a widely used logistic regression urban CA model, Logistic-CA (LNCA), and a large neighborhood urban land use model, PSO-LNCA, was developed. Using Xiamen City as a study case, the PSO-LNCA model was implemented to simulate urban growth during the period between 1995 and 2010. The accuracy of simulated results by the model was evaluated with confusion matrix and Kappa coefficient. Accuracies for built-up land and non-built land and overall accuracy for 2010 are 83.9%, 91.7%, and 89.6%, respectively, and the Kappa coefficient for 2010 is 74.5%. The results show that the PSO-LNCA model achieved significantly higher simulation accuracy for built-up land and Kappa coefficient than the traditional urban CA model with a 3×3 kernel neighborhood (3.2% higher accuracy for built-up land and 4.5% higher for Kappa coefficient, respectively), and also generated relatively higher overall accuracy (1.8% higher). By integrating the extended neighborhood module, the simulation result generated by the PSO-LNCA model is closer to the actual space morphology and structure, compared with the traditional 3×3 kernel Logistic-CA model.

Using space syntax, kernel density estimation, and Pearson correlation analysis methods, this research combines the segment lines model of space syntax and Baidu POI data to explore the traffic network point of services location choice in the central city area of Beijing. The results indicate that (1) the traffic network is well connected, accessible, and dense in east and north, relatively poorly connected and sparse in west and south, and most poorly connected in southwest. The overall network shows the spatial pattern of annular agglomeration in the inner city and polycentric distribution in the periphery. (2) Compared to traffic network with high connectivity NACH(Normalised Angular Choice), traffic network with high level of integration NAIN (Normalised Angular Integration) has stronger level of point of services location choice and is more likely to induce agglomeration of services.(3) Traffic network point of services location choice is clear but the point levels of different services are remarkably different at different scales. Therefore, the services are divided into four types, including point at the neighborhood scale; point at the street scale; point at both scales, and nonpoint. This research provides some reference that facilities the understanding of services agglomeration and helps to improve services and traffic network planning and decision-making for optimizing urban structure of the central city area of Beijing.

This research measured road transport superiority degree of the 680 counties (county-level cities and districts) in the 14 concentrated contiguous severe poverty areas of China in 2012 by integrating the indices of road network density, city proximity, and weighted average travel time, and made a comprehensive evaluation of their spatial patterns. It then chose the optimal model of SEM to explore the impact of road transport superiority degree on economic growth. The results show that: (1) With regard to road network density, city proximity, and weighted average travel time, there is a large difference among the 680 counties (county-level cities and districts) in the 14 concentrated contiguous severe poverty areas. Road transport superiority degree of the 680 counties (county-level cities and districts) presents a right-skewed normal distribution. (2) Road transport superiority degree is divided into four classes from good to bad. The first (best) class includes the Dabie Mountain area, Luoxiao Mountain area, Lvliang Mountain area, and Yanshan-Taihang Mountain area; the second class includes the Qinba Mountain area, Liupan Mountain area, Wuling Mountain area, Wumeng Mountain area, Dian-Gui-Qian Rocky Desertification area; the third class contains the western Yunnan border mountain areas, the Great Khingan South Mountain area, and the Tibetan area in four provinces; the rest of the 14 concentrated contiguous severe poverty areas belong to the fourth (worse) class, which includes Tibet and three prefectures of southern Xinjiang. (3) The fitness of the SEM model is superior compared to the OLS model and the SLM model. The impact of road transport superiority degree on economic growth is clearly significant: every increase of one percentage point in road transport superiority degree has a contribution of 0.193% on economic growth. Therefore improving road network density can enhance road transport superiority degree and promote local and regional economic growth.

The Dynamic Land Ecosystem Model (DLEM) was developed to meet critical needs for understanding and predicting the large-scale patterns and processes of terrestrial ecosystems and continental margins, and complex interactions among climate, ecosystem and human in the context of multifactor global change. The DLEM couples major biophysical, biogeochemical, vegetation dynamical and land use processes, and works at multiple scales in time step ranging from daily to yearly and spatial resolution from meters to kilometers, from region to globe. The DLEM is characterized by the following features: 1) multiple factors driven; 2) fully-coupled cycles of carbon, nitrogen and water; 3) concurrently simulation of major greenhouse gases (CO₂, CH₄, N₂O, & H₂O); 4) dynamically tracking changes in land cover/use and vegetation distribution. The model has been validated against site-specific measurements across the globe and applied at various scales. In this paper, we have briefly addressed model structure, parameters, key processes and major input/output variables. As a case study, we presented the simulated global fluxes of net primary productivity, evapotranspiration and methane during 1948-2005 and their spatial patterns in the year 2000. We also identified major gaps in terrestrial ecosystem modeling and field observations, and further discussed some critical future research needs.

Using the 3S (RS, GIS, GPS) technologies, quantitative analysis method of landscape patterns, and the 30 m resolution land use/land cover data, this study examines the spatiotemporal characteristics of land use/land cover change in the grassland restoration areas in China from 2000 to 2010. We apply two parameters land use transfer matrix and land use dynamic degree to explore the speed and regional differentiation of land use change. This study analyzes the characteristics of landscape patterns at the class and landscape levels in the study area and explores the ecological effect of land use pattern and regional ecological processes. The results show that: (1) Grassland, woodland, wetland, farmland, tificial surface, and others were the main landscape types in the study area in the past decade. The ecosystem structure was stable. About 0.37% of the total grassland area in 2000 experienced change in land use/land cover types. The area of woodlands, wetlands, farmlands, and tificial surface expanded. The area of "others" has declined. (2) The dynamic degree of regional land use was less than one percent in the recent ten years. The speed of land use and land cover change was low, and regional differentiation of change between the provinces was small. (3) The matrix of the landscape did not change in the study area. Landscape fragmentation index values decreased progressively; landscape diversity rose continuously; landscape aggregation and continuity decreased slightly; the landscape maintained relative integrity. The grassland restoration program implementation evidently improved the structure and stability of the land use / land cover.

Landscape ecological corridor planning is an important method to protect biodiversity. Land use type is not the only index to describe landscape forms. Taking the estimation of ecological service value as well as terrain index into account helps better reflect the spatial variations of landscapes. In this paper, based on ecological service value and terrain factors, the layout of ecological landscape corridors in Guan-Tian economic region is analyzed with a grid resolution of 1 km. The results are shown as follows: (1) Correlation analysis shows that terrain factors have a significant impact on the distribution of ecological value. When the ridges and valleys are extracted using the unified threshold, it is found that the areas with high or low ecological values are ridges or valleys of the terrain as well; the transition zones superimpose very well. (2) The ridges with high ecological value are extracted as habitat patches, then the layout of ecological corridors is modeled in space by choosing the direction through the areas with the biggest ecological resistance. Since the corridor width can be adjusted based on the species types, the relatively short length of the corridors makes it easier to construct, and adding or removing nodes and patches doesn’t affect the topological relationship between each corridor and the surrounding network, the applicability of the modeling results is relatively high. (3) As mentioned above, using ecological service value and terrain factors help better reflect the similarities and differences of the landscape functions of the pixel unit, and also helps avoid the problems such as land use classifications being too broadly defined, identifications of habitat patches being too difficult, and the paths with similar ecological resistance being too many, etc. All in all, the work presented in this paper is an effective supplement to the design of ecological corridors in a kilometer scale, and at the same time, demonstrates the necessity to develop the methods for the studies of ecological aspects of the landscapes in specific regions, under the background of dramatic differences of the geographic features between the east and the west of China.

Policy coordination, facilities connectivity, unimpeded trade, financial integration, and people-to-people bond are the focus of international cooperation of the "Belt and Road Initiative". Exports of the provinces in China to the "Belt and Road Initiative" area is the main content of the "Unimpeded trade and Financial integration," but research on trade between China and countries in the "Belt and Road Initiative" area are relatively rare, and trade interdependence remains unclear. According to the latest data from the International Trade Center, Chinese customs statistics in 2014, and Multi-regional Input-Output Table of China's 30 provinces in 2010, we analyzed the trade interdependence between China and countries of the "Belt and Road Initiative" area, and the contribution of provincial export to the GDP of each province. The results show that: trade interdependence had deepen between China and countries of the "Belt and Road Initiative" area, but the interdependence was asymmetrical; at the provincial level, the relatively high GDP contribution of exports in coastal provinces shows that these provinces are more export-dependent. Xinjiang has the highest GDP contribution of export (to Central Asia)and is thus strongly export dependent.

This paper presents an analysis of the spatio-temporal distribution of cultural sites in the Ili River Valley in Northwest China based on the application of ArcGIS software. It further explores the relationships between the spatio -temporal evolution of the sites, human history, and the natural environment. The results indicate that the numbers and proportions of the sites, and the frequency of their occurrence, exhibited an inverted V-shaped change trend during six historical periods. These covered the initial, peak, and declining stages of six periods extending from the Xia-Western Zhou dynasties to the Qing-Modern period. The spatial distribution pattern shifted from "high in the east and low in the west" during the first three periods to "high in the west and low in the east" during the latter three periods, illustrating a change in the spatial center of gravity of human activities. The sites were mainly distributed on slopes of grades 1-5. The proportion of sites increased from 75% during the Spring and Autumn-Qin dynasties to 93.75% during the Qing-Modern period. The concentrated distribution of site elevations shifted from grades 4-8 during the Spring and Autumn-Qin dynasties, and the Western Han-Northern and Southern dynasties to grades 1-4 during the latter three periods. The number of sites showed a shifting trend from high mountains and hills to low plains, and from high slopes to low slopes. In particular, the evolutionary pattern of sites in the study area exhibited a special "moist" pattern of migration from middle and upstream areas to downstream areas, as opposed to the migration pattern of sites located in typical arid areas. The paper also includes a discussion of factors influencing the distribution and spatio -temporal evolution of cultural sites, notably, human factors such as politics, economy, and productivity, and natural factors such as geomorphology, altitude, slope, and climate. Although the distribution and spatio -temporal evolution of cultural sites exhibited an orientation toward natural laws pertaining to factors such as river valleys, terraces, plains, and water resources, they presented a significant orientation toward laws, relating to human-driven forces including productivity levels, political stability, economic development, business and trade, and transport, which were more evident during the latter historical periods.

The Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road policy document was issued by the Chinese government on 28 March 2015. How to implement the overall national strategy becomes a major topic of theoretical discussion with much practical significance, namely, to promote the international competitiveness and upgrading of Chinese industries, and achieve common prosperity among countries in the Belt and Road Initiative area through Chinese outward direct investment (ODI). Existing literature on ODI originated largely from developed countries, and thus cannot satisfactorily explain the booming ODI from emerging countries such as China. Moreover, the research on Chinese foreign direct investment focused more on the natural resources and market factors in analyzing motivations and driving forces, mainly based on historical data. There is little discussion on large scale, national demand-oriented Chinese ODI strategy, for example, in the Belt and Road Initiative area. Against this background, this article investigates the spatial strategy of Chinese outward direct investment (ODI) in the Belt and Road Initiative area, using statistical data and results from fieldwork and interviews. It first develops a theoretical framework to investigate Chinese outward direct investment in the Belt and Road Initiative area based on a review of existing research on foreign direct investment. It then analyzes the basic characteristics of Chinese ODI in this region with regard to its spatial distribution and choice of sectors. Third, the article explores difficulties and challenges that Chinese enterprises will face when they implement the “going global” strategy. Finally, it investigates the spatially differentiated investment guiding strategy for Chinese ODI in the Belt and Road Initiative area.

This paper established a research framework for administrative divisions based on functional areas analysis. Firstly, data related to natural conditions, history, socio-economy, transportation and information across Shaoxing are anchored to several small geographical units - blocks or small towns, which forms the basis to identify the interdependence between the units from different levels, and provides the proof of spatial flexibility for urban diversity. Subsequent analysis was concentrated on the division of functional areas through factor analysis and cluster analysis, which provides scientific foundation for the re-organization of the functional areas. On the basis of the research framework, with Shaoxing city as an example, the study indicates that the geographic, socio-economic, transportation and information connections between current administrative districts in Shaoxing have already broken through the limitation of administrative demarcation. Administrative divisions based on functional areas should be enhanced to further stimulate regional development. On the one hand, this approach ensures the accordance between administrative divisions and functional areas, which will facilitate the regional integration and socio-economic development; on the other hand, the administrative divisions dispel the shielding effect of segmentation between natural system and socio-economic system, which would exert positive influence for Shaoxing on promoting the development of surrounding areas. In all, this paper concludes that the administrative divisions based on the analysis of the function areas has exceptional importance and significance on the fast proceeding of physical environmental and socio-economic development.

Based on previous studies, the climate drought index can be used to assess the evolution trend of ecological environment under various arid climatic conditions. It is necessary for us to further explore the relationship between vegetation coverage (index) and climate drought conditions. Therefore, in this study, based on MODIS-NDVI products and meteorological observation data, the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) and vegetation coverage in North China were first calculated. Then the interannual variation of PDSI and vegetation coverage over 2001-2013 was analyzed by using a Theil-Sen slope estimator. Finally in an ecoregion perspective the correlation between them was discussed. The experimental results demonstrated that PDSI index and vegetation coverage value varied over different ecoregions. During the period 2001-2013, vegetation coverage increased in southern and northern mountains in North China, while it showed a decreasing trend in Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan City Circle area and suburban agricultural zone. During the 13 years, the climate of the northeastern part of North China became more humid, while in the southern part of North China, it tended to be dry. According to the correlation analysis results, 73.37% of North China had a positive correlation between the vegetation coverage and climate drought index. A negative correlation was observed mainly in urban and periurban areas of Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei Province and Henan Province. In most parts of North China, drought conditions in summer and autumn had more influence on vegetation coverage.

The fast flow of various productive assets and power among different places has promoted the formation of city networks in the context of globalization, regionalization and localization. The city network has nowadays become a new mode of regional organization and spatial structure, and imposes a significant influence on the process of regional integration. By applying the social network analysis, this article attempts to investigate the characteristics, emergence and evolution of human mobility networks in the Yangtze River Delta region. The density, centralization and connectedness of the networks are calculated, and the results show that the human mobility networks in this region have formed and are characteristics of spatial unbalance in population distribution. Secondly, cities including Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Ningbo and Suzhou-Wuxi-Changzhou areas have constituted important nodes of population agglomeration. Meanwhile, these cities are experiencing the process of emigration of population to other adjacent areas. Thirdly, two modes of human mobility networks, inter-province network and intra-province network, coexist in the Yangtze River Delta region. Specifically speaking, the inter-province network is characteristic of hierarchical diffusion, and the migration of population mainly occurs among Wuxi, Suzhou and Hangzhou. However, the intra-province network becomes more complex and can be further categorized two models—Jiangsu's intra-province network and Zhejiang's intra-province network. From the perspective of the spatial pattern, Jiangsu's intra-province network is characteristic of adjacent infiltration which means the relocation of population from population cores to peripheral areas. However, Zhejiang's intra-province network exhibits a hub-and-spoke structure and primarily includes three nodes of population mobility— Hangzhou, Ningbo and Taizhou. Based on the discussion mentioned above, the mechanism of human mobility network is analyzed with the consideration of the effect of employment opportunity, income, industrial structure and mobility cost on the population mobility. The analysis manifests that factors involving the openness of cities, the ratio of secondary industry and tertiary industry, housing price, spatial distance and institutional thickness have significantly affected the formation of human mobility network in the Yangtze River Delta. Finally, this article proposes a theoretical hypothesis of the evolution of human mobility network which includes the following four stages—discrete distribution stage, single-core agglomeration stage, multi-center network stage, and chained spatial network stage.

The aim of this study is to establish several important factors representing the land-use intensification in the cultivated land (denoted by CII) using a multi-dimensional approach for achieving realistic and practical cultivated land use policies. For this reason, the theoretical framework was firstly built to explain the changes of land-use intensification in the cultivated land, and then the variables and index were further developed for characterizing the dynamic trends and driving forces of the land-use intensification in the cultivated land at provincial level. Results indicate that the extent of CII obviously increased during the period from 1996 to 2008 due to the extensively use of fertilizers, machinery and pesticide, the increased labor and capital input as well as the intensified land use. Moreover, the principal component regression results show that the productivity of cultivated land, the economic benefits of cultivated land, the labor productivity and the land use conversion are the main factors affecting the village development. The first three factors play a positive role while the last one produces a negative effect on the land-use intensification in the cultivated land. According to these results, main policies for sustainable intensification in cultivated land are formulated. Firstly, the sustainable pathways for intensification should be adopted to reduce the unsustainable uses of chemical fertilizer, agricultural chemicals and etc. Secondly, the condition for agricultural production should be further improved to increase the cultivated land productivity. Thirdly, it is necessary and helpful for improving labor productivity and land use efficiency from the viewpoint of speeding up the cultivated land circulation.

Basing on statistical data, the author reviewed the differences between the north and the south in economic rate and level and analysed regional unbalanced development in China Through quantitative calculation, the conclusions are drawn: 1)it was obvious that the south was faster than the north; contrast of economic level has reversed since reform and opening 2)The reasons accountable for these changes consist of politics, export strength,economic system (structure of possession system),input intensity (special foreign direct investment), industrial structure and so on 3)Social cultural elements have certain influence by all means 4)To turn the north tardy, we should quicken the pace of reform and opening in the north, make efforts in restructuring big and middle state owned enterprises, vigorously carry out the strategy of making the country strong through science and education 5)The north must grasp opportunity, build new economic growth pole, retransfer and upgrade industrial structure as soon as possible

Urban agglomeration plays a key role for China in attending the global divisions of labor, international competitions, as well as the integration of regional economy. Various scholars have dedicated to the study of urban agglomeration. However there is no consensus on the definition of urban agglomeration, which leads to the controversy. Relations between each city-pair in an urban agglomeration may form a complex network which brings a great challenge for researchers to use traditional method to synthetically analyze the spatial structure, due to the exponential calculation time increased by a great number of nodes. Based on the summary of different definitions, a novel method is developed to analyze the multi-level spatial structure of an urban agglomeration. We first find the core cities by calculating the urban centrality of each city in an urban agglomeration using several selected indices. To be specific, the spatial scope of the urban agglomeration can be defined as the 2-hour commute range of each core city. Then interaction intensities between each pair of cities are calculated based on the traffic accessibility and cities' scale. We develop an algorithm to analyze the spatial structure based on the so-called Multi-level Spatial Structure Tree (MSS-Tree), which can be used to analyze the urban agglomeration structure in detail. Finally, we carry out the sample study of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration to testify the model. The experimental results show that due to the centrality of Beijing downtown area, cities or towns around Beijing have much more interactions with Beijing than among themselves. It could be concluded that mature sub-center cities or towns around Beijing are needed to take the responsibility of service provision. In comparison, Tianjin downtown area and Tianjin coastal district have double cores in Tianjin. Hengshui city far away from Beijing downtown area has the potential to become a secondary central city in the near future. The case study also demonstrates that the algorithm based on the MSS-Tree data is an effective method for the spatial analysis of an urban agglomeration, and can play an important role in subsequent decision makings of urban agglomeration development.

Urban RBD (Recreational Business District), a place where local residents and tourists go for leisure, tourism and consumption, is widely accepted as an indispensable component of urban recreation system in recent years. However, existing research in urban RBD puts an emphasis on its conceptual aspects (i.e., classification, influence, spatial structure), and empirical and quantitative studies have been largely ignored. Firstly, a summary about urban RBDs’ characteristics from the perspectives of location, scale, users, function, and culture was made. Based on previous literature and RBDs’ characteristics and attributes, this study divides urban RBD into three groups, namely: Large Shopping Center (LSC), Commercial Pedestrian Street (CPS), and Urban Leisure Area (ULA). Quantitative methods, such as Gini Coefficient, Spatial Interpolation, Kernel Density Estimation, and Geographical Detector, were employed to collect and analyse data of three types of urban RBDs in Beijing in 1990, 2000, and 2014, respectively, and the spatial-temporal evolution pattern as well as distribution characteristics of urban RBDs were analyzed with the aid of ArcGIS software. The results show: (1) The total number and scale of urban RBDs in Beijing have been expanding, with urban RBDs increasing by 8.20% and 7.26% per year in 1990-2000, and 2000-2014, respectively; (2) spatial agglomeration of urban RBD in Beijing keeps strengthening, and the trend that all types of urban RBDs in Beijing are spatially agglomerated is continuing; However, there exist some variances in terms of their growth speed and degree; (3) the spatial structure evolution model of urban RBDs in Beijing is as one core concentration—two cores development—multi-core diffusion; (4) According to the statistics from database concerning traffic, resident and tourist density, tourism attractions and land price in Beijing, the results showed that urban RBDs were generally located in areas with low traffic density, tourist attractions, high resident and tourist population density, and relatively high land valuations; (5) tourists density strongly influenced the scale of each urban RBD type, compared with other factors.

Using ArcGIS spatial analyst tools, this study analyzes the spatial and temporal distribution of ancient archaeological sites of six periods from the Neolithic Age to the Shang and Zhou dynasties in northern Shandong province. In addition, combined with the experimental analysis of Shuangwangcheng (SWC) profiles and previous studies, the relationship between site distribution and environmental factors is discussed. The results show that during the period of 8000-5000 aBP, the climate was warm and humid and the sea level was relatively high; therefore, archaeological settlements were mainly distributed on diluvial tablelands and alluvial plain with the altitude ranging from 20 m to 300 m and the slope lower than 2°. However, there were few archaeological sites distributed in the western low-lying plain as the result of frequent flooding events at this stage. After 5000 aBP, the cooling and drying climate and the lowering sea-level prompted the coastward expansion of settlements. Meanwhile, as a result of climatic drying and marine recession, environmental conditions in the western low-lying plain were also ameliorated, which attracted extensive human exploitation. The study area of this period was characterized by the rapid development of prehistoric culture, the intensified social stratification and the emergence of early city-states. However, around 4000 aBP, the abrupt change of climate and the increase in the frequency and intensity of flooding events severely disrupted human activities, which might be the main reason for the decline of the Yueshi culture. During the Shang and Zhou dynasties, the climatic conditions tended to be stable and assumed a mild-dry condition, which promoted the development of the culture to be prosperous again. The previous situation of sparse human settlements due to the lack of freshwater and being unfitted for sedentary agriculture improved during the Shang and Zhou dynasties in northern coastal wetlands. Local residents effectively adapted themselves to the harsh environmental conditions by producing sea-salt, which led to the rapid growth of ancient settlements.

The spatial pattern of grain production in China has changed remarkably under the background of global change, industrialization and urbanization over the past 20 years. This change has great impacts on grain supply and grain market, efficiency of agricultural resources, disaster risk of agricultural production on national scale, and ecological security on regional scale as well. Current research focused on the spatial change of China's grain production based on three schemes of geographical division including North and South China division, three economic regions, and eight grain-producing bases. These schemes reflected geographical features of grain production in China. In this paper, location quotients of grain production and yield data of 2344 counties were used to analyze variations of grain production in geographical regions defined by disparity of annual precipitation, effective temperature, and landforms. The results indicated that the grain production in all the geographical regions presented an increasing trend during the period 1990-2010. Due to the spatial disparity of regional growth rate, the centre of grain production in China moved northward: from the regions with precipitation over 800 mm to those with precipitation between 400 mm and 800 mm; from subtropical zone to mid-temperate zone and warm-temperate zone; and gradually concentrated in flat plains. The results implied that the change of spatial patterns of China's grain production went against the efficient use of water and heat resources, but it was beneficial to the application of agricultural machines and the improvement of labor productivity. Given the change trends of spatial pattern of grain production, background of climate change, and the national aim of grain security, China should enhance its ability to improve efficiency of water resources and reduce the risk of natural disasters.

Global climate change has led to significant vegetation changes in the past half century. Inner Mongolia, most of which was located in arid and semi-arid areas, is undergoing a process of prominent warming and drying. It is necessary to investigate the response of vegetation to the climatic variations (temperature and precipitation) for a better understanding of the accumulated consequence of climate change. Vegetation coverage, which is an important indicator for evaluating terrestrial environment, is used to monitor vegetation change. MODIS-NDVI data and climate data were used to analyze the vegetation dynamics and its relationship with climate change on different spatial (forest, grassland and desert biome) and temporal (yearly and monthly) scales in Inner Mongolia during 2001-2010. It was found that vegetation coverage increased from west to east across Inner Mongolia with a change rate of 0.2/10°N. During 2001-2010, the mean vegetation coverage was 0.57, 0.4 and 0.16 in forest, grassland and desert biome, respectively, exhibiting evident spatial heterogeneities. There is a slight increase of vegetation coverage over the study period. Across Inner Mongolia, the vegetation coverages with extremely significant and significant increase accounted for 11.25% and 29.13% of the total study area, respectively, while those with extremely significant and significant decrease were 7.65% and 26.61%, respectively. The correlation analysis between vegetation coverage and climate shows that annual vegetation coverage was better correlated with precipitation, while the change of monthly vegetation coverage is consistent with both the changes of temperature and precipitation, indicating that the vegetation growth within a year is more sensitive to the joint function of hydrothermal combination rather than either climate factor. The vegetation coverage of forest biome was mainly affected by temperature on both yearly and monthly scales, while that of desert biome was mainly influenced by precipitation on the two temporal scales.

The geography of innovation and the regional development have attracted considerable scholarly attention, especially the spatial evolution processes of new technologies, enterprises, and industries. The development of a particular industry varies across locations, and more work is needed to study an emerging industry from a geographical perspective. The evolutionary economic geography provides effective theoretical tools for the analysis of the spatial evolution of industries and contributes to a better cognition of the mechanism for the evolution of economic landscapes. A significant agglomeration has been found in the Internet of things (IoT) industry in the following locations: Yangtze River Delta region, Pearl River Delta region, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (Bohai Rim) region, and some developed cities in the central and western regions of China. As the origin of the IoT industry, the Yangtze River Delta region has a full-fledged industry chain. Based on the path dependence theory, this paper explores the local differences of the emergence and evolution of the IoT industry in four cities of the Yangtze River Delta region: Wuxi, Shanghai, Nanjing, and Hangzhou. In Wuxi, occasional opportunity and local government are the significant determinants, while the development of IoT industry in Shanghai is driven by the industrial base and innovative institutional environment. For Nanjing and Hangzhou, the interactions between the fundamental conditions of industry and the state policies are the major impetuses. In conclusion, technological base, government policy, and occasional opportunity are the main drivers in the initial stage of emerging industry in China.

In recent years, the study on hydrological effect of land use change has become a focus. In the Tarim River Basin, land use change has exerted great effect on hydrological process of a river, so it is necessary to study the hydrological effect of land use change in the river basin. As cultivated land dominates the land use type in the Tarim River Basin, based on the statistical data of cultivated land of each prefecture and tested data of each main water station in Tarim River Basin, this paper analyzes the total variation trend, variation speed, regional difference and hydrological effect on water quantity of the river. The results are shown as follows. (1) The cultivated land area in the Tarim River Basin shows a fluctuating increasing trend with an annual rate of 2.37%, but per capita cultivated land area saw a gradual decrease with an annual rate of 0.44%. There is a significant spatial disparity in the cultivated land changes. The change of cultivated land area in Bayingolin Mongol Autonomous Prefecture where the reserved land and water resources are plentiful is large, and that in Hotan Prefecture located at the northern foot of Kunlun Mountains is small. (2) As a result of the expansion of cultivated land area in the Tarim River Basin, the hydrological effect such as river process, river discharge, flood, water quality and silt are more remarkable than before, and the spatial effect on river discharge is striking. As a result of cultivated land expansion, cultivated land and consuming water rise by 34.80% and 21.78% from 1957 to 2006, respectively. At the same time, water pollution and the decreasing of the water quality have become the confinement of social development in the Tarim River Basin. At present, the project of water saving has taken effect, and the trend of the venting water quantity from streams to the Tarim River has been under control. In order to keep the sustainable development in this region, it is urgent to harness the Tarim River in a long term, set up coherent management system of water resources, and use water resources reasonably.

Various processes occur across a landscape, including ecological processes such as the movement of species, the flow of nutrients, the spread of fire and other disturbances, and the diffusion of pollutants; economic processes such as land conversion for agricultural production, marketing of new product, transportation and immigration; political and diplomatic processes such as the construction of political influence sphere at local, national and global scale. At the fact of limited space and resources on the surface of the earth, a generic issue regarding these processes across the landscapes is : how to control (promote or retard) the processes efficiently, namely using less energy and space for a bigger influence sphere.The overall assumption for this issue is that, there are some positions and portion in a land-scape that may have critical influence on a certain process across the landscape. These critical positions in a landscape are called strategic points. Occupancy of these strategic points may give a process the momentum of controlling and covering the landscape more effectively, due to their quality of:Initiative, occupancy of these points may give the process the advantage of leading the game;Co-ordination, occupancy of these points may give the process the advantage of forming an overall influence sphere;Efficiency, occupancy of these points may give the process the advantage of having a bigger coverage of the landscape while costing less energy.By identifying and using these critical positions and portions in the landscape, therefore, may unproportionately increase the efficiency of controlling this process.It is further assumed that, in order to take control of the landscape, the process has to overcome a certain resistance. A resistance surface can therefore visualize the dynamics of the process itself. The resistance surface resembles a topographic surface, indicating where the pro-cess (flow) diverges or converges. It is. therefore, possible to identify strategically important positions or portions in a landscape that may have important influence on the dynamics of the process.Assuming species movement across a landscape is a competitive gaming process of control and coverage against some resistance, this paper discusses a methodology of identifying strategic points according to the properties of resistance surfaces which resembles a gaming board as well as a topographic surface. Three types of resistance surfaces are discussed:The archipelago type: where lower resistance islands are surrounded by higher resistance matrix, representing such landscapes as agricultural fields dotted with native forest patches.The network type; where the lower resistance portions form a linear network surrounded by higher resistance matrix.The plateau type: where, areas with higher resistance are surrounded by lower resistance matrix.Accordingly, five types of strategic points are identified in terms of their locations. They are strategic points at saddle points , at intersections, at the center, at an edge and at a corner. Strategic points for biodiversity conservation are minimax points in a given resistance surface as-sociated with the dispersibility of a certain species. A case study is used to illustrate the method-ology. The rules leading to the strategic points are largely hypothetical, though supported by a limited number of observations. This approach may provide a framework and a new model of thinking for field observations of landscape ecology as well as landscape change.

This paper first analyzes the development modes of regional tourism in Anhui province. Based on the basic data such as total tourism revenue, inbound tourism and domestic tourism revenue between 2001 and 2013 in each city, we analyze economic disparities of regional tourism from the perspectives of temporal variation and spatial evolution. The result shows that, firstly, the development of tourism industry in the region evolves from the dotted mode to the radial mode and then to the dual-core joint development mode. Secondly, economic development of Anhui tourism shows a big disparity among different cities. And the spatial disparity of international tourism is bigger than that of domestic tourism. Thus, the basic pattern that tourism economy of cities in southern Anhui gets ahead of that of cities in northern part has remained fundamentally unchanged. Thirdly, economic development of tourism in different cities of Anhui, inbound tourism in particular, is obviously characterized by the primacy distribution. And the urban primacy index of both the total revenue and domestic tourism has gone through a process of fall in the beginning and rise in the later stage. The urban primacy index of inbound tourism basically follows a downward trend, with the two cities of Huangshan and Hefei competing for the primary city. Fourthly, when elements of the tourism industry are viewed from the temporal perspective, tourist attractions, travel agencies and star hotels have grown rapidly. Viewed from the spatial perspective, tourist attractions are mainly located in Huangshan, Anqing and Lu'an, and travel agencies and star hotels mainly lie in Hefei and Huangshan. Finally, the main factors affecting the evolution of regional tourism economy in Anhui can be attributed to natural endowments of tourism resources, tourism policy, transportation networks, market demand of tourism, strategic adjustment of tourism industry development and level of regional economic development.

The urban industry is embedded in the city area which has its unique location characteristics and spatial pattern. Based on the micro-data of Shanghai urban industry enterprises in 2008, with the methods of location quotient, hot spot analysis and proximity index analysis, the paper explores the spatial distribution and the agglomeration characteristics of urban industries, as well as the spatial proximity relations among various industries during the process of industrial suburbanization. Results show that: First of all, the location choice of urban industry enterprises in Shanghai has a dual directivity to both central city and suburban areas, the range of 10~20 kilometers from city center is the densest area of urban industries, and the overall spatial distribution of urban industries has obvious heterogeneous characteristics. Food processing, packaging and printing, manufacture of tourism crafts and manufacture of small-scale electronic information constitute comparative advantage industries of central city, manufacture of interior adornment composes the comparative advantage industry of suburbs, and clothing accessories industry and manufacture of makeup and washing supplies constitute comparative advantage industries of suburban regions. Secondly, all kinds of industrial parks including commercial buildings, urban industrial zones and industrial estates in the city have become the major carrier of spatial agglomeration, which present "crater" gathering morphology. There are also some differences among the inter-industry according to the pattern of spatial agglomeration. Thirdly, when it comes to the spatial proximity relations, aside from being affected by some factors including the local government development policies, economic history basis and traffic location, the layout between all urban industries shows the following characteristics: the proximity layout is based on the same factor inputs, productive correlation, common market and policy orientation while the weak proximity layout is based on the heterogeneous exclusivity and environmental requirements.

Spatial and temporal variations of river systems in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) during the 1960s-2010s were investigated based on streams derived from the topographic map in the 1960s, 1980s and 2010s. A list of indices, drainage density (Dd), water surface ratio (WSR), the ratio of area to length of main river (R), evolution coefficient of branch river (K) and box dimension (D), were classified into three types (quantitative, structural, and complex indices) and used to quantify the variation of stream structure. Results showed that: (1) quantitative indices (Dd, WSR) presented a decreasing trend in the past 50 years, and Dd in Wuchengxiyu, Hangjiahu and Yindongnan decreased by about 20%. Structurally, the Qinhuai river basin was characterized by a significantly upward R, and K value in Hangjiahu went down dramatically by 46.8% during the 1960s-2010s. A decreasing tendency in D was found to dominate the YRD, and decreasing magnitude in Wuchengxiyu and Hangjiahu peaked for 7.8%, and 6.5%, respectively in the YRD. (2) Urbanization affected the spatial pattern of river system, and areas with a high level of urbanization exhibited least Dd (2.18 km/km²), WSR (6.52%), K (2.64) and D (1.42), compared with moderate and low levels of urbanization. (3) Urbanization also affected the evolution of stream system. In the past 50 years, areas with high level of urbanization showed a compelling decreasing tendency in quantitative (27.2% and 19.3%) and complex indices (4.9%) and trend of enlargement of main rivers (4.5% and 7.9% in periods of the 1960s-1980s and 1980s-2010s). (4) Expanding of urban land, construction of hydraulic engineering and irrigation and water conservancy activities were the main means.

We carried out a case study of community-scale flood disaster risk assessment in Taining, Fujian, China, using a PGIS method and probabilistic (scenario) risk analysis model. The relationship between flood hazard intensity and exceedance probability in the study area was calculated using historical data of 13 flood events that occurred between 1949-2011. Our analysis shows that the annual probability of exceedance (AEP) of flood is 1.6% with a peak discharge of 2929.18 m³/s and a peak water level of 281.50 m on the scenario of 1.6% AEP, the inundation area is up to 1.3 km², covering approximately 31.0% of the total area of the county town, the deepest inundation depth is over 3.5 m, and the maximum inundation time is over 10 hours. There are 1846 (42.2% of the total) buildings affected by the floods. Three disaster loss formulae were established based on loss information derived from the damaged buildings, household properties and retail store properties, respectively, and then loss estimation were conducted, and loss distribution was mapped. The results show that, the impacts of flood disaster on the community are significant, and it is necessary to make emergency planning and establish an early warning system for flood disaster prevention and reduction.