Vulnerability, one of the major properties of rural production space system (RPSS), is an effective measure in how system will be susceptible to negative effects or damage, as well as the way to achieving sustainable development of the system. This study establishes an evaluation index system and model of the vulnerability of RPSS and quantitatively measures the RPSS vulnerability of Chongqing from 2007 to 2017 to reveal its spatio-temporal differentiation. Accordingly it identifies vulnerability types and proposes targeted regulation strategies. The results are shown as follows. (1) The vulnerability of the RPSS is a comprehensive measure of the operating state of the system consisting of exposure, sensitivity and adaptability. It embodies the balance relationship of mutual influence and interaction that lies between rural diversified subjects centered on "human" and the rural production space centered on "land". (2) On the whole, the exposure of the RPSS shows an upward trend and a spatial pattern of "partly prominent, high in the north and low in the south"; the sensitivity shows a downward trend of fluctuation and a spatial pattern of "high in the east and low in the west"; the adaptability shows a rapidly increasing trend and a spatial pattern of "high in the west and low in the east". The overall vulnerability of RPSS presents a downward trend and the spatial pattern of "high in the east and low in the west". (3) After dividing the vulnerability of the RPSS into four types, namely, including adaptability type, exposure-sensitivity type, sensitivity-adaptation type, and strong comprehensive type, and based on the principle of "ecological priority - classified regulation - highlight emphasis - local adaptation", this study proposes differentiated "vulnerability reduction" strategies for different types, so as to guide the sustainable development of RPSS.

Administrative divisions are the important foundation of national governance and social development, and the adjustment of administrative divisions is a critical way to promote regional coordinated development. Under the background of globalization and regionalization, timely adjustment of administrative divisions is a major step to reconstruct the regional development pattern and change the administrative rank potential energy of relevant regional governments. In the perspective of regional coordinated development, this paper constructs a regional administrative rank potential energy model based on the theory of regional interaction, spatial field energy model and power exponential function. Taking Hefei-Wuhu region as an example, this paper examines the change of administrative rank potential energy and its effect on regional coordinated development after the dismantling of the former Chaohu prefecture-level city. The results show that: (1) administrative rank potential energy is closely related to the administrative jurisdiction, administrative resources and the potential of regional coordinated development. (2) During 2005-2015, the growth rate of the overall administrative rank potential energy and coordinated development potential of the study area increased from 61.79% and 0.21% before the withdrawal of prefecture-level Chaohu city to 116.51% and 3.05% respectively. After the adjustment of administrative divisions, the growth rate of administrative rank potential energy is much higher than that of economic development and population increase. (3) The model of administrative rank potential energy can measure and express the adjustment of administrative divisions spatially. The result of the model is different from the complex influence brought by factors such as social development, which accords with the real status of social and economic development. The adjustment of administrative divisions focuses on both individual development and regional integration. It can not only significantly improve the administrative rank potential energy of the study area, promote social and economic development, but also help to break down spatial barriers and administrative barriers, and promote regional coordination and sustainable development.

Exploring the poverty supervision evaluation indicator system and the dynamic characteristics of spatio-temporal interaction of poverty among regions are of great significance to the current research on sustainable poverty reduction in China. From the perspective of development geography, this paper introduces panel vector autoregressive (PVAR) model and identifies poverty-causing and poverty-reducing factors in China in combination with human development approach and global indicator framework for the SDGs, so as to measure multidimensional poverty index. Then it uses exploratory spatio-temporal data analysis (ESTDA) method to reveal the spatio-temporal interaction characteristics of multidimensional poverty. The results show that: (1) The poverty-causing factors of China's current poverty monitoring and evaluation include the crop-to-disaster ratio and social gross dependency ratio, the poverty-reducing factors include per capita GDP, per capita social security expenditure, per capita public health expenditure, number of hospitals per 10,000 persons, participation rate of new rural cooperative medical scheme, vegetation coverage, per capita education expenditure, number of universities, per capita scientific research and experimental development (R&D) expenditure, and per capita funding for cultural undertakings. (2) From 2007 to 2017, provincial income poverty, health poverty, cultural poverty and the multidimensional poverty have been significantly improved, with the national comprehensive poverty level declining by an average of 5.67% annually, and the poverty of different dimensions in some provinces is differentiated. (3) During the study period, the local spatial pattern of multidimensional poverty between provinces had strong spatial dynamics and showed an increasing trend from the eastern region to the central and western regions; the multidimensional poverty index among provinces shows a strong spatial dependence over time, forming a pattern of decreasing from the northwestern and northeastern regions to the surrounding areas. (4) The spatio-temporal network of multidimensional poverty interaction in neighboring provinces is mainly negatively correlated with Shaanxi and Henan, Shaanxi and Ningxia, Qinghai and Gansu, Hubei and Anhui, Sichuan and Guizhou, and Hainan and Guangdong, forming spatially strong cooperative poverty reduction relationships. The research results have important reference value for the current implementation of China's strategy on targeted measures in poverty alleviation, especially the prevention of poverty-returning after 2020.

Specialized villages and towns has significance to agricultural transformation & upgrading and rural vitalization strategy. With the data of "One Village One Product" Demonstration Villages and Towns from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the People's Republic of China, this paper revealed the spatial pattern of specialized villages and towns in the whole country. It also analyzed village-level factors (i.e. topography, resource, location) and region-level factors (i.e. market and economic foundation) from the national and agricultural regionalization scale using Geodetector model. The results showed that: (1) 83.64% of specialized villages and towns mainly concentrated to the southeast of the "Hu Line", presenting central agglomeration and gradient descent from the North China Plain-the Lower Reaches of Yangtze River Plain to south and then to northwest. (2) The products of specialized villages and towns were mainly fruits and vegetables, accounting for 59.45%. They were distributed mainly in the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain, Guanzhong Plain, the Middle-lower Reaches of Yangtze River Plain, Sichuan Basin, etc., as well as circle distribution centered on the provincial capitals. (3) The distribution of specialized villages and towns was more influenced by region-level factors than by village-level factors, and the explanatory value of market and economic factors was 0.30 and 0.19, respectively. The influence of topographic factor was more obvious than that of other village-level factors, with the explanatory value being 0.15. (4) These factors presented regional differences. The main factor affecting the distribution of specialized villages and towns was market in the northern plain and hilly region; topographic and resource factors dominated the agro-pastoral ecotone and plateau region; market, economic foundation and location factors had a joint effect in the northwestern and Tibetan Plateau regions. There were no prominent factors in the southern hilly and plateau area. This study has important scientific reference value for improving agriculture's level of specialization, identifying and cultivating specialized villages & towns and rural revitalization poles, and realizing the rural vitalization strategy.

Watershed eco-compensation is a significant economic, social and environmental policy for cross-regional ecological governance and natural region protection in China. As a typical geography research proposition, it involves the difference and coordination of the regional stakeholders' rights, regional ecological coordinated development and cooperation model construction. This paper introduced the institutional stickiness into the politics of scale theory, analyzed the game behavior of the government-led eco-compensation in the Xin'an River basin, and explored the game characteristics and game mechanisms of governments at all levels. The results imply that the game among the central government, provincial government, municipal government and other government departments have gone through three stages: competition, cooperation and competition-cooperation. Building a community of government interests can promote the construction of watershed eco-compensation, and the "moderate intervention" of the central government is the key to carry out trans-provincial watershed eco-compensation. There is obvious institutional stickiness in the transition process of watershed eco-compensation system from "vertical" model to "vertical-horizontal" model. Government subjects use institutional constraints such as policy innovation and social participation to dilute the institutional stickiness and reshape the watershed eco-compensation system. Scale transformation is the core mechanism to promote eco-compensation in the Xin'an River basin. Government subjects shape the discourse system of watershed eco-compensation by redistributing power and capital and embedding informal constraints, so as to promote the transition of eco-compensation in the study area from "strong state-weak society" to "strong state-strong society" structural model. The research results can provide the theoretical support for the construction of trans-regional watershed eco-compensation mechanism, and form the scientific basis for the evaluation and guidance of watershed eco-compensation practice in the coordinated and sustainable development of watershed economy and society.

Based on the distribution data of cotton production in China from 1950 to 2015, the study aims to investigate the spatio-temporal changes and gravity center migration path in cotton production, area and yield in China by methods of time-series trend and spatial analysis. Then, contribution rates of cotton area and yield to the changes of cotton production are quantified. The results indicate that: (1) China's cotton production and yield showed an overall upward trend over the past 65 years. Among them, the production increased by 521.44×10⁴ t and the yield increased by 1381.83 kg/hm². After five periods of violent fluctuations, stable development, and three ups and downs, the cotton area was basically the same compared with the year 1950. (2) There was a large regional gap between cotton yield and cotton area, but the overall trend was increasing. The variation trend of cotton yield per unit area was stable, among which the annual fluctuation of cotton production in the inland cotton area of northwest China was the largest. (3) From 1950 to 2015, nearly 87% of China's cotton-growing regions increased their production, about 63% of the regions decreased cotton area, and more than 70% of the regions increased cotton yield. The production and yield of the three major cotton areas have increased, but the growth rate has been decreasing. The northwest inland cotton area had the smallest shrinkage, and it was also the main area for China's cotton area growth. (4) China's cotton production has formed a "southeast-northwest" pattern. The main production area has changed from the Yellow River basin to the northwest inland; the cotton production and area center of gravity have moved to the northwest, with a total moving distance of 1947 km and 1398 km, respectively. From 2010 to 2015, the moving speed was the highest, reaching 140 km/a and 159 km/a, respectively; the production center of cotton in the northwest inland area moved from Hotan to Aksu. The basin cotton area was moved from Lu'an to Huanggang, and the Yellow River basin cotton area was moved from Handan to Liaocheng. (5) The contribution of national cotton production has gradually changed from yield dominance to area dominance. From the perspective of cotton regions, cotton areas in the Yangtze and Yellow river basins have gradually changed from yield dominance to area dominance, and the northwest inland cotton areas have been driven by area.

The growth of urban tourism has received wide attentions from tourism geography. Over the past four decades, China has been witnessed rapid, continuous and non-limit growths of urban tourism in most cities. The local governments and developers were encouraged by this miracle of past growth expectation or plan to a more optimistic glowing future. However, the urban tourism is an open and high mobility subsystem of city system, and its growth is stable and faces limits from both supply and demand sides for a certain period. When tourist demand exceeds its supply, it will lead to overtourism. Oppositely, when tourism supply exceeds tourist demand, which will result in over tourismification. The growth of urban tourism demand curve is stepped. Only when the long-term influencing factors of urban tourist demand continue to undergo major changes, can the growth of urban tourism break through the original limit and enter a new stage. The limit of urban tourist demand stipulates the urban tourism supply and determines the scale and level of tourist facilities such as scenic spots, hotels, restaurants, and shopping mall which are cater to the need of urban tourists within a certain period. This study defines a phenomenon of over tourismification as the status of tourism supply over tourist demand, which is manifested as three conditions: whole over-supply, partial over-supply and no over-supply but facing negative reaction to tourism growth by enterprises and locals. This study also proposes an analytical framework on limits to growth of urban tourism and uses it to empirically analyze urban tourism of Zhuhai city. It is found that middle- and high-end tourist demand of the study city has been stable and faced limit since less constant change in function, status, features and image of Zhuhai city took place and more intense competition from surrounding cities occurred in the past decade. This indicated that the supply of middle- and high-end hotels and other tourist facilities in Zhuhai reached a saturation point and any new more such tourist facilities will make for over tourismification. The conditions of breaking through limit and the relationship between growth of urban tourism and tourism development were discussed and suggestions on the improvement of tourism statistics in China were also proposed.