Waterlogging, water pollution, black and odorous water, and riverine and lacustrine ecological degradation are the main water problems faced by China's cities, which have become one of the key obstacles to the green development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt. In-depth understanding of the evolution of the water system in the process of urban development and the mutual influences between the elements, clarifying the formation mechanism of the urban water problems, and constructing an integrated treatment technology system of the urban water system are the fundamental ways to solve the complex urban water problems. Aiming at the abovementioned urban water problems, this paper summarizes the concepts and characteristics of the urban water system from a systematic perspective of the multiple processes coupled with each other in the water cycle and proposes a key technology system for a systematic solution to the urban water problems, which are demonstrated with the treatment examples of the urban agglomeration in the Yangtze River Economic Belt in 2016-2022. The demonstrative applications show that the pumping stations and sponge measures can effectively reduce the severely inundated area of Wuhan city in extreme rainfall events and eliminate the waterlogging points in the Chengdu-Chongqing urban agglomeration; the proposed microbial-botanical-hydrodynamic integrated synergistic regulation and control technology can significantly enhance the removal efficiency of the nitrogen and phosphorus level in typical black and odorous water bodies of Wuhan city; the proposed source control-path dissipation-terminal regulation comprehensive ecological treatment system for urban rivers and lakes decreased the water eutrophication level significantly in the Lianghe River basin of Chongqing city; with the implementation of the abovementioned treatment technology system, the green development index of the urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River increased by an average of 4.8%. This study provides theoretical and technical support of urban water system for the major strategies of the green development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt.

Global protected areas have been widely recognized for their conservation effectiveness, but are still facing problems such as insufficient coverage, ecosystem representation and species protected progress. At the same time, most of the protected areas are small, poorly connected and threatened by climate change and human activities. This highlights the urgent need to systematically improve the stability and conservation effectiveness of protected areas through the expansion and connectivity management of protected areas. Although some studies have tried to realize the connectivity of protected areas through ecological corridors, a unified concept has not been proposed, and a general consensus of the construction and optimization framework is lacking. Through a systematic review of relevant studies, the definition and classification system of protected area connectivity network, as well as the construction and optimization framework are put forward. According to the conservation objectives, protected area connectivity network can be divided into three categories, namely biological migration network, structural stability network and climate connectivity network. Different methods can be used to construct and optimize protected area connectivity network according to the framework of "expansion and optimization of protected areas - construction of landscape resistance surface-extraction of ecological corridors-connectivity network optimization". Current research focuses on constructing short-term effective network from a static perspective, emphasizing direct ecological benefits while ignoring conservation input and social value. In future research, dynamic connectivity network should be constructed from a dynamic perspective based on long time series data. The long-term effectiveness of the connectivity network should be safeguarded against the future threats of land use change and climate change. The optimal scheme of connectivity network construction and optimization should be determined based on cost-benefit analysis, considering the trade-off of different conservation objectives and social development. Finally, the social added value of the connectivity network should be enhanced to gain more support.

Maps are the language of geography and visual variables serve as fundamental theories in the fields of cartography. However, current research on visual variables in cartography predominantly relies on empirical description and induction, and the explanation of visual mechanism is insufficient. There are still three fundamental issues: the perceptual sequence of the visual variables is unclear, the granularity of the "shape" visual variable division is not precise, and the definition of the "location" visual variable is unclear. Based on the summary of the main visual neurons in the eye-brain system, this paper analyzes the neural mechanisms of visual variables in detail. The study uncovers several key findings: (1) The perception sequence of visual variables follows a pattern, starting with value and color, followed by simple location, orientation, size, and finally complex shape and texture. Eye-tracking experiments conducted on tourist maps show that using the feature that color can be perceived first, color can be used as a visual cue to strengthen the visual hierarchy of the map and guide the visual attention of the readers. (2) Curvature can be used as a subdivision variable of shape visual variable. The case study in the context of sustainable development mapping shows that curvature variables can be effectively used to express both qualitative and quantitative information. (3) Location can be directly and efficiently processed and recognized by visual neurons, and thus it should be defined as a visual variable. However, it should not be changed when the accuracy of graphic position is emphasized. Comparative experiments between navigation map and city image map show that the location variable can cause significant evoke differences in visual perception and emotional arousal. The research in this paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the theory of visual variables and provides new visual design theory for sustainable development mapping, creative and personalized mapping.

Selection of appropriate geographic boundaries for zoning the study area or images can effectively improve the accuracy and efficiency of land cover classification by reducing the complexity of land cover within the regions and the variability of its features in the images. At present, the regionalization data used in land cover mapping based on stratified classification strategies, such as ecological regionalization, lack targeted objectives, which limits its applicability and effectiveness in remote sensing classification. Vegetation phenology is the main cause of spectral heterogeneity within the land cover of natural scenes. To address this issue, this study proposed a remotely-sensed phenology pattern regionalization scheme for land cover classification of natural scenes. The regionalization scheme is implemented by constructing a zoning index system using vegetation indices, which reflect the greenness status of vegetation, and key phenological periods, which reflect the growth and development rhythm of vegetation. Small geomorphic regions are used as the zoning units, and a data-driven spatially constrained hierarchical clustering algorithm is employed in the regionalization. The evaluation results based on statistical tests and multi-source land cover products indicate that the remotely-sensed phenology pattern regionalization in this study effectively reduces the complexity of land cover within the region and the intra-class feature heterogeneity caused by vegetation phenology, and shows high potential in constructing representative land cover sample libraries and implementing stratified classification strategies.

The advent of information intelligence and spatiotemporal big data have significantly broadened the scope of application for geographic information systems (GIS), presenting both opportunities and challenges in the modeling of geographic scenarios. Current paradigms for organizing spatiotemporal data and conceptualizing spatial cognition predominantly rely on a bottom-up approach, which was demonstrated with limitation on low cognition and the fragmented representation of geospatial objects. This is a noteworthy research issue facing the Big Data era, namely the design of new representation models for the integration of objects and knowledge, as well as the collaborative computation of models and objects. This study, inspiring from Leibniz's relative spatiotemporal perspective, establishes an object space-based approach for organization and management of geographic scenarios. The concept of object space was proposed by reviewing the historical evolution of geographic scenarios representation model and literature work on mainstream research domain. Object space is the space of influence of an object, both the inner space of the object and the space of its surroundings. It includes pan spatiotemporal object, object space relationship, calculation and analysis process, which represents object, knowledge and model. For representing and management of object space, a hierarchical model was developed to organize pan spatiotemporal objects according to business requirement and spatial scale. Further, a network model was denoted to represent object space relationship and knowledge, in which node is the objects, and edge is the space relationship. Then, a model classification method based on functional and computational ability was used to organize calculation and analysis process models. Thus, a highly integrated and synergistic "data-knowledge-model" organization and management model was established. The proposed approach was applied in monitoring soil moisture in high-standard farmland in Shandong, which included 44 pan spatiotemporal objects, 2 object space relationship network models and 5 calculation and analysis process models. The results demonstrated its efficacy and feasibility in designing and implementing high-standard farmland intelligent automatic irrigation and drainage systems, thereby offered technical support for advancing theoretical research and expanding practical application in geographic scenarios.

New quality productive forces are advanced productivity that is freed from traditional economic growth mode and productivity development paths, features high-tech, high efficiency and high quality driven by technological innovation in the new era. From the geographical perspective, developing new quality productive forces is the ability to coordinate new human-earth relationships in the Anthropocene, where human activities dominate, promote the harmonious coexistence of humans and nature, transform green waters and mountains into gold and silver mines, drive high-quality development and layout, and comprehensively implement the construction of a beautiful China. Geography focuses on studying the emergence and development process, formation and evolution characteristics, spatial organization patterns, and regional differentiation laws of new quality productive forces driven by innovation, so as to promote the human-earth system to enter the ecological civilization stage of highly coupled and harmonious coexistence between humans and nature. Compared with traditional industries, the evolution of new quality productive forces has experienced a fluctuating process of evolution from low-quality productivity to medium-quality, medium-high-quality, and then to high-quality productivity, accompanying the emergence of continuous technological revolutions and industrial revolutions. They exhibit basic characteristics such as high coupling, deep integration, super correlation, rapid iteration, and spatial differentiation. The pivotal directions propelled by the drive of new quality productive forces for geographical research encompass the following: re-coordinating human-earth relationships to foster novel harmonious coexistence conducive to the realization of a beautiful China; restructuring industrial systems to align with the new quality productive forces, facilitating profound industrial transformation; reallocating geographical elements to establish a novel mechanism that harmonizes natural, humanistic, and data-driven components; reshaping spatial pattern to engender a fresh spatial paradigm wherein new quality productive forces and traditional industries are integrated deeply; rebuilding ecological environment to leverage them as green engines of productivity, thus enhancing the intrinsic value of ecological capital; revitalizing geographical science through the refinement and updating of theories and methods, thereby constructing a modern disciplinary landscape of geography.

The empowerment of spatio-temporal information fully releases and amplifies its value as a critical factor of production, meeting the need of the era to support the high-quality development across diverse economic and social sections. Currently, foundational research into the empowerment of spatio-temporal information remains undeveloped, predominantly constrained by the perception that empowerment is synonymous with application. The lack of comprehensive understanding and investigation into its mechanism results in ambiguity in both the connotation and extension of spatio-temporal information, as well as the intrinsic mechanism of its empowerment. Such vagueness restricts the empowerment in a scientific and efficient manner. There is an immediate necessity to delineate its fundamental essence, mechanisms of empowerment, and operational modes clearly. To address the aforementioned challenges, this paper defines the foundational concept, explores the rich connotation, and outlines the essential characteristics of spatio-temporal information. It posits that entropy serves as the physical foundation for the empowerment of spatio-temporal information, with entropy decrease acting as its inherent driving force. The empowerment of spatio-temporal information utilizes spatio-temporal information as the medium, driven by the negative entropy flow, marked by the transformation of inherent uncertainty. This process enhances both the system's structure and performance through the dynamic interplay among humans, machines and the external environment. This paper describes three empowerment modes of spatio-temporal information: taking spatio-temporal information as the in-itself information for direct empowerment, employing it as the being-itself information for indirect empowerment, and converting it into spatio-temporal knowledge for enhanced empowerment. Lastly, this paper investigates the pathways through which the empowerment of spatio-temporal information contributes to the high-quality development of natural resources.

Forest definitions and remote sensing datasets provide a conceptual basis for monitoring forest change. In this study, we present an overview of forest definitions from the views of land use and land cover, introduce the forest categorization from three aspects: growth mode, forest age and canopy density, and review the evolution of forest remote sensing dataset from single sensor to optical and microwave remote sensing. Additionally, the differences in forest definition between various remote sensing data sets were compared from three perspectives: the threshold for forest elements, the level of classification and the spatial resolution. The shortcomings in product accuracy verification were summarized using data consistency, validation samples, and regional accuracy differences. In the future, the forest definition should be further coordinated based on the forest definition framework of "perspective-factor-threshold", and the area estimation bias caused by the different factor thresholds in the forest definition should be minimized. Meanwhile, deep learning and multi-source remote sensing data should be applied to produce accurate forest remote sensing data sets, especially for identifying various forest species. Finally, platforms for forest remote sensing datasets sharing need to be built to clarify the forest definition, spatio-temporal resolution, and data accuracy of the datasets.

Geography, as part of earth science, is a complicated system composed of multiple disciplines. Interdisciplinary studies are the significant characters of geography. With the rapid development of low-altitude airspace exploitation such as the application of UAV, low-altitude airspace has become a subject of research field of geography. Recently, there are many interdisciplinary studies and integration between geography and aeronautics. However, it is a difficult and innovative task to take the low-altitude airspace as a fixed research object of geography and develop it into a branch of geography named low-altitude airspace geography. In this paper, we consider the low-altitude airspace as a complex giant system, which has two geographical characteristics of synthesis and regionalism. Herewith, low-altitude airspace is a research object of geography in theory, which is the basis of generation of low-altitude airspace geography. The development trend of low-altitude airspace geography is to deeply conduct interdisciplinary studies with aeronautics, physical geography, human geography, information geography. On the basis of analyzing the relationship between low-altitude airspace geography and the above-mentioned disciplines, we tentatively proposed the preliminary layout of the discipline system of low-altitude airspace geography, which is composed of integrated low-altitude airspace geography, departmental low-altitude airspace geography and low-altitude airspace information geography. This paper aims to promote the development of low-altitude geography as a new academic growth point of geography to some extent.

Streamflow data provide vital information for research on hydrology and water resources, as well as for the design of water conservancy and hydropower projects. The lack of streamflow data is an important limiting factor that researchers in the field of hydrology have tried to address in the past decades. Streamflow estimation based on satellite data is an effective way to solve this problem, and it is an important topic for interdisciplinary research on quantitative remote sensing and hydrology. This paper summarizes the current research status of remote sensing inversion methods for hydraulic variables closely related to streamflow, including water surface width and water surface elevation. The research progress of mathematical methods of streamflow estimation based on satellite observations, such as establishing empirical relationships and integrating information with hydrological or hydrodynamic models, is described. The error evaluation of streamflow estimates, increasing observation frequency by multi-satellite collaboration, and the applicability of inversion method are discussed, are the factors that have hindered research into streamflow estimation based on remote sensing. Trends for future studies are elaborated and potential applications for streamflow estimation based on remote sensing are proposed.

Ecosystem service flows indicate the actually-used services, which act as a link between ecosystem services supply and demand. For effective practical application, it is crucial to understand and clarify its concept and quantification methods. In recent years, the concept of ecosystem service flows has received more and more attention, but there is still a lack of a systematic review connecting the conceptual connotation, quantification method and practical application. Therefore, in order to strengthen the practical significance of ecosystem service supply and demand assessment, and to make up for the limitation of current research, we clarify the conceptual definition of ecosystem service flows based on the perspectives of process, quantity and space, summarize the quantitative methodology of ecosystem services and explore a systematic framework for research of ecosystem service flows. Focusing on the ecological significance and geospatial processes, stakeholder roles and decision-making systems for human well-being enhancement, this paper suggests establishing a systematic research framework of 'ecosystem services supply and demand assessment-ecosystem services management action-human well-being enhancement vision', which is projected to propel a broader prospect and practical domain for future research of ecosystem service flows.

GIScience inherits the spatial analysis tradition of geography. Given that "spatial is special", GIScience needs to highlight spatial effects when constructing methods for geographical analysis. The research presents an explicit definition of spatial effect. By formalizing core GIScience concepts including space, location, field, distance, and region, we identify four types of spatial effects, namely spatial heterogeneity effect, neighbor effect in spatial dependence, distance decay effect in spatial interactions, and scale effect in spatial zoning. A unified framework is constructed to cover the four spatial effects based on the inherent linkages among them. We argue that spatial heterogeneity effect is the most fundamental one. While spatial dependence and spatial interaction are two basic geographical processes that represent the second-order relationships between two locations, neighbor effect and distance decay effect reflect the impacts of space. Scale effect is raised when aggregating attributes using regional units. Hence, the four types of effects form a hierarchical system. From a methodological perspective, this paper summaries related GIScience tools that implement different effects, and emphasizes the value of geospatial artificial intelligence for revealing and quantifying spatial effects.

The earth surface oxygen concentration on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is the result of the combined effect of multi-factors, such as elevation, topography, climate, water, vegetation, and soil, among them, the relative contributions of altitude, temperature, vegetation coverage and leaf area index are -39.58%, 35.50%, and 24.92%, respectively. The earth surface oxygen concentration on the plateau primarily shows the difference from southeast to northwest, which is mainly related to the effect of vegetation on oxygen production depending on precipitation; secondly shows the difference on east-west extension and north-south turnover, which is mainly related to the effect of atmospheric pressure on relative oxygen concentration depending on temperature and terrain; thirdly shows the vertical zonation, which is mainly related to the effect of atmospheric pressure on the relative oxygen concentration depending on the terrain and temperature, bond with the effect of vegetation on oxygen production depending on temperature and precipitation. The earth surface oxygen concentration can quantitatively reveal the spatio-temporal pattern of the physiographical characteristics of the earth surface. Accordingly, we divide the natural zone of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau into 3 first-grade regions and 17 second-grade zones. In the southeastern subtropical forest-forest steppe region, including 2 second-grade zones, the annual average oxygen concentration is 20.35%, the average oxygen concentration in July is 20.45%, and the average oxygen concentration in January is 20.27%. In the eastern temperate forest-steppe region, including 5 second-grade zones, the annual average oxygen concentration is 20.10%, the average oxygen concentration in July is 20.23%, and the average oxygen concentration in January is 20.00%. In the western cold temperate grassland-desert-steppe region, including 10 second-grade zones, the annual average oxygen concentration is 20.00%, the average oxygen concentration in July is 20.10%, and the average oxygen concentration in January is 19.91%.

Natural disasters and normalized extreme weather have emerged as the main threats to human life with the onset of the Anthropocene. The technological drive of big data and intelligence, the disciplinary basis of big science (planning) and the demand pull of globalized governance and response together constitute the main theme of natural disaster research in the new era. The paper puts forward the concept of natural disaster situational awareness and its two levels: situation understanding and situation predicting. In situation understanding, the paper identifies the differences and connections between traditional disaster observation and big data situational awareness; and systematically compares the research and practice of big data in disaster situational understanding of typhoons, floods, earthquakes, and extreme heat, using social media, cell phone signaling, and video surveillance as examples. In situation predicting, the paper summarizes a series of big data observation, machine learning and mechanical model integration methods and validates them with the evolution simulation of urban flooding events as an example. At the regional or global scale, it proposes that cross-domain integrated situational awareness and prediction should be carried out for some future scenarios defined by the big science (program) and serve the sustainable development of the region; especially, to use the human-earth coupling model to sense the cascading impact and remote effect of disasters on socio-economy, which can be used to eliminate and address non-traditional security threats. Finally, it is recommended that the state should establish relevant research institutions to promote the sharing and application of disaster big data, and carry out the construction of disaster standard knowledge base and training library. It is recommended to further promote the integration and application of mechanism models, big data and machine learning, and promote the coupling of natural disaster human-terrestrial systems to enhance the social governance and decision support capability of natural disasters in China.

This paper summarizes the authors' theoretical understanding of management over the past two decades on the scope and classification of less developed areas in China. As a theoretical exploration of geography, we first focus on the geographical basis and development possibilities of less developed areas in China. In terms of methodology, we have studied the relationship between regional output and regional characteristic elements, defined the three geographical natures from the aspects of natural geographical environment, traffic, location, social development, etc., scientifically constructed an evaluation index system for regional development, and developed related geographic information science data mining methods. The important finding is that in modern regional development, the importance of the first nature factors is close to 70%, the contribution rate of the second nature factors is about 17%, and that of the third nature factors that triggered the third industrial revolution is about 13%. This verifies that the first nature factors play an important role in regional development, which means that regional development faces the locking effect of the first nature and the necessity of geographic engineering transformation. To achieve regional innovation and development, it is necessary to rely on the evolution of geographical natures. At present, China's regional development has been in the innovative development stage of improving the per capita education level and developing regional informatization, and the key to the policy is to promote new urbanization and enhance rural revitalization.

China's success in poverty reduction has a worldwide impact. This paper reviewed the characteristics and academic contributions of China's poverty geography research, and summarized its disciplinary paradigm. This study has an important disciplinary value for geographical research on relative poverty and effective link of poverty alleviation achievements with rural revitalization. Based on the data in CNKI and a core database in Web of Science from 1988 to 2020, the knowledge map analysis of China's poverty geography literatures was presented through CiteSpace6.1.R2. Results show that: (1) With the increasing practice of poverty reduction, China's poverty geography research has gradually increased in the number of publications, institutions and authors, indicating that poverty geography research is driven by demand; (2) Due to the differences in urban and rural poverty reduction policies, China's rural poverty geography and urban poverty geography have developed distinctive research patterns, reflecting the urban-rural duality in poverty geography research; (3) In response to the adjustment of poverty reduction policies and the transformation of the main social contradictions, the paradigm of poverty geography research has undergone a change in China; (4) Under the framework of the disciplinary paradigm of geography, the poverty geography research is considered to be the common field of development geography and poverty geography. Development geography aims to construct the poverty reduction process, method and decision-making, while poverty geography focuses on deconstructing poverty process, method and decision-making. These "disciplines" share a common research basis in addition to diverse academic discourse expressions.

The past two years have witnessed an explosive growth of digital twin research and its increasing application in a wide range of fields and scales. This urgently calls for a methodological framework to guide and consolidate the research and application of digital twin in various fields and with different structures and scales. In this paper, we first summarized and analyzed the development patterns of digital twin research in various fields, and then coined a term "digital twin space" (with definition and characteristics) as a framework to generalize and consolidate digital twins of various scales. Taking digital twin city as an example, we briefly elaborated the application of twin space. Space, as the carrier of the research object or the research object itself in geography, consists of natural geographical space, social space, and cyberspace. These three types of spaces, however, have not been fully integrated in different branches of geography. In order to boost comprehensive geography research, we propose to reconstruct geographical space research by integrating the three types of geographical spaces with the twin space. Digital twin space can interact with the physical space bilaterally in real time and thus break the barriers among the three types of geographical spaces from inside, which further helps realize the tasks of simulating realities, predicting changes, and regulating processes in integrated geography research.

Digital elevation model (DEM) plays a fundamental role in the research of the earth system by expressing surface shape, understanding surface process, and revealing surface mechanism. DEM is widely used in geography and even in geological modeling and analysis. However, the existing DEM has its limitations in supporting the earth system research focused on geographical process and mechanism mining due to single attribute of the traditional DEM data model. Hence, establishing the value-added data model on the basis of traditional DEM is urgently necessary to serve digital elevation modeling and terrain analysis under the background of a new geomorphology research paradigm and earth observation technology. We construct a theoretical framework for value-added DEM that mainly includes concept, connotation, content and categories. The relationship between different types of value-added DEMs as well as the research significance and application category of this theoretical framework are also proposed. Different methods of value-added DEMs are listed below: (1) value-added methods of DEM space and time dimension that emphasize the integration of the ground and underground as well as coupling of time and space; (2) attribute-based value-added methods composed of materials (including underground, surface, and overground materials) and morphological properties; and (3) value-added methods of features and physical elements that consider geographical objects and landform features formed by natural processes and artificial effects. The digital terrace, slope, and watershed models are used as examples to illustrate application scenarios of the three value-added methods. This study aims to improve expression methods of DEM under the background of new surveying and mapping technologies by adding value to the DEM at three levels of dimensions, attributes, and elements, and support knowledge-driven digital geomorphological analysis in the era of big data.

Forming a new territorial spatial pattern to rebalance the orientation of development and protection is one of the primary tasks in ecological civilization construction. The key to providing an effective territorial spatial pattern lies in realizing the rational allocation of urban space, agricultural space, and ecological space to support high-quality social and economic development as well as reducing the consumption of resources. Therefore, an in-depth understanding of the effects of resource efficiency on spatiotemporal patterns is a prerequisite for optimizing territorial space in a scientific manner. The technical framework in this paper analyses the resource efficiency of urban development, agricultural production, and ecological conservation as the logical starting point for the development of an optimal territorial spatial pattern. Firstly, the scenarios and index systems for the development and protections centered on resource efficiency are to be constructed; secondly, methods that reflect the preferences of decision-makers are to be designed, which will subsequently allow for the development capacity to be evaluated; thirdly, the blueprints of territorial space under different scenarios are to be created; and, finally, socioeconomic and ecological impacts of policy tools (blueprints) under different decision-making preferences are to be simulated based on comprehensive analysis tools. The research framework includes the following contents: the evaluation of the effectiveness of the allocation of territorial space from the perspective of resource efficiency, the refinement of specific laws for quantitatively portraying blueprints, and the construction of a global optimization strategy that weighs the pros and cons of various options for all parties involved. The research framework and its application can then be used as references for natural resources management and ecological civilization construction.

Spatialization of human activity intensity is the basis for examining regional differences of human activities and its change process, and it is also the scientific basis for accurately identifying the driving factors of land change and rationally regulating human activities. The current research on human activity intensity mostly uses mathematical methods to spatially assign indirect indicators, which lacks the reflection of the mechanism of human activity and also restricts the display of the spatial heterogeneity of human activity intensity. This paper took grazing activity on the Tibetan Plateau as the research object in an attempt to spatialize grazing intensity. First, based on grazing preferences and grassland management strategies, and from the perspective of grazing mechanism, we proposed a method to distinguish grazing areas and non-grazing areas; then, we used grazing density to measure the overall grazing pressure of grassland, and used grazing probability to describe the spatial difference of grazing pressure. In addition, we developed a spatial model of regional grazing intensity according to grazing density and grazing probability. As a case study, we used this model to spatialize grazing intensity of Zeku County, a typical pastoral area on the Tibetan Plateau, based on township-level animal husbandry data and basic physical geographic information. The results showed that the spatial model of grazing intensity we developed can reflect the spatial characteristics of grazing activity well, and the selection of direct indicators and objective assignment methods improve the accuracy of the spatialization results. It is also found that the results of this paper can more clearly reflected the spatial difference of grazing intensity within the county than the previous research results, and the change process of grazing intensity had a better coupling with the change of NDVI value over the same period. This paper could provide a useful reference for the research on spatialization methods of human activities.

Sustainable rural development is critical to the achievement of global sustainable development goals. Globalization and urbanization, as the key processes, continuously drive the human-earth system to make adaptive responses, promoting the transformation of urban-rural relations. The rural-urban relationship is essentially a mother-child relationship, which is a comprehensive characterization of the transfer of rural humanistic factors, the transformation of man-land relationship and the transformation of urban-rural development in the process of urbanization. However, the traditional cognition of urban-rural relationship ignores the multi-dimensional connections between the rural and the urban as well as the existence of the rural-urban integration system, resulting in prominent drawbacks of rural regions, negatively affecting the urban-rural development rights, and resulting in urban and rural territorial dysfunction and other problems. The key to solve the problems of socio-economic development in China is to reform the urban-biased development strategy, and to innovate the new cognition of rural-urban relationship based on the thinking of "rural maternal effect", which highlights that rural areas nourish the city. Based on the remote coupling and systematic synthesis of the rural human-earth system, modern human geography urgently needs to strengthen the cross-research with physical geography and information geography, create a coordinated observation system of human-earth system supported by the sky-space-ground integration, reshape the global rural development perspective, rural-urban system perspective, and reorganize the global rural human-earth relationship, the rural-urban integration relationship, and the living and employment relationship. Rural human-earth relationship territorial system is the core of rural geography research. The rural human-earth system research should focus on the coupling of rural natural ecosystem and the socio-economic system and their complex interactive processes and effects. Supported by the intersection of multiple disciplines, the expansion of new fields and the cultivation of new disciplines, it should create the collaborative observation technology of human-earth system and methodology of multi-source data fusion computing, the research idea based on process-mechanism-pattern and the technical path of monitoring-simulation-decision support, and explore the organic connection path between rural human-earth system coupling and rural-urban integrated development, regional sustainable development and global common governance.

"Hu Huanyong Line", T-shaped development model, and dual-nuclei structure model can be roughly summarized as a "one-line, two-axis, and dual-nuclei" structure. They are all rule cognition and theoretical refinements on spatial pattern in China which were proposed by Chinese human geographers in different periods. "Hu Huanyong Line" is proposed based on the regular recognition of regional differences. This is the extension and expansion of geographical differentiation laws of physical geography in human geography, following the basic assumption of homogeneous regions. The discovery of the T-shaped model of Lu Dadao and the dual-nuclei structure of Lu Yuqi transcended the analytical thought of regional differentiation laws. They follow the basic assumptions of functional areas. Among them, the T-shaped model is the practical application of the point-axis system theory proposed by Lu Dadao in China. From the phenomenon perspective, the dual-nuclei structure is attached to the T-shaped development model, but subsequent research has completed the transformation from special to general. It has accomplished the whole process of scientific research in scientific discovery, mechanism analysis, mathematical derivation and practical application. Eventually, it becomes a regional spatial structure theory with strong broad applicability. From the theoretical level, "Hu Huanyong Line" based on the assumption of homogeneous region and T-shaped model based on the assumption of functional region belong to the analysis results of spatial differentiation law, but they can also be called theories. They are individual theories in geography, while the dual-nuclei structure theory belongs to a more general and applicable theory in the general scientific sense. Obviously, the trinity analysis of the "Hu Huanyong Line", the T-shaped model, and the dual-nuclei structure theory shows that, China is a country that is very suitable for regional analysis and geographical laws and theories refinement based on this. The research in this paper can provide research ideas and method references for the summary of regional spatial structure laws and theory refinement of human geography.

Urban space is characterized by both marketing and planning driven attributes, but very few studies were carried out on the scale of their spatial influence in Chinese academia. This paper takes the rural-urban transition zones of 10 cities in Zhejiang from 1980 to 2010 as the case, aiming to conduct multi-level research which was formed between 60 m to 800 m, including courtyard group level, block level, community level, and residential area level, spatial analysis with the market and planning driving forces. It also analyzes the micro-meso space with the generalized spatial multifractal analysis based on five-year data. Through composition of the spatial regularized, trended and disordered land patches, the analysis shows that there were three basic spatial scales (including market-driven courtyard group level space, plan-driven residential area level space, and the transitional interval of the two-block level space and community level space) in the rural-urban transition zones. The results of spatial expansion analysis show that, due to the different leading roles of market and planning at different scales, the spatial evolution at the courtyard group level, community level, and residential area level was dominated by the combination of trend and regularization, while the spatial evolution at the block level was dominated by the combination of trend and disorder. The results of subjectivity analysis further indicate that under the action of the corresponding driving forces, the courtyard group level space was displayed as agglomeration, while the community level space and the residential area level space were shown as diffusion, and the three have obvious trended characteristics. Furthermore, the development of block level space followed a disordered evolution. The contribution of the paper includes the finding of an objective phenomenon that the spatial pattern of the rural-urban transition zones has often been dominated by tendency and regularity, but the evolution subjectivity is dominated by tendency, due to the combination and its sequence changes of the regularity, trend and disordered on the f(a)-a(q) curve. It will provide a specific scientific basis for the spatial scale division and "the system identification of multi-level features" in territorial spatial planning driving forces.

Many scholars have explored the relationship between cultural studies and economics or economic geography, but there is still a lack of in-depth discussion on how regional culture affects spatial agglomeration. To further explain the process of economic agglomeration, this article chooses Krugman's core-periphery model, uses model logic deduction, assists in documentary evidence, to discuss how regional culture can be combined with this model's parameters. This article obtains two conclusions: First, regional culture can affect not only τ in the CP model, but also ρ and μ. Only when cultural geographers carry out comparative research on regional culture, can they transform regional culture into parameters in the CP model for a better understanding of the impact of regional culture on regional economy. Second, according to the definition of place i and j in the CP model, we define the unit of regional culture which will be suitable for the analysis by CP model. In the case that the regional culture cannot be quantified as an absolute value, relative values can be considered to quantify, so as to support the analysis of agglomeration trend, but cannot support to tell an accurate strength of agglomeration. Third, the relationship between regional cultural research and the CP model cannot reveal the nature of uneven development. This combination cannot arouse people's vigilance against cultural hegemony, fetishism, and alienation. Therefore, cultural geography has its own independent academic goals while it is integrating with economic geography.

The early studies on the relationships between man and land in geography mostly focused on local regions and held the idea that "the land and water resources in a region feed the person in the region". In the traditional agricultural society, which relies heavily on natural resources, the idea, and regional geographic research and management practice under its guidance play a positive role in promoting the development between man and nature, and sustainable resource use. With the continuous increase in openness of man and land system resulted from development of science and technology and transport improvement, regional systems on different scales and at different economic development levels have formed an interdependent and coupled geographic network. Every region becomes a node in this network, and the formation and solution of regional problems are closely related to other nodes in the network, and are related to internal and external factors of the regional system. In some cases, external factors even play a more important role. The introduction of some concepts and methods marks the paradigm transformation of man-land relationship research from local thinking paradigm to global networked thinking paradigm, such as virtual water, ecological footprint, carbon emissions due to goods trade, resource link and tele-coupling of man-land relationship. This study discusses the paradigm transformation from three aspects: the evolution characteristics of man-land system, the changes of thinking paradigm and study methods in man-land relationships, and the realization paths and practical significances of the transformation of thinking paradigm in man-land relationship research. According to new ideas and thinking paradigms, traditional local thinking modes and related research themes such as regional carrying capacity can not fully express the new characteristics of man-land relationships. At present, studies related to regional carrying capacity have become an important issue in land use planning and urban planning in China. In the development of land use planning at different levels, "evaluation of resource and environmental carrying capacity" has become the premise and basis of planning. In the implementation of this concept, we usually simply uses population size as the control index. In the context of an increasingly open system, studies in the carrying capacity of resources and environment may be re-examined. This is especially necessary in smaller scale regional systems (e.g., at a county level).

Driven by urbanization, regional functional differentiation, optimal allocation of production factors, and rapid expansion of transportation networks, the flow of resources between regions has become a key impetus for regional sustainable development. Hence, the interaction networking between human beings and their natural environment requires a meta-coupling paradigm research from a geographic perspective, that is, to consider the human-nature interactions within the region, between the region and surrounding regions, and between non-adjacent regions simultaneously. As an industrial chain and value chain that connects rural areas and cities, as well as production areas and global consumer markets, the research on food system couplings is a good and important entry point for a better understanding the interactions and networking in the human-earth system. With this perspective in mind and aiming at demonstrating the theoretical study based on internal basis and external conditions, this paper combines the food system components with the tele-coupling framework to establish a "theoretical framework of local and tele-coupling of food systems driven by urbanization", and discusses the specific connotation of the theoretical framework. Taking the extension of the frontier fields in the theoretical framework as the basic guide and combining China's major strategic needs, the paper further identifies the basic issues for food system coupling research and four priority research directions that need to be breakthrough. Among them, the pattern characteristics, the spatio-temporal evolution and its driving mechanism of foodshed are the basic issues, while the four research priorities include: human-nature interaction research of the supply chain network coupling socio-economic and cultural changes and biogeochemical cycles; effects of the local and tele-coupling of food system and its regulatory strategies; the mechanism of urban-rural integration and long-term poverty alleviation based on food system; and cross-regional multi-level governance of food systems for public health and food security. A general technical methodology of the food system coupling research is designed at the end of the paper. The conceptual framework and methodology in this paper can provide theoretical guideline and enlightenment for further food system coupling research and other similar studies.

The human-environment relationship in tourism phenomenon and activity is an interdisciplinary subject with theoretical and practical significance. However, human-environment relationship research in tourism context is distinctive due to the particularity and comprehensiveness of tourism phenomenon, with certain psychological and behavioral research gaps on ontological level and from microcosmic perspective. This paper, firstly, investigates the research pluralism as well as the basic situations and typical paradigms of human-environment relationship in tourism context, and probes into the possible empiricalization and ontologization approach to human-environment relationship research in the tourism context from a microcosmic perspective; and then it explores a possible theoretical mechanism of which dualistic human-environment stimulus leads to human-environment relationship and then to behavioral response in case of tourist behavioral intention based on stimulus-organism-response theory, and tests the hypothesized model based on empirical data collected in a typical study site; finally, it analyzes the inspiration for human-environment relationship research in tourism context stemmed from the above theoretical and empirical research. The research indicates the following: (1) There are four basic situations and two typical paradigms in human-environment relationship research in tourism context, which are diverse in research objects, scales, paradigms and methodologies. (2) The psychological-behavioral paradigm is an important direction to expand human-environment relationship research, while proposing concrete questions and focusing on specific variables are the key approach to empiricalization and ontologization of human-environment relationship research in the tourism context from a microcosmic perspective. (3) The empirical model composed of perceived cognitive image and affective image, place attachment as well as behavioral intention reflects the theoretical logic of human-environment duality to human-environment relationship to a certain extent, which provides a possible microcosmic explanation for human-environment relationship in tourist behavior. (4) The formation of tourist behavioral intention from a microcosmic perspective has experienced a transformation from two dimensional stimulus oriented to environmental function and human affection to human-environment organism of place attachment and then to behavioral response. (5) The human-environment relationship research in the tourism context from a microcosmic perspective requires that we grasp the theme of human-environment relationship and characteristics of tourism phenomena, improve diverse perspectives, scales and paradigms, promote the empiricalization of grand theories, and emphasize problem orientation and theoretical significance of certain methods and techniques.

The basic connotation of "Beautiful Cryosphere (BC)" is firstly discussed in the paper. After that, the relationship between BC and regional sustainable development is analyzed from two aspects of natural and social economy attributes of the cryosphere, and from two lines of cryospheric profit and harm. BC, regional social and economic development, and human well-being constitute the cryosphere and huaman social and economic complex destiny community. There are significant regional differences for cryosphere changes and their effects in China. Therefore, the Qilian Mountains-Hexi Corridor region, the Three Rivers Source Region (Yangtze, Yellow and Lancang rivers) over the Tibetan Plateau and the Great Shangri-La region are selected to represent the impact area of cryospheric water resources, the cryospheric disaster affected area, and cryospheric tourism economic zone, respectively. This paper mainly focuses on the core issues of cryospheric water resources services and oasis economy, snow disaster risk and animal husbandry development, ice and snow tourism and regional economy, analyzes in detail the approaches and models of BC integration into regional development from the perspective of cryosphere service and disaster risk. In arid and semi-arid inland areas, the cryosphere resources are integrated into the oasis social and economic development mainly through water conservation, water supply and runoff regulation services, so we built a cryosphric water resource-supported development model. In the alpine region of the Tibetan Plateau, cryospheric ecological environment determines the vulnerability of animal husbandry economy, and cryospheric hazards negatively affects the animal husbandry economy, which is a kind of cryospheric ecology-supported and cryospheric disaster-influenced development model. The cryospheric tourism economic zone that directly depends on ice and snow resources can develop ice and snow tourism, which is a kind of tourism economy-driven development model based on cryosphere resources.

It is significant to analyze the renewal potential of urban land use in China. Enterprise communities (ECs) are a major type of gated and walled-off residential space. They were mostly built and managed by the state or collectively-owned enterprises to meet the housing and livelihood needs of workers during the planned economy period from the 1950s to the 1970s, and many are still occupied in urban China. As a result, ECs exist in most cities need renewal. In this paper, an analysis framework of ECs' renewal potential in the city is constructed to probe into the renewal potential and its spatial distribution characteristics. The framework consists of three dimensions: renewal potential of land area, potential for spatial intensive utilization and their relevance. Point of interest (POI) data, area of interest (AOI) data and data of floor area and methods such as index of landscape pattern, location quotient and importance-performance analysis are adopted. Further, Xi'an is chosen as a case city to verify applicability of the analytical framework. The results are shown as follows: (1) Total renewal potentials of the ECs in Xi'an are 933.56 hm², with an average area of 1.63 hm². Small-sized ECs (0.07-1.18 hm²) are the majority (62.87%), mainly concentrated in Taoyuanlu, Tumen and Changlezhonglu sub-districts near the downtown, but the potentials for area renewal are relatively minor (19.42%). ECs with large land area are scattered, distributed in Hongqing, Fangzhicheng, Yuhuazhai and other sub-districts away from the downtown. (2) The vast majority of ECs (93.01%) have the potentials of intensive use in three-dimensional space, showing a pattern of slightly U-shaped spatial differentiation with higher at both ends of the east and west and lower in the middle of the inner city, as well as a near-linear increasing trend from the south to the north-central region. (3) ECs of type B with great potentials for intensive use account for 55.94%, with an average of 5.24 floors and spatial characteristics of small aggregation and large dispersion, mainly distributed in the sub-districts of Changlezhonglu, Fangzhicheng, Dianzicheng and Taoyuanlu. The ECs of type A with the highest potentials cover 20.63%, with an average of 3.31 floors, mostly in Tumen, Taoyuanlu, Fangzhicheng, Hansenzhai and other sub-districts. (4) ECs of high-high type with great potentials for area renewal and intensive use come up to 13.46% (77), primarily distributed in Fangzhicheng, Dianzicheng, Zaoyuan, Hansenzhai and other sub-districts outside the central city. ECs of low-high type with small potentials for area renewal and high potentials for intensive use reach 30.07% (172), principally in Tumen, Fangzhicheng, Taoyuanlu, Dianzicheng and other sub-districts. Renewal and development construction of ECs including the high-high and low-high types need be more focused in the future.