Land use and land cover change as the core of coupled human-environment systems has become a potential field of land change science (LCS) in the study of global environment change. Based on remotely sensed data of land use change with the spatial resolution of 1km ×1km on national scale among every five years, this paper designed a new dynamic regionalization according to the comprehensive characteristics of land use including regional differentiation, physical, economic, and macro-policy factors as well. Spatial pattern of land use change and its driving forces were investigated in Chia in the early 21st century. To sum up, land use pattern of this period was characterized by rapid changes in the whole country. Over the agricultural zones,e.g., Huang-Huai-Hai Plains, the southeast coastal area and Sichuan Basin, the built-up and residential areas were considerably expanded to a great proportion in the northwestern oasis agricultural zones and the northeastern zone led to a slight increase of arable land aea in the northern China. Due to the "grain for green" policy, forest area was significantly increased in the middle and western developing region,Where the vegetation coverage was substanially enlarged, likewise. This paper argued the main driving forces as the implementation of the strategy on land use and regional development, such as the "Western Development", "the Revitalization of the Northeast" policy, coupled with rapidly economic development during this period.
A variety of methods, including Markov chains, multivariate statistics, optimization, system dynamics, and CLUE/CA, have been widely used to study land use change in different areas. Previous studies indicate that these methods obviously have their own pros and cons when they are applied to the studies on land use change. New approaches will probably provide a better alternative if it can assimilate some of the advantages of current available methods.Case-based reasoning (CBR) is an effective method which was widely used to study geographical problems. However, the CBR approach is far from perfect in presenting complicated geographical phenomena, particularly in computing and reasoning the similarity between current study cases to those ones that have been studied. Research is in great need to improve CBR-based geographic information portrayal modeling and reasoning algorithm. This paper reports a CBR-based method, including a spatial relationship extracting algorithm and a model describing the similar reasoning between spatially related cases. These methods were tested by examining the land use change in Zhuhai City, which is located on the western Pearl River Mouth of Guangdong, China. In order to evaluate the prediction accuracy derived from CBR-based method, we also use Bayesian network method to study land use change in our study area.As the results indicate, both CBR and Bayesian network approaches yielded similar prediction accuracy. However, the advantages in CBR approach are obvious, particularly in dealing with complicated geographic phenomena. When using the CBR method, it is unnecessary to define those complicated conversion regulations. Instead, the method predicts land use change simply based on knowledge retrieved from old cases, hence significantly improving the efficiency in building the case library, as well as case querying in the library. By contrast, Bayesian networks require extensive computation and more unrealistic assumptions, i.e., complete dataset, no preferred selection, and non-continuous variables.
Landscape index is an instrument commonly used for quantitative analysis of landscape pattern. However, most of landscape indices are generally focused on simple analysis and description of the geometric features of a landscape patch or pattern, while neglecting information on dynamic changes of landscape pattern. In this paper a new landscape index, i.e., landscape expansion index (LEI), is proposed. In contrast with conventional landscape indices, LEI contains information of the formation processes of landscape pattern, so it can be used to analyze the dynamic changes of two or more temporal phases of landscape pattern, since conventional landscape indices only reflect information for one certain temporal phase of landscape pattern. Landscape expansion index was applied to studies on the urban landscape expansion of Dongguan City, Guangdong, China for the period of 1988-2006, and the results indicate that LEI can perfectly identify the three types of urban expansion, i.e., infilling type, edge-expansion type and outlying type. Additionally, based on an analysis of the LEI changes in the urban expansion processes of Dongguan City, it was found that the rule governing urban expansion of Dongguan City is consistent with the phases theory on urban growth. This study further demonstrates that LEI can be used effectively for a quantitative analysis of the dynamic changes of landscape pattern, and LEI proves to be significant to the studies on landscape pattern and its dynamic changes.
Traditional spatial clustering methods can not avoid the disadvantage of "hardware division", and can not describe the physical characteristics of spatial entity effectively. One-dimensional cloud model can not accurately reflect multi-attribute characteristics of the real-world. Besides, essential information of spatial objects might be lost during procedure of simple fusion. Standard two-dimensional cloud model overcomes some shortcomings of one-dimensional cloud, but it still can not meet the needs of simulating the non-homogeneous and non-symmetry characteristics of complex geographical phenomena. In view of the above, this paper sets forth a general multi-dimensional cloud model, which describes the characteristics of spatial objects more reasonably. Based on the empirical research, a detailed interpretation of clustering results is made from the spatial distribution of membership degree of clustering, the comparative study of Fuzzy C-means and a coupled analysis of residential land prices. It is found that general multi-dimensional cloud model can reflect the integrated characteristics of spatial objects better, reveal the spatial distribution of potential information, and realize spatial division more accurately in complex circumstances. However, due to the complexity of spatial interactions among geographical entities, the construction of cloud model is a specific and challenging task.
Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) offer a conceptual approach to include multi-actor decision making into models of land use change. Through the simulation based on the MAS, this paper tries to show the application of MAS in the micro scale LUCC. This paper starts with a description of the context of MAS research. Then, based on the BDI (belief, desire, intention) decision-making architecture, it provides a model for the household decision- making. Based upon this framework, Section 4 reports a case study for Mengcha Village of Mizhi County of Shaanxi Province. Section 5 gives the simulated LUCC of 2008, and verifies the result. Section 6 discusses the potentials and drawbacks of the following approach. From our design and implementation of the MAS in a micro scale model, a number of observations and conclusions can be drawn on the implementation and future research directions. (1) The use of BDI decision-making to represent individual households provides a more realistic modeling of the making-decision process. (2) The use of continuous function, not discrete function, which constructs the interaction among households, is more realistic to reflect the effect. (3) This paper attempts to give a quantitative method to analyze the household interaction. And it provides the premise and foundation for researching the communication and learning. (4) The BDI decision-making architecture constructed in this paper helps to accumulate theoretical and practical experience for the interaction research between the micro land use decision-making and the macro land use landscape. Our future research work will focus on the following aspects. (1) The scale issues should be paid attention to the transformation of the household land use decision-making to the collective decision-making. (2) The methods should be explored on the researches into the household decision-making in a longer period of time, so as to build the bridge between long-term LUCC data and short-term household making-decision. (3) The quantitative method and molder, especially the scenario analysis molder, should be researched, which may reflect the interaction among the different household types.
This study chose Beijing as a case. It was based on the questionnaire answered by nearly 10000 people in 2005. The Geographic Information System (GIS) and spatial analysis were used to analyze the characteristics of the separation between jobs and residential locations in Beijing. Based on the case study, we found that the separation between jobs and residential locations has become a serious phenomenon in Beijing. The average commuter time is 38.0 minutes, and more than 43.7% of the workers spend more than 40 minutes on commuting. The spatial analyses show that there are spatial differences, which may be caused by the spatial structure of Beijing. The problem of the separation is not too serious in the urban central areas. However, as some suburban areas were designed to be large living communities, the residents in these areas faced a more serious problem of the separation between jobs and residential locations. On the other hand, people living in satellite towns have more chances to find jobs, so the problem of the separation between working places and home is not serious. The cluster analysis shows that there are several visible clusters of employment concentration in Beijing. The locations of these clusters are "Spatial Mis-match" with the population concentration. This "Spatial Mis-match" is decided by the rent price of the land in the city. The flow of the commuters is another index of the separation between jobs and residential locations. In Beijing, the "To Center" flows are the main commuter flow now, although there are "Out of Center" flows at the same time. This suggests that the spatial organization of the separation between jobs and residential locations is changing gradually in Beijing.
Road network system plays an important role in social and economic activities in cities. It is the bridge linking up commercial centers with demands, thus the update and change of road network will certainly affect the relevancy of commercial centers and demands. Voronoi diagram is an effective tool to partition spatial domain of influence, and the weighted Voronoi diagram based on road network analysis can simulate the actual situation of function radiation of commercial centers. This paper proposed an approach to constructing weighted Voronoi diagram based on network analysis. By contrast of different Voronoi diagrams, the weighted Voronoi area diagram based on network path time analysis is affirmed to be most effective to simulate the radiation domain of commercial centers. We integrated spatial interaction theory and breakpoint theory with network weighted Voronoi area diagram, and simulated spatial pattern change of radiation domain and demand coverage change of commercial centers in Nanjing under different traffic conditions. The covering information of radiation domain including area, population, the furthest path distance and average path distance of commercial centers were picked up so as to analyze radiation domain changes, the relativity of expanding area and subway adjacency of commercial centers. In addition, radiation domain adjacent matrix was proposed to express the balance and unbalance status of spatial partition, which can reveal the trend of spatial competition. The results of simulation experiments and analysis show that there is correlation between expanding area and subway adjacency of commercial centers, and that road network system with fast rail transit plays a key role in spatial competition among the commercial centers.
This paper developed a method to assess the appropriateness of urban structure via evaluating the accessibility of public transportation. Through a validated accessibility index, it combined the physical setting of urban environments with the residents' satisfactions toward public transportation. Taking Beijing as an example, this paper first analyzed the influencing factors of the accessibility of public transportation from three perspectives including public service, local development status, transportation and road construction. Then, it built a hierarchical logistic regression model of satisfaction. It was found that the satisfaction of people varied spatially, with the marginal effect of within the 5th Ring Road being lower than that outside the 5th Ring Road. The connectivity to the main places of the city by public transportation, and the density of bus stops within a distance of 800 m were found to have significantly affected the satisfaction of people toward public transportation. In addition, people of different attributes valued differently. The results had implications for improving the transportation environment of Beijing. (1) At present, the investment of public transportation should focus on the areas in the built-up areas inside the 5th Ring Road rather than the suburban areas. (2) It is socially desirable that the 800-m-service areas of bus stops cover the whole city; and according to the function of various areas, the optimal density of bus stops should be different. (3) The connectivity to the main function nodes of the city by public transportation should top the agenda on the planning of bus lines, as it can substantially improve the efficiency of public transportation system and the satisfaction of the people. (4) The spatial distribution of the people with different attributes such as age and income should be taken into account when local public transportation policies are made.
Spatial accessibility plays an important role in urban development and has been a prerequisite to the linkage and development of regional integration. Taking Wuhan metropolitan area as an example, we built a series of accessibility models based on geometric and topologic distance. The proposed models are then applied to examine the spatial structural properties of the road network of Wuhan metropolitan area. It is found out that: (1) there is a high uniformity and consistency between the entire development level and accessibility pattern of the road network of Wuhan metropolitan area; (2) significant spatial differences are detected in the road network, i.e., distance decay and spatial constringency for the entire road network; (3) thus, the network shows an obvious grade-layer structure and core-periphery structure; (4) but high-class road network evolves unevenly, which causes the asymptotic deformation of the circles represented spatial-temporal accessibility, with the result that the total structure has a "Y-shaped" pattern from northwest to southeast; (5) the spatial distribution pattern of the topologic accessibility of the road network are scattered, and some skeletons and axes can be found, which results in the "axis-spoke" style and "fish spur" shape of the whole road network.
The above structures and patterns of the road network have a great impact on the transportation system of the city. For instance, some roads with very low accessibility are easy to have traffic jam and low efficiency for distributing traffic flow to the entire road network; some skeletons such as the east-west roads along the Yangtze River and the north-south roads along the Beijing-Guangzhou Railway have been very important to accommodate the traffic flow of the entire road network. We also found that the spatially uneven accessibility pattern of road network has a close relationship with the city and town system, transportation facilities and social-economic development of the area. It should also be noted that there is a complex reciprocal-coordinate relationship between highly developed road networks.
Therefore, the metropolitan area should pay more attention to the construction of transport infrastructure, especially those high-grade traffic lines and joints, because they are propitious to the servo and validity of road network; secondly, we should better develop some secondary cities in order to form a multi-polar structure of road network, which could enhance the balance and stability of total road network; thirdly, the construction of regional expressway network should be strengthened in order to promote the operation level and efficiency of road network.
There are numerous theoretical and empirical studies on FEZs, but only little consideration has been given to when, why, and how FEZs evolve under diverse economic, political, social-cultural and spatial conditions on different scales. This paper tries to put forward the structural and spatial evolutionary model of FEZs by classifying world free economic zone (FEZ), and analyzes its development of objectives, preferential policy, governance structure, industrial sectors and location of FEZs based on the international economic and political development. FEZs develop towards ① more comprehensive and macro objectives, ② more industry-oriented and multi preferential policies, ③ more cross-national and combinational zones with administrative feature, ④ more technology-intensive and multi-industries, ⑤ more flexible location and larger spatial dimension, ⑥ more rapid evolution and typologies, and ⑦ more economic integration. Based on the evolution of world FEZ, the overall planing and current situation, Tianjin Binhai New Area (TBNA) should choose the complex, gradient model of FEZ, namely a combination between the open-close customs surpervison as well as the comprehensive function and specialization. Following the road to economic development and reform, TBNA could select a close, comprehensive and complex model of FEZ in the middle stage and the Hong Kong or Macao model in the long-term goal.
Cross-strait relations have been unsteady with ups and downs in the past 20 years. The number of Mainland inbound tourists from Taiwan has increased rapidly since the restrictions on travel was removed in 1987. Based on the relevant data from 1987 to 2007, this paper analyzes the impact of cross-strait relations changes and crisis events on the number of Mainland inbound tourists from Taiwan. After a comparative study of the relevant statistics, it can be seen that a reduction appeared during a crisis event. Taking three ideal curves for the frame of reference, this paper quantitatively analyzes the impact of seven crisis events, among which, "Qiandao Lake" crisis in 1994 and the fourth cross-strait crisis from 1995 to 1996 had a great influence on the tourism development, with the accumulative loss of tourists being about 500,000, and relative loss rate being 11.4%. This research offers a case study for exploring the impact of international relations and crisis events on inbound and outbound tourism.
Per capita ecological footprint (EF) and biocapcity (BC) by component in China during the period 1995-2006 are calculated based on ecological footprint model. The series prediction models of component percentages of EF or BC are constructed with the modeling technique of statistic-dynamics, i.e., ■ = ar■p■ - be■■c■r■e■. The component percentages of per capita EF and BC in China during the period 1996-2015 are forecasted with the prediction models, and some corresponding policy recommendations are given in this paper. The results show that: (1) The component percentages of cropland, forest, and built-up land footprints decrease in China during the period 1996-2006, and those of grazing land, water area, and energy land increase consistently. The component percentages of cropland and grazing land biocapacities increase, and those of forest, water area, and built-up land decrease. (2) The component percentages of cropland and forest footprints will still decrease in China during the period 2007-2015, and those of grazing land, water area, and energy land will increase. The component percentage of built-up land will increase after it decreases for some consecutive years. The component percentages of cropland, forest, and grazing land biocapacities will increase, and those of water area and built-up land will decrease. (3) The decreasing component percentage of cropland footprint may be related to the reduction of direct demand for grain, and increasing grazing land, and water area to consumption growth for meat, milk, eggs, fish, etc. The decreasing component percentage of forest footprint may be related to the conversion of cropland to forestland. The increasing component percentage of energy land footprint may be related to consistent economic growth, and rapid automobile development. The component percentage of cropland biocapacity will be improved by protecting cropland and developing crop husbandry techniques. The increasing consumption of meat, milk and eggs could promote technology innovation of forage industry, and improve its biocapacity. The increasing component percentage of water area footprint can be regarded as the same as that of forest. The decreasing component percentages of built-up land footprint and biocapacity could come up by controlling the approval of construction projects and investment. The findings suggest that China's policy-makers should attach more importance to improving energy efficiency, reducing meat consumption, sustainably developing sea-fisheries, advancing technology of cropland, and converting some cropland to forestland and pasture land, etc. The purpose of our study is to provide a basis for China's adjustment of industrial structure, land use planning, to improve the ecological environment, and to perfect the assessment index system of sustainable development based on EF analysis method.
