With the implementation of reform and opening up policies, rapid industrialization and urbanization in the eastern coastal area of China has not only promoted the development of regional economy, enhanced the international competitiveness, but also influenced the vast rural area deeply, bringing great changes to the rural industrial structure, employment structure and agricultural production pattern, and the development of the coastal rural area has come into a new period of transformation and upgrade. The proportion of the primary industry decreased from 23.3% to 7.9% and that of the tertiary industry increased from 19.8% to 40.5%, while the proportion of agricultural labor force decreased from 90.8% to 47.9% during 1978-2005. Analysis shows that proportions of both production value of coastal agriculture in GDP and agricultural labor force in rural labors will continue to decrease to 8.0% and 44.5% by 2010 and to 6.0% and 32.2% by 2020. From 1990 to 2005, the average elasticity coefficient of cultivated land and labor force in the eastern coastal area came to 1.84, which means that the transfer of agricultural labor force is faster than the decrease of cultivated land and the labor productivity is increasing steadily. At the corresponding period, rural population decreased from 306 million to 219 million while rural construction land use per capita increased, indicating that the transfer of rural population failed to be linked to the decrease of rural residential land. The new countryside construction in the eastern coastal area must obey the rules of rural transformation and development, lay stress on scientific plan and regionalization, promote rural productivity and foster interactive and harmonious development between city and countryside by optimizing urban and rural land use and developing modern agriculture and rural characteristic economy.
According to the analysis of ring roads in 16 cities, this paper presents a principle of ring road spacing between cities in China: The city ring roads in China accord with golden section number (ω = 0.618033988...) or golden section number reciprocal (1/ ω = 1.618033988...) from the outside to ratio of the inner spacing. According to ring road spacing ratio China's ring roads can be divided into three ring types of A, B, C: A type standard ratio is 1/ω; B type standard ratio is ω; and C type is 1/ω in the upper standard of longitudinal direction (from south to north) ratio and ω in the upper standard of transverse direction (from east to west) ratio. Case analysis indicates that China's city ring roads spacing ratio accords basically with this principle. The principle applies to the city ring roads of different scales, characteristics and different forms. Applying this principle, it is possible to carry out planning and raise suggestions for China's city ring roads as well as their rationality appraisals.
Many geographical phenomena have some spatial differentiation rules. So it is of theoretical significance to research the formation and development of the geographical spatial differentiation. But a top-down approach has difficulty in analyzing evolvement of these geographical phenomena. This paper represents the bottom-up approach based on multi-agent system and reproduces the differentiation of complex geographic phenomena. With technologies of java-swarm simulation, this paper simulates urban system from chaos to order and provides the analysis approach to develop and verify the urban theories. In order to implement a segregate urban spatial structure at macro level emerging from simple rules established at micro level, the model based on multi-agent is constructed as follows: simulated inhabitants wander through the universe to find the optimal place of residence according to constraints as their incomes and perception of the environment. And the model consists of four related components, i.e., environment controller, the city's housing infrastructure, inhabitant agents and rules controller. Negative exponential function (E = e-ax) isintroduced to represent income distribution, where a is defined as a factor of income gap,changing of x can represent the dynamics of the income of agent. The housing infrastructure of the model is a M×M square lattice cells, which symbolize houses. The migration decision of agent depends on the residential pressure. It is suggested that the probability of leaving its current location increases monotonically with an increase in the residential pressure. And the residential pressure of an agent is estimated by its economic tension and environment pressure. On the Swarm platform, Java language is used to realize the model. The spatial differentiation model exhibits the progress of residents' aggregating and the influence of houses' values. Under the different factors of income gap, the influences of spatial differential are compared. Results of simulation show that spatial differentiation is an inevitable result. And widening of income gap makes poorer passivity in choosing house location.
Potential dynamics of agricultural crop sown area has attracted a wide range of attention from numerous researchers due to its ecological and socio-economic implications. This paper describes a method to develop and implement an integrated model to dynamically simulate future changes in sown areas of the world's major crops (rice, maize, wheat and soybean) at a global scale. The general hypothesis of this study is that crop sown area change is directly linked with farmer decisions on crop choice, and what kind of crop to be cultivated is highly dependent on the random utility of available crops. The modeling approach is based on a crop choice model, which is a Multinomial Logit Model and used to model farmer crop choice decisions among a variety of available alternatives by using an optimization approach. The assessment of model performance by comparing model estimates with FAO statistical data (2001-2003) and MODIS land cover product (2001) indicates its reliability and dignity for addressing the complicated dynamic change of agricultural land use change at present and capability for long-term scenario investigation and applications for the future. From model simulation for crop sown area change during 2005-2035 in different regions in the world, global potential cropping patterns of major crops can be interpreted. Moreover, the results present that the change rates and trajectories of crops in different regions show a great variation over time and space. This study is an attempt of detecting future sown area change at a global level by using a simplified approach along with some assumptions. Although some uncertainty remains in the model, the outcomes can help to understand and explain the causes, locations, consequences and trajectories of land-use change, and provide a great support service for land-use planning and policy-making activities.
Sense of place is an important research field of humanistic geography in man-land relationship research. Travel and sightseeing is a significant way of perceiving and understanding environments and tourist's sense of place is the outcome of interaction between tourist and destination environment. By constructing model of tourist's sense of place, a case study of Jiuzhaigou shows that (1) differences exist among four dimensions of tourist's sense of place, namely natural scenery, social cultural setting, tourism function, and affectional attachment; (2) natural scenery of Jiuzhaigou is valued unanimously by tourists, which is the primary cause of tourists' affectional attachment to Jiuzhaigou; (3) social cultural settings of Jiuzhaigou is low-valued relatively, which affects tourists' experiential evaluation of tourism environment and function; (4) tourists endow Jiuzhaigou with more meanings of natural scenery sightseeing and aesthetic value than meanings of folk-custom culture experience and historical value, the place particularity of "Tibetan village" is not identified enough by tourists; and (5) significant differences of perception and experiential evaluation occur in Tibetan social customs, local culture, tourism service, sightseeing order and atmosphere. Its implication in planning and management of natural resources and tourist destination is also discussed.
This study presents a quantitative method for investigating the network characteristics of urban tourism by the network analysis, which offers numerous techniques and indicators through measuring the links among nodes to demonstrate the structural patterns of connected systems. The indicators measuring network analysis include centrality, structural holes, size, density, centralization, diameter of tourism network and core-periphery model. Then, this article empirically tested a sample of urban tourists taken from 16 tourism nodes in Nanjing city. For every tourism node, there is tourist centralization and decentralization link with 5.19 other nodes in average. Averagely, every tourism node acts as intermediary number of times being 6.07. Mutual connection is comparatively intense between the tourism nodes. But, distribution is somewhat uneven between every tourism node. Qinhuai Scenic Zones, Zhongshan Hill Scenic Area, Xinjiekou tourism district, Presidential Palace Scenic Area, the Memorial Hall of the Vicitims in Nanjing Massacre by Japanese invaders lie in core. These nodes have high level of structural holes, which are situated in non-substitutable locations with connections spanning different sub-groups of nodes and with opportunities to broker the flow of tourists among other nodes. However, they are likely to cause a severe bottleneck of tourist flows. In all, density of tourism network is not very high (0.35), there being obvious stratified structure. Density between tourism nodes in the inside of the core area has reached 0.81, having formed the strong centre-line-type structure. Based on the structural characteristics relating to its network position on various touring routes, this article suggests the appropriate tourist facilities and services of each particular destination. Finally, according to Dianne Dredge's (1999) tourism location theory, Nanjing urban tourism structure belongs to multi-nodes location modeling and development stage.
This paper obtained detailed data from many kinds of online survey systems and website traffic statistic tools. The data are summarized using time-distributing characteristics of the browsing behavior of tourism website visitors on daily, weekly and yearly bases. Under this condition, this paper analyzed the relationship of the traffic of tourism websites and the tourists. Four questions are researched: (1) the self characteristics of website, the comparison of China and foreign countries, and the comparison of southern and northern regions in China; (2) the comparison between the whole internet browsing with different kinds of websites browsing; (3) the comparison of the internet and tradition media; and (4) the guide of tourism website information flow to realistic tourists flow. The time-distributing characteristics of the browsing behavior of tourism website visitors on daily, weekly and yearly bases: Daily: (1) the characteristic is bimodal distribution, 10:00 am and 14:00 pm are the summit, and 20:00-22:00 pm is high frequency stage. The browsing time variation is different in China and other countries, and in northern and southern China. There is close connection in browsing behavior of users and their habits. (2) There are great differences in the browsing time-stage of tourism websites, the whole Internet and the main websites. (3) The time characteristic and reason of browsing behavior of users can be explained from the deep level of users' identity variable. (4) The browsing behavior of tourism websites is different from the looking and hearing behavior of TV media: the time-distributing of net media is dispersive, and the net-usage rate is higher beyond the golden stage. (5) Overall, the tourist traffic daily is the same with the usage trend of tourism websites. From time to time, the information flow does not guide to people flow. Weekly: (1) the self characteristic has no obvious difference in China and foreign countries, and in southern and northern regions. The time distribution of browsing behavior of users is low at weekends and high on weekdays. (2) There are similar characteristics and different characteristics when comparing the whole internet with other types of websites. The usage rate is low at weekends and high on weekdays, which is the same compared with other type websites, mainly because the users get some outdoor activities such as sport. (3) The usage type of tourism website appears "Z-shaped" distribution pattern, and the using trend of websites is complementary each other with tourist distribution. The browsing traffic of tourism website is high on weekdays and low at weekends, and people flow is low on weekdays and high at weekends. Yearly: (1) the self characteristic is the complicated multiple characteristic type. There are obvious differences between China and other countries, and between southern and northern regions. The traffic of websites that has no obvious regionality is the highest before golden week yearly, in other time stage, the cycle is week and the changing of traffic is little. The traffic of websites that has obvious regionality is one-peak distribution type yearly. (2) The browsing time behavior and the fluctuation of tourist flow with time have close connections. The season influences the seasonal distribution of tourist flow, and influences the seasonal distribution of the usage of tourism websites. The society season produces the splice effect. It causes the yearly traffic trend of tourism websites and tourist flow trend wavy, which is the guidance of information flow to people flow of tourism websites.
Core-periphery model is generally used as a theory to interpret the spatial discrepancy of regional development and evolvement pattern of regional economic structure. Core-periphery theory has been rarely put into the tourism research both at home and abroad. Previous work of empirical researches undertaken in tourism field has mainly focused on the economic inequality and developmental relationships between the core and the periphery tourism regions. However, the form and its evolvement of the spatial core-periphery structure are still relatively rare up to now. Therefore combined with the analytical framework of tourism geography, the dynamic process, development stages and the evolvement of the spatial structure are explored in this paper by using analytical methods of urban geography based on a case study of Sichuan province, which is rich in tourism resources in Southwest China. Findings of primary city distribution and rank-size distribution suggest that the spatial pattern of tourism cities in Sichuan province takes on a typical core-periphery structure. Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province and the biggest tourism city, is the primary tourism city and is therefore being the core city while others are peripheries of the tourism industry. Moreover, the dynamic evolvement of the spatial pattern in Sichuan belongs to the spatial polarization stage. Transportation, resource endowment, economic development, location and spatial position, urban size, function and urbanization are the important factors related to this core-periphery structure by correlation analysis. Finally, sub-core tourism cities, i.e. the second core cities such as Leshan, Aba and Mianyang can be discovered by cluster analysis. Nevertheless, these sub-core tourism cities have a long way to go in terms of the tourism industry.
The Yangtze River Delta is one of the most economically developed regions in China. During the last decade, this area experienced rapid urban expansion, and accordingly, masses of cropland have been converted into human buildings. To analyze the influence of landscape change, it is important to provide up-to-date land cover information of this area. This paper describes the development of land cover map of the Yangtze River Delta using 250 m MODIS data, and the main satellite data used in this study were MODIS EVI data, MODIS reflectance data and DEM. A filter method based on time series was applied to eliminate EVI noise, and a PCA analysis was performed to reduce the volume of data. Besides, homogeneity was calculated to present spatial texture information. Therefore, a compositive classification matrix was generated. Considering the natural and artificial conditions of the Yangtze River Delta, a classification scheme was defined. ROIs (Region of Interest) were selected from Landsat ETM+ images by human interpretation consulting the 1: 1,000,000 Vegetation Atlas of China. Then the land cover map was generated using MLC method. After correction by buffering analysis, we got the final land cover classification of the Yangtze River Delta. The classification accuracy was assessed using fine-resolution Landsat images, with an overall accuracy of 95.98% . In addition, our classification result was compared with the MODIS-IGBP land cover production and showed better accuracy. The good result indicated the good behavior of the classification method and technical processing used in our research, and also suggested the advantage of 250 m MODIS data in regional land cover mapping.
Concerning the rapid urban land growth in recent China, this paper takes the urban growth during 1996 to 2004 of Beijing as a study case, and indicates that urban sprawl can be identified or measured through growth configuration, urban growth efficiency and its impacts of urban growth. It then identifies a geo-spatial indices system for measuring sprawl in Beijing, covering six factors of population, economy, land use, agriculture, environment and urban life quality, a total of 13 indices in all. Specifically speaking, patch area index (AI), patch shape index (SI), discontinuous development index (DDI), strip development index (SDI), leapfrog development index (LDI) and planning consistency index (PCI) are introduced for measuring spatial configuration of urban growth; horizontal density index (HDI), vertical density index (VDI), population density index (PDI) and GDP density index (GDI) are developed for measuring efficiency of urban growth; arable land impact index (AII), open space impact index (OII) and transportation impact index (TII) are used for measuring impacts of urban growth. In order to calculate these 13 indices, different sources data are selected, including land use maps from update survey made by Beijing Bureau of Land Resources, former version of land use master plan, land price and floor-area-ratio samples from land transactions bulletin, digitized map of the transportation lines and county centers, population statistics from the fifth national census and GDP statistical data from Statistical Yearbook, etc. Various GIS spatial analysis methods are used to spatialize theses indices into 100m×100m cells, including overlay, interpolation, neighborhood statistics, distance analysis, etc. Besides, an integrated urban sprawl index is calculated by weight sum of these 13 indices, by which the newly developed land patches are classified into four types: rational development, low-grade sprawl, moderate sprawl and high-grade sprawl. The application result indicates that geo-spatial indices system can capture most typical features and interior differentia of urban sprawl. Construction land in Beijing has kept fast growing with large amount, low efficiency and disordered spatial configuration, which indicates a typical sprawling tendency. The following specific sprawl features are identified by each index. (1) Typical spatial features of sprawling: obvious fragmentation and irregularity of landscape due to unsuccessful enforcement of land use planning; unadvisable pattern of land use growth with typical discontinuous development, strip development and leapfrog development. (2) Low growth efficiency of sprawl: low density of land use growth, low population density and economic output on newly developed area. (3) Other negative impacts on agriculture, environment and city life. According to the integrated sprawl index, sprawling amount in the northern part is larger than that in the southern, but the sprawling extent is in converse case; most sprawling areas include the junctions of near suburbs and outer suburbs, the places along or between highways, etc. Four sprawling patterns are identified: randomly expansion at urban fringe, strip development along highways, scattered development of industrial land, leapfrog of urban residence and industrial area.
After wastelands reclamation in the Tarim River Basin in recent 50 years, one third of the stream flow in the Tarim River (the longest continental river in China) has been cut off. The natural ecosystems are seriously degenerated, and the situation of land use is tempestuously changed. Therefore, it is urgent to resolve the problems that whether there exist the changing laws of scales and what kinds of scales are suitable in monitoring land use. Adaptive choice of scale is one of the important issues in ecology and geography. In different studies, the choice of methods and standards vary with purpose. This article summarized methods on how to choose appropriate scale based on land-use data of the Tarim River Basin in Xinjiang of China in the 1950s. Regarding the areas of land use types as the scales, the parameters are selected, the histograms of the areas of patches are charted, and then normalized scale variance calculated under 9 scales (1:2 000 000, 1:1 000 000, 1:500 000, 1: 250 000, 1:100 000, 1:50 000, 1:25 000, 1:10 000 and 1:5 000), furthermore, some landscape indexes of patch area counted to examine and add result of normalized scale variance as well, which include Shannon-Weaver's landscape diversity index, Simpson's diversity index and fractal dimension respectively. The scale laws of general land use and 4 main land use types including woodlands, shrub land, sandy land and saline or alkaline lands in the mainstream area of the Tarim River are lucubrated by interpreting the land use data in the 1950s. The result showed that: (1) Normalized scale variance of the Tarim River reached maximum at scale of 1:50 000 in the 1950s, that 20km×20km grid sizes, diversity of patch size at 1:50 000 richer than in other scale's, so 1:50 000 used as appropriate scale of the Tarim River. In addition to appropriate scale of sandy land at scale of 1:100 000, the optimal scale of woodland, shrub land and saline land is at 1:50 000. (2) Shannon-Weaver's diversity index, Simpson's diversity index and fractal dimension of saline land have the same results as normalized scale variance. Diversity indexes and normalized scale variance of sand land proved the appropriate scale being in the same scale domain. It is noticed that there is a significant difference in woodland and shrub land. The optimal scale of diversity indexes are at 1:10 000 rather than 1:50 000. (3) Fractal dimension of sandy land and saline land showed a marked increase and up to 1.35 at 1:10 000 and similar at other levels, however, fractal dimension of woodland and shrub land are close at all scale levels and no more than 1.2, which reveals that hierarchical structure areas of sandy land and saline land are probably changed at scale of 1:10 000, while woodlands and shruby lands's are distributed under the same hierarchical structure in the region.
