Based on a general introduction to the content of the 6th open meeting of IHDP, and an overview of the major projects and science plans of ESSP and IHDP, this paper discussed the future science issues and development priorities for human-environment research in Geography. Besides regional heterogeneity and holistic view, which have already been highly emphasized in Geography, the human-environment system also has vulnerability, risk, resilience and adaptability, which are newly discovered inherent features. These four features can modify, change or transform each other in certain spatial and temporal context. Because of these features, Geography, which takes the mechanism and process of the human-environment system as its congenital task, must redesign its research strategy to contribute to the global human-environment research community. The necessary strategic transformations for geographic research include: from element and pattern oriented to process oriented integrated research; from integrated research which combines physical geography and human geography to systematic research on resources and environment issues; from environment reconstruction to integrated disaster risk management research; from dynamics of pattern and process to systematic simulation of resources guarantee and regional security; from regional human-environment interaction mechanism research to global human-environment interaction mechanism research. This is a big challenge for Geography, and also a precious opportunity we could not bear to lose. We should learn from the strategies in the science plans for global environmental change of IHDP and IGBP, strengthen the understanding of dynamic and non-dynamic behaviors of the human-environment system, then solve the complex globalization, urbanization, resources, environment, ecology, disaster, risk and sustainable development problems we are facing through systematic and integrated research, which is a big advantage of Geography, and gradually approach a resource conserving and environment friendly society. Only in this way, could geographers contribute to the construction of a well off and harmonious society in China, the decision making of global sustainable development, and the bi-health of human and Earth.
Natural disaster is the hotspot question in international society and academe. Natural disaster prevention is very important since the constant increase in intensity, frequency and extent of natural disasters. A coastal city is an important area and strategic focus of people convergency, national economy and society development, so the loss of the cities from natural disasters is very fierce and fatal. At present, the main questions discussed in this field are: types and risk identification of natural disasters, the indexes system and model of vulnerability assessment, natural disaster risk assessment and management, and the pattern of natural disaster data management. As the natural disaster risk assessment and risk management of coastal cities started relatively late in China, in the background of global warming and quick urbanization, our research in the coastal coastal cities should focus on these aspects: the indexes system and method of coastal city vulnerability assessment, the assessment procedure criterion and dynamic assessment model of coastal city natural disaster risk, the pattern and template of coastal city natural disaster data management, and the GIS tools of coastal city natural disaster risk assessment.
Based on the cost-income data (1980-2002) of farm produce and the China Agricultural Yearbook, taking these main crops in the progress of the arable land use as a case study, this paper studied the regional differences in the changes of the agricultural land use in China during the period 1980-2002 from three aspects as the degree of intensity, the sown area and the abandonment of the arable land. The results showed that: (1) The degree of intensity of land use in the western region (WR) during 1980-2000 had a strong increasing trend, but in the eastern region (ER) and in the central region (CR) the degree of intensity descended notablely and has had a sustained declining trend since 1997. (2) The total sown area of the crops shrank evidently in the ER, but the total sown area of crops had a stable trend of expansion in the WR. (3) The sown area in the ER, CR and WR went through a similar process, i.e., shrinking(1980-1985)-expanding(1985-1991)-shrinking (1991-1994)-expanding(1994-1999)-shrinking (1999-2002). However, there was a marked difference in the change extent and its tendency of the sown area among them. The sown area had a marked declining tendency in the WR and expanded in the CR and WR especially before 1999. (4) The abandoned cultivated land area was the largest in the CR, moderate in the ER and the smallest in the WR. The abandonment phenomena emerged in 1992-1995 in the ER, in 1998-2002 in the CR, and the time of the abandonment in the WR had no feature of concentration.
Environmental degeneration in the Tibetan Plateau has attracted great attention worldwide. However, case studies on how the residents understand and respond to environmental degeneration are scarce. Using Participatory Rural Appraisal method, this paper investigated how the people in different regions in the upper reaches of the Dadu River watershed understood and responded to environmental degradation, based on comparative field surveys in three villages, in which Danzamu village chosen from villages in the valley region, Kerma village from mountainside region and Rico village from mountain and plateau region. The results show that: (1) although realizing environmental degeneration, the villages in different regions responded diversely. As labor forces were transferred to the secondary and tertiary industries, population pressure in Danzamu and Kerma villages were relaxed. Residents in Danzamu village actively responded to natural hazards and forest degradation, as their livelihoods never relied on forest and rangeland. Whereas, the residents in Kerma village passively responded to natural hazards, forest and meadow degradation and exhausting of wildlife resources, as their livelihoods still relied on animal husbandry. Labor forces in Rico village were hard to be transferred to the secondary and tertiary industries, so they had to raise more livestock to make a living. Active measures were taken to avoid climate induced loss, not to avoid forest and meadow degradation and exhausting of wildlife resources. So the most fragile regions are the mountain and plateau region and mountainside region, not the valley region. (2) Livelihood strategy is the key factor affecting the villages to respond to population pressure and environmental degradation. So the framework of livelihood strategy should be used to explain and intervene in issues of population pressure and environmental degradation in ecotones. (3) Transferring labor forces to the secondary and tertiary industries was in favor of improving people's living standard. It is necessary to reduce education fee to speed up the pace of labor forces transferring in mountainside region. In mountain and plateau region, preferable ways also include development of towns, highways, education equipments and other establishments and, above all, the industrialization of traditional animal husbandry.
Landscape pattern analysis based on landscape metrics is a basic content of the research on landscape ecology. More and more researches proved that not only scale effects and the precision of remote sensed data had significant influence on landscape metrics, but also the difference of land use classification would make the change of landscape metrics. However, we still have not found out how land use classification affects landscape metrics and associated influence mechanism. In this paper, we chose Bao'an of Shenzhen city as an experimental area, to analyze the characteristics of the change of 24 landscape metrics associated with the change of land use classification. The results showed that land use classification indeed influenced landscape metrics. And based on the shape of the land use classification effect curves and the predictability of these relations, the 24 landscape metrics can be divided into three groups. The first group included 12 indices, i.e., number of patches (NP), patch density (PD), edge density (ED), mean patch size (MPS), landscape shape index (LSI), mean patch shape index (MSI), perimeter-area fractal dimension (PAFRAC), mean patch fractal dimension (MPFD), aggregation index (AI), Shannon's diversity index (SHDI), Simpson's diversity index (SIDI), and modified Simpson's diversity index (MSIDI). The behavior of this group of indices with the change of the number of land use types was very predictable with simple function relations in regression analysis, which were mainly logarithm function, S function, and inverse function. The second group included seven indices, i.e., patch size standard deviation (PSSD), patch size coefficient of variation (PSCV), largest patch index (LPI), area-weighted mean patch shape index (AWMSI), area-weighted mean patch fractal dimension (AWMPFD), landscape division index (DIVISION), and patch cohesion index (COHESION). The behavior of this group was not easy to predict with significant subsection. And function relations used in regression analysis mainly included S function, linear function, inverse function and compound function. The third group included five indices, i.e., contagion index (CONT), landscape dominance index (DI), Shannon's evenness index (SHEI), Simpson's evenness index (SIEI), and modified Simpson's evenness index (MSIEI). The behavior of this group could not be predicted. Significant influence of the changing land use classification on landscape metrics indicated that only landscape with the same land use classification could be used for comparing landscape pattern characteristics.
China has been undergoing widespread urbanization process at unprecedented speed since the 1990s. The urban land expansion is an important aspect of urbanization and has diversified types and characteristics, so the identification of urban land expansion types is thought to be crucial for the study of urbanization and urban development management. In view of the insufficiencies in the previous studies, this paper presented a new method for identifying the urban land expansion types based on the temporal change characteristics of light intensity of each cell obtained from the non-radiance calibrated DMSP/OLS nighttime light data of China in 1992, 1996 and 1998. According to the method, the types of urban land expansion were classified into two categories and seven subtypes as accelerated intensifying type, steadily intensifying type, decelerated intensifying type, unchanging type and unsteady type in the infilling category, and 1996 new expansion type, 1998 new expansion type in the sprawling category. In terms of the classification result, this paper analyzed the characteristics of urban land expansion types in composition structure, spatial distribution and developing intensity further, in which some meaningful conclusions were drawn. The new method presented in this paper seems to be useful because it can not only identify the types of urban land expansion on large scale rapidly and simply, but also provide more detailed and realistic information on urban land expansion on the premise of ensuring the comparability of classification result with other researches.
Behavioral study is one of the hot topics in the field of urban geography. However, the theory in the last decades was limited because of the shortage of its research method and technology. With the development of GIS, the theories on humanism are developed rapidly in recent years, and the study of micro behavior is helpful to explain the macro urban space. In this paper, a study framework is set up, which helps to do some research on the relationship between commuters' travel pattern and urban structure, and a micro-macro simulation model is also given. With this framework and the model, a case study in Guangzhou's typical communities is carried out. The results show that there are some relationships between the development and organization of urban form and commuters' travel pattern, as well as the social aspect. The model simulating the image of the commuters and their evaluation on the environment is carried out as anticipated.
Based on counties' statistic data in 2000-2003, this paper reveals new regional distribution and difference of main grain-output regions in China. For further understanding regional characteristics and natural risk of grain production, this analysis adopted four indices of the proportion of grain-sown area, the proportion of cultivated land, grain yield per gain-sown area and population density to group the main grain-output regions into six types by k-means Cluster in SPSS11.0, and presented these results respectively in four geographical regions, namely, the Northeast China, the North China Plain, the oases in western China and the southern China. This study shows that the main grain-producing areas have shifted from the south to the north of China, and added newly in western China since the late 1990s. There was an obvious disparity among the bases of commercial grain production in the late 1990s. The per capita grain in about 1/3 China's main grain-producing counties that were designated by the Chinese government is below 400 kg; and most of these areas are located in southern China. At present, the surplus grain produced by the main grain-producing counties in Northeast China (including the eastern Inner Mongolia) is about 34.7% of the surplus grain of the whole country. The proportion of the surplus grain production in the main grain-producing counties in the south is very low. The surplus grain produced by the 43 main grain-producing counties of Hunan and Jiangxi provinces is only 5.2% of the whole country. The surplus grain produced by the 24 main grain-producing counties in Sichuan Province and Chongqing Municipality is less than that by the 25 main grain-producing counties in Hebei Province. It is obvious that the distribution of the main grain-producing counties has changed in China in the early 21st century. In the 21st century, Northeast China, the middle-south of North China, and arid and semi-arid region of Northwest China produced 3/4 of surplus grains. The surplus grain in Northeast China produces about 42.1% the surplus grain of the whole country, and ranks first distinctly, followed by the North China Plain that produces about 28.4% of surplus grain. Most of these areas are located in the regions sensitive to environmental changes. It is necessary to strengthen the study on environmental changes and natural risk of China's food security in the main grain output regions.
Using the 5th census data on the spatial level of neighborhood committee, the lowest administrative level of urban China, this paper examines sociospatial differentiation in post-reform Shanghai. By applying the traditional method of factorial analysis, six types of social areas are identified: worker villages built before reform, migrant communities, professional complexes, peasant villages, new-worker villages and aged accumulated inner-city. Accordingly, the post-reform sociospatial structure of Shanghai is a model combining the three classic structures: concentric layers, clusters, and multi-nuclei. Our findings suggest that residential district (jiedao) is heterogeneous, thus we argue that the social area should be studied on lower spatial levels. In this sense, we further examine to what extent social space is differentiated. It suggests that neither demographic variables nor socio-economic variables have significant differentiation as those in the West; instead, there is rather a high extent of housing differentiation. The underlying reason is attributed to the institutional forces such as work-unit, i.e. their impact upon housing in history and their impact in the post-reform era. This distinctive mechanism indicates that now the extent of sociospatial differentiation of urban China is still much lower than that of Western cities.
Economic transition introduced market forces and globalizing forces into the Chinese economic system, resulting in dramatic spatial transformation of manufacturing industries. Using a panel dataset of two-digit manufacturing industries by province during the period 1980-2003, this study found that Chinese manufacturing industries have been increasingly concentrated and Chinese provinces have become more diversified in their industrial structure. However, most industries experienced a spatially dispersing process in the 1980s and a polarizing process from the 1990s. While becoming more pluralistic, meanwhile most provinces diversified their industrial structure and turned more specialized in the late 1990s. Statistical results imply that comparative advantages, scale economies and globalization forces are the most important locational determinants of Chinese manufacturing industries. Utilization of foreign investments and exporting have indeed reinforced the importance of comparative advantages in locating Chinese industries. External economies stressed in economic geography models have not fostered industrial agglomerations at the provincial level.
