In this paper, the important contents and purpose of the "Future Earth" are introduced briefly, and the background of this file is analyzed. It is extraordinary of the framework document to place emphasis on the integration between natural science and social science. The paper states that Mr. Tsien Hsueshen and Mr. Huang Bingwei have similar viewpoints 20 years ago, which is striking and prospective. According to the serious situation of China's environmental change and development of Chinese geographical science in recent years, the opportunities, direction and tasks of science are emphasized and discussed to achieve the transitional development of geographical research.
Geography is a subject which perceptibly reveals integration and regionalism. The integration means that the diversiform subjects in which geography is involved, and that the regionalism of geography is reflected by the regional differentiation. Through the comprehensive study of the interrelationships among the constituent elements of earth system and the relationship between natural and human systems, it helps us understand the variations of the past, present and future of earth system, and grasp the essence of these changes. Pattern helps us to understand the external features of the world and the process is conducive to the understanding of the internal biophysical mechanism of the world. On the basis of field observations and long-term comprehensive surveys, coupling of patterns and processes at different spatiotemporal scales is an effective way to understand and solve the problems in the field of geography. By analysis of the case studies in the Loess Plateau, the methods of coupling the patterns and processes in the integrated research of geography are discussed and explored.
In combination with the author's review of frontier issues in human geography in recent years, this paper clarifies that uncovering the spatiotemporal difference rules of human-environment system interaction in the geographic pattern is the highest-level scientific puzzle in modern geography, and is the understanding of key issues which could decide the prospect of future geography. Four practical methods including "process induction, regional comparison, qualitative analysis, logical judgment" until now for integrated human-environment system researches are proposed. Aiming at four frontier fields including regional equilibrium, resources and environment carrying capacity, territorial function, and spatial structure, academic ideas including the driving forces of regional development pattern changes, the impact carrier of natural sphere on human activity sphere, the rules and methods for integrated geographic zoning, and the changing laws of "living-production-ecology" spatial structure, are discussed. Finally, this paper discusses the significance and key issues of regional sustainable development in the framework of "Future Earth", and presents that the integrated method system and basic theoretical system of comprehensive research in complexity science based on "integration of both natural and social sciences" and "interpenetration of both basic researches and decision-making application", will profoundly influence research progress of the process and framework of human-environment system.
This paper reviews and comments the evolutionary history of Acta Geographica Sinica by papers over the past 80 years. In the article, we find that Chinese geography has experienced four stages of development: the period 1934-1948, the rise from exploration of modern geography in a hard time; the period 1949-1966, Chinese geography underwent a scientific and systematic process; from 1978 to 2000, Chinese geography put itself into the flourishing stage by closely serving the national economic development needs; since 2000, China has focused on geographical innovation, and tends to be increasingly international. By analyzing the current papers in Acta Geographica Sinica, we believe that the future Chinese geographical science should be not only integrated into the development of world geography, but also have a profound influence on Chinese culture and become one of the international geographical pioneers.
We performed a comprehensively bibliometric analysis of 4420 published articles of Acta Geographica Sinica during 1934-2013, with the perspectives of growth trends, key words, article authors and research institutions. Moreover, we analyzed the main affiliated branches, including physical geography, human geography and geographical techniques based on geographic trichotomy and the general geography. This paper aims at investigating the development trend and characteristics of Acta Geographica Sinica, a journal that represents the highest academic level in the field of geography in China. The results show that: a) Acta Geographica Sinica has reflected the latest research achievements of China's highest academic level in the field of geography to a large extent. b) The number of Acta Geographica Sinica yearly publications varies significantly, which is in accordance with important events of China. c) Although Acta Geographica Sinica is a comprehensive periodical, most of its publications are focused on physical geography. d) Acta Geographica Sinica has a stable group of academic and research scholars, thus there is a demand of new academic leaders. e) Acta Geographica Sinica has relatively high agglomeration effects and the research objects and contents of geography research in China are significantly concerned to special regions.
Papers published in Acta Geographica Sinica are academically regarded as of high quality, speciality and practice-oriented studies. Reviewing these papers can help us better sketch the contours of the development of economic geography in China. This article examined 421 economic geography papers published in Acta Geographica Sinica from 1934 to 2013 based on the number of papers, evolution tracks, research paradigm, topics, and the development of sub-disciplines, and concluded that economic geography research in China has made considerable progress. But this progress remains uneven among sub-disciplines of economic geography. It has shown a close link to new issues in economic development, changing from studies on economic growth to sustainable development, from studies pertinent to nature elements to those pertinent to anthropogenic elements, and the study areas having shifted from industries providing tangible goods to economic activities on services aspects. Sub-disciplines focused on regional, industrial, and agricultural studies before the 1980s, while a growing number of papers have since then been published on transportation, service industries, and urban studies. Research ideas in the 80 years originated from various sources, leading to research by using multiple spatial scales and dynamic quantificational methods. In summary, Chinese economic geographical research has always stood close to the nation's requirements, leaning towards macro studies, economic growth, and practical characteristics. However, studies at the micro scale, with comprehensive features and theoretical deductions are emerging increasingly.
Economic geography is a discipline that studies geographical practices in the real world and plays an important role in supporting the state's strategic decision-making on spatial development and helping to understand spatial issues and solutions in contemporary society. Thus, the discipline's vitality lies with its capability to satisfy the demands of the state and society. At present, the development of economic geography in China is facing two critical challenges or opportunities. First, the Communist Party of China, the ruling party, lists modernization and enhancement of national governance capability as a major target of deepening reforms in China, which indicates reforms in the country are moving from target-oriented (i.e., crossing the river by feeling the stones) to institutional building and capability enhancement. Second, recently the International Council for Science and the International Social Science Council co-launched a large scientific program, i.e. the Future Earth, which calls for inter-disciplinary research for managing the Earth's environment and moving towards sustainable development, and China has established its national committee on Future Earth. The program emphasizes the connection of research to decision-making of both the state and society. Against these two opportunities, this paper suggests an economic geography for spatial governance to lift the discipline's capability to engage with the state and society. Then the paper gives a general discussion of the political, administrative and cultural basis on which China's unique governance structure has developed, as well as a general picture of major tools that the Chinese government has taken for spatial governance, including planning, land, Hukou, and fiscal and tax systems. This paper argues economic geographers can do a better job only if they have a better understanding and theorization of China's national governance structure although they were inclined to do research either at local and global scales or global-local connections and ignored the national scale in the past.
Built on a database composed of major books and journals published in mainland China, this study examines and summarizes the development of urban geography in post-reform China for the last decades. It applies the methods of literature quantitative analysis to interrogate the modality of recent urban geography and its studies within China's mainland. The findings include: first, along with China's miracle economic growth the community of urban geography also sees a remarkable prosperity in the last years. In particular, the topics and contents of this field witness a sustained expansion and evolvement. Moreover, its research methods are becoming more and more scientific and standardized, while the scale of these studies is turning from macroscopic to microscopic level. Along with a remarkable increase of both topics and interdisciplinary approaches, the perspectives of urban geography studies turn to be even diversified. It is found that state policy and hot-spot topics have significant impacts upon the development or direction of urban geography research. In addition, the impacts of Western theory or schools upon the research in China's mainland are also prominent. We argue that the emphasis of both theoretical studies and their applications is a key feature of post-reform China's urban geography research, among which urbanization and urban system are two key directions. After a comparative analysis of our case with recent development of urban geography in the West and other contexts such as South Africa or Brazil, say the global south, we suggest that the future study of Chinese cities should further expand a global perspective, critically import western theories, explore new theories as well as interdisciplinary approaches, and further follow the academic standard of international communities.
Urban agglomeration has been the inevitable result of China's rapid industrialization and urbanization over the last 30 years. Since the early 2000s, urban agglomeration has become the new regional unit participating in international competition and the division of labor. China has declared urban agglomeration the main spatial component of new types of urbanization over the next decade as clarified at the first Central Urbanization Working Conference and in the National New-type Urbanization Plan (2014?2020). However, research on urban agglomeration remains weak and needs to be strengthened. From 1934 to 2013, only 19 papers published in Acta Geographica Sinica contained the theme of urban agglomeration (0.55% of the total number of articles published) and the first paper on urban agglomeration appeared less than 10 years ago. Despite a small number of divergent studies, this work has contributed to and guided the formation of the overall pattern of urban agglomeration in China. For example, spatial analyses have promoted the formation of the fundamental framework of China's urban agglomeration spatial structure and guided the National New-type Urbanization Plan; spatial identification standards and technical processes have played an important role in identifying the scope and extent of urban agglomeration; serial studies have facilitated pragmatic research; and problems with the formation and development of urban agglomeration have provided a warning for future choices and Chinese development. Future research into urban agglomeration in China should (1) review and examine new problems in China's urban agglomeration options and cultivation; (2) critically consider urban agglomeration when promoting the formation of the 5+9+6 spatial pattern; (3) rely on urban agglomeration to construct new urbanization patterns such as 'stringing the agglomerations with the axis, supporting the axis with the agglomerations'; and (4) deepen national awareness about resources, environment effects and environmental carrying capacity in high density urban agglomerations, management and government coordination innovation, the construction of public finance and fiscal reserve mechanisms, the technical regulation of urban agglomeration planning, and standards for identifying the scope and extent of urban agglomeration.
This paper firstly reviews the recent progress in the international research on agricultural geography and rural development, including the research fields, theory and methodology, and the developing trend. Then, the recent research progress, major achievements and their applications in economic development of agricultural geography and rural development in China are analyzed. Finally, the prospects for the new innovative research tasks and scientific propositions in the fields of agricultural geography and rural development in China to meet the needs of national strategies are put forward, based on comparison with related research progress abroad. Recent research progress includes the aspects of research achievements, the applications of new technologies and methodologies, and the influences and applications of major achievements. The summary of recent research achievements includes eight topics: (1) integrated research on agricultural and rural geography; (2) rural transformation development and rural restructuring; (3) integrated research on building a new countryside; (4) urbanization, rural hollowing and the renovation of hollowed villages; (5) the construction of key villages and specialized villages; (6) urban-rural integration development and urban-rural equalized development; (7) regional agriculture and rural development; and (8) the systematization and internationalization of research achievements.
China's reform and opening up period saw a revival of research into population geography. Chinese researchers have discussed the issues of population capacity and realized that the total population of China will reach its maximum capacity and result in many social problems. The key to solving these problems is controlling total population capacity, developing production and changing lifestyles. Faced with resource shortages and environmental pollution, Chinese researchers have proposed strategies for creating a fourth industry, feeding environment, promoting labor employment, reducing environment pollution, and promoting gracious social behavior, cultural consciousness and new community organization at different scales. In response to rapid industrial shifts and various population structures, the research field proposed the theory of balanced population growth, and when faced with land use and development issues they developed a regional development model through industry transfer, population migration and payment transfer. Other themes covered in this review include unbalanced regional development, functional zoning indicators, a partitioned model of population development, population analysis, quantitative index and modeling. Future work on population geography in China requires (1) a distributed geographic information system around census and population thematic data to promote the exchange of population data and measurement models; (2) strengthening surveys of different micro-scale communities and control of the active behavior of community systems under rapid population change to improve our understanding and interpretation of quantitative population geography; and (3) international population intelligence exchange to better understand the population evolution trends of different countries, and regulate and control the allocation of labor and talent. Last, population geography researchers in China should adopt interdisciplinary methods to maximize their contribution to national development and scientific research.
Since the new millennium, Chinese society has underwent constant "differentiation" and "change", and typical social and cultural phenomena are emerging unceasingly. Social and cultural geography research has attracted sustained attention from scholars. Based on summary of the evolution of the theory of social cultural geography in foreign context, this paper reviews the concerns and hotspots to which Chinese social cultural geography scholars have been given attention in the past ten years. In addition, combining the current situation of development of China, this research also puts forward some other important research areas that should be concerned, such as social and cultural traits of the indigenous geography, the influence of rights and capital on spatial form of social and cultural and place construction, the phenomenon of mobility and scale effect caused by migration between urban and rural areas. In addition, this paper places emphasis of the dialectical unity between the universality of knowledge and China's own socio-cultural characteristics.
Since the 1980s, the western countries have developed into the postindustrial society with the dominance of knowledge based economies and services. The societal economic transformations make the space-economy relations more complex. Economic actors are embedded in the complex global-local system. Economic geography starts to go beyond economics and widely borrows theories and methods from sociology, management, institutional economics, anthropology, and cultural studies. This paper provides a comprehensive literature review about the progress in the western economic geography in the last three decades, documenting the changes of research perspectives, progresses in hot research areas and policy relevance. The mainstream economic geography has experienced a number of turns in research perspectives, including new regionalism, institutional turn, cultural turn, relational turn and evolutionary turn. Political economy remains one of the influential perspectives in the research of economic geography, especially in the global financial crisis. Based on the analysis of knowledge network of economic geography built with key words, this paper identifies eight hot research areas in the western economic geography and reviews their progresses in research. Those areas include region and local development, industrial geography, economic globalization, labor geography, innovation geography, consumption geography, financial geography and environmental economic geography. Finally, this paper summarizes the key features of economic geography in the west and proposes some implications for economic geographers in China.
