Since the beginning of the 21st century, built-up area had been increased driven by the rapid social and economic development, which had brought a series of socio-economic and environmental issues. In order to realize the goal of national sustainable development, China needs to scientifically formulate plans for developing and protecting land. Some scholars carried out the research on a draft plan for major function-oriented zones, which supportted the implementation of China's national plan for major function-oriented zones since 2010. In order to analyze the characteristics of built-up area in each major function-oriented zone before and after the plan's implement, as well as assess the plan's guiding role in regional development and possible problems in the plan's implementation promptly, it is necessary to adopt effective measures to monitor and evaluate land development activities in each of the major function-oriented zones. Therefore, using a China's Land Use Database (CLUD) during 2000-2010 interpreted from high-resolution remotely sensed images by our team, this study updated the CLUD between 2010 and 2013, and then developed the dataset of built-up area expansions for above two period. We analyzed and compared spatio-temporal characteristics and differences on built-up area expansion for national major function-oriented among China's four developing regions (east, central, west and northeast) in the periods for 2000-2010 and 2010-2013. The results showed the following: (1) On the whole, the percentage of built-up area in each of the major function-oriented zones was significant different, revealing the gradient feature of national land development based on the distribution of the main functions in 2013. (2) Compared to 2000-2010, in the period 2010-2013 annual growth rate in built-up area in optimal development zones decreased significantly, while annual growth rate in built-up area in key development zones, agricultural production zones and key ecological function zones increased significantly, with annual average expanding area of built-up area in key development zones and agricultural production zones exceeding that of optimal development zones, and the annual average expanding area and dynamic degree of built-up area remained lowest in key ecological function zones. (3) At the regional scale, the average annual increase in built-up area in optimal development zones in the Yangtze River Delta region was significantly higher than optimal development zones in other regions; the average area increase and rate of increase of built-up area in key development zones was faster in the western region than in other regions; average annual area growth of built-up area in agricultural production zones in the northeast, central and western regions was twice as high as the previous decade on average, while the annual rate of increase in the western region was three times as high as in the previous decade; the annual rate of change and increase in the dynamic degree of built-up area were most notable in key ecological function zones in the central region. (4) In general, the spatial pattern and characteristics of built-up area expansions in the period 2010-2013 reflected the gradient feature of the plan for major function-oriented zones. But the rate of increase locally in built-up aura in optimal development zones, agricultural production zones and key ecological function zones is fast, so the effective measures must be adopted in the implement of national and regional policies. By developing an analytical method to examine regional differences and spatial heterogeneity of built-up area expansions before and after the implement of the plan for major function-oriented zones, this study delineated the adjusting degree on between built-up area expansions from major function-oriented zones and the plan for major function-oriented zones. The conclusions indicated these methods and results were meaningful for future regulation strategies in optimizing national land development in China.
More and more farmland has been abandoned in many developed countries since the 1950s, and then the abandoned land further evolved into a global land use phenomenon, which deeply changed the landscape in vast rural areas. "Land use change-driving mechanism-impacts & consequences-policy response" in global farmland abandonment were reviewed and the results indicated that: (1) Farmland abandonments mainly occurred in developed countries of Europe and North America, but the extent to which varied distinctly. (2) Socio-economic factors were the primary driving forces for the farmland abandonment. And land marginalization was the root cause of land abandonment, which was due to the drastic increase of farming opportunity cost, while the direct factor of abandonment was the decline of agricultural labor forces. (3) Whether to abandon, to what extent and its spatial distributions were finally dependent on combined effect from the physical conditions, labor characteristics, farming and regional socio-economic conditions at village, household and parcel scales. Farmland abandonment was more likely to occur in mountainous and hilly areas except for Eastern Europe due the unfavorable farming conditions. (4) Ecological and environmental effects should be the focus on the study of farmland abandonment, while which is positive or negative are still in dispute. (5) The increase of agricultural subsidies indeed will be conductive to slow down the farmland abandonment, but it is not the only and reasonable method.
Due to rapid urbanization in China, there will be a high probability of abandonment expansion in the near future. However, few researches focused on this rapid land-use trend in China, leading to inadequate understandings of dynamic mechanism and consequences of this phenomenon. Thus, in the end of the paper, some directions of future research in China were presented: regional and national monitoring of abandonment dynamics, trend and risk assessment, social-economic effects assessment and informed policymaking.
This article begins by defining the stony hills as places where light and more severe rocky desertification occurred in the Republic of China, based on an identification of stony hills found in a contemporary archive entitled Protection Regulations for Stony Hills and Forest in the Counties of Guangxi Province. We have digitized all of the stony hill areas that were depicted on 1:100 000 scale topographic maps of Guangxi by the Land Survey Bureau of General Staff Department of Nationalist Government of China in the 1930s, and we have compared them with the distribution of rocky desertification in 2000 in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region through a graphics overlaying operation, thus revealing the spatial change in the distribution of rocky desertification in Guangxi in the past 70 years. We conclude that: (1) The area of light and more severe rocky desertification in Guangxi in the 1930s comes to 31922.25 km2, which is 4799 km2 more than 27123.21 km2 in 2000. This shows that rocky desertification in the Republic of China covered a larger area than that of contemporary Guangxi. However, the spatial change varied in different areas: in some places rocky desertification increased while in others it declined. (2) The data of 2000 shows that the area of rock desertification declined in 47 counties, and that the total reduction is 9045.5 km2. The reduction was mainly observed in the western and central part of Guangxi. The most significant reduction occurred in Du'an County, being 894.8 km2. (3) The area of rocky desertification expanded in 30 counties, and the region of expansion is concentrated in northeastern Guangxi. The expansion is the greatest in Quanzhou, being 556.55 km2.
Planation surfaces not only play a major role in revealing the geomorphological evolution, but also shed lights on the regional tectonic activities, especially in the fields of Tibetan Plateau uplift. Before we explain their tectonic significance, the critical step is to quantitatively or semi-quantitatively obtain the exact features of planation surfaces, such as their distribution, altitude and area. Till now, much progress has been achieved in extracting the planation surface characters via computer image processing and visual interpretation, but there is still some subjective and random when we choose the index of slope and elevation to extract the information of planation surfaces. Two extensive planation surfaces (the Summit and the Main surface) remain in the inner part of the Tibetan Plateau and its surrounding region. For example, in the Maxianshan mountains of NE Tibetan Plateau, two planation surfaces are identified as the Summit and Main surfaces of Tibet. Some typical periglacial landforms can be observed on the Summit surface, and the Main surface is characterized by the undulating flat topography and several monadnocks and covered by the red clay of 40 m in thickness and loess of 30 m in thickness. In addition, the weathered regolith of granite rocks reaches 3 m thick in some regions. Hence, the Maxianshan mountains are the ideal area for studies on the planation surface. In detail, ridge and valley profiles present the "S"-shaped curve based on our observation, and they are explained by the exponential model which can transform to the mean change point model. In order to obtain the exact altitude and slope parameters of Maxianshan planation surfaces, we chose the mean change point theory and the minimum error method to extract them. Our results show that the best slope parameter of both planation surfaces is 12°. Its reliability is also demonstrated by contrasting the results between our method, visual interpretation and field validation. Subsequently, the distribution and area of planation surfaces were extracted and analyzed. Statistical analyses suggest that the Summit surface covers a total area of about 6.4 km2, with an average elevation of 3559 m and the Main surface has a total area of about 15.5 km2, with an average elevation of 2771 m. Furthermore, we evaluate the deformation characters of the planation surfaces after integration of the slope profiles, slope aspect distribution and regional geology data. The conclusion supports that the deformation of Maxianshan planation surfaces is controlled by regional faults.
Wanchuan River, located in the northeastern Tibetan Plateau, is one of the tributaries of the Yellow River. This area has witnessed many earthquakes of magnitude 6 on the Richter scale. Based on DEM data, this paper discussed the characteristics of neotectonic activity by analyzing the drainage networks and calculating geomorphic indices. It turns out that the mountain front sinuosity index is between 1.03 and 1.18 to the north of Wanchuan River (NWR) and from 1.83 to 2.88 in Xinglong Mountain (XLM); while the valley floor height-to-width ratio index is about 0.36-2.34 in NWR while it ranges from 0.55 to 13 in XLM. The values and distribution of the mountain front sinuosity index and the valley floor height-to-width ration indicate that neotectonics are still active in the study area, and the movements in the north of Wanchuan River catchment are more active. The abnormal AF index in the southeast part means that there should be tilted fault block and folds in the northwest of Wanchuan River catchment. There exists a strike-slip fault in the southeast of the northern Wanchuan River valley, indicated by analyses of the distribution of knickpoints and off-set valley.
Based on 6-hourly (02:00, 08:00, 14:00 and 20:00 Bejing time (BJT)) air temperature data of 38 meteorological stations over Tibet from 1981 to 2014, the spatial-temporal distribution and climate abrupt characteristics of air temperature are analyzed by using the methods including linear regression and Mann-Kendall test. Also, the correlation between the change rates of surface air temperature and latitude (longitude, and altitude) is discussed. The results showed that, the seasonal air temperature in Tibet exhibits unanimously increasing trend with a rate of 0.14-0.80 ℃/10a during the past 34 years, and the most significant increase occurred in winter. In terms of the rate per decade for the 6-hourly air temperature observations, 08:00 BJT during summer experienced the highest increasing rate, while 14:00 BJT showed the highest values for the other three seasons . The maximum rate for the increasing air temperature ranges from 0.36 ℃/10a (P < 0.001) to 0.94 ℃/10a (P < 0.001). Among all the 38 stations, there were only 32% (about 12) showing the peak time with the highest rate of changes at 08:00 BJT air temperature, which are predominantly located in much of Qamdo, Ngari prefecture and at weather stations such as Nagqu, Lhasa and Xigazê, while the rest of weather stations showed the highest increasing rate at 14:00 BJT. In spring and autumn, as the increasing rate was related to longitude, it has a larger rate in western than that in eastern Tibet. In winter, the highest increasing rate of air temperature occurred in the regions with higher altitudes and latitudes, and the higher increasing rate of air temperature was observed at higher latitudes in summer. As for the decadal characteristics of 6-hourly air temperature, the 1980s experienced negative anomalies, compared with positive anomalies in the first decade of the 21st century. Additionally, it was found with abrupt change test that at the annual and seasonal scales most of hourly air temperatures have abrupt change. For instance, the abrupt change of all four hourly air temperatures in summer occurred in the first decade of the 21st century. In winter, the abrupt change of air temperature at 02:00 and 08:00 BJT occurred in the late 1990s, while that at 14:00 and 20:00 BJT was found in the first 10 years of the 21st century. As can be seen in the article, many factors such as topography, various meteorological elements in the plateau and the atmospheric circulation play important roles in the surface air temperature change in Tibet.
Field investigation was carried out in the Badain Jaran Desert, where develop numerous megadunes with the largest height difference in the world. Infiltration-excess runoff, slow seepage runoff, erosion features of runoff caused by atmospheric precipitation, as well as mixed physical sediment of runoff-aeolian sand and chemical deposition (secondary salts) caused by ground runoff converted into surface runoff, were discovered in the slope surfaces of megadunes. These natural features are rare in arid desert area. According to the data of electron microscopy observation, energy spectrum analysis, chemical analysis and particle-size analysis and others, some issues are discussed, namely, mineral and chemical composition of secondary salts, particle-size composition of aeolian sand and mixed physical sediment of runoff-aeolian sand, runoff type, water balance of megadune area and mechanism of precipitation recharging groundwater and lake water. The emergence of infiltration-excess runoff means that the strong effective precipitation can be used as a source of groundwater, although there is less rainfall in this region. Various runoff and runoff depositions on a deep level sufficiently prove that precipitation via infiltration reaches the bottom of megadune and constitutes effective recharge to groundwater. The fine layer with relative impermeability is the reason why underground runoff is exposed to Earth's surface. The positive water balance is surprising in the megadune area. Precipitation, after evaporation and transpiration, and other consumption, could provide about 134648.4 tons of water per square kilometer per year to recharge groundwater and lake water, which has become one of the important recharge sources of lake water. Positive water balance and precipitation can recharge groundwater in the megadune area and mainly depend on four conditions, namely, the presence of effective precipitation, scarce vegetation and less transpiration, a high infiltration rate and a small evaporation depth of sand layer. These factors are also the priority for numerous lakes developed in the megadune area of the Badain Jaran Desert.
River network system was heavily damaged during the rapid urbanization in the Taihu Lake Basin in recent decades. A large number of rivers were buried and disappearing, which changed the hydrological process of the basin. Regulation capacity of river networks is an important factor for flood disaster mitigation. Based on river networks data derived from the topographic map in the 1960s, 1980s and 2010s at a scale of 1:500000 and water level data of three hydrological stations from 1960 to 2010, we selected a list of indices, such as drainage density (Rd), water surface ratio (Wp), box dimension (D) and Hurst index (H) to analyze the changes of river networks and its regulation capacity in Wuchengxiyu region during the past 50 years. What's more, the relationship was established between the regulation capacity of river networks and the indices of stream structure using the Hurst index and the principles of Representative Elementary Watershed (REW) Model. Results showed that: (1) the Rd, Wp, and D decreased by 18.87%, 24.59% and 7.60% in the past 50 years respectively due to the process of urbanization, and the reduction of three stream structure indices from the 1980s to 2010s was higher than that during the 1960s to 1980s. (2) The Hurst index of water level was used to describe the regulation capacity of river networks and was calculated through the R/S analysis of the time series. Decreasing trends of the Hurst index were detected during annual and wet season, which indicated that the regulation capacity of river networks was gradually reduced due to urbanization. (3) The relationship between the indices of river networks and its regulation capacity was established through the concept of REW and Hurst index. The calibration and validation was carried out for this relationship with relevant data. This work will provide a simple and practical method to assess regulation capacity of river networks.
On the basis of defining the connotation of the environmental adaptability of industrial system, this paper builds the environmental adaptability evaluation index system of industrial system and establishes an evaluation model in the perspective of the adaptive elements such as sensitivity, stability, and system response. And it analyzes the environmental adaptive evolution characteristics and the influencing factors of industrial system of the Songhua River Basin in Jilin Province. The results indicate that: (1) The development of industrial system has been under the double disturbance effect of internal and external factors. The internal impact is that the heavy industrial development leads to the poor industrial system operation condition. (2) The different adaptability elements and adaptability subsystem showed completely different regional evolution characteristics. The environmental and industrial system had the characteristics of nonlinear relationship, and so did the environmental system adaptability and the industrial system adaptability. (3) The environmental adaptability of industrial system turned from a feature of decreasing from upstream to downstream to a feature of the center-periphery with Changchun as the center. Obviously, the environmental adaptability of basin's industrial system represented a watershed characteristic to some extent. Meanwhile, the basin's central city functions could also influence and change the development trend of the adaptability. (4) The factors influencing the environmental adaptability of industrial system of the Songhua River Basin in Jilin Province include industrial structure, science and technology, economic development level and government regulation.
China has been experiencing rapid urbanization at an unprecedented rate and as a result, urban internal space structure has evolved significantly. It is of great significance to label different functional regions (DFR) inside a city for urban structure analysis, policy making, and resource allocation. These DFRs include residential district, industrial district, education district, and the administration district. This paper explored the characteristics and distribution of urban functional regions based on big geographic data. With the latest road network data, the study area (i.e., 6 districts of Guangzhou city in Guangdong Province, China) was partitioned into 439 segments. By applying the employment of spatial and temporal semantic mining method to the one-week massive floating cars GPS data and the point of interest data, we developed a Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) and Dirichlet Multinomial Regression (DMR) model. Moreover, OPTICS clustering method was employed to process the results of LDA and DMR to identify different functional zones. Meanwhile, status map of Guangzhou urban planning, and resident travel characteristics were used to verify the verification of mentioned results. The results show that this method can identify the obvious characteristics of urban functional areas, such as mature residential area, science and education culture area, commercial area, and development zone. The results also show that residential and commercial areas are dominant DFRs in Guangzhou city, which are surrounded by other types of functional regions. This paper brings a new perspective on using large-scale and high quality individual space-time data to study human migration and daily activities, as well as to explore social space to unveil the formation and mechanism of urban functional zones.
The purpose of this study is to explore the employment center system in the central city of Shanghai by using commuting data obtained from mobile phone signaling data in Shanghai. Based on the signaling data it is possible to identify the phone users' home residence and where their employment is. We compile the employment density map using the employment places data in order to identify the employment centers in Shanghai. Then the employment center system is measured based on two perspectives, namely employment density and commuting connection. We measure the level, the hinterland and influence sphere of each employment center in Shanghai central city. Our main conclusions are as follows: firstly, the employment center system in Shanghai central city is a weak multi-centric system with a strong primary center. Secondly, centers with higher employment densities also contain stronger commuting connections to other areas, and the discrepancies of commuting connections between centers are even more significant. Thirdly, centers with higher levels also have larger hinterlands, but their influence spheres are not necessarily larger. Fourthly, the mixed degree of residential and employment land use is a more significant determinant of the residential and employment land use pattern balance of employment center than the level of the center. Finally, influence spheres are alternately distributed in areas that lack employment centers. To some extent, this paper helps to solve the problems of identifying employment centers and measuring commuting connections. Previous studies have been unable to perfectly identify such centers due to either an overly large spatial unit of measurement or lack of commuting data. This paper will be helpful for constructing multi-center employment system in the central city of Shanghai.
The main factor that decides the location of traditional businesses is the physical distance between their location and their target customers. Development of information and communication technologies (ICT) means the influence that physical distance exerts on businesses has decreased; however, the influence of time (the time it takes customers to visit physical retail outlets) has increased. However, it is not known if the costs associated with time are the main factors dictating the location of e-commerce businesses that decide to open a physical outlet: this paper tries to answer this question. The paper establishes a spatial relationship between the market size of online-to-offline (O2O) businesses and the accessibility and the location advantage relating to time/physical distance in Chengdu, in China's Sichuan Province. The results show that: (1) Overall, time has a greater impact than physical distance on business activities in Chengdu, and is the primary factor in the location selection of O2O businesses. (2) The O2O business whose location is dictated by physical distance has freedom to develop; however, the one whose location is dictated by time is more sensitive, and the spatial distribution of market size is more suitable to the location advantage based on time-cost. Hence, the spatial matching and the dependence between market size and location advantage show that there are slightly more businesses whose location is dictated by time than by distance in Chengdu. (3) Moving from the urban center to the outskirts of Chengdu, the influence of time on the location of O2O businesses remains almost the same, and the influence of physical distance gradually weakens. This means that, outside the urban centers, time has a greater influence than distance. Physical distance dictates the location of O2O businesses in Chengdu's urban center and time dictates their location in Chengdu's outskirts. (4) The impact that physical distance has on the location of O2O businesses is important in Chengdu because of its urbanization and ICT levels, and because of the behavior of consumers and suppliers. This means that both time and distance play a key role in the location development of O2O businesses. (5) The main factors that encourage an e-commerce business to open a physical outlet include demands from the consumers and the suppliers on reducing time-related costs, and the convenience of ICT.
Professor Zeng Zhaoxuan was an outstanding geographer. He published numerous articles in various fields of geography, including geomorphology, physical geography and historical geography. Based on long-term field surveys, he studied coastal geomorphology and coral reef geomorphology of the South China Sea, and divided the coast of China into mountainous coast, platform coast and plain coast. In the book China's Coral Reef Geomorphology Research, he and the coauthors Liang Jingfen, et al., systematically reviewed the history of coral reef detection and the species, ecology, geomorphic features and growth of Scleractinia, and divided coral reefs of China into four major areas as well as six geomorphic types. He believed that Genglubu might date back to the Song Dynasty, but the existing version mainly came from the Ming Dynasty. He perfected the classification of folk place name of coral reef geomorphology, divided the distribution area of coral reefs in the South China Sea and drew coral reef detecting map according to Genglubu. From the geological and geomorphological perspectives, he not only demonstrated continental margin relations between the Chinese mainland and the South China Sea Islands, but also showed the evidence that South China Sea is China's inherent territory using the data of historical geography and local chronicles.
Chu Yaping was a distinguished expert in geography pedagogy and typonymy in China. He had long been dedicated to researches and practice of geography education. He also strove to perfect the discipline system of geography teaching in middle schools. Furthermore, he put forward the theory of "three systems" of geography teaching materials and the theory of promoting a student-centered geography teaching for students' comprehensive development while deepening researches on teaching and fostering a teaching team of high quality, which promoted the development of geography pedagogy in China. He paid much attention to studies on typonymy and the cultivation of management talents and wrote books, striving to structure the basic theories of typonymy and to present his views on the management, planning, and commercialization of place names in the new era.
