The year 2020 marks the 80th anniversary of the establishment of Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research (IGSNRR), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Looking back over the past 80 years, the institute has experienced the initiation of Institute of Geography of China in Beibei, Chongqing in 1940, then the founding of Institute of Geography, CAS in 1953 and Commission for Integrated Survey of Natural Resources, CAS in 1956, and the final merger of the above two institutes into the IGSNRR in 1999. After the endeavour of three generations, IGSNRR innovates geography and resource sciences and has made contributions in different stages to the development of the country and the progress of human civilization. This paper commemorates the 80th anniversary of the IGSNRR by reviewing the development and progress of the institute over the past 80 years, summarizing the classic scientific research achievements and the major science and technology infrastructures, as well as looking forward to the future of IGSNRR.
Physical geography (PG) has always been the core discipline of the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IGSNRR, CAS) since its establishment in 1940. It aims to serve the grand needs of national development. PG has made significant scientific and technological achievements and progress in the fields of comprehensive physical geography, climatology, geomorphology, hydrology, soil geography, biogeography, chemical geography, etc. These achievements have set up the worldwide priority status of PG, and made great contributions to the scientific and technological innovation, regional sustainable economic and social development. This paper reviews the innovative development of PG in the IGSNRR, summarizes the academic achievements and landmark progress, and looks forward to the future development strategy. Four key points are presented including the interaction mechanism of land surface elements-process, the dynamics of land surface pattern, the comprehensive integration and simulation of process of land surface system, and the sustainable paradigm and regulation mechanism of orderly human activities of land surface system.
Human geography is one of the three major branches of geography. Since the establishment of Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IGSNRR, CAS) in 1940, human-economic geography has gone through several important periods, such as budding, rise, maturity, fluctuation and prosperity. Outstanding progress and remarkable results have been achieved in scientific research, cultivation of talents and service of national strategic decision-making. Pioneering achievements have been made in the study of economic geography, agricultural geography, industrial geography, transportation geography, urban geography, rural geography, tourism geography and regional sustainable development, which has driven the overall innovation and development of China's human-economic geography. The IGSNRR has undertaken a series of national tasks and attained major achievements in the fields of agricultural regional planning and land use research, industrial base construction and transportation layout, urban system construction and urbanization, regional development and planning. And it has made important contributions to supporting the national strategy and leading the development of human-economic geography. This research made a systematic review of the establishment and growth history, research fields, research teams and academic achievements of the human-economic geography of IGSNRR in the past 80 years, as well as its role in serving national and regional economic and social development. Through selecting 6216 papers (4576 in Chinese and 1640 in English) published by the human-economic geographers of the IGSNRR, research progress and academic achievements in stages are reviewed. Finally, new consideration and prospect were proposed to face the ecological civilization construction, new urbanization, rural revitalization strategy and beautiful China construction. Our purposes are to innovate the frontier theory of human-economic geography and establish a new interdisciplinary system, and strive to strengthen research on territorial space governance, regional sustainable development, human-earth system science, urbanization and rural revitalization, and innovation of national modern geography.
This study reviews the historical process of the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in the field of geographic information science. From the early survey and cartography research, to the creation of China's geographic information discipline and the establishment of the State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information Systems, the development of the institute represents the history of (i) the development of original geographic information theory with Chinese characteristics, (ii) independent research and development of world-class geographic information software, and (iii) geographic information providing solid scientific and technological support for major national strategies. Generally, the development of geographic information discipline was summarized from the aspects of cartography, geoscience remote sensing, geographic information science, geodata sharing, major technological breakthroughs and national strategic support. Finally, from the perspectives of geoscience knowledge graphs, geographic big data analysis, remote sensing artificial intelligence, geographic system simulation and knowledge services, we look forward to the development of new scientific paradigms in geographic science.
Over the past 70 years, resources science has been developed into a comprehensive disciplinary system from integrated surveys of natural resources. Recalling the development of resource science since the founding of China in 1949, it could be divided into four main research stages, namely, stage of early surveys of natural resources (1950-1965), stage of regional comprehensive scientific investigation and resources science research (1970s-1980s), stage of the formation and advancement of Chinese resources science disciplinary system (1990s-2000s), and the new development period of modern resources science (since the 21st century). This has promoted the development of comprehensive investigation of natural resources, and greatly influenced the formation and development of resources science in China. To meet the major needs of the ecological civilization and beautiful China, the resources science research is supposed to continue innovation efforts, enrich and develop the new knowledge, new thinking and new theory, to promote the development of the discipline.
Ecosystem ecology is the core content of ecosystem science in the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IGNSRR). Our first mission is to develop techniques and methods of ecosystem monitoring and simulation, by which we explore the theories and pathways in solving eco-environmental issues at regional scales. Second, we monitor ecosystem changes, identify the dynamics and patterns, and advance the discipline developments of ecosystem ecology, biogeography ecology, global change ecology, and eco-informatics. Third, we serve for the national and regional ecological constructions by addressing issues related to global changes and regional sustainable developments. To meet national needs, we synthesize and innovate technique and modes of ecosystem management for typical regions of China, i.e. agricultural regions of northern China, hilly red soil forestry regions of southern China, agricultural and pastoral regions of the Tibetan Plateau and Loess Plateau. Utilizing these innovated management modes, we aim to solve fundamental problems in ecological construction and adapt to global changes, and facilitate science advance in regional ecosystem management. Our research directions comprise the following five fields: (1) network monitoring, simulation and ecosystem data management; (2) ecosystem structure, process and function; (3) ecosystem pattern and the underlying mechanism; (4) ecosystem responses and adaptation to global change; (5) ecosystem management and ecosystem services. Centered around the above five foci research directions, we systematically explore theories of ecosystem ecology and their applications, through which we position our research in frontier lines of China and the world.
The Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IGSNRR, CAS) is one of the research institutes that carried out the earliest regional agricultural research in China. Based on the original research laboratory on agricultural geography, under the leadership of Prof. Wu Chuanjun and Prof. Deng Jingzhong, the institute always followed the purpose of "meeting the requirements of the state, and establishing subjects by task". Based on the periodic and regional characteristics of agricultural production and development and taking full advantages of comprehensiveness and regionality of geography, it completed a series of prospective, macroscopic, strategic and leading regional agricultural research achievements, including the preliminary opinions on national agricultural regionalization, Xinjiang agricultural regionalization, etc., Those achievements have becomes classic references for regional agricultural research and provided decision support for agricultural macro-control at national and local levels. Carrying on 80 years of experience in theoretical exploration, the IGSNRR, will has constantly expanded and enriched the connotation and value of regional agricultural research based on the existing research on agricultural resources investigation and planning, agricultural ecological hydrology and climate, food production and security, cultivated land protection and management, agricultural economic management and policy innovation, sustainable development of rural regional system, etc. In addition, it will undertake an important task of serving the formulation and implementation of national strategies and leading the innovation and development of basic disciplines.
Geography and resource think-tank is geared to the demands of national development strategy, combining the discipline characteristic between resources science and geographical science, through long-term scientific research, computational experiments, and the accumulation of experience. It aims at the pressing, realistic and long-term issues in the national development, and submits scientific advice to all levels of governments and policy makers in advance. The construction of think-tank is an important part of the national soft power and the modernization of national governance ability. The geography and resource think-tank has a very important strategic position in the discipline construction and development. Since 80 years ago, geographical science has attained great achievements in the spread of human civilization and sustainable development, and resources science has made a significant contribution to the sustainable use and safety guarantee of national resources. It is the bounden duty and mission of the present and the future to build a new think-tank system of geography and resources with Chinese characteristics to better serve the overall work of the government. This paper reviews the remarkable achievements of the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research (IGSNRR) in think-tank over the past 80 years, especially since 2000. We summarize the key areas and feature directions of the think-tank, including the comprehensive scientific survey and resource environmental bearing capacity evaluation, analysis of national conditions and regional sustainable development, new urbanization and rural revitalization, Beautiful China Initiative and the ecological civilization system, Belt and Road Initiative and national security, eco-environmental protection and disaster prevention and mitigation. Furthermore, we will continue to target at the national development strategic needs, enhance the strategic position of think-tank in the institute development and discipline construction, build think-tank centering on the national "two centenary goals", and achieve the SDGs as the benchmark. We will continue to conduct research centering on the building of a beautiful China and an ecological civilization system, aiming at national major regional development strategies and major emergency events, strengthen the scientific and technological support by geographic simulation and artificial intelligence, and promote the discipline level with the construction of think tanks. We will strive to build the Institute into the most influential national high-end think-tank and become the backbone force of the think-tank products and the support of national development decisions through 5-10 years of efforts.
Since the establishment of the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research (IGSNRR) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) 80 years ago, great attentions have been paid to the construction of field stations (networks) and scientific data centers. With establishment of four field observation research networks, IGSNRR has made notable success and led the construction and development of China's ecosystem research networks. Moreover, IGSNRR formed a unique field observation research platform and data sharing service platform, with two national scientific data centers and one CAS data center, as well as two national field observation and research stations and one CAS field research station. (1) This article reviewed the developmental history of Chinese (National) Ecosystem Research Network (CERN/CNERN), Chinese terrestrial ecosystem flux observation and research network (ChinaFLUX), Chinese Phenological Observation Network (CPON), Yucheng Station, Lhasa Station, Qianyanzhou Station, National Earth System Science Data Center (NESSDC), National Ecosystem Science Data Center (NESDC) and Resource and Environmental Science and Data Center. (2) The stations (networks) of the IGSNRR have grown from scratch and kept growing to be stronger, which have led the development of field observation research in China, and well supported the outcomes of important scientific achievements in geography and ecology, etc. The capacities of scientific and technological support as well as demonstration-promotion in our networks have been greatly improved, which strongly supports the construction of ecological civilization in the North China Plain, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the southern mountainous and hilly areas. The networks of IGSNRR have become the largest scientific data center among the fields of earth system science, resources and environment science, and field station networks in China, with remarkable achievements in data sharing services and extensive influence both at home and abroad. (3) In the future, IGSNRR will give full play to the role of comprehensive center in field stations (networks), strengthen the construction capacity of observation and research networks such as ecosystem carbon and water flux, phenology, etc., and steadily improve the ability of condition guarantee for field observation and research stations, as well as of the data collection, analysis, mining, and sharing ability for scientific data centers. With these improvements, the networks of IGSNRR will continuously promote and lead the sharing of scientific data in China, make greater contributions to support scientific research and national needs.
Geographical distribution and agglomeration of industries have been a long lasting concern of economic geographers. Some studies have stressed geographical proximity and industrial agglomeration as the key driving force of uneven distribution of industries. Recently, evolutionary economic geography, based on evolutionary economics, has adopted a dynamic and historic perspective to study the evolution of regional industrial dynamics. It argues that geographical proximity is neither sufficient nor necessary for efficient knowledge spillovers; instead, it calls for more attention to the idea of cognitive proximity as well as its importance in regional industrial dynamics. The idea is that for knowledge spillovers to take place effectively, some kind of cognitive proximity in terms of shared competencies must be in place. Inspired by this, we examine China's regional industrial development through the lens of cognitive proximity, and propose the "principle of relatedness", that is, the probability of a region to enter/exit one specific economic activity is heavily dependent on regional pre-existing economic profile and local knowledge base. This paper first introduces some key, relevant concepts, and then reviews empirical studies that are underpinned by the "principle of relatedness". Furthermore, it discusses the applicability of "principle of relatedness" in the Chinese context. Our main findings are as follows: (1) theories on resource base view and knowledge spillovers both support the existence of the "principle of relatedness"; (2) the "principle of relatedness" enables us to better understand China's regional economic development, innovation and resilience; however, (3) the effectiveness of the "principle of relatedness" may be compromised by external shocks and internal institutions. One policy implication from the "principle of relatedness" as well as our empirical research is that Chinese regions should seek to diversify related industries and enhance related variety of their regional profiles. In doing so, they are able to become more economically resilient and achieve more sustainable economic development.
China's modernized transport strategies have been focused on building new infrastructures in areas with insufficient transport facilities, supplying the lack of new transport services, and investing in transport construction on a large scale since the 10th Five-Year Plan (2000-2005). However, these strategies are now facing new situations in population development, including population growth, migration, spatial relocation and agglomeration, and changes in lifestyle. It is imperative to investigate population-development oriented comprehensive modern transport system in order to implement people-oriented principles and the National Strategy of Strengthening Country in Transportation. This study presents some research results from the National Development and Reform Commission Key Research Project for the National 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025), "Population Development and Modern Transportation System Strategies in China". The study is based on theoretical mechanisms in the coupling and interaction between population and transport system. It conducts in-depth analyses on the new trends of population development and transport demand, and proposes a new "diamond" strategy for China's comprehensive transport system in order to cope with these new trends. According to this strategy, the new comprehensive modern transport system in China will have four "diamond pole" including Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, Yangtze River Delta, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and Chengdu-Chongqing region, four "diamond edges" including Beijing-Shanghai (Jing-Hu), Shanghai-Guangdong (Hu-Yue), Guangdong-Sichuan (Yue-Chuan), and Beijing-Sichuan (Jing-Chuan) transport corridors, two cross backbones including water transport along the Yangtze River and Beijing-Hong Kong-Macao transport corridors, and multiple transport hubs in cities with intensive intracity population movement flow. The study also proposes key missions to implement the new strategy in order to build population-development oriented comprehensive modern transport system in China, which includes supporting the national development and spatial plan, applying for the National Strategy of Strengthening Country in Transportation, and supplying high-quality transport services with a priority to the people.
China's migrant population continued to grow for decades, but has slowly declined since 2015. In such a context, the destination choice of stock migrants has a profound influence on the future pattern of population distribution and urbanisation. Previous analysis and modelling of internal migration in China have mainly focused on the primary migration or the most recent one, while it has long been recognized that migration is a repetitive event. Migrants have various motives and strategies in different stages, and the experience gained from the primary migration will affect the subsequent one. So, the primary and onward migrations differ in their spatial patterns. This paper focused on China's onward migrants who have moved once. Considering both the origins and primary destinations, we constructed a framework of how multi-proximity, which includes cognitive proximity, geographic proximity, institutional proximity, informational proximity and social proximity, which generates an influence on destination choice by affecting the migration cost. Based on data from the 2017 China Migrants Dynamic Survey, and by the use of the nested logit model, we make an empirical test. The results show that migrants have a dual identity of the origin and the primary destination, and their onward migration is based simultaneously on these two places. After controlling the effects of cities' characteristics, dual multi-proximity has a significant and robust impact on migrants' decision-making. Onward migrants prefer destinations which match them well in education background, and are geographically adjacent to, and closely connected with their origins and previous destinations. The migration network between a destination and its origins increases the likelihood that onward migrants will migrate to such a destination. Besides, migrants are willing to return to the province of their origins subjectively, but cities in such provinces are generally lack of attractiveness due to low level of socio-economic development. However, the effect of proximities varies from different groups. This is reflected in the following facts. First, women are more dependent on their hometown networks than men. Second, the new generation of migrants is similar to the older one in many ways, but relies more on the information and social connections of their hometowns than the latter. Finally, highly educated migrants are able to take advantage of localized social capital owing to their deep social integration in the primary destinations and are less dependent on the social capital in their origins. So, their destination choice is more similar to local residents than their counterparts.
Urban sprawl has become a global phenomenon. There is, however, no consensus on the connotation of urban sprawl, which still remains subjective to controversy and ambiguity. In this paper, urban sprawl was defined as an inefficient, low-density and disordered mode of urban space development. The definition includes three of the most recognized characteristics of urban sprawl summarized from previous studies. Characterized by the features mentioned above, urban sprawl has been recognized as an important challenge to the high-quality development of cities in China. Therefore, to build an urban sprawl index that can reflect the quality of urbanization is of significance to macro-micro regulation of urban sprawl. Multiple metrics representing the core characteristics of urban sprawl were selected as measuring indexes, based on satellite images and socio-economic statistical data. Furthermore, in order to make the results more objective and comparable, the method of principal component analysis was applied to calculate the comprehensive sprawl index. Finally, 106 of China's mega-cities were chosen as cases, and the degree of urban sprawl of each city was measured for the year 2014. As shown from the results, the first principal component mainly reflected the dimension of economic efficiency, contributing 41.30% to the comprehensive sprawl index. The second principal component mainly represented the dimension of population density, followed by the third principal component that described morphological dimension. It is noteworthy that, because the short board effect of economic efficiency dimension was significant, many less-developed cities were ranked to a high sprawling level. In addition, the spatial distribution of different dimensions of urban sprawl index were distinct. Population density and land use efficiency were generally consistent with each other, while the distributing law of city form showed distinguishing features. Last but not least, the comprehensive sprawl index had a certain negative correlation with city scale, which reminds us to pay more attention to urban sprawl in medium-sized cities in the future.
Urban scaling laws depict the nonlinear relationship between urban indicators and population size within an urban system, but its applicability and significance in China's urban system is not clear. This study applied the data of 275 prefecture-level cities in China to explore the scaling relationship between different urban indicators and population sizes. We also attempt to present an empirical analysis of spatio-temporal characteristics of urban scaling exponent (β) from 2000-2017 to enrich the understanding of urban scaling laws. The result shows that as a typical fast urbanizing country, China's urban development conforms to the urban scaling laws but presents some different characteristics from developed countries. There is a significant increasing return to population size of economic output brought by China's urban population agglomeration. Nevertheless, the economies of scale for land use, infrastructure and public service are supposed to be strengthened. Some infrastructure and living facilities indicators have a super-linear or linear relationship with the population size, which are contrary to the expected sublinear regime. The scaling exponents of education, medical and health care and other urban indicators are far below the sub-linear thresholds of developed countries, which reflects the uniqueness in a fast urbanizing country that large cities are given priority to infrastructure construction and the unbalanced development of different-sized cities. The spatial distribution characteristic of scaling exponent reflects the differences in the degree of coordination of urban development, with the most significant differences in Northeast China. We also analyzed the evolution of scaling exponents of major urban indicators over time. Economic increasing returns to population size effect of large cities in China was the most significant in 2009 before falling slightly. Urban land expansion in large cities has continued to accelerate since 2000 and still remains at a high level after 2008. It is urgent to control the extensive urban land expansion and improve land use efficiency, especially in large cities. This study on urban scaling in China contributes to fully understanding the characteristics and evolution of urban systems in the fast urbanizing country. This paper is supposed to provide a support for achieving a balanced regional development and implementing new urbanization development strategies as well.
Since 2018, with the major adjustment of the global political and economic structure, Sino-US relations, which take trade friction as the representation and science and technology competition as the essence, have become increasingly tense. Based on this, this paper characterizes the evolution of global high-tech products trade structure from three aspects of product structure, network structure and influencing factors, and draws some conclusions. First of all, in terms of product structure, global high-tech trade is increasingly concentrated on electronic communication products based on telecommunications equipment. However, on the national scale, chemical products and armament products are not only the dependence products of most countries (regions) on imports, but also the superior export products of most countries (regions). Second, in terms of topology, the global high-tech product trade network continues to expand and is closely linked. It is a typical small-world network and develops a stable "core-edge" hierarchical structure. Third, in terms of spatial structure, the global trade pattern of high-tech products has changed from Europe-North America dominated to East Asia dominated, and also the largest trade country has changed from the United States to China. In addition, the spatial structure has changed from the "double arch" structure with the United States as the core to the "multi-arch" pattern with China as the core, but the United States still occupies a central position in the trade network of various high-tech products. Fourth, in terms of influencing factors, trade scale, economic proximity and cultural proximity have positive effects on the evolution of global high-tech products trade network, while geographical distance has an obvious negative effect. The four factors of political stability, openness, infrastructure and technological innovation only pass the significance test on the importing country (region), while the economic scale only passes the significance test on the exporting country (region). The technological gap is one of the driving forces for the evolution of the global high-tech product trade network.
