Despite the initial development goals achieved, China's macro-economy is still deeply affected by the external environment and stuck in its own structure at the same time. In retrospect, not until 1949 with the founding of the People's Republic of China did China's budding regional economy witness the prominence of a fixed development pattern shifting from a spontaneous to an actuating one. After comparing the three regional economic practices, this paper finds that each development stage has its corresponding development strategy. At the same time, several development patterns, namely, the coastal and inland areas, the three regions, and four plates were formed accordingly. Furthermore, through combing the literature and historical facts, this paper determines the historical starting point, division criteria and division scheme of China's regional economic development before summarizing three main lines and also contradictions therein: the government-market relations against the background of market reform, the coastal-inland relations against the tide of economic zonation, and the urban-rural relations against the trend of urbanization. Based on the above, the paper constructs a three-dimensional model out of the spatio-termporal process of China's regional development before proposing new historical stages from the perspective of economic system modernization. These historical stages are: industrial economy, special zone economy, district economy, regional economy and urban network economy. Finally, from the urbanization angle, this paper concludes that for different urbanization stages, regional policies should be industrial policies, factor policies, fiscal and tax policies sequentially.

Deconstructing rural spatial characteristics is the precondition for building rural spatial governance system in the new era, and multi-scale rural spatial characteristics and its governance path would effectively support the modernization of the national governance system. Based on the comprehensive, regional and mobile thinking paradigm of geography, this paper deconstructs the multi-scale rural spatial characteristics, identifies its internal operating logics, summarizes its governance dilemmas, constructs a multi-scale rural spatial governance framework that is based on geographical analysis paradigm, explores feasible governance paths, and constructs a multi-scale rural spatial governance system research plan, namely, "characteristics identification-dilemma analysis-governance framework-governance path". The paper finds that: (1) to analyze the operating logics of the multi-scale rural space through the comprehensive, regional and mobile analytical thinking of geography, it is necessary to understand the mechanism of action of scale synthesis, scale differentiation and scale flow to the multi-scale rural spatial characteristics, highlighting the comprehensive characteristics of rural space, strengthening rural spatial heterogeneity, and integrating rural spatial mobility. (2) The lacking urban-rural spatial overall planning, unsmooth spatial mobile network and not-reflected different types of rural spatial value are the key dilemmas in the rural spatial governance, which need to be addressed. (3) The multi-scale rural spatial governance framework of "comprehensive spatial governance-spatial zoning governance-spatial mobile governance" could effectively solve the problems of urban-rural spatial integration, regional spatial coordination and spatial network blockage. (4) Integrating urban-rural comprehensive governance, innovating regulation control to improve regional governance and balancing the configuration of spatial development right to achieve mobile spatial governance are feasible paths for multi-scale rural space governance. In conclusion, clarifying the multi-scale rural spatial characteristics in the new era and constructing a scientific governance system could provide theoretical support to promote integrated urban-rural development and rural vitalization strategy.

The land conversion processes concerning non-agricultural and non-grain production areas have prominently decreased arable land availability, which substantially impacted grain production capacity and threatened national food security. Thus, it is critical to establish a novel scientific approach to identify spatio-temporal evolution patterns of land conversion and its influencing factors in different stages. This study evaluates the evolutionary characteristics of non-agricultural and non-grain fields by constructing a comprehensive index system that considers factors like cultivated land resources, social and economic conditions, and farmers' subjective perspectives, using a county as the basic research unit. For a comprehensive analysis, a geographical detector model was utilized to quantify driving factors in different stages. The results indicated spatial clustering effects for non-agricultural and non-grain fields throughout China, particularly in the eastern region beyond the "Hu Huanyong Line". Further analysis revealed a spatial pattern for non-grain conversion phenomenon was more intense in the southwestern than the northeastern fields. Over the past four decades, non-agricultural fields recorded an area expansion, but the year-wise area increase was gradually reduced, while non-grain areas exhibited a "growth-stable" change pattern. Although progress in non-grain was less in primary producing areas over the last 40 years, an increase of 1.49 times and 1.33 times was recorded from 2010 to 2020 in PSB (production and sales balance area) and Mrt (marketing) areas, respectively. Compared to the period 1980-2000, the rate of non-agricultural conversion in primary producing areas decreased by 77% during 2010-2020, while the rate of non-agricultural conversion increased by 1.63 and 4.65 times for PSB and Mrt regions, respectively. Based on these findings, this paper puts forward suggestions, such as setting control rules and subsidy mechanisms according to area classification, promoting control policies based on regional considerations, strengthening dynamic monitoring and risk warning, as well as enhancing supervision and assessment.

At present, the empirical analysis of regional dual-nuclei structures at the national level is still relatively rare. How to define the provinces with the characteristics of dual-nuclei structures and analyze their impact needs further empirical discussion. In this paper, the spatial Dubin model and the data of 259 prefecture-level cities are used to analyze the distribution characteristics of regional dual-nuclei structure in China and its influence on provincial development. The empirical results show that 11 provincial-level regions (hereafter provinces) in China show the characteristics of dual-nuclei structure. The regional dual-nuclei structure plays a significant role in promoting the economic development of the province, but the northern and southern regions show great differences. The regional dual-nuclei structure has a promoting effect on provincial industrial agglomeration and helps to promote the improvement of local scientific and technological innovation. In general, compared with some single-core provinces with small scale and weak radiation driving force in some provincial capitals, the regional dual-nuclei structure can make up for these shortcomings to a certain extent by virtue of the number of central cities and spatial distribution, which is more conducive to driving local economic development and scientific and technological innovation.

According to the Ministry of Water Resources of the People's Republic of China, the number of casualties in flash flood disasters accounts for nearly 70% of flood disaster casualties in recent years and flash flood has become one of the major natural disasters causing casualties in China. Flash flood regionalization is fundamental for implementing the local measures of the flash flood prevention and mitigation according to local conditions. Using results from existing flash flood relevant physiographical regionalization schemes, and in accordance with the principles of comprehensive, dominant factors, the relative consistency within units, the relative difference between units, the integrity of spatial distribution and the hierarchical divisions, this paper firstly constructs an index system of the flash flood trigger factors and its underlying surface environment for the flash flood regionalization in China. In the combination of top-down and bottom-up regionalization, the hybrid self-organizing-map-based spatial clustering algorithm is then built. Finally, nine homogeneous regions at the first-grade and thirty-three subregions at the second-grade are delineated for flash floods in China. The historical flash flood events and the Geodetector method are adopted to evaluate the developed regionalization schemes. Results show that the first-grade and the second-grade flash flood regionalization schemes in China can respectively provide the determinant power of 66.4% and 75.4% for the spatial distribution of historical flash flood events in the whole country, indicating the developed flash flood regionalization has a good spatial consistency with the distribution of historical flash flood events with different densities. The developed flash flood regionalization not only effectively delineates the regional differentiation pattern of flash floods, but also provides a scientific basis for the implementation of localized flash flood prevention and mitigation measures in China, which benefits for the sound development of flash flood disasters prevention and management in China.

Ladakh is located in the northwest of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the western section of the Himalayas, and the upper reaches of the Indus River valley. It is now part of Indian-controlled Kashmir. Since ancient times, Ladakh has been the "key point" from northwest South Asia to the Ngari Prefecture of Xizang and southern Xinjiang. However, most existing research on Ladakh focuses on its local history and culture. Although there are some related works on geopolitical relations, few have studied the historical changes of this region and its subordinate relationship and geographical value with China over a long time scale and analyzed the geographical significance of Ladakh. At the same time, some erroneous views and geographical maps have been disseminated on the Internet at home and abroad, which urgently needs a comprehensive correction from the academic level. Based on a variety of historical documents, map data, and a detailed review of previous research results, this paper demonstrates the changes in place names, historical evolution, and regional scope of Ladakh from the 1st to the 21st century and analyzes its significance in the homeland security of western China. The results show that: (1) As the native land of China's Xizang Ladakh was part of the Tubo Dynasty until the 9th century. After the collapse of the Tubo Dynasty in the middle of the 9th century, Ladakh was an essential part of the Ngari local administration established by the descendants of the Tubo Royal family. In the 13th century, Ladakh was again united within the territory of China's Yuan Dynasty and continued through the Ming and Qing dynasties. It remained until the mid-19th century when the Prince-state of Jammu in southern Kashmir invaded it and incorporated it into the British Indian colony. It was then occupied by the Indian army in 1947. (2) Ladakh region has a tortuous history with many changes in place names. However, when Jammu annexed it in modern times, Ladakh only referred to the upper reaches of Indus Valley between the Western Himalayas and the Karakoram Mountains, with Leh as the center. (3) The complexity of the historical and geographical processes in the Ladakh region makes it the central area of conflicts created by India in the western section of the China-India border. Therefore, China should adopt active strategies to avoid India's continuous "assimilation" policy.

As the third pole of earth, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is an important ecological security barrier in China and an ecologically sensitive area of global climate change. The increasing climate change has posed a major challenge to its ecosystem function and stability. This paper first analyzes the spatiotemporal variation characteristics of the ecosystem pattern of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and its key functions including water conservation, soil conservation, windbreak and sand fixation from 2000 to 2020, clarifies the regional differences in ecosystem functions and their importance, and further evaluates the stability of ecosystem functions. And there is no doubt that the stable state will lay a scientific foundation for the plateau to build an ecologically civilized highland and launch protection and restoration projects. The results show that: (1) From 2000 to 2020, the wetland area of the study area increased and the grassland area decreased significantly. The water conservation and windbreak and sand fixation capacity were improved, and the annual change rates were 3.57 m³/(hm²·a) and 0.23 t/(hm²·a), respectively. However, the overall soil conservation showed a downward trend with an annual change rate of -0.16 t/(hm²·a). (2) The core areas of water conservation, soil conservation and windbreak and sand fixation accounted for 12.7%, 13.9% and 14.2%, respectively. The core water conservation barrier areas were mainly located in southeast Tibet, Sanjiangyuan and Ruoergai. The core windbreak and sand fixation areas were concentrated in the central and western parts of the plateau, and the core soil conservation areas surrounded the plateau. (3) From 2000 to 2020, the water conservation, soil conservation, and wind protection and sand-fixation functions have shown relatively high stability in the southeastern and central parts of the plateau, while relatively weak stability in the western part of the plateau. Combining stability assessment and ecological protection and restoration practices, we can divide the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau into three major categories of 16 ecosystem function zones and carry out differentiated ecological protection and restoration for different core ecosystem functions and zones.

Economic globalization has reshaped the world economy's spatial pattern while simultaneously changing the context for developing economic geography theories. This study revisited the changing features of economic globalization and investigated its geographical implications. Next, it summarized the new trends in economic geography studies in response to the changing economic globalization. Lastly, this study proposed a research agenda for domestic economic geography studies by combining the requirements of global trends and national strategies. The main findings include the following: The scale of geographical integration during economic globalization keeps shrinking, leading to a pattern of regionalization. The driving forces of economic globalization have gradually shifted from cost-saving to innovation. Accordingly, the benefits of economic globalization will be reallocated between developed and developing countries. The trade-offs between efficiency and resilience alter the global value chain, shifting outsourcing from off-shoring to re-shoring or near-shoring. The changing economic globalization has witnessed the rising effects of geographical distances, institutions, and resilience on increasing the inequality of the global economic geography. In economic geography, the scalar structures shifted from the global-local to the global-national-local. The relational networks evolved toward a multi-level, multi-agent, and multi-scale one. The role of the nation has been revisited. More attention has been paid to geopolitical hotspots. Overall, economic geography's institutional, cultural, relational, and evolutionary turns exhibit an emerging trend to convergence. In such a setting, domestic economic geography should find a new balance between global trends and national strategies. This study proposed seven research issues, including: (1) the practice of the Belt and Road and the pattern of inclusive globalization; (2) the economic geography of dual circulation; (3) the paths and resilience of regional development in response to the global production network restructuring; (4) the evolution and competitiveness of industrial clusters; (5) the building of multi-level innovation systems; (6) the regional sustainable development within the global environmental governance system; and (7) the impact of geo-economics on national economic security and interests.

According to the strategic direction of urban-rural integration and rural revitalization, the spatial reconstruction of rural settlement system is the spatial organization foundation of future urban-rural integration development. This paper focused on the hierarchical scale and spatial organization characteristics of the rural settlement system. It comprehensively revealed the evolution process and regional characteristics of rural settlement systems of 111 administrative units in Guangdong province from 1990 to 2020, and discussed their evolutionary mechanism and spatial optimizing and reorganizing regional modes. The results show that: (1) There were significant regional differences in the hierarchical scale distribution of the rural settlement system in Guangdong. The patches of rural settlements show the characteristics of concentric aggregation and distribution centered on the geometric barycenter of each administrative unit. The spatial distribution pattern of the rank cumulative size coefficients of rural settlement system was "high in the southwest, but low in the northeast" and "high in coastal areas, and low in the inland". The decreasing region of the rank cumulative size coefficient was concentrated on the east bank of the Pearl River Estuary and coastal areas of eastern Guangdong, while the increasing region was mainly distributed on the west bank of the Pearl River Estuary. (2) The influencing factors such as natural background, economic development, urbanization development, transportation and location, institutions and policies jointly drove the development and evolution of the rural settlement system. Rural settlement system of urban areas is small in scale in the mature stage of urbanization, which will gradually die out and integrate into the city. Driven by urbanization, industrialization and policies, rural settlement system of suburban areas has experienced survival of the fittest and maintains a stable scale, but the mixed distribution of urban and rural land makes the spatial organization of rural settlements increasingly loose. Driven by the continuous outflow of production factors, exurb rural settlements appear to be "hollowing out". The villagers returning to build new houses and the lack of homestead exit mechanism have led to a continuous and stable growth in rural settlement scale, and their spatial distribution is characterized by more peripheral diffusion. Rural settlement system with poor location in mountainous areas develops slowly under the support of policies, and the aggregation characteristic along the transportation line is significant. (3) Facing the integrated development of urban and rural spaces, four models of spatial optimization and reorganization of rural settlement system are proposed: urban-rural integration development, dual-core-driven development, central place hierarchical system development, and pan-center chain-connecting cluster development.

Urban-rural integrated development is an advanced stage in the evolution of the urban-rural relationship, and it is also the basic path and main goal for the implementation of rural revitalization. Scientifically understanding and identifying the integration stage and its current level of urban-rural development in China is the prerequisite basis for promoting urban-rural integrated development and rural revitalization. Based on the concept connotation, this paper constructed a multi-dimensional evaluation system of urban-rural integrated development at the prefecture level. The process status and spatiotemporal divergent characteristics of urban-rural integrated development in 336 prefecture-level regions in China from 2000-2018 were portrayed and revealed. The results show that: (1) The current state of urban-rural integrated development in China is generally at a low-to-middle level, showing a heterogeneous spatiotemporal pattern with apparent gradient divergence. The integrated development level of the Pearl River Delta, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, and the Shandong Peninsula is high, but the regions distributed to the west of the "Hu Line" develops slowly. (2) According to the level and characteristics of integrated development, the 366 prefecture-level regions can be divided into four types: integrated development, tending integration, imbalanced development, and lagging development, with a more active transformation between the latter three types. (3) The development level of urban-rural economic integration is higher than that of demographic and social integration, while the development process of urban-rural spatial and ecological integration shows some natural zonal divergent characteristics. Finally, we identified the problem areas for different types of integrated development and explored the regional promotion path of urban-rural integrated development, which could provide scientific references for the strategies of regional urban-rural development and rural revitalization.

Regional economic resilience is closely related to the state of the regional industrial structure. During the process of the region undergoing and recovering from external shocks, whether and how the spatio-temporal correlation between economic resilience and the evolution of the established industrial structure should be further explored. The micro and mesoscopic views of enterprises and industries, multi-year economic growth data, and enterprise status in the counties of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region were employed to measure regional economic resilience at the county level and divide its economic development stages. In addition, a spatio-temporal correlation between regional economic resilience and industrial structure was appropriately tested, and the main industries affecting regional economic resilience were distinguished. Finally, the coupling mechanism of regional economic resilience and industrial structure evolution was analyzed. The major findings are as follows: (1) The periods of rapid and slow economic growth occur alternately in the study region, and the economic resilience shows a fluctuating growth trend. Meanwhile, central urban areas such as Beijing, Tianjin, and Shijiazhuang exhibited high economic resilience, and a typical center-periphery structure gradually took shape. (2) There was a significant spatial correlation between regional economic resilience and industrial structure. In economically developed regions, such as Beijing and Tianjin, the agglomeration of high economic resilience and high industrial structure was evident. There was a two-way causal correlation and consistency in time-series changes. (3) The industrial structure in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region had gradually improved. Compared to the effect of industrial structure, the effect of competitiveness contributed more to economic resilience. Primary industries as well as those pertinent to consumer services and social services have played a pivotal role in improving regional resisting economic resilience. Besides, the development of consumer services and social services leads to the strengthening of the region's recovering economic resilience. (4) The evolution of the industrial structure achieved the evolution of the development path, which was revealed in the distinction of economic resilience at the county level. In addition, the coupling correlation between regional economic resilience and the evolution of industrial structure in the study region was mainly revealed in the time scale, which had not yet led to the fundamental restructuring of the regional spatial structure, and the center-periphery structure is still relatively significant.

Soil organic carbon (SOC) storage and soil carbon sinks play a crucial role in the global carbon cycle of terrestrial ecosystem. However, many previous studies of soil carbon storage and sinks utilized low-resolution land use dataset, with limited focus on soil carbon sinks from farmland and grassland management. To address this issue, this study employed a series of accounting models to estimate the carbon sink from farmland and grassland management, the carbon sink from forest management, changes in soil carbon storage, changes in carbon storage due to land use conversion from 2000 to 2020, as well as the soil carbon storage in China in 2000 and 2020 using a 30 m-resolution land use dataset. The results showed that the national carbon sink from farmland management in China was approximately 17.918 Tg C a^-1 and the carbon sink from grassland management was approximately 20.171 Tg C a^-1 during 2000-2020. The carbon sink from forest management in China was approximately 81.622 Tg C a^-1 during 2000-2020. The soil carbon storage (0-100 cm) in China increased from 86.074 Pg C in 2000 to 86.771 Pg C in 2020. The soil carbon storage increased by approximately 34.850 Tg C a^-1 from 2000 to 2020. The land use transformation during the study period resulted in a decrease of approximately 17.621 Tg C a^-1 in soil carbon storage. The findings of this study can help researchers understand China's carbon storage and provide scientific data to China's 2060 Carbon Neutrality Target.

Geographic big data enables a fine-grained depiction of regional human-terrestrial systems and provides new data for the study of human-terrestrial relations and regional development. At present, geographic big data research has entered the stage of widespread application, but the examination of its quality and the corresponding evaluation methods have been lacking to guarantee the widespread and efficient application of the data. POI is an important part of geographic big data and plays an important role in location-based services and an understanding of regional scenarios. This paper proposes a method to assess and enhance POI-type big data, and realize quality evaluation based on site research, GIS and other methods from three dimensions: feature identification completeness, data redundancy rate and spatial location accuracy; discover and summarize possible influencing factors of data quality based on data production process, and prove that multi-source data fusion is an effective means to enhance POI data quality. We found that: the volume of Amap data acquired based on API interface is slightly higher than that of Baidu, the accuracy rate of spatial location is comparable and the redundancy rate is lower; Amap focuses on identifying the entrance of features, which is suitable for analysis such as accessibility; Baidu focuses on discovering non-significant features, which is suitable for analysis such as spatial planning; the discovery, acquisition and processing stages are possible links to reduce data quality, which is influenced by data protection mechanism, and the data quality is inversely proportional to the acquisition volume and area. The quality assessment, enhancement and integration of multi-source heterogeneous geographic data is one of the key ways to enhance the "emergent value" of data, promote trans- and cross-multidisciplinary and solve geographic problems in the new era.

The study of the new economic geography has paid attention to the polarization and balanced development of urban systems. In reality, however, transport accessibility is subject to great uncertainty in explaining the polarization and balance of the urban system. In fact, the polarization or equilibrium of the regional urban system is not only unique in China, but also a general phenomenon in countries with different development outcomes, political systems and degrees of marketization. From the perspective of industrial heterogeneity, this study empirically analyzes the process and mechanism of the industrial structure of regional central cities on the population growth of neighboring cities in China from 1980 to 2020, and examines the influence of industrial structure on the polarization and equilibrium development of the regional urban system. The results show that, firstly, the manufacturing sector strengthens the spillover effect from the core city and promotes the population growth in neighboring cities, while the service sector weakens the spillover effect and hinders the growth in neighboring cities. Secondly, the manufacturing-oriented cities have relatively small city scale, while the service-oriented cities are relatively large. Therefore, the driving effect of manufacturing-oriented central cities on the neighboring cities is larger, which tends to produce a relatively balanced regional city system. Correspondently, the spillover effect of service-oriented central cities on the neighboring cities is smaller, which tends to form a relatively polarized regional city system. Finally, as the share of services in the industrial structure of central cities continues to rise, China's urban system may become more polarized rather than balanced. Certainly, the higher the proportion of manufacturing in the central city, the more balanced the regional urban system is. In fact, the empirical results show that the industrial structure and the spillover effect of the core city have an inverted U-shaped relationship, i.e. a high proportion of manufacturing or services weakens the driving effect of the core city on surrounding cities. The reasons for this vary. The high proportion of manufacturing and the small size of the central city have a limited spillover effect on the neighboring cities and therefore can hardly drive their growth; while the high proportion of service industry and the negative effect of the service industry on the spillover effect lead to the slow development of the neighboring small-and-medium-sized cities. It is worth noting that because of the significant spatial impact of industry on the urban system, the future regional urbanization strategy should be coordinated with the industrial strategy. More importantly, with the gradual liberalization of the household registration system, industry selection can become an effective policy option for macro-control of the regional urban system.

This study focuses on the Lower Yellow River (LYR), which has experienced continuous erosion since the operation of Xiaolangdi Reservoir in 1999, and its complex spatio-temporal variation process. Using the single-step mode of the Delayed Response Model (DRM), we derive a calculation formula for the accumulated erosion and deposition volume in the LYR. The coefficient of determination R² between the simulated and observed values from 2000 to 2020 is 0.99. Currently, the LYR is undergoing continuous erosion, but the erosion rate is gradually slowing down, and the difference between the equilibrium value and the calculated value of accumulated erosion and deposition volume gradually decreases, which means that the riverbed erosion is approaching equilibrium. Additionally, we derive a formula for the spatial distribution of main channel accumulated erosion volume per unit river length in the LYR based on the non-equilibrium suspended sediment transport equation. The coefficient of determination between the fitted value and observed value from 2003 to 2015 is about 0.98-0.99, with a relative error of approximately 6.2%. Our findings suggest that under the current conditions of decreasing sediment inflow and continuous scouring, it takes around 3.0 years for the riverbed to achieve half of the erosion and deposition adjustment and approximately 13.0 years to achieve 95% of the adjustment. Moreover, the spatial distribution of accumulated erosion volume in the LYR tends to become more uniform with the continuous development of erosion. These results provide valuable reference for analyzing the complex spatio-temporal variation process of the LYR.

On the basis of analyzing urban SDGs monitoring and evaluation, this paper expounds the conceptual connotation of geospatial enabled monitoring and its differences from traditional statistical-based monitoring for urban SDGs. Meanwhile, through document comparison and analysis, the development and latest progress of urban SDGs monitoring and evaluation has been revealed, suggesting a transformation of urban SDGs monitoring and evaluation from traditional statistical-based monitoring to geospatial enabled monitoring. In addition, this paper systematically analyzes the research progress and current situation of geospatial enabled monitoring from the aspects of monitoring index system, geospatial data acquisition for monitoring, and monitoring ideas and methods. Results showed that the number of urban SDGs indicators is too large and the relationship is complex, with the lack of clear core and key indicators, which need to be optimized and improved according to the specific situation. The lack of standard, public and directly available data requires the development of appropriate methods for spatial data generation and multi-source data utilization, and the establishment of data products for urban SDGs monitoring and evaluation. Besides, the lack of scientific and efficient monitoring and evaluation methods is also one of the main problems facing the current urban SDGs studies. Finally, through the analysis of current challenges in urban SDGs monitoring, future research in geospatial enabled monitoring for urban SDGs are proposed, including the establishment of scientific and efficient monitoring and evaluation methods, the establishment of a standardized and unified monitoring index system, the construction of data production sharing and monitoring and evaluation knowledge service platform, and the strengthening of the application research of big earth data and related disciplines support for the monitoring and evaluation of urban SDGs.

The Hanjiang River, located between the Qinling and Daba mountains, connects the Hanzhong, Ankang and other intermontane basins where there are numerous paleolithic sites. Here is an ideal area to explore the impacts of geomorphic processes on hominin activities. In this study, based on loess stratigraphy, magnetostratigraphy and detrital zircon U-Pb geochronology, the age of high terraces in the Ankang basin and the time of the drainage connection of the Ankang and Hanzhong basins by the Hanjiang River from west to east was determined. In addition, the possible influence of the evolution of landform and drainage network pattern of the Hanjiang River on the hominin occupation in the southern Qinling Mountains in the context of orbital scale climate change is discussed. The results show that (1) Eight terraces of the Hanjiang River were developed in the Ankang basin, with the sixth forming at ~1.82 Ma; (2) Most of these terraces were formed during the climatic transitions from interglacial to glacial periods, and more terraces were formed under the conditions of the Mid-Pleistocene climate transition (MPT) and the increase of uplift rate of the Qinling Mountains since 1.2 Ma; (3) It was not later than 1.82 Ma when the Hanjiang River connected the Ankang and Hanzhong basins as a result of river capture from east to west. River capture and the resulted connections of intermountain basins provided convenient geomorphological conditions for hominins to migrate into the Qinling and Daba mountains along broad river valleys since ~1.5 Ma, and thereafter fluvial terraces provided beneficial space for hominin activities.

Wetland is an important natural resource for human beings and plays an irreplaceable ecological function in the terrestrial ecosystem. In order to curb the continued loss of wetlands around the world, international organizations and many countries have taken a series of major protection and restoration measures. This paper reviews the wetland protection and restoration measures of international organizations and some countries, comprehensively interprets China's wetland protection and restoration management experience, and proposes that future research on wetland resources should be carried out from the aspects of international frontier and national strategy, social economy and intelligent services. The results show that: (1) The 27 International Wetlands Day from 1997 to 2023 provide new goals and tasks for the protection and management of wetlands in corresponding years. The important topics and outcomes of the 14 International Convention on Wetlands Conferences from 1980 to 2022 provide new directions and new challenges for wetland development in the coming period. In the future, we should enhance ecological functions of wetlands, promote the sustainable development of wetlands, and overcome the technical bottleneck of ecological restoration of fragile wetland ecosystems from 2020 to 2035. (2) During the 30-year period from 1992 to 2022, China embarked on a new phase of wetland protection and restoration. The overall experience of wetland protection and restoration with Chinese characteristics has been formed through "national strategic deployment-legal policy establishment-project planning and implementation". Emphasis was placed on the need to provide for and prepare planning for the long-term protection of wetlands at the national legal level, to innovate restoration and management techniques and application systems, and to effectively address the complex issues of wetland protection and restoration through collaborative division of labor among multiple departments. (3) The research on the future trend of wetlands should be directed towards the exploration and practice of "United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and several international conventions" in support of the sustainable development of wetlands. Wetland protection, restoration and management services should be promoted for "national strategic needs and local social and economic high-quality development". Research on the cross-integration and academic innovation development also should be enhanced for "disciplinary development - global supervision - comprehensive assessment-intelligent decision-making".

Global climate change caused by human activities results in frequent extreme climate events, and shifts the physiological processes of plants, and the carbon, water cycle and energy balance of terrestrial ecosystems. Vegetation phenology is the most sensitive biological indicator to climate change. In recent years, the responses of vegetation phenology to climate change mainly focus on the mean state of the climate, while the response mechanisms of vegetation phenology to extreme climate are still unclear. In this paper, the response of vegetation spring and autumn phenology to various extreme climatic events and their mechanisms were reviewed. We found that extreme low temperature and extreme precipitation directly delayed the vegetation green-up date and advanced the leaf senescence, while extreme high temperature and extreme drought led to stomatal closure, inhibited photosynthesis and transpiration, and thus advanced leaf senescence at middle and high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. Currently, the studies on the response of vegetation phenology to extreme climate events pay less attention to compound extreme climate events, and there are only few studies on the lag effect of vegetation phenology response to extreme climate events and the recovery process of vegetation after the occurrence of extreme events. Under future climate change scenarios, it is necessary to modify the vegetation phenological models by considering the impact of extreme climate events and couple it into the dynamic global vegetation models to improve the simulation accuracy of the carbon cycle in terrestrial ecosystems.

As a product of certain type of social interaction, urban scaling laws assume that urban attributes such as urban economic outputs are largely determined by urban population size (internal interactions), implying the assumption of agglomeration economies. Urban population agglomeration represents a local network effect, while the global network effect on a larger spatial scale between cities should also be considered in terms of the improvement of social productivity. Taking 275 Chinese cities at prefecture level and above as the research object, we constructed an urban human mobility network by Baidu migration data and portraied the degree of external interaction by human mobility between cities. We comparatively analysed the non-linear relationship between population size within cities and external interaction and urban economic outputs under the urban scaling framework. Results show that there is a significant super-linear scaling relationship between urban economic output and external interaction, revealing the higher multiplier effect of external interaction on urban economic outputs. The role of network spatial interaction cannot be ignored and it has become an important complement to agglomeration economies. Further, indicators such as urban population density, agglomeration and network externalities are introduced to quantitatively and comprehensively measure the effects of urban population agglomeration and interurban population mobility and their synergistic effects on urban economic outputs. The agglomeration effect brought about by urban population size remains the main driver of regional economic development, and the ability of cities to benefit from exchange and cooperation on a larger spatial scale has yet to be enhanced. This study contributes to fully understanding the origins of urban scaling laws from taking both internal and external interaction into consideration, deepening the recognization of the agglomeration effect and network effect of regional economic growth. This paper is supposed to support for promoting high-quality integrated urban development and deepening the practice of coordinated regional development.

Rural area has abundant ecological resources. Ecological industrialization has become the emerging trends in rural areas and the new driving forces for rural revitalization. This study summarized the evolution of China's ecological environmental policies, and clarified the promotion mechanisms of regional ecological industrialization development to rural revitalization from the perspectives of ecosystem and human society, ecological products and economic development, ecological industrialization and rural revitalization, and discussed the models and pathways of poverty alleviation and rural revitalization by developing modern organic industry based on the regional ecological resources from the case study of Yangxian county in southern Shaanxi province. Three stages of China's ecological environmental policies were summarized, including "Focus on economy and light on environmental protection", "Environmental protection and scientific development" and "ecological civilization construction". Relationship between natural ecosystem and human social welfare reflects the objective needs of social and economic development and subjective initiative of human utilization of nature. The crucial ecological products and economic development was the engine of "nature-ecology-society-economy" in the core of benefits. The core of ecological industrialization and rural revitalization is the guarantee mechanism of "human-land-industry-right". Organic industry development is the typical model and important direction of ecological industrialization. In Yangxian county, the organic production paradigm of "product-industry-production area" promotes the transformation of organic practitioners from single subject management to multi-agent operation, and the transformation of land use type from resource optimal allocation to man-land coordination. In the future, coupling of ecological protection and socio-economic development can be realized by the model construction of modern organic agriculture and rural revitalization in Hanjiang River basin from the aspects of improving organic products quality and yield, enhancing organic industrial integration and value, reducing consumption and increasing efficiency in production areas.

Sedimentary DNA has been widely used in the studies of climate change, ecological function, and environmental archaeology, because it can provide biological dynamic information with temporal dimension in geographical environment. However, the surface processes and impact factors of sedimentary DNA within the catchments are still not fully understood, which limits the accuracy of sedimentary DNA data interpretation. In this study, topsoil DNA concentrations at the Buha River catchment in northwest Qinghai Lake, which was suitable for DNA preservation, were firstly measured based on domestic new sedimentary DNA laboratory. Meanwhile, soil physical and chemical compositions, including grain size, elements, loss on ignition and TOC, were determined. Subsequently, the abiotic factors which had impact on spatial distribution of topsoil DNA concentration were analyzed by combing the status related with climate, vegetation cover, and land use at the Buha River catchment. The results showed that the average concentration of topsoil DNA at the whole catchment was 0.91 μg/g, with the higher values in the middle reaches of the Buha River and its tributary Jilmon River, while the lower ones in the lower reaches near the Qinghai Lake. In addition, topsoil DNA concentrations at the catchment were positively correlated with the contents of clay and organic matter, but negatively correlated with sand content and the intensity of weathering and leaching. Besides, high vegetation cover and frequent grazing activities contributed to the enrichment of the topsoil DNA, while strong weathering and leaching under warm and wet environment, river transportation and crop cultivation reduced the concentration of the topsoil DNA. All the above results provide a scientific basis for an understanding of the deposition processes of sedimentary DNA and their impact factors in the Buha River catchment, which are helpful for revealing sedimentary DNA compositions and evolution processes of ecological environment and human-environment relationship in regions west of the Qinghai Lake.

Most of the existing research focuses on local or non-local forces that promote regional development, but few studies explore the "global-local" interactions of import spillovers as external knowledge, leaving the specific mechanism unclear. Based on China's customs data from 2000 to 2016, the import spillover effects on Chinese manufacturing industries can be better investigated. With cognitive proximity as a tool of measurement and classification, import products are sorted into three categories: same products, related products and unrelated products. We found that the import spillover effects of same products and related products can significantly increase the probability of export entry and reveal comparative advantage enhancement in city-product dimension, while the effect of unrelated products remains negative. Furthermore, the mediation effect of urban related production capacity is verified. The import of the same products and related products can improve the urban related production capacity, while the import of unrelated products plays the opposite effect. In addition, the process of import spillover effects promoting the expansion of export products shows significant heterogeneity at the product and regional levels. To give full play to the positive role of import spillover effect and avoid its negative role, local governments should build industrial chains around local core products and optimize import structure and mode. Strengthening the cultivation of local technology R&D and innovation capabilities, and improving the local ability to absorb, transform and utilize external knowledge is also helpful. After meeting the local import demand, the resource competition and crowding out effect caused by the excessive introduction of irrelevant products should also be paid attention to. Finally, differentiated import modes and strategies should be adopted according to the nature of export products, regional industrial base and export development level, so as to create a spatial aggregation form with close technological links for enterprises and industries, enhance cognitive proximity, and promote the flow and dissemination of tacit knowledge.

Danxia landscapes are a landscape feature with the Danxia landform as the main body, and are widely distributed in China. An in-depth understanding of the landscape differentiation on a national scale is essential for the protection and utilization of Danxia landscapes as tourism resource. Based on data such as lithology, cliff height, stratum attitude, rock strength, and other data, this study quantitatively analyzes the spatial pattern of Danxia landscapes. Combining these data with the understanding from an on-site survey of more than 200 Danxia landforms across the country, the differentiation of Chinese Danxia landscapes is semi-quantitatively determined. Based on multiple geologic and geomorphologic factors, the Danxia landscape in China is divided into six distinctive regions: Southeast China, the Sichuan-Chongqing-Guizhou junction, the Ordos Plateau, the southwestern Ordos Basin, "Tianshan-Qilian", and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Through the national-scale comparison of Danxia landscapes, six key characteristics are noted. The basin size of red-bed deposits and the crustal uplift and subsidence during the Himalayan movement jointly controlled the spatial distribution of the Danxia landforms, while the tectonic deformation characteristics in different regions controlled the inclination of strata. The spatial lithological differences among different types of the basins affect the slope morphology. Rock strength has little effect on cliff height, but the difference in vertical rock strength affects the slope shape, which in turn affects the geomorphological process. The landform evolution stages affect the richness of individual and group landscapes. Finally, climate influences the currently active geomorphic processes, and the combination of vegetation and landforms in different climate zones shapes different Danxia landscape features and aesthetics. Nationally, the spatial distribution of Danxia characteristics is a regional manifestation of tectonic evolution, Earth's surface environment, and other factors.

Resilience study has long been a focal point in various fields of geography, social science, urban studies, and psychology. Recently, resilience study from multiple disciplines has scrutinized at individual scale. As an important behavior in daily life of human beings, travel behavior is of spatial dependence, spatio-temporal dynamics, and individual heterogeneity. Moreover, how to understand interaction between travel behavior (demand) and traffic supply and their dynamics is a fundamental question in transport studies when transport systems encounter unexpected disturbance. Based on fundamental theories from multiple disciplines including ecology, traffic engineering, and psychology, this paper refines the definition of travel behavior resilience. Also, this paper proposes a conceptual theoretical framework of travel behavior resilience based on dynamic equilibrium characteristics of traffic supply and demand. In general, travel behavior presents three stages of variations, namely, dramatic reduction, rapid growth, and fluctuation recovery, which has been helpful to capture travel behavior resilience triangle. Then we construct a corresponding evaluation methodology, which is suitable for multi-scale and multi-dimensional perspectives. We emphasize that the evaluation of travel behavior resilience should be process-oriented with temporal continuity or capture inflection points of travel behavior. Using multi-source big data such as mobile phone signaling data and smart card data, this paper offers empirical studies on travel behavior resilience, and explores its spatial heterogeneity and group differences. With the location-based analysis, we confirm that people show the greater travel behavior resilience at places where people are engaged in various socio-economic activities. With the group-based analysis, we find that age, socio-economic attributes of mobility groups significantly affect travel behavior resilience. Overall, travel behavior resilience can be one pillar and also offer geographic perspectives to broaden resilience studies. In future, the study of travel behavior resilience on multiple scales and perspectives can explore spatial heterogeneity of traffic re-equilibrium, transport modal differences, and then contribute to urban spatial structure studies. Indeed, the study of travel behavior resilience can provide scientific and technological support for urban management and resilient city construction.

The rural human settlement is an indivisible part of the urban-rural human settlements, and it is also the comprehensive embodiment of the rural man-land relationship. Based on the theoretical framework of the formation of rural human settlement resilience and combined independent weight method and regression analysis, this paper builds an index system of the formation of rural human settlement resilience. This system comprehensively measured the rural human settlements in the Dongting Lake area and analyzes the spatial differentiation characteristics of resilience and its formation mechanism. The results show that: (1) There are evident spatial differences in the degree of resilience formation of rural human settlement in the study area. Resilience value varies based on the distance to the lake areas, the nearer the higher, the further the lower, which demonstrated the spatial differentiation characteristics of "inner high and outer low". (2) Based on the measured results of flexibility, adaptability and responsiveness, the resilience formation level in the Dongting Lake is divided into 3 ring belts in space: Huarong-Linxiang ring belt, Lixian-Pingjiang ring belt and Shimen-Heshan ring belt. (3) Rural human settlement is affected by the combination of exogenous and endogenous factors, which, in the form of mutation, continuation and transformation, have positive and negative effects on the resilience formation, so as to facilitate or not to facilitate the formation of rural human settlement resilience. On the basis of the geographical location, resource endowment, economic and social differences of three ring belts in the Dongting Lake, the corresponding strategies are put forward according to the principle of adapting to local conditions. In the process of optimizing rural human settlement, the monitoring, prediction and anti-disturbance capabilities of rural human settlements are enhanced, the resilience is continuously improved and the sustainable development of rural areas is promoted.

Under the background of urbanization and climate change, flood disasters are getting more and more serious. Floods tend to shift from single site to multi-sites and from urban area to suburb area, however, the mechanism of flood formation and transformation at different scales under changing environment is still unclear. In this study, we proposed a process-based flood event identification and scale division method. We then detected the characteristics, changes and driving mechanisms of local, regional and basin-scale floods at the Taihu Plain region during the past 50 years (1971-2020). The results indicate that floods in the study area showed distinct scales, with regional floods dominated (69.34%), and extraordinary floods were at basin sclae or regional scale. Floods in the study area showed a significant increase trend, mainly due to the increase of regional floods (accounting for 80.8%) in 1971-2020. Flood characteristics at different scales are significantly correlated with rainfall, tidal level, water level of the Taihu Lake, and upstream water amount. The antecedent conditions of water level were the main driving factor of local and regional floods (contributing 53.2% and 54.98%, respectively). Total rainfall played a dominant role in the rise of water level for local, regional and basin-scale floods, with the relative contributions of 64.91%, 65.01% and 78.72%, respectively. The main driving factors of flood characteristics at different scales and their influencing degree also have some spatial differences. The results of this study show that the spatial scale of floods has changed significantly under the background of changing environment in the Taihu Plain region, which would provide a feasible idea and reference for the identification of floods and mechanism analysis of its changes at different scales in this region or a similar estuary deltas area. This can help to ensure the regional flood control safety under the changing environment.

It is of great significance to systematically reveal the multi-scale evolution patterns and future trends of cultivated land landscape fragmentation (CLLF) in China since 1990 for optimizing the utilization and management of cultivated land resources and promoting appropriate scale agricultural management. This paper first discusses the theoretical cognition of CLLF, then systematically analyzes the evolution of multi-scale characteristics and scale nesting effect of CLLF at agricultural, provincial, municipal and county scales in China from 1990 to 2020, and predicts CLLF long-term evolution trend based on the data of China's land use in the study period and the spatial analysis and mathematical statistics methods such as Theil Index, scale variance, and Markov chain. Results showed that: (1) The pattern characteristics of CLLF in China show obvious scale differences, manifested as a ladder pattern along the three steps of China's terrain at the county scale, a cluster pattern of dual core, ring core group and belt area relying on the "Hu Huanyong Line" at the municipal scale, and a gradually strengthened concentric circular layered structure from east to west and from northeast to southwest at the provincial scale. The average contribution of differences in county, municipal, provincial and agricultural scales to the overall difference of CLLF in China is 84.87%, 14.64%, 0.31% and 0.18%, respectively, indicating that the smaller the scale, the better it can reflect the spatial heterogeneity of CLLF. (2) CLLF showed a trend of enhancement on multiple scales during 1990-2020, but the growth rate slowed down over time. Among them, the development of CLLF was the most intense during 2000-2010. (3) CLLF in China during 1990-2020 generally increased in the east and decreased in the west, but there were great differences in spatio-temporal evolution of the trend, intensity and spatial range at different scales. Spatially, major grain-producing areas such as the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain, the central and eastern parts of middle-lower Yangtze Plain and the Sichuan Basin became high-value agglomeration areas with increased fragmentation. (4) The long-term CLLF in China will follow the development pattern of a gradual increase from low to high. The counties with low- or relative low level of fragmentation will decrease greatly, while the counties with higher- or high-level will increase significantly. Meanwhile, different neighborhoods will also lead to significant differences in the long-term evolution of CLLF.

Selecting 887 inter-provincial border counties in China as a research area, this paper constructs an evaluation index system incorporating five dimensions to measure the degree of urbanization that each county experienced from 2000 to 2019, describes characteristics of the evolution of urbanized spatial patterns combined with spatial autocorrelation analysis, uses geodetectors to identify the main factors influencing urbanization and interactive relationships, divides driving areas into types on the above basis, and proposes targeted suggestions. The results show that: (1) From 2000 to 2019, the urbanization level of China's inter-provincial border areas continued to increase, but the overall level remained low, and displayed a spatial distribution pattern of stepwise decline from east to central to west. (2) The urbanization level of counties on the inter-provincial border showed a significant positive spatial correlation. In terms of spatial distribution, HH-clustering counties formed a "T" pattern, and LL-clustering counties concentrated in the inter-provincial border areas of the northwest, northeast, and southwest. (3) Economic development and traffic level are the leading factors affecting the spatial pattern of urbanization in the inter-provincial border areas. (4) The spatial pattern of urbanization in the inter-provincial border areas results from the main factors directly driving economic development and determining transportation levels. In addition, medical care, social investment, and natural conditions also directly impact the spatial pattern of urbanization. Government behavior and educational services exert indirect effects. (5) Inter-provincial border areas are divided into six types with distinct patterns of leading driving factors: terrain element restriction, location traffic leading, economic development driving, social investment driving, public service lagging, and government leading. (6) Urbanization of inter-provincial border areas exerts a spatial nearest neighbor effect, and the urbanization level of counties close to urban agglomerations of developed regions is high. The marginality of urbanization space of counties in the inter-provincial border areas is prominent. In areas with more county borders in the inter-provincial areas, urbanization levels tend to be lower.

There are important changes in urban-rural structure of population mobility at the late-intermediate stage of urbanization in China, which will have a significant impact on population redistribution, urbanization and regional development. This paper divides the interprovincial urban and rural floating population into four mobility types by using the 2010 and 2020 censuses data, and on the basis of identifying the mainstream types, their spatial patterns evolution and the relationship with regional economic development are investigated through the mobility ratio indexes and regression models. The study results can be summarized as follows. (1) The urban and rural floating population is large and grows rapidly. Meanwhile, rural-urban mobility keeps the dominant position, and urban-urban mobility rises rapidly, these two population mobility types have become the mainstream ones of interprovincial urban and rural floating population in China. (2) In terms of the net mobility pattern of urban-urban floating population, the net-inflow areas are further concentrated in the three major coastal centers of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong, and Liaoning, Xinjiang and Yunnan are also maintained at a certain net-inflow rate, but most of the provincial-level regions are in the net-outflow areas. The major changes of the net mobility pattern of urban-urban floating population have shaped a spatial connection network. The main features of this network can be described as three cross-regional flow circles of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, and Pearl River Delta in coastal China. At the same time, the space connections within the regions are strengthening in northeast China, northwest China and southwest China. (3) The net mobility pattern of rural-urban floating population shows that in coastal areas, the net-inflow rate rises or decreases during the study period, while in inland areas, the increase in the net-inflow rate of Liaoning and Xinjiang leads to the decline in the net-outflow rate of their neighboring provinces. The changes of the net mobility pattern of rural-urban floating population depict the dual characteristics of continuous formation and different changes of the coastal flow circle, and the development of the inland flow circle in Xinjiang and Liaoning. (4) There is a mutual relationship between urban-urban and rural-urban population mobility and regional economic development. For regional economic development of both population mobility types, the impact is significantly positive and has been increasing. When we add the floating stock into the models, the positive effect of this variable has decreased in urban-urban mobility's model, while it still plays the first-place positive effect in rural-urban mobility's model. The two population mobility types have a positive effect on the national economic development and the inflow areas' economic development.