The spatiotemporal evolution of settlements during historical periods is of great significance for a better understanding of past environment changes, land use, and the dynamics of human-land relationships. Chinese historical documents contain abundant information on settlements, serving as an important proxy for the study on the evolution settlements over the past century. Historical documents typically employ place names to record the spatial location of settlements, but the existing historical place names spatial databases often fall short in automating the precise localization of micro-scale place names, such as settlements, which in turn impedes the advancement of research on the spatial reconstruction and spatiotemporal evolution of these historical settlements. This study focuses on the automated matching method of historical settlement place names, utilizing Suzhou Prefecture during the late Qing Dynasty (1820-1911) as the research area. It selected 11340 settlement place names and their associated primary-level division data extracted from local chronicles, and combined contemporary place names matching techniques to construct a conceptual model for correlating ancient and modern place names. The study identifies characteristics of place names evolution, establishes rules for place names matching, and proposes an algorithm for the aggregation and matching of settlement names predicated on similarity metrics, thereby accomplish the spatial reconstruction of historical settlements within the research area. On this basis, the spatial distribution and urban-rural relationships of the reconstruction results were analyzed. The results indicated that approximately 98% of the settlements, relative to the total number documented in the literature, were reconstructed using an automated place names matching method. The spatial resolution of the reconstruction was approximately 1.4 km × 1.4 km, and the consistency between the automatic matching outcomes and the manually verified results was about 96%. During the late Qing Dynasty, the distribution of settlements in the study area exhibited agglomerative characteristics, with a hierarchical structure of settlement networks centered on the western suburbs of Suzhou city. However, urban-rural connections within the network were sparse. The findings from this study have enhanced the technical methods for the spatial reconstruction of historical settlement space and deepened the scientific understanding of the characteristics and influencing factors of long-term settlement evolution.

The spatial planning of coastal zones is the foundation for sustainable development. Existing spatial planning frameworks always fail to effectively integrate functions of land and sea, posing challenges for the comprehensive management, development, and ecological protection of coastal areas. Moreover, most classification systems do not adequately consider variations in land use functions across different locations, making it difficult to capture the complex interactions between human activities and the environment. How to describe the spatial characteristics of coastal zones and reflect the complex "land-human-sea" relationship remains a critical and challenging issue in coastal zone research. Based on theoretical frameworks such as spatial scenarios, scenario theory, and differentiated land use theory, and considering the spatial utilization characteristics of coastal zones, this study aims to develop a novel classification system based on land-sea coordination, termed the Zoning and Classification System of Geographic Spatial Scene. Geographical objects possess distinct spatial attributes, and interact within specific spatial relationships, collectively shaping the social, economic, and ecological functions of a specific region. Varying proportions of geographic spatial scene combinations generate distinct functional spaces. Taking the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) as a case study, this research employs hydrogeological units as analytical carriers to establish land-sea zoning, identifies the unique spatial characteristics of the deferent zoning, and built the Zoning and Classification System of Geographic Spatial Scene for the GBA. This system achieves integrated land-sea zoning coordination, while capturing function variations caused by locations between scenes, providing a robust theoretical foundation for regional planning and management.

Global wetlands have experienced great loss over the past century. Accurately reconstructing wetland change processes and elucidating their evolutionary mechanisms are crucial for wetland ecological restoration and protection. On the basis of previous studies, our research expanded the types of wetland reconstruction, and took small wetlands into consideration. The Jianghan Plain, which has experienced the most typical wetland changes during the past century, was selected as the study area. Combined with the 1∶50000 topographic map of the Republic of China and the interpretation results of modern remote sensing images, we reconstructed the centennial-scale evolution of the wetland landscape in the Jianghan Plain. Then the influencing factors of wetland landscape changes to natural and human-induced factors were analyzed. The results show that the total area of wetlands in the Jianghan Plain in the 1920s was about 11613 km². Over the past century, the wetland area has showed a process of first decreasing and then increasing, and the total wetland area in 1985, 2000 and 2022 was equivalent to 57.3%, 62.6% and 63.6% of the 1920s, respectively. In the 1920s, lakes, marshes, rivers and mudflats accounted for 52.8%, 32.0%, 12.8% and 2.4% of the total wetland area, respectively, and the proportion of marshes in the total wetland area decreased significantly. Over the study period, the average area of wetland landscape patches decreased, and the distribution of wetland landscapes tended to be discrete. The shape's complexity and landscape's contagion of wetland landscape continued to decrease from the 1920s to 2000, and slowly increased after 2000. During the past century, the wetland landscape pattern of the Jianghan Plain has been affected by both natural and human factors, with obviously diverse dominant influencing factors in different periods. The results of this study can provide a reference for re-understanding the reclamation and wetland loss of the Jianghan Plain over the past century, as well as for the current wetland protection and restoration.