Land-Use/land Cover Changes (LUCC) are a direct consequence of human and nature interactions. China's Land Use/cover Datasets (CLUD) were updated regularly at five-year intervals from the late 1980s to the year of 2010 with standard procedures based on Landsat TM/ETM + images. A dynamic zoning method was proposed to analyze major land-use conversions. The spatiotemporal characteristics, differences, and causes of land-use changes at a national scale were then examined. The main findings are summarized as follows: Land-Use Changes (LUC) across China indicated a significant variation in spatial and temporal characteristics in the past 20 years between the 20th and 21st centuries. The amount of cropland change decreased in the south and increased in the north, but the total area remained almost unchanged. The reclaimed cropland was shifted from northeast to northwest. The built-up lands were expanded rapidly, which were mainly distributed in the east and gradually spread out to the midwest. Woodland decreased first and then increased, but desert area was inverted. Grassland continued decreasing. Different spatial patterns of LUC in China were found between the late 20th century and the early 21st century. The original 13 LUC zones were replaced by 15 units with changes of boundaries in some zones. The main spatial characteristics of these changes included (1) an accelerated expansion of built-up land in the Huang-Huai-Hai region, the coastal areas of southeastern China, the midstream area of the Yangtze River, and the Sichuan Basin; (2) the shifted land reclamation in the north from Northeast China and eastern Inner Mongolia to the oasis agricultural areas in Northwest China; (3) the continuous transform from rain-fed farmlands in Northeast China to paddy fields; and (4) the effectiveness of the “Grain-for-Green” project in the southern agricultural-pastoral ecotones of Inner Mongolia, the Loess Plateau, and mountainous areas of southwestern China. In recent two decades, although climate change in the north impacted the change in cropland, policy regulation and economic driving forces were still the primary causes of LUC across China. During the first decade of the 21st century, the anthropogenic factors that drove variations in land-use patterns have shifted the emphasis from one-way land development to both development and conservation. The "dynamic zoning method" was used to analyze changes in the spatial patterns of zoning boundaries, the internal characteristics of zones, and the growth and decrease of units. The results revealed "the pattern of the change process," namely the process of LUC and regional differences in characteristics at different stages. The growth and decrease of zones during this dynamic LUC zoning, variations in unit boundaries, and the characteristics of change intensities between the former and latter decades were examined. The patterns of alternative transformation between the "pattern" and "process" of land use and the reasons for changes in different types and different regions of land use were explored.

Global climate warming has led to significant vegetation changes in the past half century. Grassland in China, most of which is sensitive to climatic change and ecologically fragile region, undergoes a process of prominent warming and drying. It is necessary to investigate the response of grassland to the climatic variations (temperature and precipitation) for a better understanding of the accumulated consequence of climate change. Vegetation coverage, as an important indicator for evaluating grassland ecosystem condition, is used to monitor grassland change. GIMMS NDVI from 1982 to 2006 and MODIS NDVI from 2001 to 2010 were adopted and integrated in this study to extract the time series of grassland coverage, and to analyze its spatial pattern and changes. The response of grassland coverage to climatic variations at annual and monthly time scales was analyzed using temperature and precipitation time series at Chinese meteorological stations from 1982 to 2010. During the 29 years, the national annual surface air temperature increased with an annual rate of 0.04℃, while national precipitation decreased with an annual rate of -0.39 mm with the exception of Northwest China. Grassland coverage distribution increased from northwest to southeast across China. During 1982-2010, the mean national grassland coverage was 34% but exhibited apparent spatial heterogeneity being highest (61.4%) in slope grasslands and lowest (17.1%) in desert areas. There was a slight increase of the grassland coverage over the study period with an annual rate of 0.17%. Regionally, the largest increase in the grassland area was observed in Northwest China and Tibetan Plateau. The increase in slope grassland areas was as high as 0.27% per year, while in the plain grassland and meadow, the grassland coverage increase was the lowest (being 0.11% per year and 0.1% per year, respectively). Across China, the grass coverage with extremely significant (P<0.01) and significant (P<0.05) area increases accounted for 46.03% and 11% of the total grassland area, respectively, while those with extremely significant and significant decrease were only 4.1% and 3.24% , respectively. At the annual time scale, there were no significant correlations between grassland coverage and annual temperature and precipitation for the total grassland area. However, the grass coverage was mainly affected by temperature in alpine and sub-alpine grassland, alpine and sub-alpine meadow, slope grassland and meadow, while grass coverage in desert grassland and plain grassland was mainly affected by precipitation. At the monthly time-scale, there are significant correlations between grass coverage with both temperature and precipitation, indicating that the grass coverage is mainly affected by seasonal fluctuations of the hydrothermal factors. Additionally, there is obvious time lag-effect between grass growth and climate factors for each grassland type: the highest correlations are observed between the grass coverage and temperature and precipitation of the preceding month.

As a main component of terrestrial ecosystem, vegetation has profound effects on the sharp decrease of water and sediment in the Yellow River Basin. In order to research the effects of land use on vegetation coverage in the typical rich and coarse sediment area (Weihe River), this paper chose MSS, TM and HJ-CCD as data sources, applied adjacent images progressive regression analysis method to eliminate the radiometric difference and retrieved vegetation coverage based on NDVI, and used man-computer interactive method to interpret land use. Some conclusions can be drawn as follows. (1) Vegetation coverage in this area has been significantly restored from 1978 to 2010, but changes in vegetation have strong volatility and heterogeneity. (2) Significant changes can be found in land use, and present unique spatial and temporal characteristics. (3) Both of land use transition and land use gradient are conducive to vegetation restoration, but comparatively speaking, land use transition performs better than land use gradient. (4) Effects of land use on vegetation coverage are complex and diverse, and vegetation restoration in this region urgently needs targeted land use transition and land ecological optimization strategies.

In order to evaluate the effect of Grain for Green Policy in the reach from Hekouzhen to Tongguan of the Yellow River, based on dryness/wetness, geomorphic type, slope gradient and aspect, from macroscopic to microcosmic, three indicators, including (a) a land use change significance index, (b) a land use change proportion (c) a vegetation change index, are used to characterize the primary transformation types, the intensity of land use changes, and the degree of vegetation restoration in the period 1998-2010. The results show that: (1) The area of land use change accounted for 19.19% of the study area. High coverage grassland, forest, and other woodland increased significantly, while low coverage grassland, farmland decreased markedly. (2) Spatially, land use change was found primarily west of the Yellow River, between 35 and 38 degrees north latitude, including Malian River basin, Beiluo River basin, Yanhe River basin. (3) The transformation types, including low coverage grassland to moderate coverage grassland, moderate coverage grassland to high coverage grassland, farmland to other woodland, shrub to forest were the primary types resulting from land use change. (4) The effect of dryness/wetness, geomorphic type and slope gradient on land use change was significant, but that of aspect on land use change was not so clear.

Land use change as an important factor reflects the degree of human activities. Analysis of spatial-temporal change of land use is an effective way to reveal the degree of land use change. Based on the remote sensing and GIS, the authors used man computer interactive image processing methods to acquire the land use data in 1976, 1998 and 2010, and analyzed the spatial-temporal variation of land use in Beiluo River basin from the rate of land use change, the direction of land use transformation, and the degree of land use. The results can be obtained as follows. (1) The integrated dynamic degree of land use increased from 0.61 during 1976-1998 to 6.66 during 1998-2010, the area of arable land and grassland decreased gradually, the rate was increased from 2.00% and 2.69% to 26.20% and 23.33% respectively, while the area of forest land and residential land increased gradually, the rate of the former increased from 5.93% during 1976-1998 to 59.68% during 1998-2010, and that of the latter decreased from 6.59% during 1976-1998 to 3.52% during 1998-2010. (2) The direction of land use change showed similar characteristics during the two periods. Forest land was converted from arable land and grassland, and a small part of residential land was converted from arable land. (3) The integrated degree of land use change ranged from -2-1 during 1976-1998 to -27-4 during 1998-2010. The authors proved that the impact of human activities on the natural environmental showed increasing trends, that arable land, grassland, forestland and residential land were mainly converted, that affected areas were mainly distributed in the upper basin, i.e., Wuqi county, Fuxian county, Ganquan county, Huangling county and Luochuan county, while the increasing area of forest land was much larger than the decreasing area of both arable land and grassland area, and the increasing area of residential land.

This study chose multi-source remote sensing images to extract spatial information, and designed three parameters. It applied integrated cluster analysis and factors contribution model to research the variation of watershed slope in the rich and coarse sediment area of the middle Yellow River Basin. Conclusions can be drawn as follows. (1) The watershed slope characteristics of the study area have changed from 1998 to 2010, including a great increment of forest, grassland and terrace area, and vegetation coverage has restored obviously. (2) There are 7 types of watershed slope variation, which are the result of changes of soil and water conservation measures. According to contribution rates, they are named as type-1 dominated by vegetation coverage change, type-2 by vegetation coverage and land use change, type-3 by land use and vegetation coverage change, type-4 by vegetation coverage and terrace area change, type-5 by terrace area and vegetation coverage change, type-6 by terrace area change and type-7 by multi-source factors. (3) The spatial distribution of each type has its unique geomorphic background, and the future work should take the watershed slope characteristics and geomorphic patterns into account, and should assess the sensitivity of different hydrological and sediment yield models rationally.

In this paper, we tried to set up a new criterion. First of all, the average deposition ratio of the key dams was calculated year by year from 1950 to 2011 using 4157 key dams data in Water Census. The results showed that the average deposition ratio was around 0.77 as of the year 1980 and then decreased; the average deposition ratio of the small and medium-sized dams was calculated year by year from 1956 to 1989 using survey data for 1640 warping dams in northern Shaanxi. The results showed that the average deposition ratio was around 0.88 before 1980 and decreased gradually afterwards. Therefore, 0.77 and 0.88 were considered as the block sediments criterion for key and mid-small sized warping dams respectively. And then, the survey data for warping dams in northern Shaanxi were used for validation for the criterion of key dams and the results are consistent, which confirmed the applicability of the new criterion. With Wuding and Yanhe river basins as an example, the variation trend of the sediment transportation at hydrological stations is highly correlated with that of the warping dams. This paper also explains the formation of the criterion for the engineering structure of the warping dams, indicating that the spatial movement of water and sand drain point is the main reason.

Quantitative simulation and analysis of vegetation canopy interception in a large scale is of great significance to reveal water-sediment changing mechanism under combined influences of climate change and human activities. Hekouzhen-Tongguan region in the middle reaches of the Yellow River was taken as the study area. Quantity of vegetation canopy interception in 1984, 1995 and 2010 were simulated by using models coupled with spatial data such as remote sensing data. The main data used in the study include precipitation data from weather stations and GLASS- LAI remote sensing data. Results show that vegetation coverage has increased since the 1980s, especially since the end of 1990s due to ecological restoration policy. And vegetation canopy interception has varied since the 1980s. The average yearly precipitation intercepted by canopy in 1984, 1995 and 2010 were 19.57 mm, 13.66 mm and 22.68 mm respectively, with the interception rate of 3.24%, 3.32% and 4.92% accordingly. It is found that vegetation canopy interception has been influenced by precipitation characteristics and vegetation synthetically in the study area, where precipitation plays a determinant factor. And LAI is the main factor affecting yearly vegetation interception variation since the 1980s.

The distribution of rainstorm center is critical factor influencing the simulation accuracy of rainstorm runoff process. There are significant differences among the varying discretization responding to rainfall heterogeneities, thus it is important to improve simulation efficiency and accuracy by selecting appropriate discretization methods for reducing the influence of rainfall heterogeneity. For this, the LCM model which deduced from the unsaturated infiltration theory in Loess Plateau by Liu Changming was modeled in three ways: lumped, semi-distributed and distributed. The simulation results indicate that: the NSE with distributed method arrives at 0.81 and correlation coefficient attains 0.82 which shows the best fitness to gauge data. Comparatively, NSE of semi-distributed method arrives at 0.78, while the fitness to main peak of outlet stream-flow reaches 76.1% and 65.8%. Generally, distributed method shows the highest simulation accuracy, lumped method owns the highest calculation efficiency, and semi-distributed method indicates high simulation accuracy, and high calculation efficiency at the same time. So, spatial discretization of modeling is helpful to reduce the influence of rainfall heterogeneity and to improve simulation accuracy of LCM model, but it will consume more time. Thus, it is appropriate to select suitable spatial discretization methods according to the application requirements.

Along with the focuses of geography changing from static geographic pattern to dynamic geographic process, geographic language is also evolving from maps to GISystem (Geographic Information System) to VGEs (Virtual Geographic Environments). Due to the multiscale characteristic and scale dependence of both geographic processes and study methods, scale adaptability turns out to be an inventible component for the theory and method of VGEs, which aims to solve dynamic geographic problems. This paper discussed the definition of geographic scale by using three parameters, namely dimension, kind and component, and then illustrated the evolution of scale concept along with the evolution of geographic language. In such evolution, from maps to VGEs, the scale concept is becoming much more comprehensive, which makes the study into scale adaptability issues more important and difficult. In regard to the framework of VGEs, four groups of scale adaptability issues are identified and analyzed according to the parameters of scale definition (dimension, kind and component). These four groups reflect different operational levels, which are illustrated in detail to support the implementation of scale adaptability. Meanwhile, the interrelationship among multiple scale adaptability is also illustrated when the VGEs are constructed and applied. Taking a meteorological simulation in Hong Kong as a case study, scale adaptability considering multiscale DEM data and a meteorological model (WRF: Weather Research & Forecasting Model) was investigated, which is on the component level within the spatial dimension and observational kind of scale (namely spatial resolution). This case study not only explained the significance and implementation of scale adaptability in geographic process research, but also showed the contribution to the cognition and decomposition of complex scale adaptability issues from the discussion in this paper. In summary, the attention and research into scale adaptability will enrich the theory and methodology of VGEs and improve practical applications of VGEs.

The potential effect of land use change on global climate change is attracting more and more attention, but in terms of estimation of terrestrial carbon budget, there have been relatively few studies on the effects of land use change on carbon balance in arid region. The large-scale change of arable land has occurred in Xinjiang, and its influences on the regional carbon balance needs to be discussed. First, we analyzed the annual arable land area change of Xinjiang based on the remote-sensing land use/cover data and the statistical arable land area data. Then, we obtained a set of local parameters for Bookkeeping model by exploring published scientific literature, soil census data and field investigation data. Finally, we analyzed the impacts of arable land change on region carbon balance of Xinjiang from 1975 to 2005 by combining mathematical statistics method and Bookkeeping model. The research shows that: land reclamation and arable land transfer were the major forms of arable land change during 1975-2005. The carbon storage of Xinjiang increased by 20.6 Tg C due to these two change forms, while land reclamation and arable land transfer led to the increments of 51.8 Tg C and -31.2 Tg C, respectively. In the period 1975-1985, owing to the large-scale arable land transfer, the changing trend of carbon storage was mainly impacted by the arable land transfer. With the increase of land reclamation scale, the changing trend of carbon storage was mainly impacted by the land reclamation after 1985. Over the past 30 years, the increase of carbon storage in Xinjiang was mainly caused by the grassland reclamation, while the transfer of arable land to grassland was the main reason for the reduction of carbon storage. Generally speaking, proceeding reasonable land and water development is beneficial to the regional carbon sequestration, and long-term management of farming activities will further enhance the carbon sink function of arable land.

Based on provincial panel data of water footprint and grey water footprint, and with the help of data envelopment analysis model considering and without considering the undesirable output, this paper estimates the water resources utilization efficiency in China from 1997 to 2011. The spatial weighting matrix based on economy-space distance function is established to discuss spatial autocorrelation of water resources utilization efficiency. With the help of absolute β convergence model, this paper concludes that there exists β convergence in the water resources utilization efficiency. Under the condition of considering and without considering the undesirable output, it takes about 52.6 and 5.6 years respectively to achieve the extent of half of convergence. By mean of the space Durbin econometric model, this paper studies spatial spillover effects of the provincial water resources utilization efficiency in China. The results show that, 1) With considering and without considering the undesirable output, there is significant spatial correlation in provincial water resource efficiency in China. 2) Under the two cases, the spatial autoregressive coefficients (ρ) are 0.278 and 0.507 respectively, at 1% significance level. There exist the spatial spillover effects of provincial water resources utilization efficiency. 3) With considering the undesirable output, these factors of the education funds, the transportation infrastructure, and the proportion of industrial and agricultural water have positive impacts. These factors of foreign direct investment, the industrial added value water consumption in ten thousand yuan, per capita water consumption, and the total precipitation have negative impacts. 4) Without considering the unexpected output, the factor of GDP per labor has a greater positive significant influence on the water resources utilization efficiency. However the facts of industrial added value water consumption in ten thousand yuan and the transportation infrastructure have no significant influence. 5) Regardless of undesirable output of water resources utilization efficiency, the assessment of the present real water resources utilization in China will be distorted and policy-making will be misled. The water efficiency measure considering environmental factors (such as gray water footprint) is more reasonable.

Based on the dataset provided by Smithsonian Institution Global Volcanic Programme, we extracted the large volcanic eruptions (Volcanic Explosivity Index ≥ 4) events from 1750 to 2010, and then analyzed the main characteristics of large volcanic eruptions since 1750 by their geographic latitudes, elevations, years and months. The results showed that the most of large volcanic eruptions occurred around the margins of Pacific Ocean, and the islands of Sumatra and Java from 1750 to 2010, especially in the equatorial regions (10°N-10°S). Large volcanic eruptions were mainly observed at elevations of 1000-2000 m, and in January and April. The number of the occurrences in the summer half-year (from April to September) was larger than that of the winter half-year (from October to next March). Large volcanic eruptions had interdecadal fluctuations including 15-25 years and 35-50 years, which were detected by Morlet wavelet analysis, and more frequent cyclic fluctuation of volcanic eruption was found after 1870. There were more large volcanic eruptions events during the periods of 1750-1760, 1776-1795, 1811-1830, 1871-1890, 1911-1920, and 1981-1995.

Based on the multi-regional input-output theory, this paper improves four traditional input-output formulas about exports resulting in multi-regional carbon emissions spatial effects which include direct effect, indirect effect, spillover effect and feedback effect. And the latter two formulas are to measure the bidirectional influences of carbon emissions induced by regional exports between two regions. The results suggest that the direct effects of China's eight regions induced by national exports decreased from 1997 to 2007, and the indirect effects induced by national exports also decreased in most parts of China except the northern coastal and northwestern parts. During this period, most of China's coastal regions had strong spillover effects generated by their exports. The northern coastal and eastern coastal regions had stronger feedback effects, while the southern coastal region had weaker feedback effects and Beijing-Tianjin region had the weakest feedback effect brought by their exports respectively. All of the inland regions had strong feedback effects, especially for the northwest and central China due to their exports. More attention should be paid to inter-regional joint implementation so as to effectively achieve China's national carbon-reduction target.

This paper defines energy output and input provinces in China, and adopts DEA method to measure economic and environmental performance of energy consumption and energy saving potential for the energy output and input provinces from 2000 to 2010. The causes and characteristics of energy consumption performance are analyzed. The energy consumption performance of energy output provinces is compared with that of energy input provinces. Then, this paper uses the Malmquist index model to examine the changing trend of economic and environmental performance of energy consumption for the energy output and input provinces from 2000 to 2010. Finally, we discuss the strategies for promoting energy consumption performance of energy output and input provinces. The results show that, energy output provinces failing to reach optimal energy consumption performance are mainly restricted by scale efficiency, while energy input provinces are restricted by scale efficiency and pure technological efficiency. Energy consumption economic performance improvement of energy output provinces lags behind that of energy input provinces, but energy consumption environmental performance improvement of energy output provinces is better than that of energy input provinces. Technological progress is key to a changing trend of energy consumption performance. Half of the energy output provinces and most of the energy input provinces have input redundancy, and the input redundancy based on environmental output is much higher than that based on economic output, especially for the energy input provinces.

Regional carbon budget and carbon balance is one of the core fields of the studies on global climate change and carbon emission. Study on carbon budget and carbon balance based on county scale will not only help to establish theoretical framework for the evaluation of carbon efficiency and carbon ecological pressure on county- level, but also has great significance for county- level carbon compensation and the formation of low- carbon development strategies. Using statistical data and land use data of 2009 of each county in Central Plains Economic Region, the carbon budget and its spatial distribution of Central Plains Economic Region was estimated and analyzed, and furthermore the optimization scheme of main functional areas of Central Plains Economic Region based on carbon budget zoning was put forward. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) Total carbon absorption and carbon emission of Central Plains Economic Region in 2009 was 0.13 Gt and 0.21 Gt respectively. There appeared obvious spatial difference among each county. From the spatial level, carbon emission of each county gradually decreased from municipal district to circumjacent counties, while carbon absorption has a characteristic of lower carbon absorption in Northwest and higher carbon absorption in Southeast of Central Plains Economic Region. (2) There was remarkable spatial difference on carbon compensation rate. The higher the per capita GDP, the lower the compensation rate, and vice versa. (3) Economy contribution coefficient of carbon emission was obviously mismatched with carbon ecological capacity because of the different patterns in spatial distribution of carbon sources and sinks. (4) According to the result of carbon balance, the Central Plains Economic Region was divided into five kinds of areas based on the aim of regional low- carbon and harmonious development as follows: carbon emission intensity control area, total carbon emission control area, carbon sink area, carbon budget balance area and low-carbon optimization area. Finally, the optimization scheme for main functional areas of Central Plains Economic Region and the corresponding low- carbon development strategies was put forward based on the carbon balance zoning.

Carbon dioxide emissions of tourism, as an important study issue in tourism industry in the 21st century, is a vital index reflecting its effects on environment change. It is difficult to measure the emissions of regional tourism. The article, taking Jiangsu province as a case, based on the input-output tables and tourism expenditures of 1997, 2002 and 2007, makes an analysis of the direct emissions and indirect emissions of tourism from food, accommodation, transportation, sightseeing, shopping, entertainment and postal services, and then explores the mechanism of influencing factors by Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index. The results are as follows: The total emissions of tourism industry in Jiangsu province in 1997, 2002 and 2007 were 22.57267 Mt, 33.90042 Mt and 62.43800 Mt, respectively, and the annual rate of growth was 10.71%. The indirect emissions account for about 73% of the total emissions. These percentages of food, accommodation, transportation, sightseeing, shopping and entertainment of total emissions in Jiangsu province are comparatively balanced, which, to some extent, reflects the character that the percentage of emissions from tourism sightseeing in China is higher than that of global level and national levels. The total emissions of domestic tourists are evidently higher than those of inbound tourists; however, the per-trip emissions of the inbound tourists are 4-7 times more than those of domestic tourists. There are significant differences of total emissions and per capita emissions among the cities within the province. Among the five factors affecting emissions of tourism industry, the increase of industry size and expenditure size are generally found to be principal drivers of emission growth, whereas the main factors restricting emissions are the decrease of energy intensity and the change of energy share. In addition, the effect of consumption structure shows fluctuation in different stages. These results imply the emission reduction of tourism industry not only needs the share responsibility from all tourism sectors but also strongly relies on the cooperation with related industries, which offer the intermediate goods for the consuming of tourism. Domestic tourists are the main carbon source, but still require more emission space due to low per capita emissions. The cities with higher per capita emissions should bear more obligation of emission reduction. Finally, it should be the main direction of emission reduction to reduce energy use intensity and develop low-carbon tourism behavior.

Economic geography, as one of the most important branches of human geography, is a discipline of studying the space of economic activities. Entering the 21st century, economic geographers in various countries reviewed the developments of domestic economic geography, and forecasted the future research. China's economic geography has been driven by real-world questions, and practice-oriented studies, and is becoming internationalized. It is timely to reflect on achievements, the development processes and characteristics of China's economic geography, which is a precondition to further promote its development. After discussing academic function and social function of economic geography research, this article depicted the developments of economic geography research in China since 1994 from the terms of research teams, research focus and research directions, and revealed the basic drivers of the evolution of China's economic geography. The keywords co-occurrence analysis showed that China's economic geography research was problem-solving oriented, and promptly responded to the policy needs of the development of Chinese regions. The collaboration network of the most productive authors indicated that economic geography research and urban geography research have influenced and learned from each other, and several loosely linked research teams emerged. The analysis on the SSCI-listed economic geography articles written by overseas and indigenous scholars revealed that although the highly cited papers were dominated by overseas Chinese, indigenous scholars also made important contributions to theoretical development of this research field. Based on the quantitative analysis and expert consultation, the article summarized the development trends of the branches of China's economic geography research, including regional differences, industrial agglomeration, spatial link, location theory and industrial layout, transportation geography, producer services, functional zoning, typical area planning, energy and carbon emissions, international trade and FDI, information technology and the Internet. Finally, this paper strongly argued that four relations need to be properly handled in the future for the promotion of economic geography in China.

This paper introduces the "life quality theory". Based on the two-way interactive mechanism between space of rural settlements and the life quality, the paper researches the optimization mode of spatial organization of rural settlements in three aspects, which are the integration of rural settlement spatial functions, the optimization of spatial structure and the regulation of spatial scale, so as to build optimization mode and framework of spatial organization of rural settlements with high quality life. The study suggests that: (1) The settlement is the spatial carrier of life quality and the life quality is the essential content of settlements. The two mentioned above influence and improve each other. So, the reasonable rural settlement space is the important precondition for higher life quality. (2) The type of spatial function of rural settlements can be divided into livelihood maintaining, industrial developing and quality optimizing, and the optimization of spatial organization of rural settlements oriented by life quality requires promotion of livelihood maintaining, integration of industrial developing and engagement of quality optimizing. (3) There are two important aspects in the optimization of spatial organization of rural settlements. The one is to promote the organic concentration of living space, agricultural space and industrial space, the organic evacuation of social intercourse space, recreational space and services space, and the organic balance of living space, production space and ecological space, in order to realize the reasonable proportion and optimized combination of internal spatial type in settlements. And the other one is to form a functional structure level of "comprehensive village - featured village" and build spatial organization mode of settlements connected by rural roads by switching the location and adjusting the function, with the destruction of underdeveloped villages, the saving of normal villages, the enlargement of important villages, and the construction of new villages. (4) As an ideal mode of rural settlements space optimization oriented by life quality, RROD mode should be built at a rational scale of unit settlement and distance between settlements, leading to an RROD and RROD system with rational structure, auxiliary facility, fully function and well-organized distribution.

China has been experiencing unprecedented urbanization process. In 2011, China's urban population reached 691 million with an urbanization rate of 51.27%. Urbanization level is expected to increase to 70% in China in 2030, reflecting the projection that nearly 300 million people would migrate from rural areas to urban areas over this period. At the same time, the natural growth rate of China's population is declining due to the combined effect of economic growth, improvement in education quality, and modern social consciousness. As a result, Chinese government has loosened its "one-child policy" gradually by allowing childbearing couples to have a second child if either of them is from a one-child family. An accurate prediction of the future spatial pattern of population and its evolution is critical for a variety of key policy-making processes in China, such as industrial development, ecological conservation, industrial upgrading and transfer, and environmental protection. In this paper, a top-down method was developed to project the spatial distribution of China's future population with considerations of both natural population growth at provincial level and the population migration between provinces from 2010 to 2050. The results suggested that the overall spatial pattern of Chinese population is unlikely to change significantly over the next four decades. Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin and Jiangsu will remain the top 4 provinces in terms of population density in China, and Xinjiang, Qinghai and Tibet continue to have the lowest density of population. China's population is projected to continue to concentrate in eastern coastal provinces. Population densities of Shanghai, Beijing, Zhejiang will peak in 2030, while that of Guangdong will keep increasing until 2035. Due to the large amount of moving-out labors and gradually declining fertility rates, population densities for Central and Northeast China will decrease from 292 persons per km² in 2010 to 253 persons per km² in 2050, exhibiting a downward trend. The majority of the western provinces, including Shaanxi, Chongqing, Guizhou, Yunnan, Sichuan, Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai, Xinjiang, Tibet, Guangxi and Inner Mongolia are likely to remain sparsely populated, with an averaged population density no more than 100 persons per km².

This study mainly aims to explore the spatio-temporal patterns and to simulate the future scenario of population change in Beijing based on the fifth and sixth census data at township level. The main contents and results were summed up as follows: (1) The resident population of Beijing increased with an average annual rate of 3.5% between 2000 and 2010, and the population increased by 0.6 million every year. Beijing was one of the megacities which were classified into the first range for their great amount of increased population. (2) There was an obvious circle structure in space. The population of inner city was almost stagnant; it had a rapid growth in the suburbs, and a high rate in the outer city. However, it had an increase only in the county seat and the key towns in the ecological conservation region of Beijing. (3) In terms of the CA/MAS scenario simulation analysis, in the spontaneous layout scenario, employment opportunities will be further agglomerated to the inner city, while population is suburbanized constantly. This will increase the city's commuter stress and aggravate the condition of city traffic block. When adjusting the parameters of employment and thus strengthening the guide policy of urban population living in working function, the problem of imbalance between industrial space and residential space in the urban internal space scale can be solved. At the same time, the formation of cluster of small towns can be promoted and urban commuter pressure can be reduced. Then comes the city’s radiation and diffusion effect. The authors suggest that, in order to optimize the spatial distribution of population in Beijing, more efforts should be made to coordinate the relationship between employment and residents. An important way is to accelerate regional coordinated development, and to plan multi-centers development as groups.

Before the emergence of modern transport modes, the traditional road infrastructure and road transport (carriage) was a widely used land transport mode, and became a major approach to complete the nationwide social and economic exchanges throughout all historical periods. But the long-term evolution of transport infrastructure is an important studying topic, which has received little research attention. Under this background, this paper, choosing the national road as the studying subject, and taking 3500 years from 1600 BC to 1900 AD as the studying period and designing the model of shortest distance path, aims to examine the developing regularities of traditional road network in a long-term dimension, involving the expansion of spatial network, network structure and accessibility, and developing dynamics. Our analysis reveals long-term regularities: the continuously expanding road network, which experiences four phases with different developing features and spatial pattern, follows a path of inland expansion especially to border areas and brings the peripheral region much closer to the core area of China's homeland, but its coverage and accessibility is characterized by 'concentric rings' and 'core-peripheral' configuration, and the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River has been the core region. The development and evolution of traditional road network has close relationship with the national defense and warfare, centralization of national power around the capital, homeland governance, the postal transport, and specialized cargo and trade transport. This research pays attention to a long-term pattern and attempts to fill the gap of extant literatures, to deeply and better understand the evolving regularities of transport infrastructure network and China's homeland development.

Nansha Islands are located in the south of South China Sea. The islands and coral reefs are scattered in the sea area. Area and other natural conditions of these islands are not the factors limiting intensive human activities, only if there are continued supplies from the mainland. But the supplies shipping to Nansha islands dotted in "Dangerous Area" are not easy jobs. At present, many islands, cays and reefs of Nansha Islands have been invaded and occupied by Vietnam, Philippines and Malaysia. The control states generated by these islands and reefs will affect the ships passing by. Considering the complex situation of Nansha, an accessibility index based on the least accumulative cost distance is proposed. The accessibility model of Nansha Islands and surrounding seaports is established based on the index. Two scenes of natural situation and control states are simulated to calculate the average access times between 23 islands or cays of Nansha and 9 surrounding seaports belong to the 4 countries. The result shows that the control states of islands have a great impact on the accessibility; as the main island of Nansha, Taiping Island gets the optimal accessibility to other islands or cays, which is very suitable to be built as the supply base; Seaports of Vietnam, Malaysia and Philippines get the optimal accessibility to the islands or cays in Nansha, therefore their control abilities to Nansha Islands are very strong and cannot be ignored. However, our seaports get the worst accessibility, so it is our top priority to set frontier supply bases on suitable islands, cays or reefs in Nansha so as to loosen the stress from surrounding countries. In current situation, Zhubi Jiao and Yongshu Jiao are the suitable options to be built as supply and transit bases for China. This research can be a reference for the development and management of Nansha Islands or decision-making of marine development.

A review of progress in cultural geography in mainland of China during the past ten years needs to be discussed. This paper constructs an analysis system which recent research projects and publications relate to. Some articles reviewed the research of cultural geography by Chinese scholars based on the view angle of five themes in traditional cultural geography. However, they did not tell the logical relation between key concepts and theories. The method of this paper is constructivism. It takes references to build up a "genealogy tree" of cultural geography. The main object in geography is "place and region". Cultural geography seeks to analyze the mechanism of place from the perspective of culture. This is the trunk of the "genealogy tree". "Relationships between layers" and "scaling of place" are two branches of this tree. They are two methods to explore place. This paper also puts main concepts and theories to the "tree". The three conclusions are as follows. The first is that many case studies done by Chinese cultural geographers are on mechanism of place making. Most are based on the methodology of structuralism. The second is that the major development by Chinese cultural geographers is increasing the volume of case studies which refer to interaction between different layers of cultural system, which do not only refer to nature-society nexus. The third is about scale conversion issues of cultural areas. Chinese cultural geographers have started to pay attention to this poorly developed theme.

Since the implementation of reform and opening up policy, with the prosperous economy, more and more overseas immigrants, especially high-skilled expatriates from developed countries, have come to China fighting for their "Chinese Dream", which has exerted a subtle influence on the economy, society, space and landscape of the host city. This paper intends to examine the ethnic economy Japanese expatriates developed, by means of on-the-spot investigation, questionnaire survey, in-depth interview and so on. For one thing, it sheds light on the quantity and size of the ethnic economy. For another, trying to find out its distribution in industry, space and some special industry chains is also an important content of the paper. By some case studies, this paper tries to reveal the economic situation and its influence on foreign immigrants in Chinese cities in the new era. The study shows that, with some complete industry chains, the ethnic economy can be characterized as high-end, wider coverage, self-serving and rooted in local areas. Japanese expatriates in Guangzhou rely extremely on it for their daily needs and they appear to be isolated from the local society. Actually, ethnic economy not only serves Japanese's daily needs, but also has become a tool for Japanese to maintain their identity, which has promoted the growth of expatriate CBD in Guangzhou. These changes have brought about new topics for the internationalization of cities and the managements and services for immigrants.

With the growing mismatch between transport supply and demand in urban China, the analysis, forecasting and guidance of travel demand in a scientific and effective way has become a vital question for the sustainability of urban development. In western countries, the research of travel demand has developed from a trip-based perspective towards an activity-based perspective, and the analysis of the in-home and out-of-home activity participation, which is believed to be closely related to travel demand by many scholars, has provided significant implications for the research of travel demand. In China, however, there are few studies on the mechanism of travel demand from the perspective of in-home and out-of-home activity participation. Based on the first-hand data collected in the Beijing Residents' Activity and Travel Survey in 2012, this paper looked into the time allocation of in-home and out-of-home non-work activities of urban residents with an activity-based analysis of 460 respondents from the Shangdi-Qinghe area in Beijing, and thus tried to interpret the mechanism of the non-work travel demand of urban residents from an activity-based perspective. A series of structural equation models were applied to explore the determination of whether a non-work activity was pursued at home or away from home. The result of the models showed a high degree of good-of-fit. There were several main findings of the research: Firstly, there were significant differences between the duration of the in-home activities and that of the out-of-home activities. Secondly, there was a significant substitution between in-home and out-of-home activities. Thirdly, the time allocation of in-home and out-of-home non-work activities was affected by the work and commute duration and the socio-demographic characteristics, and there were endogenous links among different types of non-work activities. The result of this study may provide good implications for the modelling and influence of residents' travel demand.

Being adjacent and at the entrance position to scenic area, gateway communities are confronted with special opportunities and problems in their tourism development. According to social exchange theory, the paper chooses seven structural variables (community participation, neighborhood conditions, trust in tourism institutions, perceived benefits of tourism, perceived costs of tourism, community satisfaction and tourism support) to build a structural equation model reflecting their impacts on the support of tourism of residents. On the basis of four gateway communities of Huangshan scenic area the model is validated. Based on the structural equation model analysis and factor analysis, the paper discusses the pathways through which the variables play a part in community tourism support and the external factors affecting tourism support in different gateway communities for the same scenic area. The study results are shown as follows: (1) In general, perceived benefits of tourism and community satisfaction has a positive effect on tourism support. Neighborhood conditions, trust in tourism institutions and community satisfaction has a positive effect on perceived benefits of tourism. Community participation, neighborhood conditions and trust in tourism institutions affect community satisfaction positively. The positive relationship between community participation and perceived benefits of tourism is not significant. Perceived costs of tourism have little to do with other variables. (2) Residents' perception and tourism support are not the same in different gateway communities of Huangshan scenic area. The overall score of the south gateway town Tangkou is the highest. The north gateway town Gantang- Gengcheng takes the second place. The east gateway town Tanjiaqiao is the third and the west gateway town Jiaocun is the lowest. (3) The factors such as spatial relations between the gateway communities and scenic area, geographical conditions and traffic pattern and the tourism economy development level contribute to the tourism supports difference in different gateway communities.

Through a micro-level analysis, the paper investigates the power of residents and their daily life during the process of community evolution in tourism destinations, which are overlooked in the previous studies. The paper draws on comprehensive observation and indepth interviews in exploring the phenomenon and characteristics of the space reproduction of tourism community driven by tourism development. The case of Maxianglong Village is presented as an example, which is located in the core area of the world cultural heritage "Kaiping Diaolou and Villages" in South China. Based on both Lefebvre's theory of "spatial triad" and De Certeau's theory of "practice of everyday life", this paper focuses on the resistance process of the residents against the representation of space which is proposed by both the local government and the tourist area management agents. Residents in Maxianglong Village embody this process through their everyday life. Results show that the space of representation displays in different forms including insertion, resistance, aggressive resistance, reverse invasion and revitalization during residents' daily life. In the current stage of the presented case, a delicate balance is achieved in the confrontation of the residence against the government and the management agents under low-level tourism development. However, the potential of resistance exists due to the characteristics of residents' role, management organizations and land ownership through a long-term perspective. Spatial orders of tourism community are determined by the negotiation among all tourist stakeholders. Negotiation ability, which is affected by the role of the residents, results in different mechanisms and meanings. Vitality of tourism community is evoked by multiple agents and multiple targets during the space reproduction process, which demonstrates the creativity of everyday life.

The impact of vegetation coverage on flood or runoff yield in the Loess Plateau has been extensively studied, but the research has been primarily based on observations from slope runoff plots or secondary forest regions. This paper is based on vegetation information from remote sensing images, measured rainfall and runoff data and water consumed from the related basin in Loess Plateau over nearly 50 years. By introducing the concepts of runoff yield coefficient, flood yield coefficient, base flow yield coefficient, and the percentage of effective vegetation, we proposed the quantitative relation between vegetation coverage extracted from remote sensing images and runoff yield at the watershed scale. The response relations reveal that the runoff yield and flood volume will decrease with the increase of shrubs-herbs-arbor vegetation, especially in the dryer region, and the reduction of the runoff in sand-covered loess region is even more than that in the loess region with similar climate. But the flood volume will be kept at a stable level, when the percentage of effective vegetation is larger than 60%. The river's runoff will be stable at a threshold, which is more than its base-flow at last, with a further increase of vegetation.

The evolutions of Quaternary drainage pattern in the Northeast China Plain are discussed in the paper. According to analytical results of core samples, we found that during Paleogene and Neogene periods there was a large paleolake in Dalianhe-Xiangshun region that deposited more than 700 m of lacustrine-aluvial coal-bearing fragmental rocks, and proved that the upper Songhua River and the Mudan River flowed into the large paleolake at that time. Because of the rising of Yitong-Yilan rift, the lower Songhua River eroded headwards and captured upper Songhua River and Mudan River; for this reason, we believe, that the Songhua River and Mudan River had never been able to flow westwards to the Songnen Plain. The capture river systems of the Songhua River and Heilong River were formed between the end of Pliocene and beginning of the Early Pleistocene. After that period, another large paleolake was formed in the western Northeast China Plain during the Early and Middle Pleistocene, thus the surrounding rivers to flow into the paleolake to form a centripetal drainage.

The sediment discharge from the Yangtze River Basin has a stepwise decreasing trend in recent years. The impounding of the Three Gorges Reservoir exacerbated this decreasing trend and affected the change of the suspended sediment concentration (SSC) in the Yangtze River Estuary through the transmission effect. The SSC data of the Yangtze River Estuary during 1959-2012 showed that: (1) The SSC in the South Branch of the Yangtze River in the estuary and in the off-shore sea area displayed decreasing trends and decreased less towards the sea. At the same time, the difference in decreasing magnitude between SSC and sediment discharge became bigger towards the sea; (2) For the North Branch the preferential flow did not change much but the SSC tended to decrease, which was mainly caused by the decrease of SSC in the south branch and East China Sea; (3) Due to the decreased runoff and the relatively strengthened tide, the peak area of the SSC in the bar shoal section in 2003-2012 moved inward for about 1/6 longitude unit compared with that in 1984-2002, and the inward-moving distance was in the order of flood season > annual average > dry season; (4) In the inlet of the South Passage, the SSC decreased mainly because the increase caused by resuspension and shore-groove exchange was less than the decrease caused by the sharp SSC decrease in the basin and the sea areas. The reverse was true in the middle section, where the SSC showed an increasing trend. (5) In the inlet of the North Passage, under the combined influence of decreased flow split and sediment split ratios, decreased SSC in the basin and the sea area and decreased amount of resuspension, the SSC displayed a decreasing trend. In the middle section, because the increased amount caused by sediment going over the dyke was more significant than the decreased amount caused by external environments, the SSC tended to increase. Holistically, the sharp decrease in sediment discharge caused synchronized SSC decreases in the Yangtze River Estuary. But there were still areas where the SSC displayed increasing trends, indicating synchronicity and difference in the response of SSC to the sharp decrease in sediment discharge from the basin.

The research on ecosystem services has become a hotspot in ecology, geography and other related disciplines at home and abroad. Through reviewing the history of ecosystem service study, it can be found that the research has been gradually transformed from rational paradigm to regional paradigm, and from natural science paradigm to integrated paradigm between natural science and social science. It was characterized by increasing attention to spatiotemporal heterogeneity, spatial flow ability and regional features, and links between ecosystem services and human welfare. Almost all the subdisciplines of geography can find their own research themes in the cascade framework of ecosystem structure and function-service-human benefits and welfare. Due to more participation in the study area of ecosystem services, the geography of ecosystem services which is being constructed as a new branch of geography, not only plays a more important role in the research of ecosystem services, but also can extend the study scope of geography. Based on reviewing the historical process and development trend of the ecosystem service research, the logical necessity, opportunities and challenges of geography in ecosystem services research were analyzed in this paper. To promote the transform of ecosystem service research into geographical context, we proposed that the geography of ecosystem service should be established and well defined as an independent branch of geography. Moreover, a preliminary framework of geography of ecosystem service was described, including the definition, research scope and contents, and the subject position in geography.

Considering the impacts of land use change on biodiversity conservation services of varied ecosystems, the Ecosystem Comprehensive Anthropogenic Disturbance Index (ECADI) is built to assess disturbance impacts of land use change during 1990-2010 on biodiversity conservation priority areas of China at national and regional scales. Four levels of biodiversity conservation areas are categorized: generally important areas, moderately important areas, important areas, and very important areas. Results showed that: In 2010, the ECADI value is higher in Central and Eastern China than that in Western China, and the values of the moderate important, important and very important regions are lower than the average value of the whole country at all levels. Notably, in recent 20 years, the change extent of ECADI in Central and Eastern China was much greater compared with that in Western China, and the change extent of ECADI in the moderately important, important and very important biodiversity conservation regions all showed slightly increasing trends, with the increasing degree lower than that of whole China at all levels. Due to human activities such as urbanization in Eastern China and cropland reclamation in Northeast China and Xinjiang, ECADI value in the moderately important, important and very important biodiversity conservation areas showed an increasing trend, which should be given more attention. However, ECADI value in the Loess Plateau presented a decreasing trend because of the obvious effectiveness of Green for Grain Project. Furthermore, the variation was negligible in the Tibetan Plateau.

Soil carbon sequestration and potential has been a focal issue in global carbon research. Under the background of global change, the estimation of the extent well as its change of soil organic carbon (SOC) storage is of great importance. Based on soil data from the second soil survey of China and field survey during 2011-2012, this paper studied spatial distribution and changes of topsoil (0-20 cm) organic carbon storage in Inner Mongolia grassland between the 1980s and 2010s, by using the regression relation between soil data and remote sensing data. The results showed that (1) the SOC storage values in Inner Mongolia grassland in the 1980s and 2010s were estimated to be 2.05 and 2.17 Pg C, with an average density of 3.48 and 3.69 kg C·m^-2, respectively. The SOC storage was mainly distributed in the typical steppe and meadow steppe, which accounted for over 98% of the total. The spatial distribution showed a decrease trend from the meadow steppe, typical steppe to the desert steppe, corresponding to the temperature and precipitation gradient. (2) SOC variations during 1982-2012 were estimated to be 0.12 Pg C, at 7.00 g C·m^-2·yr^-1, which did not show a significant change. This indicates that SOC storage in grassland ecosystem of Inner Mongolia remained relatively stable over this period. However, topsoil organic carbon of different grassland ecosystems showed different trends of carbon source/sink during the past three decades. Meadow steppe and typical steppe, as a carbon sink, had sequestered at 0.15 and 0.03 Pg C, respectively, while desert steppe, as a carbon source, had lost 0.06 Pg C. It is concluded that SOC storage in grassland ecosystem may respond differently to climate change, which is related to vegetation type, regional climate type and grazing intensity. These results will provide references for decision makers to find proper resolutions to protect grassland soil resource.

SSpatial-temporal distribution of water vapor δD, the correlations between water vapor δD and temperature, water vapor amount, and the relationship of water vapor δD with precipitation δD at mid-latitude to low latitudes over Asia are studied by using daily retrievals of H₂O, HDO, temperature from TES on NASA's Aura spacecraft and data from GNIP. In terms of the spatial distribution, both precipitation and water vapor δD decrease with the increasing latitude, and there are two regions with the highest δD values over low latitudes, one in the east of Pacific warm pool and the other in western Asia, while there are two regions with the lowest δD values over the mid latitudes (i.e., the Tibetan Plateau and the western Pacific). As for the seasonality, water vapor δD is low in the cool season and high in the warm season. This periodical change is significant over the continent but insignificant over the ocean. The highest δD values occur in summer over mid-latitude continent, while the highest δD values comes out before the monsoon season over low-latitude continent (i.e., the India Peninsula and the Indo-China Peninsula). Referring to the correlations of water vapor δD with temperature and the amount of water vapor, both temperature and the amount of water vapor show positive correlations over the mid-latitude continent and the West Asia, while the Pacific warm pool shows positive and negative correlations for temperature and amount of water vapor with water vapor δD, respectively.