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 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.

The quality of development is crucial for China to comprehensively build a socialist modern country. Drawing on related concepts of development in quality, the paper conceptualizes a city in high-quality development and proposes a stylish framework with five dimensions to evaluate it, in line with the New Development Philosophy, which is composed of innovation, coordination, greenness, openness and sharing. Using the methods of spatial analysis, club convergence test and spatial Durbin model, the paper identified the spatial evolution of the quality of city development in China and associated determinants during 2005-2020. On average, the level of city development quality increased by 48.4% during the study period. The number of cities at low-level of quality in development decreased dramatically, accompanied by a profound transformation in the spatial pattern of city development quality, which presents significant spatial aggregation. The spatial imbalance remains for cities with different development qualities, and the challenge is still huge to narrow the gap. With significant role differentiation among cities, a "pioneering-catching up" pattern emerges, and the 11 pioneering cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen have become the pioneers of high-quality development in China. Key determinants for cities achieving high quality in development includes urbanization level, public investment, digital economy, environmental regulation and economic growth, while there is inverted U-shaped relationship between city size and development quality. To achieve the goal of high-quality city development in the new era, it is necessary to focus on the development of cities in the central and western regions, making full use of the demonstration role of pioneers, promoting quantitative growth, strengthening environmental regulations, cultivating the new forms of digital economy, and optimizing the city size hierarchy.

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.

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.

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.

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.

New quality productive forces are advanced productivity that is freed from traditional economic growth mode and productivity development paths, features high-tech, high efficiency and high quality driven by technological innovation in the new era. From the geographical perspective, developing new quality productive forces is the ability to coordinate new human-earth relationships in the Anthropocene, where human activities dominate, promote the harmonious coexistence of humans and nature, transform green waters and mountains into gold and silver mines, drive high-quality development and layout, and comprehensively implement the construction of a beautiful China. Geography focuses on studying the emergence and development process, formation and evolution characteristics, spatial organization patterns, and regional differentiation laws of new quality productive forces driven by innovation, so as to promote the human-earth system to enter the ecological civilization stage of highly coupled and harmonious coexistence between humans and nature. Compared with traditional industries, the evolution of new quality productive forces has experienced a fluctuating process of evolution from low-quality productivity to medium-quality, medium-high-quality, and then to high-quality productivity, accompanying the emergence of continuous technological revolutions and industrial revolutions. They exhibit basic characteristics such as high coupling, deep integration, super correlation, rapid iteration, and spatial differentiation. The pivotal directions propelled by the drive of new quality productive forces for geographical research encompass the following: re-coordinating human-earth relationships to foster novel harmonious coexistence conducive to the realization of a beautiful China; restructuring industrial systems to align with the new quality productive forces, facilitating profound industrial transformation; reallocating geographical elements to establish a novel mechanism that harmonizes natural, humanistic, and data-driven components; reshaping spatial pattern to engender a fresh spatial paradigm wherein new quality productive forces and traditional industries are integrated deeply; rebuilding ecological environment to leverage them as green engines of productivity, thus enhancing the intrinsic value of ecological capital; revitalizing geographical science through the refinement and updating of theories and methods, thereby constructing a modern disciplinary landscape of geography.

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.

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.

With the increasing global warming over the past three decades, the climatic zones and eco-geographical regions characteristics in China have changed. This study used the climatic data of 641 meteorological stations over the past three decades (1991-2020), as well as the high-precision data of eco-geographical elements to optimize the eco-geographical regions in China. The study updated the map of eco-geographical regionalization in China (2023) and increased the scale to 1:4000000. The new map divided China into 11 temperature zones, 22 dry and wet regions, and 50 natural regions. The results show that compared with eco-geographical regionalization in 2007, the overall pattern of eco-geographical regions in China has not changed significantly over the past three decades, but the boundaries of temperature zones, dry and wet regions, and eco-geographical regions (natural regions) in some areas have changed to some extent. Firstly, the boundary change of temperature zones is more obvious in the east. Particularly, in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the northward shift of the temperature zone boundary between the northern subtropical and the mid-subtropical zones is obvious. Secondly, the boundary between dry and wet regions has changed, and that between semi-arid and arid regions in the north of the second-order landform step has shifted slightly to the west. In addition, the boundary between semi-arid and sub-humid regions in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau has shifted slightly to the southeast, reflecting a slight expansion of the scope of semi-arid regions. Finally, boundary changes in natural regions in some areas vary greatly. This study can provide a macro-regional framework for guiding ecological conservation and restoration in different regions.

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.

Identity and territorial stigmatizations have been studied extensively over a long period of time. However, the interaction between the two has been relatively underexplored. Aimed at retrospection and clarification of the connotations of stigmatization, this study attempts to explore the relationship between pers on-place stigmatization from a geographic perspective. This paper proposes the concept of spatial stigmatization and systematically interprets its geographic process and formation mechanism. The paper puts forward the following arguments. First, spatial stigmatization involves stigmatizers who devalue a place's perceived value and identity construction in a specific historical environment and at a particular cognitive level through incomplete, inaccurate, and non-objective perception of space and its dependent people and objects, resulting in symbolic stigmatization of the place. Second, spatial stigmatization entails imagery construction, separation of the subject, and group interaction in the context of heterogeneous geo-spatial pattern and spatial positioning and symbolization. This forms local or heterogeneous types of direct and indirect stigmatization in different directions and at varying distances on various scales. Third, spatial inequality, exploitation and the struggle for rights, fear and avoidance, and topophilia and social order, are the bases of spatial stigmatization. Additionally, the spatial concentration and internalization of stigmatization is facilitated by complex interactions between people and places through perception, identification, positioning, and marking. This creates a spatial stigmatization mechanism that generates, disseminates, reacts, and reproduces in a continuous cycle. In the face of widespread spatial stigmatization, the key to eliminating its adverse effects lies in rebuilding a place through a new narrative system, correctly understanding the relationship between people and the Earth, and ultimately realizing "de-stigmatization space" in the context of the universal value of the human destiny community.

Soil moisture is a key driving factor that affects vegetation growth. Vegetation reacts to soil moisture through processes such as evapotranspiration. In-depth exploration of the interaction between soil moisture and vegetation GPP is crucial to ensuring the sustainable development of ecosystems and the efficient utilization of water resources. This study employed MODIS GPP, ERA5-Land soil moisture, and other data sources. It utilized an enhanced nonlinear Granger causality model, along with partial correlation analysis, Sen's slope, and the Mann-Kendall method. These methods were used to examine the combined changes in GPP and soil moisture and their mutual feedback relationship across diverse vegetation types in China from 2000 to 2021. The results showed that: (1) Since 2000, 50.89%-57.61% of the vegetated areas in China have shown a synergistic trend of increasing GPP and decreasing soil moisture, which exhibited a greater proportion with increasing soil depth. The proportion of areas with consistently increasing trends in both GPP and soil moisture was 39.03%-45.76%. (2) In 59.88%-79.38% of vegetated areas, both GPP and soil moisture showed a bidirectional Granger causal relationship. This proportion decreased with soil depth, notably in temperate grassland areas (R6) and temperate desert regions (R7). (3) The increase in GPP resulted in a more significant consumption (57.03%) of soil moisture at 100-289 cm depth and a longer lag effect (2.15 months). Soil moisture at a depth of less than 100 cm mainly promoted the increase in GPP (71.43%-76.58%) and only showed inhibitory effects in some areas, such as the Tianshan Mountains and Hengduan Mountains. The promoting effect of soil moisture at 100-289 cm depth on the vegetation GPP (48.31%) weakened and was accompanied by a significant increase in the lag effect (2.92 months). (4) As the precipitation increased, the interaction between vegetation GPP and soil moisture gradually decreased. When the precipitation was between 200 mm and 400 mm, the interaction was most significant. The influence of different temperature gradients on the interaction between vegetation GPP and soil moisture exhibited multiple threshold effects. This study helps to deepen our understanding of the interaction between carbon and the water cycle of the terrestrial ecosystem in the context of climate change. It also provides an important theoretical reference for the implementation of future ecological restoration projects and the sustainable development of ecosystems.

Evapotranspiration (ET) is one of the key components of the terrestrial water cycle, and its long-term changes directly affect the spatiotemporal pattern of regional water availability. In recent decades, China has experienced significant changes in climate and land surface characteristics. However, how these changes affected the spatiotemporal pattern of terrestrial ET was still poorly understood. In this study, we quantified the contributions of five factors related to climate and vegetation (precipitation, wind speed, vapor pressure deficit, net radiation, and leaf area index) to ET trends across China using the Penman-Monteith-Leuning model and a forcing variable detrending experiment. The results showed that nationwide annual ET increased significantly (p < 0.05) from 1982 to 2019, with a trend of 1.25 mm a^-1. Vapor pressure deficit, leaf area index and precipitation dominated the national ET changes, and their contributions to ET trends are 42% (0.54 mm a^-1), 29% (0.36 mm a^-1), and 27% (0.31 mm a^-1), respectively. Spatially, the dominant factors of ET changes show clear regional differences. Changes in ET are dominated by precipitation in the arid and semi-arid regions of northwestern China, and by vapor pressure deficit in humid regions such as the Yangtze River basin and the northern part of northeastern China. Leaf area index dominates ET changes in areas with a significant greening such as the Loess Plateau, North China Plain and parts of Northeast China. The findings are expected to provide guidance for national water resources management and planning under climate change.

Infrastructure construction reflects the interaction between "human" and "land" in the process of transforming and utilizing the natural environment, whose implementation process involves complex interactions between human and land. With the continuous advancement of China's Belt and Road Initiative, the significantly increased cross-border infrastructure activities on different scales, such as the global, regional, national, and urban, as well as the complex interactions between human and land involved in their implementations, have triggered collisions and conflicts between Chinese and foreign scholars on the geography of infrastructure construction. This paper systematically compares the concerns and research contexts of Chinese and foreign geographic research on infrastructure-related issues, and on this basis, it reflects the key issues of infrastructure research based on the perspective of geography. It believes that infrastructure construction reflects the various purposes and methods of how nature is transformed and utilized by human beings. At present, domestic geographical studies have focused on the economic function of infrastructure construction, while international geographical studies have paid more attention to the heterogeneity of the "human" and "land" involved in infrastructure's concern on human-land relationship. This paper insists that this academic boundary is caused by different demands of the various social development stages on infrastructure, and it is essentially a continuous process. On the basis of comparing the differences in infrastructure studies between domestic and international geography, this paper discusses how the infrastructure corrects and regulates human-land relationships from a more dynamic, multidimensional, systematic, and relational ontology perspective, and then explores the core geographical issues involved in infrastructure under the background of this new and systematic infrastructure ontology. From a theoretical perspective, this paper integrates the ontological differences in infrastructure studies within and outside China and constructs a unified conceptual framework and ontological foundation for effective dialogue between domestic and international geographical studies. From the practical perspective, under the background of "Infrastructure Going First" in China's "Going Globally" strategy, this paper also has important reference value for China's overseas infrastructure construction.

Carrying capacity, a concept entrenched in the natural resources and environmental field for nearly two centuries, has continually evolved to address the conflicts and sustainability of the human-nature relationship. This paper introduces an analytical framework for understanding carrying capacity within the context of the human-nature relationship. It systematically reviews the progression of international carrying capacity studies, analyzes global research trends, and compares these with Chinese studies, highlighting key research directions in China. Historically, carrying capacity traces its roots to (neo)Malthusian theories. Its evolution spans four distinct stages: resource carrying capacity (since the 1800s), environmental carrying capacity (since the 1970s), ecosystem carrying capacity (since the 1990s), and natural system carrying capacity (since the 2010s). The concept of carrying capacity varies widely across global disciplines and even within the same discipline, showcasing diverse applications. Carrying capacity has sparked controversy due to its connection to political economy theories and factors such as technological progress, market mechanisms, and spatial and temporal constraints. Therefore, it is imperative to engage in a restrained and explicit discussion and application of carrying capacity. Presently, China's carrying capacity studies align closely with the international community, capitalizing on regional-scale studies employing a holistic and systematic human-nature relationship approach. However, there is an opportunity for enhancement in terms of global-scale perspectives and the integration of natural and social sciences theories and methodologies. This paper proposes fostering innovation and application in carrying capacity research within the Chinese context. This entails integrating various disciplines and theories, exploring scale effects and mechanisms, utilizing model-data fusion and integration, applying case studies in various spatial units and typical zone types, and improving policy systems and institutions.

The second millennium's explosive growth in tourism has led to more large-scale tourism development projects being started, which has prominently sped up the gentrification trend in the tourism industry. Traditional villages and towns in the suburbs of big cities have become the forefront of the occurrence, development, and exploration of tourism gentrification due to their rich historical and cultural heritage resources, favorable geographic conditions, and enormous tourism consumption market demand. This study takes the Zhujiajiao Acient Town as an example and uses field observation, in-depth interviews, and other techniques based on the "rent gap" theory and Lefebvre space production theory to investigate the stage, traits, process, and mechanism of tourism gentrification in this ancient town. The new urbanization development path of traditional villages and towns can be explored through this study, which has significant theoretical and practical implications. The Zhujiajiao Ancient Town has undergone significant changes after the gentrification of tourism in terms of population, housing price, material landscape, social and cultural atmosphere, etc. The study found that over time, Zhujiajiao experienced the embryonic stage of tourism gentrification, the primary stage of tourism gentrification, and the development stage of tourism gentrification. In the process of space production, the practice of space is represented by the landscape shaping of tourism gentrification space (the material space), the spatial representation is represented by the planning and restriction of tourism gentrification space (the institutional space), and the representational space is represented by the perception of the activity under the influence of tourism gentrification (the social spiritual space). Tourism-related gentrification in Zhujiajiao Ancient Town is primarily driven by three factors: power, capital, and social forces. They collaborate closely to build a multi-level gentrification mechanism for the travel and tourism sector, both independently and in relation to one another.

Population equilibrium development is the valuable guide and ideal pursuit of China's population policy and has significant implications for regional equilibrium development. However, there are still misunderstandings about interpreting population spatial equilibrium, and its scientific connotation requires further explanation and promotion. Population spatial equilibrium gives the meaning of space based on population equilibrium, which can be understood as the spatial equilibrium of population distribution. When other factors remain unchanged, the net migration between regions is zero; that is, the total number of immigrants of each region are equal to its total number of emigrants to achieve the dynamic equilibrium of population distribution among regions. A migration stream will exist between regions in an equilibrium state. Migration and equilibrium can coexist, but the population distribution between regions remains dynamic and stable, and the population spatial distribution structure will not change. Specific conditions cause the inherent stipulation of population spatial equilibrium. The equilibrium point will also change with economic, social, resource, and environmental changes. Equilibrium is a relative concept derived from the instantaneous concept; instantaneous equilibrium is an ideal state in the long term. The population spatial distribution is constantly changing from disequilibrium to equilibrium and from equilibrium to disequilibrium. This paper describes a theoretical model of multi-regional population spatial equilibrium based on the regional wage rate, human climate suitability index, urban crowding degree, and distance. Using the Yangtze River Delta as an example, the study analyzes the equilibrium population spatial distribution under current economic, social, environmental, and population conditions. The study found that the population of the study area is concentrated along the river and the coast, mainly in the south of Jiangsu, along the coast of Hangzhou Bay, and the canal from Nanjing to the north of Jiangsu. By comparing the equilibrium population with the current distribution, the Yangtze River Delta can be divided into quasi-equilibrium, attractive, and repulsive areas. The attractive areas, such as Shanghai, Nanjing, and Hangzhou, have large population agglomeration potential. In contrast, the repulsive areas are mainly located in northern and western Anhui, northern Zhejiang, and other areas close to the quasi-equilibrium area. This suggests that under free migration, the population will further concentrate in the areas of Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, and southern Jiangsu.

The long historical development process has shaped rural settlements in China with distinct regional characteristics that profoundly reflect the unique geographical environment, history, culture, and lifestyle of each region. Therefore, the comprehensive regionalization of Chinese rural settlement characteristics on the basis of the regional differentiation pattern of rural settlement characteristics is an fundamental research for preserving and transforming the characteristics of rural settlements with adaptation to local conditions. It is also one of the long-term topics in human geographical studies. This study constructs an index system for comprehensive regionalization from four aspects of rural settlement characteristics: earthscape, settlement, architecture, and culture. On the basis of systematic field research results and multisource data, a comprehensive evaluation of rural settlement characteristics is conducted, recognizing the regional differentiation pattern of Chinese rural settlement characteristics. On the basis of its results, a comprehensive regionalization of Chinese rural settlement characteristics is proposed using existing regionalization studies on physical geography, agricultural geography, cultural geography, landscape of rural settlements, and traditional dwellings as references. This regionalization is developed in accordance with the principles of regional conjugacy, synchronicity, coordination of comprehensiveness and dominant factors, and relative consistency. We use the qualitative and quantitative methods of category mapping, spatial cluster analysis, geographical correlation analysis, dominant factor analysis, and overlapping analysis. In the proposed regionalization, China is divided into 12 regions and 82 subregions in accordance with rural settlement characteristics. The 12 regions are as follows: (1) Northeast China, (2) North China, (3) the Loess Plateau, (4) East China, (5) Central China, (6) Fujian-Hakka, (7) Lingnan, (8) Sichuan-Guizhou, (9) Yunnan, (10) Northern Border, (11) Northwest China, and (12) the Tibetan Plateau. The characteristics of rural settlements in each region are also summarized. By comprehensively reflecting on the similarities and differences of the characteristics of Chinese rural settlements at different scales, the proposed regionalization is capable of providing scientific support to the regionalized and classified preservation of characteristic rural settlements.

Nowadays, the disordered expansion of urban land has become an important problem on China's urbanization. Urban population growth is widely recognized as a crucial driver of urban spatial expansion. Therefore, it is necessary to clarify the spatiotemporal differentiation characteristics of urban expansion and understand the relationship between urban population size and urban expansion. Based on Landsat TM/OLI remote sensing images and socioeconomic statistics data, this paper identified the urban land in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB), China, between 1990 to 2020. This was achieved by combining object-oriented automatic extraction and human-computer interaction visual interpretation. The study then examined the spatiotemporal differentiation characteristics of urban expansion at difference scales using expansion speed, expansion difference index, kernel density analysis and spatial autocorrelation. Finally, the relationship between urban population size and urban expansion in different regions was investigated using the Two-way Fixed Effects Model. The main results are as follows: (1) After 2015, urban expansion speed decreased significantly in different parts of the YREB. Moreover, the time series characteristics of urban expansion in the cities of the upper and middle reaches were found to be different from those in the lower reaches. The upper reaches had higher expansion speed than the middle reaches after 2010. Spatially, the urban expansion in the YREB shows significant spatial heterogeneity. High-speed expansion areas have shifted from east to west, and the differences in urban land scale between the upper-middle and the lower reaches tend to converge. Urban expansion in the lower reaches exhibits strong spatial dependency, while in the middle-upper reaches, there is no significant spatial autocorrelation. (2) The relationship between urban population size and urban expansion differs significantly among different regions. The upper reaches show a negative correlation, while the middle-lower reaches exhibit a "U-shaped" relationship. This indicates that there is no obvious over-expansion of population size in the upper reaches, whereas there is in the middle-lower reaches. Residents in the middle reaches have demonstrated a higher sensitivity to urban comfort and quality of life. Finally, the study provides regional policy recommendations, aiming to offer scientific references for targeted urban policies and promote high-quality urban development.

Under the background of rapid global warming, the hydrological regime in the Arctic river basins, where permafrost is widely developed, has changed significantly. These changes not only altered the local ecological environment, but also had far-reaching impacts on the global climate system and socio-economy. Therefore, the study of hydrological processes in Arctic river basins has become a hot-spot issue at the forefront of the international scientific community. Based on a thorough review and critical analysis of domestic and international literature, this paper systematically summarizes the research findings and latest progress on the spatial and temporal changes of the runoff of major Arctic rivers, as well as the driving mechanisms behind these variations. In addition, the patterns and spatiotemporal differences in runoff changes between Eurasia and North America were analyzed in detail. Furthermore, the direct and indirect effects of precipitation changes (e.g., precipitation amount, rain/snowfall fractions) and permafrost degradation on Arctic runoff are thoroughly examined. Despite significant progress in data accumulation and scientific understanding in current Arctic hydrological research, considerable challenges persist, such as the scarcity of ground observations and the difficulty of quantitatively assessing the interactions among climate, snow/permafrost, and hydrological processes. Thus, establishing a robust observation network in the Arctic river basins and developing cold region hydrological models with account for the Arctic specifics are fundamental for gaining in-depth insights into the rapid changes occurring in the Arctic hydrological system. This is also crucial for addressing the risks of water-related disasters and enhancing water resource management in the Arctic region.

"The Earth's Critical Zone" is a cutting-edge concept proposed in response to the global challenges entailed by sustainable development. Geographers have developed various analytical tools and methods to shed light on the functional structure and dynamic evolution of the global critical zones. However, these analysis methods primarily focus on the perspective of geographical element circulation and material exchange. The intricate interactions between human activities, societal systems, and Earth Critical Zones remain unclear. This article begins by tracing the origins of the Earth's Critical Zone concept before expanding its reach by combining the theoretical knowledge and understanding of human-Earth relations acquired from the regional development experiences of Chinese geographers. In the context of globalization, modernization, and urbanization, the development of human society has become intricately intertwined with the Earth's surface system, involving extensive links based on fundamental mechanisms, interaction patterns, and processes. The concept of the "critical zone of human-earth interaction" is introduced to better comprehend these interactions. A theory with the kernel as "source-flow-confluence" is established for the critical zone of the human-earth interaction concept. The theory of critical zone of human-earth interaction effectively integrates the temporal and spatial processes of the surface of the Earth's natural and humanistic elements in research perspectives. It establishes the link between the intricate operational logic, societal practices, and the existing theoretical framework of the Earth's critical zone. The theory of critical zone of human-earth interaction will help geographers better interpret the development pattern and process of the critical zones. This theory could help the government scientifically formulate spatial, environmental, and social development policies, supporting the high-quality usage of national land resources and the efficient symbiosis of natural and social systems.

The construction of urban human settlements is an important content to promote the high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin, and it is also a comprehensive way to realize the coordination of human-earth relations in the watershed. This paper constructs an urban human settlements evaluation index system based on the perspective of "production-living-ecological" function, and comprehensively uses the Grey Relation Analysis-Technique for Order Preference By Similarity To Ideal Solution (GRA-TOPSIS) method, spatial Markov chain, Geographically weighted Random Forest (GWRF) and other methods to analyze the dynamic evolution and influencing mechanism of urban human settlements in the Yellow River Basin (YRB) from 2011 to 2020. The results show that: (1) The urban human settlements in the YRB generally exhibits the positive spatial distribution characteristics of "high in the east and low in the west, high in the south and low in the north", forming a high-value area of the human settlements dominated by Xi'an, Zhengzhou, Qingdao and Jinan, and a low-value area of the urban human settlements dominated by cities of Tongchuan, Zhongwei and Jiayuguan. (2) The dynamic evolution of the urban human settlements in the YRB has significant spatial interaction and dynamic transfer convergence. There is a certain degree of "self-locking" effect of the transfer path at the level of the human settlements. The level of the human settlements usually only transfers between adjacent levels, and the probability of cross-level transfer is small. (3) The human settlements are the result of the comprehensive effects of economic level, environmental quality and social resources. The economic level dominates, while consumption level, air quality, and transportation resources are the main factors that affect the level of urban human settlements. (4) GWRF model can effectively explain the spatial heterogeneity characteristics of influencing factors in the local geographic space. It is expected to become a more effective explanatory tool in the field of human settlements research. This paper deepens the theoretical methods of human settlements research and provides a scientific reference for promoting the construction and high-quality development of the human settlements in the YRB.

Characteristic villages are important carriers of rural industry revitalization and urban-rural leisure tourism. Although a large amount of characteristic rural resources and their tourism potential have been constantly exploited, the spatial synergistic relationship of different types of characteristic villages remains unclear. This paper analyzes the differentiation pattern, spatial linkage, and function complementary features of national characteristic villages, which include 6819 traditional villages, 7586 forest villages, 1199 key rural tourism villages, 1652 ethnic minority villages, and 487 famous villages with Chinese history and culture. The tourism development potential of characteristic villages is evaluated based on the identification of agglomeration areas of characteristic villages. The collaborative optimization zoning of rural tourism space is proposed based on the location matching degree analysis between characteristic villages and tourism facilities. The results show that the characteristic villages in China are densely distributed in the east and sparsely in the west, and the agglomeration regions are characterized by coastal areas (near the East China Sea), and riverside areas (along the Yangtze and Yellow river). The formation and development of characteristic villages are the results of the interaction of multiple factors, among which, the urbanization rate of county, annual precipitation, population density, and tourism industry scale index have significant effects. The high potential areas for tourism development of Chinese characteristic villages have formed a rhombic distribution pattern, which takes the central cities of the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and Chengdu-Chongqing urban agglomeration as strategic fulcrums. This paper divides the whole country into priority development area, characteristic mining area, resource integration area, collaborative improvement area, and optimization guidance area, which points out the direction of spatial pattern optimization and coordinated development of characteristic rural tourism.

A comprehensive understanding of the connectivity of the Belt and Road trade network and the scientific identification of critical nodes in the Belt and Road trade cooperation are crucial for China to effectively promote the high-quality development of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). From the perspective of network connectivity, this paper proposes the concept of "gateway country", and integrates the frontier methods of network analysis, including Top network, community detection, and gateway coefficient, to examine the evolution of the spatiotemporal patterns of the Belt and Road trade network, analyses the structural changes of trade blocs and identifies trade gateway countries and their functional roles, intending to develop foreign trade and economic cooperation and promote the Belt and Road construction in China. The results show that: (1) The trade volumes of the BRI countries have continued to grow, gradually forming trade network patterns with increasingly close ties, complex structures and significant hierarchical features. (2) The core nodes of the BRI backbone network are prominent, and the polarisation effect is significant, evolving from "relative equilibrium" to "superpower dominant", with China becoming the leading force in the whole trade network. (3) Against the globalisation and regionalisation interaction background, the BRI trade network has formed four to five communities. The community structures exhibit geographical proximity and instability in the number of communities, their scale and membership composition in different years. (4) China, Russia, India, Turkiye, Singapore, Malaysia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Egypt, Israel, and Lebanon have become gateway countries along the Belt and Road, either as major trading countries or as hub countries with unique geographical locations. As functional nodes and strategic hubs that consolidate and maintain the Belt and Road trading system, the gateway countries play crucial roles in promoting the trade network connectivity and should be a priority strategic choice for China's economic and trade cooperation with the BRI countries.

The Hengduan Mountains Region is one of the regions with the most densely distributed and severe flash flood disasters in China. It is also the key area for major engineering projects and beautiful countryside construction in southwest China. However, previous studies have not systematically summarized the development characteristics and formation modes of flash flood disasters in this region, which restricts the development and establishment of flood control theory and technical system in the southwestern mountains. This paper focuses on the physical processes of generation, movement and hazard-formation of flash flood disasters in the Hengduan Mountains. It clarifies the dominant disaster-inducing conditions (multiple humid monsoon circulation conditions, high potential energy conditions and high heterogenous underlying surface conditions) and disaster development characteristics (high spatio-temporal heterogeneity, highly concentrated energy, disaster chain and clustered occurrence) of flash floods in the Hengduan Mountains. Based on the entire processes of flash flood disasters, three major formation modes are summarized: the runoff generation of vegetation-hydrology-soil coupling dominated by high hydraulic gradient in mountainous areas, strong runoff-sediment coupled movement, and serious disaster losses due to high exposure of disaster bearing objects. Finally, based on the issues in previous research, four future research challenges for flash flood disasters in the Hengduan Mountains are proposed. Our work contributes to the development of disaster prevention and reduction research, including basic theoretical system, precise risk assessment of regional disasters, and fine early warning and forecasting of flash floods.

Social-Ecological System (SES) is a collection of social subsystems, ecological subsystems, and the interactions between them. It is a common difficulty of cross-multidisciplinary fields to predict the changes in human-earth systems and support the relevant management decisions through clarifying the interaction between the ecological environment and human society. The framework of ecosystem service provides a new perspective for revealing the transmission and the role of various elements in SES. Taking ecosystem service as an entry point, this study follows the context of "Ecological System Supply-Ecological Coupling Human Intervention-Promoting Social Development". And the research progress and trends of existing coupling simulation methods related to SES are summarized. This article argues that in the conduction research of the ecosystem services cascade, the academic cognition has emphasized the "impact of natural ecosystem to social-economic system" rather than the "interaction and feedback mechanisms for ecosystems and social systems". In terms of research content, scholars have trsnsformed their focus from "changes in ecosystems and environmental effects" to "social-economic system and the effect on different groups". The focus of research has shifted from the theoretical inquiry of the "internal mechanism and power mechanism" to the applied practice of "optimization and regulation strategy" among the coupling systems. Future research of SES should strengthen the simulation of social-ecological coupling with equal emphasis on nature and humanities. It is the focus of breakthroughs to comprehensively understand the internal interactions and feedback of complex systems.

Exploring identification and evaluation methods of tourism corridors is crucial for enhancing tourism destination research and promoting sustainable regional tourism development. Drawing on the relevant theories and identification methods of ecological corridors in landscape ecology, we consider the convergence of tourism flow patterns and the nature of biological migration, constructing an identification path of "determining tourist source - 'tourism transportation' network simulation - 'transportation tourism' corridor identification." The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is used as a typical case study to comprehensively identify and evaluate tourism corridors within this region. The results indicate that: (1) The "tourism transportation" network in the study region is composed of 23 source areas and 53 sections, exhibiting a loop network feature and a pattern of "dense in the east, but sparse in the west". (2) By comparing the differences in the degree of facility and service guarantee for "tourism transportation" network sections, the overall performance is ranked as "medical services" > "shopping" > "catering" = "accommodation" > "transportation" > "entertainment" > "tourism", radiating and attenuating from the two core cities of Xining and Lhasa. (3) On this basis, six mature "transportation tourism" corridors were identified: Qinghai-Tibet Line, North Sichuan-Tibet Line, South Sichuan-Tibet Line, Yunnan-Tibet Line, Border Line, North Gansu-West Sichuan Line. Two potential "transportation tourism" corridors were also identified: Xinjiang-Tibet North Line and Tang-Tibet Ancient Road Line. This study constructs a set of identification and evaluation method paths for regional tourism destinations to transition from a single-functional "tourism transportation" network to a multi-functional "transportation tourism" corridor. This case study also verifies the feasibility and universality of this method.

Governing the country is a matter of routine and people-oriented strategy, and improving the people's well-being is "the greatest thing in the country". At present, China is facing the challenge that the national well-being declines with the economic development. This study is based on the national large-scale regional space and adopts the survey data collected in 2020 by the "China People's Livelihood Survey" research group of the Development Research Center of the State Council. The data cover 31 provincial-level regions (hereafter provinces) across the country, including 164 cities at prefecture-level and above, and the number of valid samples is 26370. The research adopts the methods such as the trend surface analysis and spatial analysis of hotspots and coldspots to construct the spatial differentiation and agglomeration pattern of urban residents' perceptions of living conditions in the 31 provinces; the multi-level regression model is used to explore the multi-dimensional influencing factors of perceptions of living conditions at the individual and city levels. The findings are as follows: (1) The differentiation of the living improvement, living condition evaluation, future life confidence and perceptions of living conditions of urban residents in China shows a pattern of high in the west and low in the east, and high in the south and low in the north. (2) The living conditions of urban residents show the characteristics of "continuous agglomeration", and the evaluation of living conditions shows the characteristics of "coexistence of massive agglomeration and scattered distribution", and shows the characteristics of high in the south and west and low in the north and east together with the future life confidence and overall perceptions of living conditions. (3) On average, the highest and lowest values of life improvement, urban residents' living condition evaluation, future life confidence and perceptions of living conditions are also located in the west and east respectively. (4) The influencing factors at the individual level are reflected in gender, age, education level, employment status, household registration status and satisfaction evaluation of urban public services. Among them, satisfaction evaluation of urban public services is reflected in government services, social security status, fair law enforcement status, food safety status, housing status, education status, medical services, transportation status, environmental status, etc. (5) The city size has a significant impact on the perceptions of living conditions of urban residents. Compared with large cities, the perceptions of living conditions of residents in small and medium-sized cities is higher, while that of residents in megacities is lower. In addition, the positive impact of satisfaction evaluation of public services in megacities on the perceptions of living conditions of urban residents has been weakened. Specifically, it mainly weakens the positive correlation strength of medical status evaluation and traffic status evaluation on the well-being effect. The research provides a practical and theoretical reference for the research, judgment and governance direction of China's national perceptions of living conditions.