Sustainability of human-earth system has become a pivotal focus in global development research, with risk assessment and governance identified as key components and fundamental safeguards in the pursuit of sustainable development. This study begins by reviewing the conceptual definitions and classifications of risk, as well as general methods for risk assessment, early warning, and governance, to preliminarily explore the connotation of sustainability risk in human-earth system. Drawing on general risk assessment methodologies, this study constructs an integrated framework for evaluating sustainability risk in human-earth system, which incorporates both internal risks (e.g., stagnation or regression in meeting sustainable development goals) and external risks (e.g., disruptions from multiple stressors) through multi-method evaluations. Finally, based on the four key processes of traditional risk early warning systems, this study proposes a dynamic, graded technical system for early warning of sustainability risk in human-earth system and discusses a collaborative governance model underpinned by systems thinking. Overall, our study contributes to a deeper understanding of sustainability risk in human-earth system, offering theoretical support for improving governance capacities and promoting the co-evolution of regional sustainability and resilience.

Since the new century, the successive release of China’s No.1 central document has shown the innovative path of reform and development in agriculture and rural areas. Geography has achieved rapid development in supporting the decision-making on agriculture, rural areas, and farmers by adhering to the tenet of serving the national strategies. Here we reviewed the evolution of agricultural and rural policies in China based on China’s No.1 central document from 2004 to 2024, examined the geographical research that has responded to and promoted it, and proposed future priorities and directions, to encourage the development of Agricultural and Rural Geography and better support decision-making on national strategies. The results show that: 1) China’s agricultural and rural policies have evolved through three periods, namely the construction of new countryside and urban-rural coordinated development (2004—2012), the comprehensively deepening rural reforms and urban-rural equalized development (2013—2017), and the rural revitalization and urban-rural integrated development (2018—2024), which are characterized by problem orientation, systematic thinking, and comprehensive goals. 2) Focusing on human-earth system and sustainable development, Geography has proposed and developed theoretical framework of rural areal multi-body system, element-structure-function, process-mechanism-pattern, main function zoning-dominant type classification-principal purpose gradation, and space-organization-industry reconstruction. These frameworks address the coupling and cascading of elements, dynamic evolution and transformation, and optimal regulation of rural areal system. 3) Significant geographical research progress has been made on modern agricultural development and geographical engineering, new countryside construction and hollow villages consolidation, urban-rural transformation and rural restructuring, targeted poverty alleviation, and rural revitalization and urban-rural integration by giving full play to Geography’s disciplinary advantages of comprehensiveness, regionalism, and practicability. 4) The research object of Agricultural and Rural Geography is shifting from the single agricultural system, multifunctional rural system, to the integrated urban-rural system; the research paradigm is shifting from the description of rural element patterns, exploration of rural areal system process and transformation mechanisms, to the simulation and forecast of urban-rural integration scenarios; the research approach is shifting from traditional statistical surveys, multisource detection, to intelligent decision-making. In the future, Geography should seize the opportunity to conduct comprehensive, coherent, interdisciplinary research on “science-technology-engineering” to support the decision-making on rural revitalization and modernization of agriculture and rural areas.

As the core entity of terminal energy consumption, households have evolved into a pivotal driving force behind the rapid escalation of global energy usage. Consequently, the formulation of precise and targeted household energy policies—aimed at propelling a transition that is safe, just, sustainable, and affordable—has emerged as a critical frontier in both domestic and international geographical research. In this context, the theory of spatial justice offers geographers a robust theoretical toolkit for dissecting the complexities of household energy consumption. This perspective emphasizes the necessity of micro-level investigations to uncover phenomena of marginalization in energy use, while simultaneously exploring how uneven geographical development, inherent in the process of spatial reproduction, impacts household energy access and consumption patterns. This article systematically reviews and synthesizes the latest advancements in energy justice research from both Chinese and international perspectives. It highlights that current geographical scholarship is increasingly focused on addressing the dual challenges of climate change and social equity within the energy transition. These initiatives necessitate a rigorous examination of the micro-level elements that lead to spatial deprivation and energy poverty, alongside a critique of their underlying structural mechanisms. Building upon this review, the study proposes that future research agendas should pivot towards a more granular focus on the spatial practices of diverse household energy consumption across varying temporal scales. It is insufficient to view energy consumption as a static metric; rather, it must be understood as a dynamic process. Future investigations must deeply analyze how these consumption practices are embedded within, and constrained by, place-specific institutional, economic, and social multi-layered network systems, particularly under the intensifying constraints of global climate change. This involves scrutinizing the diversification of energy patterns over time and understanding how local contexts shape the feasibility and fairness of energy transitions. By exploring these critical issues, this article aims to provide solid theoretical support for exploring pathways that achieve a dynamic balance between energy transition and social justice. The ultimate goal is to facilitate the construction of a climate-adaptive society and contribute meaningfully to the realization of “Dual Carbon” goals (carbon peaking and carbon neutrality). Furthermore, this study seeks to offer actionable models and enlightened insights for policymakers, ensuring that future energy strategies are not only adaptable and resilient but also fundamentally equitable, fostering a just transition for households across all strata of society. Ultimately, this study offers specific recommendations for future inquiry, urging the academic community to reflect on the holistic restructuring of energy systems and to rigorously address the spatiotemporal complexities of micro-level research subjects. It specifically advocates for the cultivation of a rational and contextually appropriate framework of justice, achieved through deepened dialogue between Chinese and Western scholarship, to systematically deconstruct energy inequalities and identify corresponding governance pathways.

Land cover and its changes are an important part of global change research, and play an irreplaceable role in climate change research, biodiversity conservation, the global carbon and water cycles monitoring, as well as other major needs. As an essential descriptor of the Earth’s surface, land cover provides a fundamental basis for understanding human-environment interactions and assessing ecosystem functions. Over the past few decades, with the continuous improvement of satellite remote sensing technology, the rapid growth of data storage capacity, and the development of high-performance computing platforms, global land cover mapping and change monitoring have made remarkable progress. The spatial resolution of available products has increased from the early 1 km scale to today’s 10-30 m range, enabling a more detailed characterization of heterogeneous landscapes. Meanwhile, the temporal frequency has evolved from single-period mapping toward multi-year and annual land-cover change monitoring, greatly enhancing our ability to capture dynamic land processes and long-term environmental transitions. In this study, we collected 21 publicly released global land cover products at home and abroad, and then comprehensively summarize their characteristics from three aspects: land cover classification system, methodology and dataset/products. First, we systematically summarized the land-cover classification system of current global land cover products into three groups, and further clarified their characteristics, advantages and disadvantages. Then, we sorted out the development history of the global land-cover algorithms from single land-cover mapping and time series land cover change monitoring, and further evaluated the different development stages and overall development trends of the global land cover research. Finally, the main problems existing in the current global land cover research are described, and some thoughts on the future development of this direction are put forward, particularly regarding the need for harmonized standards, higher spatiotemporal consistency, and better validation frameworks.

The spatial integration and optimization of protected areas is the foundation for establishing a protected area system with national parks as the main body, and it is crucial for resolving various conflicts and historical issues in protected areas. Systematically reviewing the research progress on the spatial integration and optimization of protected areas in China, and conducting in-depth studies in line with the national conditions, is of vital importance for building the world’s largest national park system. This article takes the research literature on the spatial integration and optimization of protected areas published in China from 2004 to 2024 as the basis, and uses Citespace software to systematically analyze the research process and main content of the spatial integration and optimization of protected areas, and to look forward to future research priorities. The study finds that: 1) The overall research on the spatial integration and optimization of protected areas in China follows the direction of “problem status-spatial analysis-policy recommendations”, continuously deepening and expanding. 2) The main research focuses on the diagnosis of major problems, the depiction of spatial patterns, the identification of protection vacancies, the optimization of ecological space integrity, and the policies and measures for integration and optimization. 3) Based on the deficiencies of existing research, future research prospects are proposed from aspects such as the coordinated development and integration pathways of transboundary protected areas, the functional zoning of protected areas under the background of territorial spatial planning, the evaluation and dynamic monitoring of the integration and optimization effects of protected areas, the division of labor and cooperation between different types of protected areas, and the research on coordinated path of ecological protection and human well-being of protected areas.

At present, resilience research is a hot area of sustainability science research, and livelihood resilience analysis is an effective analytical tool to solve the impact of regional or individual household livelihoods. Based on the systematic review of the research literature on livelihood resilience at home and abroad, this study combs the concept connotation, analysis framework and evaluation method of livelihood resilience. The study found that: 1) Livelihood resilience is a key support for people and their initiative to resist disturbances and achieve recovery and sustainable development when dealing with the impact of livelihood systems. Its conceptual connotation can be divided based on 4 perspectives: process, capability, strategy and transformation. 2) The theme of livelihood resilience research presents a ‘progressive’ development, from external climate change to the awareness of natural disaster response, and then to human disturbance factors and emphasizing human subjective initiative; the scale shows a global and multi-scale trend, and the construction of the index system of research content tends to be more subjective and objective. However, there are still limitations such as conceptual generalization, ignoring the transformation of livelihood strategies and long-term changes in livelihoods. 3) According to the dominant interference factors and the evolution of research topics, the analytical framework and evaluation models in the field of livelihood resilience research can be divided into 3 types: ‘climate change type’ ‘natural disaster type’ and ‘human disturbance type’. Climate change type livelihood resilience connects climate adaptation and livelihood security, and serves long-term climate adaptation policies; quantitative assessment of emergency response and short-term recovery capability of natural disaster-type focus on sudden disasters; the human disturbance type focuses on the interaction between human initiative and social structure, and the subdivision dimensions such as resource utilization and knowledge learning are more suitable for the social and economic scene. In the future, we should gradually build a systematic category-based livelihood resilience analysis framework, strengthen the comparative analysis of research objects and multi-case application research, pay attention to the multi-scale trade-off and spatio-temporal dynamics of livelihood resilience assessment, and explore the long-term dynamic characteristics of livelihood and livelihood strategies.

Energy poverty is a serious challenge facing mankind globally in 21 century and an important problem faced by both developed and developing countries. How to eliminate energy poverty has been included in the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. Energy poverty research has long been dominated by natural sciences, engineering sciences, and economic statistics, but energy poverty is not only an engineering and economic issue but also a political, cultural, social, and regional issue with distinct geospatial attributes. Geography, with its unique spatial perspective and the advantages of comprehensive, regional, and cross-disciplinary thinking, is not only able to draw a multi-scale spatiotemporal map of energy poverty but also to explore the influencing factors of energy poverty and the political-spatial practices of multiple subjects in a specific space and time. This paper utilizes bibliometric methods to review and compare research progress on energy poverty from a geographical perspective both domestically and internationally and systematically categorize the main research topics of energy poverty from 4 aspects, namely, generative logic, identification and measurement, influencing mechanisms, and local effects. The results show that: 1) The explanatory framework of energy poverty is mainly explained by energy intersectionality, the energy cultural framework, energy vulnerability, and energy justice theory, which together constitute the framework of generative logic in energy poverty. The intersectionality approach reveals mechanisms of multiple discrimination occurring at the intersection of inequality axes. The energy culture framework conceptualizes energy poverty through the interplay among technological factors, social norms, and household behaviors at the individual, local, and global scales from small to large. Energy vulnerability adds a temporal dimension to the energy culture framework by incorporating past, present, and future exposure to risk in considerations of energy poverty. Justice theory is the most widely used approach to understanding energy poverty today and is also a key research focus, including distributive justice, recognition justice, and procedural justice. 2) Energy poverty identification and measurement face challenges related to regional differences, data acquisition, and indicator setting. Research methods include objective methods, subjective methods, and composite indicators or multidimensional measurements. 3) There is a complex two-way feedback relationship between policy, power, and the mechanisms of energy poverty. Political power plays a role in the entire process of energy poverty production, alleviation, and reproduction at multiple levels and scales, involving various stakeholders, and energy poverty interacts with political power. 4) Energy poverty has a local effect of deconstruction and reconstruction on the material landscape, local identities, and social emotions. Energy poverty promotes the reconfiguration of local material landscapes in the negotiated operation of multiple social agents, influences the strengthening and reshaping of group self-identity through processes such as electrification, regional infrastructure segregation, urban renewal, and middle-class formation, involves gender norms and social divisions of labor, and generates social impacts and household quality of life impacts through indoor air temperatures, indoor air pollution, and a lack of infrastructural services, which reduces self-identity and well-being. This paper explores the value of addressing energy poverty in realizing China’s dual-carbon targets, energy transition, and common prosperity, with a view to providing a reference for the construction of the field of energy geography and related policy formulation.

Talent is the primary resource for development, and its spatial mobility and redistribution are essential for enhancing regional human capital, upgrading knowledge structures, and fostering innovation capacity, thereby empowering new quality productive forces and reshaping the geography of regional competition. As an emerging yet rapidly expanding branch of Population Geography, Talent Geography in China originated in the 1980s and has accelerated since 2010 under the combined forces of demographic transition, technological change, urban expansion, and policy-driven regional competition. This study conducts a systematic and integrative review of its disciplinary evolution, key concepts, analytical traditions, and interdisciplinary bases, while synthesizing research progress across multiple categories of talent, including highly educated talent, skilled labor, university graduates, and special-type talent such as scientific researchers and creative workers. It further distills the core mechanisms shaping talent distribution and mobility from 4 dimensions: economic push-pull dynamics associated with wage differentials and job opportunities; place-based amenities reflecting environmental quality, public services, and urban livability; institutional and policy interventions embodying China’s government-led talent strategy; and spatial effects manifested in spillovers, non-stationarity, and intercity interactions collectively structure China’s complex talent landscape. Looking ahead, this paper identifies 3 strategic directions for advancing talent geography research: building a theoretical framework to capture the diverse spatial behaviors and development roles of different talent groups; establishing the analytical foundations of talent dividend geography to evaluate how talent-driven gains vary across regions; and deepening the study of global “talent ocean currents” to understand China’s evolving position within worldwide talent circulation networks. By integrating historical review, mechanism-based analysis, and forward-looking perspectives, this study enriches the conceptual, methodological, and empirical foundations of talent geography and provides valuable insights for implementing China’s strategy of strengthening the nation through talent and promoting Chinese-style modernization through high-quality population development.

The formation and transformation of soil organic carbon (SOC) are complex processes, and their responses to agricultural management practices often exhibit a lag effect. To better understand the distribution characteristics and driving mechanisms of microbial residue carbon within different SOC fractions, this study investigated the effects of four improved tillage and cropping systems (deep plowing-continuous cropping, deep plowing-rotation, shallow rotation-continuous cropping, shallow rotation-rotation, using conventional tillage fields as controls). These results showed that mineral-associated organic carbon (MAOC) was a major component of SOC in the study region. Although total SOC and particulate organic carbon (POC) did not significantly differ among treatments (P>0.05), MAOC content was significantly affected (P<0.05), with the highest value observed in the control [(11.67±0.11) g/kg] and the lowest in the deep plowing-rotation treatment [(10.20±0.36) g/kg]. The contribution of microbial residue carbon to MAOC ranged from 21.07% to 28.76%, with fungal residues [(14.69±0.19) g/kg] being the dominant source. Notably, the shallow rotary tillage with continuous cropping treatment significantly enhanced microbial residue carbon accumulation in MAOC, thereby improving SOC stability, while the shallow rotation-rotation system showed a trend toward increasing POC content, potentially enlarging the active carbon pool. This contrast may be attributed to differences in straw incorporation patterns, as compared with shallow rotary tillage, deep plowing promotes the uniform incorporation of straw throughout the tillage layer (0–25 cm), thereby facilitating a more even distribution of carbon inputs and alleviating the accumulation of plant residues in the surface layer (0–10 cm). Overall, soil nutrient status (total phosphorus, C∶N and C∶P ratios), together with mineralogical and biological properties (free iron and microbial residue carbon), are key determinants of the relative proportions of particulate organic carbon (POC) and mineral-associated organic carbon (MAOC) in soils. Agricultural management practices may indirectly affect the content and reactivity of Fed through regulating carbon input intensity, redox conditions, and soil nutrient status, which in turn modulates the formation and accumulation of microbial residue carbon and ultimately determines the partitioning between POC and MAOC. These findings provide a theoretical basis for optimizing farmland carbon management and supporting policy development for carbon sequestration in black soils of northeast China.

Although black soil regions account for less than 7% of the global land surface, their high soil fertility and agricultural productivity make them vital for ensuring global food security. However, climate change and intensive agricultural activities have posed increasing threats of land degradation in these regions. It is crucial for understanding the mechanisms of black soil degradation and formulating sustainable development strategies to accurately characterize the spatiotemporal dynamics of cropland reclamation and abandonment, and their effects on net primary productivity (NPP). This study, based on CCI-LC global land cover data from 1992 to 2022, focuses on 4 representative black soil regions—Northeast China, the United States, Ukraine, and Argentina—to analyze the patterns of cropland change and their impact on NPP. The results show that: 1) Since 1992, the total cropland area in the 4 regions has generally increased, with an average annual growth rate of 41 000 hm². The northeast China region has experienced continuous cropland expansion, while other regions have shown slower or even declining trends; 2) Forests, grasslands, and unused lands were the primary sources of cropland expansion, accounting for 98.1% of total reclaimed area. In contrast, cropland abandonment mainly occurred through reforestation and conversion to construction land, comprising 30.9% and 48.0% of the total abandoned area, respectively. Urban expansion was the major driver of cropland loss in China and Ukraine, while cropland conversion in the United States and Argentina exhibited more diversified trajectories; 3) From 2001 to 2022, except for Ukraine, stable croplands in the other black soil regions showed a significant increase in NPP, indicating enhanced agricultural productivity. However, NPP gains from cropland expansion were lower than those from cropland abandonment, suggesting that reclamation may reduce the carbon sequestration capacity of black soil ecosystems. This study highlights the extensive cropland expansion in northeast China’s black soil region in recent decades. Future research should focus on land-use intensity, cropland quality, and cropping structure, with deeper cross-regional comparisons to support the conservation and sustainable use of black soil resources in northeast China.

With global warming, the occurrence characteristics of compound climate events have gradually become a research hotspot in recent years. Compared to compound high temperature and drought events, research on compound high temperature and rainfall events is relatively lacking, which limits our understanding. Therefore, this study analyzed the occurrence characteristics of compound high temperature and drought/rainfall events in China from 1982 to 2022 using daily maximum temperature and daily precipitation data from the European centre for medium-range weather forecasts (ECMWF) global climate atmospheric reanalysis (ECMWF Reanalysis v5, ERA5). A magnitude index was introduced to measure the intensity of compound events. The results indicate that the duration, frequency, and magnitude of these compound events all show varying degrees of increase, with the growth rate of compound high temperature and rainfall events (CHTRE) being higher than that of compound high temperature and drought (CHTDE). The upward trends for CHTDE and CHTRE are particularly significant (0.24% and 0.11%, respectively), with high temperatures dominating the variation trend of compound events. June, July, and August are the primary months for the occurrence of CHTDE and CHTRE in China, with extreme compound events predominantly concentrated in July. This study aims to more comprehensively examine the occurrence characteristics of the two types of events. This research explored the contributions of high temperature and rainfall to the composund events, investigates the differences in the mechanisms of the compound events, and briefly analyzes the robustness of the compound event results under different threshold selections. Given that extreme events may increase with ongoing global warming, understanding the occurrence characteristics of compound events is crucial for enhancing China’s capacity to withstand the impacts of climate change.

With dynamic changes in global politics, Global Southern countries and cities have gradually become important actors and active participants in shaping world order and addressing global issues. Southern urbanism has also become an indispensable source of knowledge and a practical path for globalization development. This article uses CiteSpace, a literature analysis software to conduct statistical and visual analysis of existing research on Global Southern cities and southern urbanism, summarize the characteristics of two topics and analyze their theoretical framework and main issues in Western academic literature. The findings are as follows, 1) The current research on global southern cities include topics such as urban living and spatial competition, daily urban life and urban socio-cultural development, infrastructure and smart city construction. These topics reflect the unique experiences of global southern cities in imbalanced development, residents’ power struggle and negotiation, informality, technological adaptation, lobal governance and social justice; 2) The theory of southern urbanism comes from theoretical discussions on global urbanism, neoliberalism, and postcolonialism, and includes recent topics such as platform urbanism, populism, and everyday urbanism; 3) The application of southern urbanism and its related theories promote the transformation of urban space towards multifunctional and a more inclusive living scenario. In sum, global southern urbanism has expanded urban studies epistemology, providing a new theoretical paradigm for studying Global Southern cites, and also bringing insights for a more balanced development in global urbanization process. It is an important strategic frontier for a healthy and sustainable development of the nation as well as the global urban system.

This article constructs a spatial Durbin model using inter-city knowledge spillover as the spatial weight matrix, calculates knowledge related diversity through community detection algorithm, and discusses the impact of related diversity on innovation and its spatial spillover effects. Research has found that: 1) Knowledge spillovers between Chinese cities are showing a rapid growth trend. The knowledge spillovers between provinces are mainly concentrated between Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang, but the spillover gap between provinces is gradually narrowing. The inter-city knowledge spillover network exhibits a clear diamond structure, with developed cities playing a pivotal role. The knowledge spillovers within and between the 3 major urban agglomerations (the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta) are much higher than that among other urban agglomerations, but the differences between urban agglomerations have significantly narrowed. 2) The impact of knowledge related diversity on innovation has significant spatial spillover effects, and the growth of innovation relies more on the influence of knowledge spillovers from other city’s related diversity. 3) Heterogeneity analysis shows that the related diversity of eastern cities has a significant direct impact on innovation without spatial spillover effects, while there are very significant spatial spillover effects between central and western cities, and cross-regional influences also have significant spatial spillover effects. The knowledge related diversity is conducive to the development of breakthrough innovation and exploratory innovation, and this impact has significant spatial spillover effects. 4) Knowledge related diversity exhibits a clear buzz effect within urban agglomerations, driving innovation growth in each city through knowledge spillovers, while the role of pipelines across urban agglomerations is not yet evident. There is a significant buzz effect in the core-periphery urban agglomerations, while the equilibrium urban agglomerations show both buzz and pipeline effects.

Comprehensive transportation corridors serve as strategic channels for regional resource flows and form the backbone of urban agglomeration spatial organization, playing a crucial role in their high-quality development. However, existing research lacks focus on their interaction mechanisms and support force measurement. Grounded in transportation geography theory, this study systematically examines the feedback mechanisms between transportation corridors and urban agglomeration development. It introduces an innovative four-dimensional assessment system—“quantity-quality-resilience-green”—and conducts an empirical analysis of major urban agglomerations in China. Key findings include: 1) Comprehensive transportation corridors constitute a four-phase coupled regional system—“point-network-flow-region”-emerging as an inevitable outcome of urban system evolution toward regional integration. Their formation and urban agglomeration development follow a pattern of “connecting points into networks, shaping flows through networks, promoting regions through flows, and generating points through regions”. 2) Evaluating corridor support across the four dimensions reveals that transportation supply largely aligns with regional demand, with the Yangtze River Delta corridor playing a particularly strong role. Based on the score composition, the support role of the corridor is mainly constrained by two-factor and three-factor models, with facility scale and transportation efficiency having a significant impact on support force. 3) While corridor support and economic development exhibit high coupling coordination, alignment with urbanization rates remains relatively weak, highlighting a significant spatial-temporal mismatch between corridor supply and population concentration. From an “axis-cluster” perspective, this study proposes strategies such as dynamic supply-demand matching, optimizing transportation network coordination, and aligning with national strategic needs. The construction and improvement of comprehensive transportation corridors are not only key components of building a strong transportation nation but also a fundamental supply-side support for the development of China’s “19+2 urban agglomerations”. The connection and coordination between the two should not be overlooked. By enriching transportation geography theory, it provides critical scientific support for urban agglomeration development and the advancement of a transportation-driven national strategy.

The national cultural park is an innovative outcome formed through the efficient protection and utilization of large-scale cultural heritage and resources in China, through localization practices and international exchanges. On the basis of reviewing the existing research achievements in cultural space, this study adopts the TPSN spatial relations theory and the cultural structure theory, utilizes Cross-Analysis based on spatial dimensions of territory, place, network, scale, as well as the cultural dimensions of cultural material carriers, cultural representations, and cultural practices, and constructs a general governance logic for the multidimensional spatial relations of national cultural parks. Furthermore, the breakthrough directions and action routes for the spatial relations governance of the 5 national cultural parks have been explored. It has been found that the spatial relations of current national cultural parks follows 2 types of spatial generative orders: place guided order and network guided order, and due to differences in practical conditions, 3 spatial relations governance focuses have been formed: place, scale, and network. At the same time, the functional connotations of various spatial relations maintain high consistency in different national cultural parks governance contexts. Place relations are the main carriers of the vast majority of cultural resources and constitute the key core of the attractiveness of national cultural parks. Territory relations reflect the recognition and adjustment of place relations by diverse power entities, and preliminarily stipulate the operational rules and adjustment methods of various governance objects. The scale relations focuses on the nested combination of various spatial elements and their governance strategies at different levels, which is a key tool for connecting and integrating governance fields. Network relations are the fundamental relations that ensure the normal operation of other spatial relations and run through the entire process of national cultural parks governance.

Identifying the spatial non-equilibrium characteristics of digitalization development in the tourism industry can provide scientific basis for bridging the “digital divide” in the tourism industry and optimizing the spatial layout of new quality productivity in the tourism industry. Based on the connotation characteristics of digitalization in the tourism industry, a comprehensive evaluation system was constructed, and the entropy weight TOPSIS method, Dagum Gini coefficient, Kernel density estimation, and Markov chain analysis were used to explore the spatial non-equilibrium characteristics and dynamic evolution trends of tourism digitalization level from 2011 to 2022 in China. The findings indicate that: 1) According to the entropy weight TOPSIS method, it can be concluded that the digitalization level of tourism industry has maintained a steady upward trend from 2011 to 2022 in China, with eastern provinces and cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, and Guangdong leading the way. The spatial differentiation characteristics of the digitalization level of tourism industry in China were gradually emerging, roughly showing a gradient distribution state of “high in the east and low in the west” and “high in the south and low in the north”. The spatial imbalance phenomenon of the digitalization level of tourism industry among provinces in China was significant. 2) In terms of regional differences and decomposition, the overall difference in the digitalization level of the tourism industry shows a fluctuating downward trend, and the imbalance between regions shows a shrinking trend. The overall regional differences were in a state of “northeast>east>west>central”, but inter provincial differences have become the main source of the “digital divide” in the tourism industry, and narrowing regional differences has become a key direction to bridge the digital level gap of the tourism industry in China. 3) According to the Kernel density estimation method, it can be concluded that the conditional probability density curve was distributed along a 45° diagonal, and the dynamic distribution of digitalization level in the tourism industry was relatively stable. After taking into account geographical spatial factors, the digitalization level of tourism industry in China showed a shrinking trend during the research period. 4) According to the Markov chain method, it can be inferred that if geographical spatial effects are not taken into account, the digitalization level of tourism industry in China shows the phenomenon of “Matthew effect” and “club convergence”; After incorporating geographic spatial effects, as the level of spatial lag in neighboring provinces increases, the digitalization level of local tourism industry was significantly affected by the spatial spillover effects of neighboring provinces.

With the gradual transformation of China’s economy from the traditional quantitative economy to high-quality economy, the problems of urban sprawl and land use conflicts left over from the rapid development of industrialization need to be solved. The rational utilization of land resources holds significant importance for the sustainable development of economy and society. Land spatial planning and zoning are increasingly becoming core means to guide the rational utilization of land, implement policy regulation, and promote the modernization of the national governance system. To address the limitations of existing comprehensive index evaluation methods in terms of scientificity and practicality in planning and zoning delineation, a planning and zoning method based on improved simulated annealing is proposed. Based on land use data from 2010 to 2020, the FLUS-Markov model was used to predict the land use status of Fangchenggang City in 2030. Subsequently, the method constructed the future land use pattern of the region based on an advantage weighting approach. Finally, based on the improved simulated annealing method, the optimal planning and zoning scheme were determined through large-scale iteration and an improved Calinski Harabasz index based on land type attribute differences. An empirical study was conducted using Fangchenggang City in Guangxi as an example. The main research findings are as follows: 1) The constructed land use pattern is more aligned with real-world physical boundaries and meets the needs of planning and zoning compared to the results of the FLUS-Markov model; 2) Introducing an improved simulated annealing algorithm with iterative functionality that balances global and local optimization into the planning and zoning method is feasible and advantageous; 3) The scientificity and efficiency of planning and zoning are improved through the following improvements to the simulated annealing algorithm: generating an initial scheme based on ecological corridors and land type agglomeration areas, and improving convergence speed through iterative zoning schemes with memory; achieving optimal zoning scheme selection by balancing zoning accuracy and practicality; and further enhancing the scientificity of planning and zoning results by using zoning evaluation indicators based on land type attribute differences. Compared to traditional zoning methods that can only generate a small number of planning schemes, the method proposed in this paper can generate a large number of planning schemes, and the results can be directly applied to policy implementation, solving the problem of strong dependence of planning zoning on subjective input from decision makers, and improving the scientific and practical nature of planning zoning.

This study, based on urban digital innovation patent data, employs the standard deviational ellipse method and a double machine learning model to systematically analyze the spatiotemporal evolution of digital innovation in Chinese cities and the multi-scale interactive effects between knowledge base and network structure. The results show that: 1) China’s digital innovation exhibits a “strong south-weak north, strong east-weak west” pattern, with the innovation center shifting northwestward, spatial coverage expanding, and a stable northeast-southwest dominant orientation; 2) Knowledge diversity, specialization, and related variety all positively contribute to innovation, indicating that both diverse knowledge integration and deep path development enhance innovation capacity; 3) Both betweenness and degree centrality significantly improve innovation level, with betweenness centrality playing a more prominent role, highlighting the importance of bridge nodes in knowledge flow; 4) Significant synergies exist between knowledge base and network structure, the interaction effect between related variety and network centrality is the strongest, indicating that within a context of related variety, network-based knowledge is more easily recombined and transformed; 5) There is notable urban heterogeneity in the interaction effects—cities with abundant knowledge and strong networks show positive synergies, medium-resource cities show no significant effect, and cities with weak resources or networks may experience negative effects, indicating potential efficiency losses due to knowledge concentration. This study enhances the understanding of knowledge element synergy in digital innovation and provides theoretical support for optimizing regional innovation policies.

This paper delves into the theoretical frameworks and practical strategies for coordinated county-town-village development, unveiling its scientific essence and mechanisms. It establishes a conceptual framework for achieving coordinated development and propose implementation pathways toward urban-rural integration. The main conclusions include 3 aspects. First, as a novel model for urban-rural integration, county-town-village coordination emphasizes the interconnectedness of support systems, spatial organization, industrial systems, and comprehensive governance across administrative levels. This fosters integration in infrastructure, public services, spatial planning, industrial networks and spatial governance. This model builds upon traditional township-village coordination by emphasizing the holistic nature and networked linkages across the three levels of county, town and village. Second, the coordinated development of county-town-village systems is reinforced through coordinated infrastructure development and integrated public services. This approach strengthens alignment in development objectives and functional positioning within spatial planning frameworks. Based on the diverse products of county, town and village, it forms a county-level product space with inherent upgrading potential. Moreover, it achieves comprehensive governance across social, economic and ecological dimensions through multi-level organizational system of county, town and village. Third, the practical strategy for coordinated county-town-village development focuses on three foundational pillars of county-level economic development, urban-rural element flow and enhanced development entities. It is imperative to implement differentiated development pathways tailored to the economic characteristics and resource advantages of county, town and village. This involves constructing institutional mechanisms to enable bidirectional flows of urban-rural elements including labor, capital, technology, land and markets. Concurrently, it entails broadening the intra-rural, social and market entities involved in urban and rural development and strengthening the linkage channels for production, service and operation. This paper will contribute to tackling development imbalance and insufficiency, unleashing the immense potential of counties. It will also provide theoretical underpinnings and practical pathways for regional high-quality development and Chinese-style rural modernization.

Systematic analysis of the spatial distribution patterns and impact factors of entrepreneurship among the floating population is of great significance for improving population policies, promoting economic development, and maintaining social stability. Existing studies have primarily focused on the entrepreneurial behavior of returning rural migrants, while research on the entrepreneurial activities of migrants in destination areas and their spatial disparities remains insufficient. Based on the 2017 China Migrants Dynamic Survey (CMDS), this study employs spatial statistics, and fixed-effects regression models to examine the spatial differentiation characteristics and impact factors of entrepreneurship among China’s floating population. The results show that: 1) Entrepreneurship among the floating population in China generally exhibits a south-north gradient. Higher urban scale cities, particularly those in urban agglomerations like the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta, have higher entrepreneurship rates among the floating population. 2) In terms of entrepreneurship types, survival entrepreneurship is mainly distributed in the eastern coastal and more economically developed central regions, while opportunity entrepreneurship is primarily found in the eastern and central regions. 3) Individual and family characteristics, social security conditions, and urban integration are important factors influencing entrepreneurship among the floating population. Factors such as age, marital status, family size, and urban integration positively drive entrepreneurship among the floating population, while high rental costs and social security card ownership tend to have a suppressive effect. Based on the above findings, it is suggested that the eastern region should further optimize the entrepreneurial environment and promote high-level, innovation-driven entrepreneurship. For the central, western, and northeastern regions, greater entrepreneurial support, reduced entry barriers, and enhanced regional entrepreneurial vitality are recommended. Moreover, it is advised that local governments improve housing security, provide flexible financial support, and strengthen social integration mechanisms to enhance the entrepreneurial capacity and quality of the floating population.