Population as a foundamental driving force in the development of socio-economic. Hunan Province as a typical province in the central region, the total population has witnessed a remarkable “shrinkage” phenomenon in recent years. The birth rate has dropped precipitously, and the issue of population aging and declining birth rate has becoming increasingly severe. Simultaneously, there is a pronounced trend of people migrating to large and mega-cities. As a result, the majority of counties have transformed into areas experiencing population shrinkage. This article systematically analyzes the population change trends and spatial pattern changes in Hunan Province from 2000 to 2020, based on data from the Fifth to the Seventh national popu-lation censuses and the statistical yearbook of Hunan Province, from a multi-scale spatial at the provincial, county, and major function-oriented zone levels. The results results indicate that: 1) From 2000 to 2020, the total population of Hunan Province has exhibited an inverted “U”-shaped demographic trajectory characterized by initial rapid growth, peak, followed by sharp decline, with negative population growth emerging in 2020. Spatially, a unidirectional migra-tion pattern has formed whereby population flows shift from county-level administrative units (rural areas) to municipal districts (major urban centers); 2) At the county level, the intensity of population shrinkage exhibits a significant distance-decay pattern radiating outward from muni-cipal districts. During 2000 to 2010, slight population shrinkage predominates in county-level units. However, after 2010, the scope and depth of shrinkage expanded significantly, 24 county-level units experienced persistent shrinkage, with 52 newly emerging population shrinkage county-level units identified; 3) Since the implementation of the major function-oriented zone planning, this planning has also has a profound impact on the spatial distribution of population.Due to the specific functions assigned to each geographical areas in this planning. The population flows into and aggregates in key development areas. In addition, both the main agricultural product producing zones and the key ecological function zones consequently under-goes passive population shrinkage driven by functional constraints.

Taking 38 prefecture-level cities (states) in the Triangle of Central China as the sample unit, and selecting 2011 and 2021 as the time nodes, using social network analysis, mathematical statistics and spatial econometric models, the evolution characteristics and spatial matching of land transportation and tourism economic patterns in the Central Triangle region were discussed. 1) There are obvious differences in the spatial pattern of transportation advant-ages in the Central Triangle region, and the comprehensive level of land transportation has in-creased significantly, with a “triangular” gradient decreasing from the central to the peripheral areas. 2) The development of the tourism industry in the Triangle of Central China continues to improve, and the inter-provincial disparity in the tourism economy is obvious, with a shift from “single-core prominence” to “multi-center manifestation”. 3) In the synchronization and co-ordination of land transport and tourism economy, the coordination type of city and state scale is much smaller than the disorder type, the matching level is low, and there is a certain develop-ment difference between provinces. Based on this, the research results can provide practical guidance for the effective adaptation of supply and demand of transportation and tourism to achieve regional high-quality development.

The challenge of land desertification presents a critical obstacle to regional ecologic-al security. Establishing a scientifically grounded ecological security framework is imperative to maintain the ecological equilibrium of sandy regions and ensure sustainable economic and social development. This study focuses on the Horqin Sand Land as the research area. It ana-lyzes the significance of ecosystem services using land use and precipitation data spanning 4 periods: 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020. Through ecological demand assessment, ecological source areas are identified. Ecological corridors are delineated using Circuit Theory, employing the Linkage Mapper toolbox and Circuitscape software. The study reveals that: 1) From 1990 to 2010, both the number and area of ecological source land increased, attributed to the expansion of forest and grassland, whereas from 2010 to 2020, there was a decline, indicating recent de-gradation despite intervention efforts. 2) The ecological security pattern of the study area between 1990 and 2020 underwent construction, optimization, management, and degradation. 3) The number of ecological corridors increased from 32 to 120 between 1990 and 2010, then decreased by 30 from 2010 to 2020, suggesting a significant influence of changes in ecological source land area on flow intensity of ecological processes. 4) Pinch points are primarily situ-ated within forested and grassland areas, while improvement areas are concentrated in unused land and urban peripheries. Building upon these findings, the study proposes an optimization strategy for the ecological security pattern titled “one belt, two axes, and three centers”, provid-ing a practical and reliable theoretical basis and technical approach for future ecological envir-onmental protection and utilization of the Horqin Sand Land.

Under the “dual carbon” goals, conducting in-depth research on the role of the digit-al economy, in improving carbon emission performance and its impact mechanism on promot-ing the low-carbon transformation of the socio-economic structure, is beneficial for carbon re-duction and helps to achieve the “dual carbon” targets on time. Based on the theoretical mech-anism of how the digital economy affects carbon emission performance, this article calculates the development of the urban digital economy and carbon emission performance, visualizes the spatial-temporal evolution trends of digital economy development and carbon emission per-formance, and empirically tests the impact mechanism and spatial effects of the digital eco-nomy on the carbon emission performance of Chinese cities. The results show that: 1) The over-all development level of the digital economy continues to improve, and the digital divide phe-nomenon has been alleviated to some extent. However, the overall level of carbon emission per-formance remains relatively low, with significant room for improvement. 2) The digital eco-nomy can significantly improve urban carbon emission performance, and the results remain ro-bust after a series of sensitivity tests. The impact mechanism results reveal that the digital eco-nomy positively influences carbon emission performance mainly through advancements in green technologies, industrial agglomeration, and improvements in energy efficiency. 3) Het-erogeneity analysis reveals that the impact of the digital economy on urban carbon emission performance varies by region and resource endowment. It can significantly improve the carbon emission performance in eastern regions and non-resource-based cities, but its impact on cent-ral and western regions and resource-based cities has yet to be seen. 4) Spatial spillover effect analysis shows that the development of the digital economy not only significantly improves loc-al carbon emission performance but also promotes the improvement of carbon emission per-formance in neighboring regions through spatial spillover effects. This reflects its important role in regional green transformation. However, its spillover effect is highly sensitive to dis-tance, and the spillover effect under the economic geography nested weight matrix and the in-verse distance weight matrix is significantly lower than that under the geographical distance weight matrix.

The rural transformation and development is a crucial lever for achieving rural re-vitalization, and the population migration of rural areas directly impacts the trajectory of rural transformation and development. This paper constructs a theoretical analytical framework for examining the relationship between the population migration of rural areas and the rural trans-formation and development, considering 3 migration types in terms of the migration-in, migra-tion-out, and migration return. Based on a questionnaire survey of the population migration of rural areas and the rural transformation and development in Zhejiang Province, this article ad-opts the GIS analysis, the spatial autocorrelation, and multiple linear regression models to in-vestigate spatial characteristics of the population migration of rural areas and its effects on the transformation and development. First, the result shows that the population migration of rural areas in Zhejiang Province has a significant spatial differentiation with 3 patterns in terms of the migration-in, migration-out, and migration return. A spatial pattern characterized by a gradual enhancement from south to north and from east to west is observed. Second, both the migration-out and migration return in Zhejiang Province show positive spatial autocorrelations, which in-dicates the presence of high-value clustering or low-value clustering. High-value clustering areas of population migration of rural areas are observed around the Hangzhou Bay urban ag-glomeration. In contrast, low-value clustering areas are identified in the southwestern periphery of Zhejiang. Third, socioeconomic characteristics of the migration population of rural areas, mi-gration patterns, migration objectives, and their contributions and facilitations of the rural trans-formation and development are main factors that influence the rural transformation and devel-opment. Moreover, the migration-in, migration-out, and migration return exert varying degrees of influence on the rural transformation and development.

With the advancement of industrialization, globalization, and informatization, vari-ous subsystems within rural areas are constantly exchanging material and energy, and the popu-lation, land, and industry are important components and core elements of rural cultural, re-sources, and economic systems, respectively. Among them, the population is an important sup-port for the development of rural industries, the land is the basic carrier for the development of rural industries and the lives of rural populations, and industry is the development path that pro-motes the prosperity of rural populations and the improvement of rural environments. Based on the 3 subsystems of population-land-industry, the evaluation index system of the rural regional system development in the water source area of the middle route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project was constructed. The spatial and temporal pattern and evolution mechanism of the coordinated development of the rural regional system from 2000 to 2020 were explored, and the de-velopment types were divided by the average trend line. The results show that: 1) The rural regional system development level and coordination level has improved in 2000—2020, both present “East and west high, low in the middle, high and low values staggered distribution” spatial pattern, gradually developed into the northern county of Hanzhong City, Hanbin District of Ankang City, the Danjiangkou Reservoir area surrounding counties as the core of high level concen-trated area, and has formed the Hantai District-Hanbin District-Dengzhou City horizontal devel-opment axis. 2) Rural regional system coordination type can be divided into 4 types: low co-ordination level-population development leading, coordination level-population development leading, coordination level-land development leading, high coordination level-industry develop-ment leading, and land and industrial development is the main driving force of spatial differen-tiation to promote the rural regional coordination level improvement. 3) Resource and environ-mental conditions determine the spatial pattern of rural regional coordination in the water source area in the initial stage, and under the regulation of industrial development and regional policies, the reconstruction of human activities, resources allocation and economic pattern in the water source area is continuously promoted. This study reveals the interaction and mutual influ-ence between human activity intensity, land use change, and industrial and economic integra-tion development in rural areas of water source regions. It can provide methodological and the-oretical references for the implementation of rural revitalization strategies in ecologically fra-gile and extremely poor areas, as well as for the sustainable development of rural areas.

Under the background of carbon peak and carbon neutrality, data centers with high energy-consumption characteristics are facing a huge challenge of energy saving and emission reduction, which is related to the achievement of the goal of green and high-quality develop-ment of new infrastructure. To address this challenge, the national level has formulated the “East Data and West Calculation” Project to leverage the advantages of resource endowment in the west and alleviate the pressure on resources and the environment in the east. The carbon emission reduction effect and spatial transfer law resulting from this strategy are scientific is-sues worth studying. To investigate these issues, this study constructs a carbon accounting framework based on the fine-grained data of data centers in each region of China. It simulates and predicts the amount of carbon emissions and the scale of spatial transfer of data centers in 2 scenarios: with or without the implementation of the east-counting and west-counting strategy in 2020—2030. The study also analyzes the potential of energy saving and emission reduction associ-ated with the strategy. The results of the study demonstrate that the “East Data and West Calcula-tion” Project can achieve energy saving and emission reduction in data centers by optimizing the spatial distribution of computational resources. In the context of the strategy, the total car-bon emissions of national data centers in 2030 are expected to reach 2.11×10⁸ t, which is a re-duction of 22.74×10⁶ t compared to the scenario without the strategy. Specifically, the strategy effectively relieves the pressure on carbon emissions in the regions of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Hub and the Yangtze River Delta Hub, resulting in a reduction of 55.45×10⁶ t of CO₂ in the east. Additionally, the project facilitates the transfer of 17.89×10⁶ t of CO₂ to the central region and 13.33×10⁶ t of CO₂ to the western region, thereby slowing down the rate of increase of carbon emissions in high-carbon regions. The conclusions of this study provide data support for under-standing the scale and spatial transfer pattern of carbon emissions from data centers, a new type of infrastructure, in the context of the east data and west calculation strategy.

To explore the variations of aeration zone soil specific yield under the condition of deep buried groundwater, The southern edge of Gurbantunggut Desert was taken as the research area by field in-situ observation.The complete specific yield under the condition of zero surface flux, the average releasing specific yield under the condition of evapotranspiration and the average charging specific yield under the condition of lateral leakage recharge were determined, and the effects of groundwater depth, infiltration and evapotranspiration on specific yield were discussed. Results showed that: 1) It is feasible to determine the soil specific yield under the condition of deep buried groundwater by the zone of aeration section water content method. 2) Under the condition of zero surface flux, the complete specific yield μ increases with the increase of groundwater depth H. When the groundwater depth exceeds the maximum rising height of capillary water, the change of complete specific yield is small and can be approximately regarded as a constant. 3) The average groundwater depth of interdune land in the southern edge of Gurbantunggut Desert is 8.80 m. The complete specific yield under the condition of zero surface flux is 0.36, the average releasing specific yield under the condition of deep buried groundwater evaporation is 0.13, and the average charging specific yield under the condition of lateral leakage recharge is 0.17. The results of this study can provide a new idea for the determination of soil specific yield under the condition of deep buried groundwater.

There has long been a discursive separation between workspace and home. Based on the geography of home theory, this article explores the process of constructing home within the livelihood space of operational migrants through in-depth interviews and participatory observation. The findings reveal that the home-making practices of business migrants illustrate the coexistence of workspace and home. Firstly, a stable business location is central to the home-making efforts of business migrants, providing them with a sense of ontological security and belonging. Secondly, the practice of domesticating business space is crucial for the construction of a “livelihood home”. Through self-employment and family management, business migrants can flexibly navigate their business and family responsibilities,thereby integrating the boundaries between work and life. Thirdly, through their business activities, migrants develop a local network of business relationships, express a positive local identity,and integrate into their new environment. Business cooperation reinforces existing kinship and geographic networks, thereby maintaining close ties to their original home. This paper enriches the study of the geography of home, enhances our understanding of the multiple functions and scales of home, and constructs a theoretical framework for the “ home of livelihood” contributing to the comprehension of business-oriented migration from a geographic perspective.

Return migration has become a notable socio-economic trend in the new stage of China's urbanization, and the analysis of its driving mechanism has received extensive academic attention. As a micro behavior, the return of migrants is not only affected by personal and family factors, but also closely related to external environment. However, existing studies have focused on the role of individual factors, but not enough research has been conducted on the relationship between regional contexts and return migration. We introduce a gradient boosting decision tree model in the field of machine learning, based on the data from the 2017 China Migrants Dynamic Survey, with the return intention as the response variable and the regional contexts—Both in the place of origin and destination—As well as migrants' personal and household factors as the explanatory variables, focusing on the non-linear influence of the regional contexts on the return migration intentions and the threshold effect. The results show that: 1) The total contribution of the local contexts of the place of place of the origin and destination to the intentions of the migrants to return is 44.1%, which is an important factor influencing the return intentions, and the contributions of the two places is roughly equal. Among these, medical and health resources and air pollution are extremely important in both places. In addition, economic growth in the place of origin is also important for the return intention of migrants, while the climatic condition in the place of destination is more important; 2) There are both non-linear and linear relationships between local contextual factors and migrants' intention to return. Among them, medical and health resources, basic education resources, air pollution have obvious non-linear effects on the return intention, while economic growth and temperature conditions have mainly linear effects; 3) The influence of individual factors on return intention is mainly nonlinear effect. There is an irregular U-shaped relationship between age, migration duration and return intention, and the non-linear influence of household income is more complex. There is an obvious threshold effect between household housing expenditure and return intention, and a negative correlation between migrant's education level and return intention. This study incorporates the local contexts of the place of origin and destination into the analytical framework for the mechanism of return migration, identifies the relative importance of the local context and individual characteristics of the two places on the return intention of the migrants, and reveals the specificity and complexity of internal return migration in China, which contributes to deepening the research on migration in the new era and provides scientific reference for policy makers.