Global warming causes change in tree growth and even the whole forest ecosystem. The Jigong Mountain is located in the transitional zone between north subtropical zone and warm temperate zone. Tree growth in the Jigong Mountain is sensitive to climate change. However, the relationship between the radial growth of Pinus massoniana at the edge of the distribution and climate change is not clear. In this paper, the response and stability of whole ring (RW), early-wood (EW) and late-wood (LW) radial growth data of Pinus massoniana to climate change at peak of Jigong Mountain were analyzed. The results showed that the residual chronologies of RW, EWW and LWW of Pinus massoniana in the Jigong Mountain contained more climate information, and there was a high correlation between RW and EWW and LWW chronologies. The response of RW and EWW chronologies to climate was better than that of LWW chronology. There was also a certain difference between RW and EWW and LWW chronologies and the climatic factors. RW and EWW were mainly affected by the temperature and precipitation in the early and late growing season of last year, and the combination of water and heat in the spring was the main limiting factor affecting the radial growth of Pinus massoniana in this area. LWW was mainly affected by the precipitation in last autumn and the combination of water and heat in the early growing season. After the abrupt change of annual mean temperature in the Jigong Mountain in 1994, the annual ring index of RW and EWW increased obviously, but the annual ring index of LWW did not change visibly. The response of RW and EWW to temperature was enhanced while the response of LWW to temperature was not obvious. Therefore, through the analysis of different indexes of the annual rings of Pinus massoniana at Peak of the Jigong Mountain, we can deeply understand the different responses of radial growth of Pinus massoniana to temperature changes, and provide a scientific basis for forest renewal, protection and management in the western Dabie Mountains.

The hypsometric index (HI) plays a crucial role in quantitatively evaluating tectonic activity, geomorphic features, and the evolutionary stages of watersheds. In this study, the global spatial autocorrelation Moran’s I index was utilized to assess the spatial distribution pattern of HI, with calculations performed on a 2 km × 2 km grid. Through hotspot analysis and GIS spatial analysis, the characteristics and control factors of HI in the Lanping Basin were investigated. The results reveal the following: 1) HI in the Lanping Basin exhibits an aggregated distribution pattern. Across all grid cells, HI values range from 0.198 to 0.746, with an average of 0.495. This indicates that the basin has reached a mature stage of geomorphic evolution. High HI regions are predominantly located in the Chongshan Mountain, the Longma Mountain, and Xuebangshan uplift belt, while low HI ones are mainly found in the river valleys of the Lancang River, the Bijiang River, and the Yangbi River. Overall, HI gradually decreases from west to east. 2) The correlation between HI and the size of the grid area is weak. However, HI exhibits significant correlations with topographic indexes such as elevation, relief, slope, roundness index, and precipitation. This suggests that HI is not scale-dependent and is unaffected by the grid size. Instead, it is influenced by the shape of the basin, topography, and climate. 3) The order of HI in different lithological areas of the Lanping Basin is as follows: igneous rock area (0.532) > metamorphic rock area (0.503) >sand shale area (0.494)>carbonate area (0.470)>loose rock area (0.446). This indicates that areas with stronger rock corrosion resistance tend to exhibit more mature geomorphic development and evolution. The correlation between HI and structural factors highlights the distance from the main fault as an important factor controlling the spatial differentiation of HI. As the distance from the main fault increases, structural activity weakens, leading to a gradual decrease in HI. In conclusion, the geomorphic evolution of the study area is the result of the interplay between tectonic uplift, precipitation erosion, and lithology resistance. This study provides important support for future endeavors focused on natural disaster prevention, water conservancy project construction, and ecological environment conservation.

As the primary industry, agriculture bears essential responsibilities such as ensuring food security, maintaining social stability, and protecting the environment. High-quality agricultural development is the cornerstone of high-quality economic development in China, and it is also necessary to accelerate the construction of agricultural power. Comprehensively measuring the high-quality development level of agriculture in the Yellow River Basin will help to exert the ecological protection barrier of the Yellow River Basin, ensure national food security, promote agricultural modernization, and accelerate the construction of agricultural power. An evaluation index system for high-quality agricultural development was constructed based on the new development concept. Taking 76 prefecture-level cities in 8 provinces (regions) in the Yellow River Basin as research objects, the AHP-entropy method was used to measure the high-quality agricultural development level in the Yellow River Basin from 2016 to 2020. Dagum Gini coefficient and Kernel density estimation describe its spatiotemporal evolution law. The results shows that: 1) The overall high-quality agricultural development in the Yellow River Basin shows an upward trend but is still at a low level between 0.25 and 0.35. The high-quality agricultural development in the upper, middle, and lower reaches shows a spatial distribution pattern of “high on both sides and low in the middle”. The development level of each dimension is generally low, especially the innovation dimension, which has the lowest development level, indicating that agricultural development in the Yellow River Basin lacks endogenous growth momentum. 2) The Dagum Gini coefficient shows that the intra-regional differences in the upper, middle, and lower reaches of the Yellow River Basin are constantly shrinking, showing an overall downward trend, and the inter-regional differences generally appear as upstream-downstream>upstream-middle reaches>midstream-downstream. Inter-regional differences are the primary source of differences in high-quality agricultural development levels in the Yellow River Basin, followed by intra-regional differences, with hypervariable density differences making the most negligible contribution. 3) Kernel density estimation shows that the center of the distribution curve of the entire basin moves to the right, indicating that the level of high-quality agricultural development in the Yellow River Basin is gradually improving. The distribution curves in the upper, middle, and lower reaches all have a right tail, indicating that the level of high-quality agricultural development in some regions is significantly higher than that in other cities in the same area. The distribution curves changed from single peak to bimodal or multi-peak after 2018, indicating that the high-quality agricultural development in the Yellow River Basin has polarized and stratified characteristics after 2018, showing a pronounced gradient effect. Accordingly, it is necessary to adhere to the development strategy of promoting agriculture through science and technology, assisting agriculture through science and technology, and empowering agriculture through science and technology. Downstream regions must fully play their role as “leaders” and promote the construction of systematic projects for agricultural innovation-driven development and high-quality development. Taking the coordinated development of agriculture in the upper, middle, and lower reaches as an essential focus to promote the high-quality development of agriculture in the Yellow River Basin, each region must capitalize on its unique advantages, adapt to local conditions, and coordinate as a whole to promote the overall high-quality development of agriculture in the Yellow River Basin. Central regions should leverage the spillover effect and radiation driving role on the surrounding areas, smooth the channels and mechanisms for cooperation and exchanges between regions, and truly achieve “point-to-area” assistance.

Immersion tourism context are crucial to the formation of memorable and extraordinary tourism experiences, and interaction is an important dimension in immersion tourism context, so it is valuable to explore the tourist multiple interactions and their group influence paths in immersion tourism context. This study analyzes the concepts and dimensions of tourist multiple interactions in immersion tourism context based on “context-cognitive-affective unit-behavioral unit” combined with CAPS theory, and explores the grouping paths of the influencing factors of tourist multiple interactions by using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. Firstly, the concept of immersion tourism context is proposed according to the existing literature, which is a virtual or real space integrating technology, narrative and interaction that deeply integrates culture and tourism. Second, based on the CAPS theory and the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, a scale of 3 dimensions and 15 question items of tourist multiple interactions including cognition interaction, emotion interaction and behavior interaction was developed. Finally, among the 6 influencing factors of destination elements, destination charm, consumer innovativeness, tourist involvement, place identity and place dependence, a total of 11 grouping paths were extracted using the fsQCA, which were categorized into 4 types of logics, including place attachment logic, situational participation logic, image cognition logic and deep experience logic. This study provides an effective reference for future academic research related to tourist immersion experience, tourism context, and tourist interaction, as well as practical insights for immersion scene development, management, and marketing in tourism destinations.

Folk migration is a historical and social phenomenon worthy of study. However, most of folk migration in Chinese history does not have detailed written records and accurate data. Folk migration has left many traditional villages, whose settlement forms contain information on the “genes” of their folk groups and their evolution. Thus, traditional villages can be used as side evidence to reveal historical migrations. However, there is still a lack of means to study traditional settlement morphology on a large geographic scale, which makes it difficult to obtain overall universal patterns. Currently, artificial intelligence techniques for satellite remote sensing images show strong potential in earth observation. Applying these techniques is a promising way to restore the wholeness of traditional settlement patterns. In this study, we propose a remote sensing-based AI method to explore the evolution of traditional settlement morphology on a large geographic scale. In detail, a self-supervised deep learning model, called convolutional autoencoder, is applied to automatically extracting the folk prototype information of settlement forms from building footprint data and remote sensing images. The extracted folk prototype information is represented as feature vector format, which then is input to KMeans clustering algorithm to categorize the folk prototypes. In addition, cosine similarity is used to calculate the similarity space of the selected villages, in order to discover the topological relationship between the folk prototypes. Hanjiang River Basin area is taken as the study area and the traditional villages of Hakka and Teochew folk groups are the research objects of this study. The result of the convolutional autoencoder is combined with historical records of folk migration, in order to restore the process of the evolution of the settlement morphology. The results show that the prototypes of Hakka and Teochew villages exist in the basin of the Hanjiang River, and show a pattern of morphological gradual change along the migration path. From the data-driven perspective and historical records’ perspective, this article demonstrates that the Hakka and Teochew settlement prototypes derived from the migration-driven cultural fusion process have created a transitional settlement form “Hundred Birds Toward the Phoenix”, which combines the characteristics of Hakka and Teochew prototypes, and thus complements the existing knowledge of traditional settlement morphology. In detail, from the data-driven perspective, Type 2 is recognized as the transitional type between the Type 1 and Type 3 in the feature similarity space. Also, the villages of Type 2 are mainly located between the villages of Type 1 and Type 3 in the geographic space. From the historical records’ perspective, the villages of Type 1 and Type 3 are recognized as Hakka and Teochew villages. And the villages of Type 2 are identified as the settlement form of “Hundred Birds Toward the Phoenix”. In summary, the settlement form of “Hundred Birds Toward the Phoenix” is recognized as the transitional form between the Hakka and Teochew settlement prototypes. Using traditional villages as a medium, this article provides a feasible tool for exploring the morphological evolution of folk settlements on a large scale without manual survey and labelling. Currently, the method proposed in this article automates feature extraction, but the input remote sensing images of traditional villages still need to be manually selected by the researcher. In order to further improve the automation of traditional settlement pattern recognition, in the future, this study will combine other artificial intelligence tools to achieve automatic selection of traditional village remote sensing images and combine them with the method in this article to form a set of automated processes, which will further break through the limitations of traditional surveys, and bring more data for the study of historical population migration.

Population aging exerts a substantial influence on urban economic development, and the assessment of its economic repercussions and spatial differentiation represents a new direction in the geography of human-land relations. Utilizing the vulnerability analysis framework, we developed an index system encompassing three dimensions: exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. This system enabled us to evaluate China’s urban economic vulnerability to aging (UEVA), examine its spatial differentiation characteristics, and produce vulnerability type maps. The results show that: 1) Between 2010 and 2020, the exposure index rose from 0.346 to 0.498, with high exposure areas primarily located in Sichuan-Chongqing, Jiangsu-Anhui, and northeastern China. The sensitivity index declined from 0.494 to 0.454, with low sensitivity regions concentrated in the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, the Shandong Peninsula, and most provincial capitals and municipalities. The adaptive capacity index increased from 0.122 to 0.205, forming a circular structure centered on the Yangtze River Delta and decreasing inland. 2) From 2010 to 2020, nationwide UEVA trends showed improvement, albeit with a significant increase in northeastern China. Spatial distribution of vulnerability revealed low vulnerability cities clustered in southeastern coastal region, provincial capitals, and municipalities, while medium- to high-vulnerability cities prevailed in northeastern region and border areas of Shaanxi-Gansu-Sichuan, Inner Mongolia-Hebei, Hunan-Guizhou, and Henan-Anhui. 3) UEVA manifested a pronounced spatial gradient, wherein eastern region exhibited significantly lower economic vulnerability compared to central-western and northeastern regions. It is also characterized by the larger urban size and the higher administrative hierarchy, the lower the vulnerability. 4) Per capita GDP growth effectively mitigated UEVA, though GDP growth rates showed no mitigating effects. 5) In 2010—2020, spatial evolution of vulnerability types exhibited distinct ‘improvement in the east, and more vulnerability in north and northeast China’ characteristics.

The assemblages of macro-plant remains excavated in archaeological sites reflect both the intentional and unintentional utilization of plant resources by ancient populations and the anthropogenic landscapes they managed, controlled, and exploited. At present, the application of ecological methods to conduct multivariate statistical analysis of plant remains has emerged as a significant focus in archaeological sites and to reveal the utilization and development of plant resources by the ancestors under the perspective of anthropogenic landscapes, is becoming a new research growth point in the international field of paleoethnobotany. However, this area of research remains underemphasized in China. To this end, this paper utilizes biodiversity indicators (richness and evenness) and introduces for the first time the concept and research methodology of starchy plant assemblages (rice, foxnut, water chestnut, acorns, foxtail millet and broomcorn millet). The data base of macro-plant remains from 20 sites dated to 8200—3200 a B.P. in the lower Yangtze River region was statistically analyzed. Several tendencies can be shown from the results. The mean richness of plant species gradually increased and the mean value of evenness showed a decreasing trend during 8200—3200 a B.P. There were ephemeral changes in the proportions of each starchy plant. Among the starchy plants, rice experienced a rapid increase in its starch contribution between 7000—5300 a B.P. and remained the dominant starch source from 7000—4300 a B.P. The richness and evenness of plant resources as well as the starchy plant assemblages varied across different regions, including the Zhejiang-Fujian hilly region, the Ningshao Plain, the eastern Jianghuai region, and the Taihu Lake region. In the Taihu Lake region, where resources were relatively scarce, more diverse plant resources were exploited compared to the resource-rich Ningshao Plain. During the Liangzhu period, centre sites and peripheral sites also differed in plant abundance, evenness, and starchy plant assemblages. The diachronic changes in anthropogenic landscapes and starchy plant assemblages, as well as the regional differences, centrally reflect the ability of the ancestors to adapt to different environment, exploit different habitats and to select and intensively manage certain plants at different times. The ancestors in the Taihu Lake region, faced with relatively limited environmental resources, climate change, and growing population pressure, intensified their anthropogenic intervention and management of settlements and surrounding wetland habitats. This. The directional guidance and continuous refinement of management behavior led to a continuous increase in rice yields within this environment, further solidifying rice as the primary starch source and establishing a regional model characterized by paddy fields as the dominant landscape and rice cultivation as the leading economic activity. The exploitation of wetland habitats, land allocation, specialization of labor force and redistribution of resources ultimately promote the development of regional social complexity.

This study systematically analyzes the spatiotemporal pattern evolution characteristics of wildfires in the Da Hinggan Mountains by comprehensively applying spatial analysis and Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition (EEMD) methods, based on the MCD64A1 burned area dataset. Additionally, by constructing a logistic regression model, this research deeply reveals the key driving factors influencing wildfire occurrence in this region. The research results show that during the period of 2001—2021, the overall burned area of wildfires in the Da Hinggan Mountains showed a significant decreasing trend. In terms of seasonal distribution characteristics, wildfire occurrences were mainly concentrated in spring and autumn, with the burned area in spring accounting for 73% of the annual total. In terms of spatial distribution characteristics, spring wildfires in the Da Hinggan Mountains exhibit a significant clustering pattern, primarily concentrated in the northeastern and central regions of the study area. The spatial distribution of summer, autumn, and winter wildfires is relatively centralized, with the central part of the study area as the core region. Further analysis shows that wildfires in spring and autumn have a high degree of spatial clustering. Monitoring data over the past 20 years indicate that the burned area has shown an upward trend in 37% of the study area, while a downward trend has been observed in 63% of the area, demonstrating remarkable spatial heterogeneity. The influencing factors were ranked by their impact on wildfire occurrence probability as follows: settlement density > monthly total precipitation > water system density > monthly average saturation vapor pressure deficit > vegetation type > slope aspect > monthly average wind speed > slope gradient > road network density > altitude. These findings highlight that anthropogenic factors, humidity-related variables, and vegetation types are critical drivers of wildfire occurrence in the Da Hinggan Mountains, providing a scientific basis for regional wildfire prevention and ecological management.

Perceiving street vitality from multiple dimensions and exploring the relationship between the built environment and multidimensional street vitality are fundamental to enhancing street vitality. With the Futian District of Shenzhen as the study area, this study is based on Baidu heatmap data, Dianping data, and POI data to perceive street vitality in 3 dimensions: social vitality, economic vitality, and cultural vitality. Combining the XGBoost and SHAP analyses, the nonlinear relationship between multidimensional street vitality and the built environment is examined. The results show that: 1) There are significant spatial distribution differences in street vitality across different dimensions. The overall spatial distribution of social vitality and economic vitality exhibits a multi-centered spatial structure, while cultural vitality shows a multi-centered patchy structure. The spatial distribution differentiation between social vitality and economic vitality is minimal, while the differentiation between economic vitality and cultural vitality is large. 2) The built environment significantly impacts multidimensional street vitality. Among them, the importance of 4 built environment indicators, including functional density, distance to the nearest business circle, distance to the nearest subway station, and building density, is higher for multidimensional street vitality, and their cumulative explanatory power reaches 60%. 3) The built environment exhibits evident nonlinear effects and threshold effects on the multidimensional street vitality, with both commonalities and differences in its impact across different dimensions. Overall, multidimensional street vitality demonstrates a positive correlation with functional density, building density, floor area ratio, and bus stop density, while demonstrating a negative correlation with the distance to the nearest subway station. Additionally, there is an observed positive correlation between a high functional mix, a high green view ratio, and cultural vitality, while there is a negative correlation between social and economic vitality. These research findings can provide a basis for enhancing street vitality, optimizing urban resource allocation, and promoting sustainable urban development.

As a recent theoretical trend in human geography abroad to reflect on the binary divide between nature and society/culture and to explain the intra-action between the two with the concept of socio-nature, the social construction of nature has theoretical applicability to the study of agricultural heritage. Firstly, as a bridge between human society and natural ecosystems, agriculture is inherently an important area for the study of the social construction of nature. Secondly, as a unique land-use system and agricultural landscape formed through the long-term synergistic evolution and dynamic adaptation of farmers and their environment, agricultural heritage implies a richer and more typical social construction process than that of general agricultural production activities. Again, the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) project initiated by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) essentially constitutes a challenge to the dichotomous heritage narratives of nature and culture in the mainstream international heritage conservation practice, and is therefore a typical target for the study of the social construction of nature in the field of heritage. In conclusion, the social construction of nature can provide a new theoretical perspective for the study of agricultural heritage as a socio-ecological system. Does the theory of social construction of nature only involve the binary relation between society/culture/human and nature? How can the concept of place be integrated into this theory? It was found that although human-nature interaction is the core interest of the study of the social construction of nature, it does not mean that the social construction of nature only demonstrates this dual relationship. The relevance of the social construction of nature to the construction of place determine that the social construction of nature is a network of relationships in which “human-nature-place” are closely interconnected. This does not mean that the place is a third party independent of human and nature, but rather aims to illustrate that the social construction of nature will change the materiality and social attributes of nature. After being constructed, nature, through its subjectivity and agency, can also shape the characteristics and meaning of the place and delineate the human-land relationship. Based on the “human-nature-place” relational network, the study on the social construction of Longji Rice Terraces, which was recognized as a GIAHS in 2018, and its place effect in the context of tourism reveals that the mechanism of tourism interest linkage between people and terraces, the history of terraces, and the boundaries of the terraces constitute 3 important socially constructed objects. Moreover, those are interdependent and closely integrated in the process of social construction, encompassing rich interactions and multiple constructions of natural-social elements, which profoundly induced the material changes of the Longji Terraces, as well as the competition among diverse stakeholders revolves around the question “whose terraces” regarding the identity of the heritage subject. Ultimately the 3 objects, as a force of production and reproduction of the place, jointly influenced and shaped the nature and meaning of the Longji area, making it a place that dynamically reorganizes with the changes in the relationship between people and the terraces.

Industrial heritage is an important resource and cultural carrier of industrial tourism. How to realize the organic integration between industrial heritage and tourism utilization has become an urgent problem for the sustainable development of industrial heritage. In this paper, industrial heritage in northeast China is selected as the research object, and ArcGIS spatial analysis, concentration index and resource dominance are used to analyze its spatial distribution characteristics, and the relationship between industrial heritage resources and tourism utilization is discussed. The following conclusions are drawn: Industrial heritage in northeast China is dominated by heavy industry and less light industry, and the type distribution is significantly different among provinces. The spatial distribution type of industrial heritage in northeast China is clustered, and it shows an obvious unbalanced structure at city scale. The superiority degree of industrial heritage resources in northeast China is quite different, which mainly has the distribution characteristics of polar core area, highly dense area, sub-dense area and sparse area. Based on this, the author puts forward the utilization methods of industrial heritage tourism from the aspects of promoting the overall balanced development of industrial heritage resources, accelerating the transformation of industrial heritage resources into products, and promoting the brand building of industrial heritage resources products, so as to provide reference for the sustainable development and utilization of industrial heritage.The industrial heritage resources in northeast China exhibit spatial distribution differences, low levels of resource to product conversion, and weak brand effects. Based on this, promote the overall balanced development of industrial heritage resources in the region, form an effective connection and interaction of regional industries with “industrial culture+”, and enhance the potential and efficiency of linkage; Accelerate the transformation of industrial heritage resources into products, and in the process of preserving, changing, and restructuring the functions of various industrial heritage resources, adapt to the needs of urban functional development, and promote the cross-border integration of cultural and tourism resources; Promote the branding of industrial heritage resource products, fully explore industrial cultural elements in the branding of various industrial heritage resources, and propose industrial heritage tourism utilization methods in terms of creating themed, diverse, and experiential industrial tourism products, providing reference for the sustainable development and utilization of industrial heritage.

The Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region is one of the most entrepreneurial regions in China. Investigating its spatio-temporal differences in entrepreneurship and the underlying impact mechanisms is of great significance for optimizing resource allocation and strengthening local innovation and entrepreneurial development alliances. Based on open-source data from 2 platforms include Qichacha and Tianyancha, this paper calculates the entrepreneurial rate of 41 cities in the YRD from 2002 to 2022 and identifies its spatiotemporal patterns. By differentiating types of entrepreneurship, this study constructs an analytical framework that incorporates multiple factors such as regional institutions, financial environment, infrastructure, and foreign direct investment. Using a Spatial Durbin Model (SDM) with time fixed effects, the paper explores the influencing factors of regional entrepreneurship and its spatial effects. The findings are as follows: 1) During the observation period, entrepreneurial activity in the YRD steadily increased, with opportunity-driven entrepreneurship (ODE) exhibiting significant spatio-temporal differentiation, and all entrepreneurship rates displaying dynamic dispersal characteristics. 2) The spatial patterns of entrepreneurship differed significantly across periods. In 2002, cities with higher entrepreneurial rates in the YRD followed a Z-shaped distribution, with a trend of diffusion towards inland areas in 2012, and by 2022, Jinhua City had stood out prominently. 3) Government attention to entrepreneurship, urban innovation capacity, and improvements in infrastructure had a significant positive effect on ODE. However, enhancing urban entrepreneurial services had a stronger positive effect on necessity-driven entrepreneurship (NDE) compared to ODE, while the role of urban financial development had the opposite effect. The entry of foreign capital suppressed ODE but indirectly promoted NDE. 4) The optimization of the urban financial environment not only helps improve local entrepreneurial levels but also promotes entrepreneurship in neighboring cities through spillover effects.

The employment migration issue of university graduates has become a hot issue of great social concern, as they are the main force of incoming labor force and the most important employment group. Under the background of severe employment situation, more and more university graduates who originally intended to work in economically-developed cities, have begun to rationally consider their career choice and actively choose to return hometown to seek development. Existing research focus on the return migration of floating population and migration of university graduates, while seldom concerning the new trend of the return migration of university graduates, and lacking the consideration of multidimensional distances. To bridge these gaps, this study firstly explores the characteristics of return migration of university graduates with statistical method, and then extends the analytical framework of multidimensional distance and proposes several research hypotheses, finally employs the logistic regression model to investigate the influencing factors on the return migration of university graduates and the individual heterogeneity of their effects to verify the hypotheses. The employed research data include the employment migration survey data of university graduates in 2022 and related city-level statistical data. The research findings are shown as below: the graduates who came from a higher-level city of hometown or studied in a lower-level city of university are more inclined to return hometown; graduates with higher human capital levels and lower family capital levels are less likely to return hometown; the geographic distance and institutional distance between the city of university and hometown exert significantly positive impacts on the return migration of graduates; the economic distance, information distance and technology distance exert significantly negative impacts on the return migration of graduates; the probabilities of return migration of graduates with a master degree and from double first-class universities decrease with the increase of economic distance and information distance, compared with those of graduates with a bachelor degree and from ordinary universities; the probability of return migration of graduates with non-agricultural hukou decreases with the growth of economic distance and the decline of technology distance, compared with that of graduates with agricultural hukou. These research conclusions provide scientific evidence and policy implications for reasonably guiding the return migration of graduates and promoting full and high-quality employment of graduates.

Exploring the evolution paths of urban spatial form has practical guiding significance for cities’ healthier growth and regions’ more-sustainable development. This study takes the 183 cities and counties as the research objects including cities and districts in Sichuan Province. Firstly, the mean location centrality index, the mean location centrality agglomeration index and landscape pattern index are taken to quantify the spatial form and expansion of cities from 1990 to 2020. Secondly, this paper classifies urban forms by clustering algorithms, identifies their changes and stasis, and combs through their evolutionary progression. Then, we compare and summarize the typical paths of urban form evolution in different landform types on the basis of macro landform types. The findings of this study are as follows: 1) In Sichuan province, the complexity and compactness of urban form increased, with expansion areas outstretching and backfilling. 2) The urban morphology types in Sichuan Province, with different characteristics of spatial and temporal distribution, are divided into: fragmented-growth small cities (Type A), scattered-clustering small cities (Type B), adjoining-agglomerating medium-sized cities (Type C), inside-compact edge-fragmented larger medium cities (Type D), and complex- backfilling large cities (Type E). 3) Urban form and expansion patterns are diverse at different stages of urban growth, with spatial diffusion and agglomeration co-existing. 4) There are significant differences in the typical evolutionary paths of urban form in different landform types, i.e. plateau-type: A→B; mountain-type: A→B→C; hill-type: A→B→C and B→C→D; plain-type: B→C→D→E. The insights gleaned from this research deepen our understanding of urban forms’ spatiotemporal evolution in Sichuan Province, offering a reference for the development and planning of cities in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River Economic Belt.

Current research on urban networks still has some shortcomings, such as insufficient analysis of industrial chains, neglecting the distinction between local and non-local embedding, and insufficient attention to industrial connections in the digital economy. In view of this, this article attempts to take the Chinese digital game industry as an analytical case. Based on the basic paradigm of urban network research, it starts from the perspective of industrial chain division of labor, focusing on exploring the urban network structure and cooperation models formed by the digital game industry through industrial chain division of labor. It further analyzes the industrial chain position and the evolution of local-global embeddedness of the Chinese digital game industry, thereby promoting the dialogue between urban network research and industrial chain theory and solidifying the analysis of the industrial connection connotation in urban network research. This study selected cooperation data at both the national and global scales from 2013 to 2023, involving 283 cities worldwide. Social network analysis was employed to measure the urban cooperation network structure of China’s digital games, and the internalization link index was used to analyze the differences in local and cross-city connections of game enterprises at different spatial scales. The findings are as follows: 1) The national-level city collaborative network of China’s digital gaming industry has a polycentric structure, reflecting the decentralized characteristics of the digital economy; at the global scale, there exist 3 collaborative models: “Overseas R&D and Publishing-Domestic Operation” (Model 1), “Domestic R&D-Overseas Publishing and Operation” (Model 2), and “Domestic Publishing and Operation-Overseas R&D” (Model 3). Model 1 has the largest network of cities, and Models 2 and 3 are expanding rapidly. 2) Overall, Chinese cities are still in the middle and lower segments of the global digital gaming industry chain, with significant dependence on cities in the United States, Japan, and Europe in the R&D and publishing sectors. However, with the rapid development of Models 2 and 3, cities represented by Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Xiamen are continuously upgrading their positions in the global industry chain. 3) Over the past decade, the local-global connectivity of China’s core gaming cities has undergone significant spatial restructuring, mirroring the global industrial chain reconfiguration. Nationally, most cities have transitioned from localized to cross-city domestic collaborations, aligning with the delocalization trend in digital creative industries. Globally, Chinese cities demonstrate reduced external dependency, shifting from strong international-weak domestic ties to domestic-dominated collaboration patterns, with Shanghai emerging as the sole metropolis sustaining robust dual local-global linkages. These evolving spatial embeddedness patterns reflect the industry’s self-optimization and value chain upgrading trajectory. This study contributes to the dialogue and incorporation between industrial chain and urban network research. Future research needs to analyze in more detail the driving mechanisms, globalization strategies and local embedding patterns of Chinese cities’ participation in the division of labor in the global digital game industry chain through more in-depth enterprise surveys and industry chain analyses.

Rural tourism serves as a vital instrument for China's rural revitalization, playing a significant role in diversifying rural economies, promoting urban-rural integration, and achieving sustainable development. Based on the ‘institutional-cultural' coupling perspective and utilizing the CiteSpace bibliometric tool, this study systematically reviewed the literatures on rural tourism development in China from the CNKI and Web of Science (WoS) core databases (2000—2024). It comparatively analyzed the differences and commonalities in research stages, hot topic, and methodologies between domestic (Chinese) and international (English) contexts. The findings reveal that: 1) Research in both Chinese and English contexts shows rising popularity, yet with distinct stage characteristics. Domestic studies are policy-driven, forming a practice-oriented framework around rural revitalization, cultural-tourism integration, and common prosperity; international studies focus more on micro-level issues like sustainability, community empowerment, and rural gentrification, reflecting critical perspectives. 2) The dynamic interplay between institutions and culture constitutes the core logic of rural tourism development. Domestic research emphasizes the enabling role of policy rigidity in cultural capitalization, while international research examines the contest between cultural authenticity and institutional power under globalization. 3) There are significant methodological divergences: Domestic studies prioritize policy validation and quantitative analysis centered on industrial development, whereas international studies predominantly employ qualitative deconstruction, centering on communities and individuals. Key implications suggest that future research should deepen exploration in three critical dimensions: theoretical integration and framework innovation, methodological innovation, and thematic refinement and expansion. Particularly, there is a need for cross-disciplinary approaches that bridge the gap between policy implementation and community-based sustainable development models. Additionally, longitudinal studies tracking the socio-economic impacts of rural tourism could provide valuable insights for both academic and practical purposes.

Scientific awareness of the multiple effects of cultural-tourism integration and effective stimulation of the inherent potential of cultural-tourism integration in constructing a strong economic pattern of resilience are important ways to cope with the risk of uncertainty in the external environment and to achieve high quality economic development. The coupled coordination model and entropy method are used to measure the cultural-tourism integration level and economic resilience in China’s inter-provincial from 2006 to 2022, and combined with a panel model to empirically analyse the impact of cultural-tourism integration on economic resilience. Furthermore, this study investigates the specific mechanisms through which cultural-tourism integration influences economic resilience by constructing an innovative theoretical framework of “demand driven traction-policy regulated coordination-technology enabled empowerment”. The results of the study show that: 1) The level of China’s cultural-tourism integration rises significantly, and the eastern provinces are the “pioneering area” of cultural-tourism integration, with the overall differentiation characteristics of high in the east and low in the west. The economic resilience continues to increase, achieving a good transition from mainly low level to mainly medium level, with a spatial pattern of decreasing distribution of “eastern- central-western”. 2) Cultural-tourism integration has a significant positive impact on economic resilience, and the positive effect of cultural-tourism integration on economic resilience is positively moderated by the upgrading of cultural-tourism consumption demand, the strength of financial support for cultural tourism and the level of information technology,and the strength of the effect is shown as the upgrading of cultural-tourism consumption demand > financial support for cultural-tourism > the level of information technology. 3) Cultural-tourism integration has regional heterogeneity in its impact on economic resilience, and the positive effect of cultural-tourism integration on economic resilience is more prominent in the western and northern regions than in the eastern and southern regions, while the effect in the central region is not significant. The study provides a policy reference for promoting high-quality integration of culture-tourism integration in the region and thus contributing to the building of economic resilience.

Island village is a special geographical unit that is most closely related to human activities in Marine and land systems. Exploring island village spatial evolution path is one of the important contents of rural geography. This article uses the actor-network theory and qualitative research methods such as in-depth interview and non-participatory observation to analyze the spatial evolution path of Beigang village on Pingtan International Tourism Island. The findings are as follows: 1) The spatial evolution of Beigang village is a process of multi-stage, multi-subject participation, mutual competition and negotiation. In this process, an actor network of human actors and non-human actors, local actors and external actors are gradually formed, and a road of rural revitalization on island is explored with “island leisure, cultural tourism integration” as the main line. 2) In the process of the transformation of actor network in Beigang village, the participation of human actors and non-human actors causes problematization, interest endowment, recruitment, mobilization and dissidence of the rural network to be re-interpreted and roles changed, and the key actors are replaced from local governments to talented people, foreign operators, tourists and Pingtan Comprehensive Experimental Zone Tourism Co., LTD. The Obligatory Passage Point (OPP) has changed from “improving the living environment, optimizing the industrial structure, and increasing economic income” to “building a Beigang characteristic theme village and a pioneering template for rural revitalization”. 3) Due to the intermingling of internal and external forces, the spatial evolution of Beigang village has undergone a transformation from “top-down administrative driving” to “up-down interactive multi-subject participation”, which reflects the passive response and active adaptation of rural heterogeneous actors in the process of adapting to social changes. The actor-network theory is suitable for presenting the multi-subject participation process and revealing the path of the spatial evolution of island village, which is of great significance for promoting the sustainable development of island village and expanding the research paradigm of rural geography.

Evapotranspiration is an important part of the water cycle and also one of the most difficult items to be measured. This study selected the Xijiang River as an example, which is the main stream of the Pearl River, and flows through Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi provinces. The controlled watershed area above Wuzhou hydrological station is 32.7×10⁴km². Karst landforms are widely distributed in the watershed, and the distribution area of carbonate rocks accounts for approximately 70.1% of the total watershed area. Based on the basin water balance equation, the actual evapotranspiration in the Xijiang River Basin is estimated by using observed precipitation, runoff data and GRACE Terrestrial Water Storage (TWS) data. Then two evapotranspiration products are evaluated, and the temporal and spatial characteristics of the actual evapotranspiration are analyzed and the influencing factors are discussed. The results showed that: 1) The increasing trend of the TWS in the Xijiang River Basin from April 2002 to December 2022 is 0.028 cm/month. From 2000 to 2020, the annual precipitation in the basin shows a gradual decrease from east to west, with average value of 1482.5 mm. The annual water discharge at Wuzhou hydrological station is 1 978.9×10⁸m³, and is converted into an average runoff depth of 605.2 mm in the basin and a runoff coefficient of 0.408; 2) GLDAS-Noah and ERA5 products performed well (NSE>0.72, R²>0.78, P_bias = −11.0% and 10.6%, respectively), and P_bias reduced to −0.2% after the two products ensemble averaged; 3) The spatial distribution of evapotranspiration showed a decreasing trend from southeast to northwest. From 2000 to 2021, the annual mean evapotranspiration was 866.5 mm with a significant increasing trend of 2.7 mm/a. The annual evapotranspiration in Karst areas showed a similar increasing trend as the entire basin, with a slightly lower annual evapotranspiration of 854.5 mm; 4) The annual average NDVI in the Xijiang River Basin showed a significant increasing trend of 0.005/a from 2000 to 2022. The increase of evapotranspiration was mainly caused by vegetation restoration, and is not significantly related to precipitation and temperature changes. This study provides a reference for the study of evapotranspiration and water cycle processes in Karst watersheds.

The challenge of land desertification presents a critical obstacle to regional ecological 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 analyzes 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 degradation 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 situated 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”, providing a practical and reliable theoretical basis and technical approach for future ecological environmental protection and utilization of the Horqin Sand Land.

Exploring the logical path of tourism-driven traditional village system reconstruction is a positive exploration to promote the protective development of such villages and accelerate the implementation of rural revitalization strategy in the context of the deep integration of culture and tourism development. In addition, it is also a key breakthrough to solve the practical difficulties of hollowing out traditional villages, cultural memory gaps,and weak endogenous development. It is an important practical innovation to achieve the dynamic inheritance of cultural heritage and sustainable rural development. By establishing a theoretical framework for the reconstruction of traditional village systems driven by tourism, the core elements and operational mechanisms of the system are systenatically deconstructed. Firstly, establish a multidimensional goal system that unifies protective development and sustainable development, covering core demands such as cultural heritage inheritance, spatial function optimization,and economic vitality activation; Secondly, starting from the synergistic effect of endogenous and exogenous driving forces, analyze the reconstruction characteristics of core dimensions such as material space, production mode, cultural ecology, and social relations; Furthermore, by revealing the dynamic coupling mechanism between various subsystems, the evolutionary logic of traditional village spatial reproduction, functional reorganization, and value creation under the background of tourism intervention is elucidated; Finally, representative typical village were selected for empirical research, and a systematic reconstruction path was proposed based on regional resource endowment and cultural tourism integraion characteristics. The results show that:1) The driving force for the reconstruction of traditional villages mainly comes from the support of natural background conditions of resources and location, the tourism market demand of national culture experience, the investment of corporate capital in pursuit of profits, the demand of local residents for improving people’s livelihood and the promotion of tourism industry support policies under the rural revitalization strategy. Compared with the general driving force for the reconstruction of the countryside, it is necessary to pay attention to the spillover effect of the common driving elements and the enhancement of the effect in this kind of special geographical area. 2) Reconstruction objects include spatial pattern, production mode, social relations, natural and humanistic environment and other dimensions, and there are interactions and mutual influences among the dimensions, which jointly promote the reconstruction of the traditional village system; 3) Based on systematic reconstruction thinking, this article explores the reconstruction path of Laodong Village from the aspects of spatial scope, landscape characteristics, production types, tourism development subjects, benefit distribution, and ethnic cultural inheritance. Combining the characteristics of material spatial landscape and protection and development froms, it is divided into authentic landscape core protection zone, transitional landscape buffer zone,and constructive landscape coordination zone. In response to the differences in production materials and production objects in each district, the production logic and value orientation are reshaped, cultural tourism resources are integrated,market development mode is optimized, ecological service value is emphasized to empower production mode transformation of production relations from single subject to multi subject co governance, forming a composite social relationship network, and then guiding cultural and ecological reconstruction in each district.