It is one of the core themes of the Past Global Change Sciences (PAGES) that to understand the mechanism and process of the past human-climate-ecosystem’s interaction in various spatial and temporal scales in order to improve the understanding of contemporary climate change impacts and adaptation. The topic is also the important theme of historical man/milieu relationships that is a big issue of concern by geographers. In this article, concepts of vulnerability and food security in the regime of Global Changes are used to illustrate historical climate change impact-response processes in China. Corresponding to the food access, food availability and food utilization, the food security of historical China is simplified to three levels of food production safety, food supply safety and food consumption safety. The food production safety was the base of food security which could reflect the social sensitivity to climate change. The food supply safety was the capacity of the society to accommodate the crisis of regional food security which could indicate the social capacity to response the impacts of climate change. The food consumption safety was the final state of food security. The insecurity of food consumption was essential for the occurrence of social instability impacted by climate change. The processes related to the impacts of climate change to grain productivity, food supply production security, individual food security, and social security are discussed. For human society, climate change means the changes of climatic resources or disasters. Impacts of climate change occurred from the direct impact on the grain harvest, then transferred further up to the sub-systems of economy, population and society mainly though the impact-response chain of climate change, agriculture harvest per capita food supply, famine, and social stability. However, the impact-response processes of climate change could not be attributed to a simple causality. The initial impact could be amplified or suppressed in feedback processes affected by many factors in each sub-system, such as arable land, population, policy, foreign forces, and so on. Both people’s spontaneous behaviours and the government's organized policies and operations played very important roles in all steps of adjusting the responses on the impacts of climate change. But each adjustment had its limitation under the given historical condition. The impact of climate change could be positive or negative. To a certain degree, even the negative impacts could be converted into new opportunity for development if right countermeasures were taken. This article has provided a framework on the impact-response processes of historical climate change. Further research should be carried out to measure the processes quantitatively on the base of the framework.
The importance of space to many socioeconomic processes has been gaining attentions and recognition. The spatial effect in regional differences studies is now an important theme in the literature. But, both spatial and temporal attributes of data are important, existing approaches focused primarily on one of these attributes. The empirical analysis should take into account that the nature of tourism economic development is both spatial and temporal. Using the methods of exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA), LISA Time Path, LISA space-time transition measure and STARS (Space-Time Analysis of Regional Systems) software, this article analyzed the space-time dynamics of the inbound tourism economic development in China, measured by the foreign exchange revenue from China's inbound travel, throughout 31 Chinese mainland provinces from 2001 to 2011. Empirical results show that the inter-province inbound tourism economy is weakly auto-related, and the inter-province inbound tourism economic differences are dwindled first and enlarged afterward. By means of LISA time path analyses, this article finds that the local spatial structure of eastern coastal China tends to be more dynamic while the central and western regions are more stable. The longest three provinces of LISA time path are Beijing (3.804), Shanghai (3.625) and Tianjin (2.187) while the shortest three provinces are Shanxi (0.288), Ningxia (0.400) and Gansu (0.402). The maximum and minimum of the tortuosity of LISA time path are Hubei (16.816) and Zhejiang (1.171). Hubei has a most fluctuating local spatial dependence evolution in direction. According to the directional Moran scatter plot, the predominant direction involves downward moves of both a province and its neighbor. Following this are upward moves. Taking these together, there is striking evidence of strong spatial integration in evolution of spatial pattern of inbound tourism economy in China at the provincial level. According to the local Moran's I transition probability matrix and space-time transitions measures, the relative mobility of the local Moran transition matrices is relatively small. The frequency of type 0 transition is 0.987. This means that local inbound tourism economic structure and local spatial autocorrelation in China are very stable.
The present research on urban external service capability has focused less attention to its spatio-temporal evolution patterns. Aiming to solve this problem, this article comprehensively uses urban flow intensity model, the modified Theil index and K-means cluster as tools to analyze the spatio-temporal evolution patterns of external service capabilities of 286 central cities in Chinese urban system from 2004-2010. The conclusions can be drawn as follows: 1) urban flow intensity value has obvious rise during the study period, but the spatial differential features tend to remarkable, which has a high correlation with cities economy. 2) The modified Theil index shows that external service capabilities of central cities the differentiation in space are mainly from province inside, which gives a contribution rate from 58% to 72% to the national differentiation. 3) According to K-means cluster method, the spatio-temporal patterns of external service capabilities of Chinese central cities has the obvious evolution discipline of stage in time and hierarchy in space, and the hierarchy become more significant along with stage. 4) External service capabilities of Chinese central cities in the spatio-temporal patterns evolution tend to be more remarkable, and this trend has a close relationship with the urban flow intensity values and its growth rate. The relationship between external service capabilities of cities and the urban flow intensity values and its growth rate to a certain extent reflects the basic multiplier effect and the effect of cyclical accumulation can draw the regional unbalanced characteristics.
As a clear indicator, transmission speed has a significant effect on describing transmission accessibility of Internet information between the city nodes. Through the data of information transmission speed on the tachometer site, this article constructs the matrix of information transmission speed between the 31 cities nodes in China. It used factor analysis, to calculate the cities node corresponding composite scores and divide them into grades, to count the frequency the optimal grade/worst grade of city nodes, and to analyze the grade characteristics of information linkages accessibility. And then, through the hierarchies of the transmission speed, the spatial characteristic of the high-speed and higher-speed connection lines are revealed. Finally, several influence factors are explained. The research findings are as follows. The output speed and input speed city nodes is not consistent. The optimal output nodes are at the backbone or are directly connected with Beijing. The relationship between the optimal Input nodes and the backbone is not close. The worst output and input nodes are more at the net end. Forward corresponding relationship between Internet information transmission accessibility and the traditional city level changes. The information transmission accessibility of traditional high level city nodes is slow. The influencing factors of the information linkages accessibility include network Settings and network organization, information construction and city level, network service providers and communication, etc. The supply of docking Internet service provider and the demand of users needs to be improved. The cognition of information transmission rules can shed some light on Internet service providers, so that they could adopt flexible operation mechanism and service concept. It is practical significance to realize value docking between Internet service providers and users. Hereby, we bring forward the proposes: 1) The major networks should establish an overall scheme of network infrastructure, network framework between major networks, and establish end-to-end communication with its related regulations and standards, and solve the problem of the broadband resources waste and services quality. 2) The related administrative departments should further expand the Inter-Network broadband capacity in the poorer accessibility regions, solve the inter-network broadband occupation problems, and innovate the operation pattern between mobile and fixed Internet.
Research on spatial linkage of regional innovation output and analysis of the radiation range in the central city have important practical significance to advance the spatial linkage of regional innovation output and promote the level of regional innovation output. This article analyzes the spatial linkage of regional innovation output based on gravity model, identifies the central city according to the number of the largest attraction linkages and total spatial linkages of regional innovation output and calculates the radiation range of the central city by breaking point formula in Zhejiang Province. Compared to the level in 2005 and 2011, the quantity of regional innovation output spatial linkage and total amount of linkages have increased obviously, but the spatial pattern of regional innovation output linkage has changed little with the concentrated areas mostly focused in Hangzhou and Ningbo. Although the cities with second and third level have had overt changes, Hangzhou City has always been the central city of spatial linkage of regional innovation output in Zhejiang. The radiation area in the central city has been expanded. The radiation effect of central city has strengthened slightly except Ningbo City. Based on this conclusion, this article puts forward some suggestions such as increasing the regional innovation input, optimizing the environment of regional innovation, improving and perfecting the construction of the highway and railway in cities, reducing the hard distance and soft distance between regions and promoting the spatial linkage of regional innovation output.
With the deepening of housing reform, housing mobility in urban China is on the rise. Extant studies on relocation and relocation intention pay much attention on rural to urban relocation. Yet little is known about intra-urban relocation in Chinese cities. This study attempts to fill this void by presenting a line of empirical evidence in three different types of residential neighborhoods in Guangzhou, namely traditional inner city neighborhood, urban villages and commodity housing estates. Based on a questionnaire survey in three types of neighborhoods representative of the dominant residential patterns in contemporary Chinese cities, this paper examines the determinants of residential satisfaction and relocation intention of local residents in major urban neighborhoods. Specifically, we first run a linear regression analysis to examine the determinants for residential satisfaction after relocation; we then run a multivariate logistic regression to understand the determinants for residents’ relocation intention. Empirical results show that residential satisfaction in the three types of residential neighborhoods are influenced by different factors, but generally shaped by community attachment , housing property and housing facilities; meanwhile, residential satisfaction is negatively associated with residential time. While relocation intention is generated by a combined effect of various factors, and varies in different residential neighborhoods. In traditional inner city neighborhoods, residents’ relocation intention has something to do with the family income and the residential satisfaction. In the meantime male respondents are more likely to develop relocation intention than female, and residents who have got higher education tend to relocation. The situation is slightly different in urban villages, where residents with weak sense of community prefer to relocate. In addition, the result indicates that household head’s age and marital status significantly affect relocation intention in commodity housing estates. The diversified determinants of relocation intention in the three types of neighborhood are by no means sporadic, they are in fact closely related to the demographic composition, build environment, and development history of the neighborhood. Overall, findings in this research suggest prevalent western theories of residential mobility, e.g. life course approach do not necessarily applicable in the Chinese context. This study also offers a multilayer explanation to existing understanding of intra-urban relocation which tends to provide singular explanation either concentrating on socioeconomic indicators or neighborhood sentiments, or life course. To a great tent, residential satisfaction and relocation intention are shaped by a complicated set of determinants, reflecting the unique trajectory of housing reform and the diversified housing stock under market transitional. This paper has provided an updated and nuanced analysis of intra-urban relocation and enriched our understanding of complex mechanism and outcomes of residential mobility in post-reform urban China.
The research area of this article is the coal-electricity base in eastern Heilongjiang Province, which is a typical coupling of urban and ecological environment. By the supporting of BP neural network and combining the method of fuzzy comprehensive evaluation, this article predicts the vulnerability and coordination of the coupling of urban and ecological environment from 2013 to 2022 in the coal-electricity base in the eastern Heilongjiang Province. The results show that Hegang, Shuangyashan, Jixi are the heavier vulnerability districts; Jiamusi belongs to moderate vulnerability, but developing speed is more slowly; Qitaihe and Mudanjiang are mild vulnerability, but severe vulnerability and heavier proportion in Qitaihe is relatively large, and vulnerability in Mudanjiang is better than that in Qitaihe; Hegang, Shuangyashan and Jixi are moderate disorders districts, Jiamusi and Qitaihe are endangered disharmony, and coordination grade in Mudanjiang is good coordination. The results of the relationship between vulnerability and coordination show that Qitaihe is slowly decline; Mudanjiang is basically flat; the others are slowly rising. It indicated that the overall vulnerability and coordination of the coupling of urban and ecological environment in the coal-electricity base in the eastern Heilongjiang Province are not optimistic and the reference of scientific significance could be provided to the eco-environmental protection and reasonable urbanization road by this research.
Criminal geography which is one of the important branches in terms of crime studies is highly valued for its practicality. The studies concerning criminal geography in China are still at the beginning stage. More practical studies are needed so as to provide suggestions for the policing work. Different types of crimes usually have various distribution patterns as well as influential factors, which in turn requires deeper understanding in order to make wiser measures to counter crimes. Based on the crime data collected at the police-precincts level in Changchun, we choose the robbery, forcible seizure, vehicle theft and burglary as studies subjects and examine their distribution patterns in 2008 using the method of location quotient. Further, the influential factors of each crime are explored using the regression analysis and the mechanisms are also discussed. The results show that different crimes display various patterns and characteristics in terms of the spatial distribution. Generally, the robbery and forcible seizures tend to concentrate in the central part of the city and become less in the peripheral suburbs, while vehicle theft and burglary rates present an opposite pattern that the outside police-precincts are prone to higher crime risks. The regression analyses indicate that robbery, forcible seizures, vehicle theft are associated with some influential factors significantly in varying degrees. The robbery rates of Changchun are proved to be positively associated with the density of main roads and the proportion of commercial land use, and negatively related to the variables of the existence of vast industrial area and the number of high-rise buildings. The regression results also indicate that the forcible seizures rates are positively correlated to the variables of population density, the service activities as well as the existence of main commercial area. Meanwhile, the vehicle theft rates show a positively relationship with the existence of vast industrial area, while it exhibits negative relationship with the variables of the length of main roads and the distance between the centroid of the Jiedao and the nearest main roads. All the significant relationships between the different crime rates and respective influential factors can be explained according to the relevant theories and the specific socioeconomic characteristics of Changchun. The regression models indicate that the crime rates are a function of the characteristics of people in an area as well as the environment and characteristics of the area where people reside or work. However, we fail to build up a regression model with respect to burglary rates, which may be due to the fact that the variables we selected to conduct the regression analysis for burglary rates are too general and not able to explain the variance of burglary rates in Changchun. Finally, according to the conclusions drawn in the study, some implications for city management are proposed in the last part of this study.
Human settlement of rural tourism destinations of edge type is a relatively independent and complex giant system. Its evolution characteristics and influence mechanism have distinct uniqueness, so new research idea and theoretical framework are required to carry on creative exploration. Based on systems science and man-land relationship theory, this article summarizes the evolution characteristics of human settlements in rural tourism destinations of edge type of scenic spot from 3 aspects such as self-organization, periodicity and volatility. The human settlement evolution of rural tourism destinations is the result of the interaction of self-organization and heter-organization. Under the influence of spatial-temporal transformation of tourism elements flow, the system evolution state presents a cyclical dynamic evolution. Because of the influence of uncertainty factors, this cyclical change shows a great uncertainty and diversity in evolution path and rate. Taking spatial-temporal transformation of tourism elements flow as main driving factor, using "Great Nanyue tourism circle" as a case study, this article constructs a dynamic model of evolution characteristics of rural tourism destinations human settlements of edge type of scenic spot. The evolution process is divided into four categories, which are processes of invasion, competition, reaction and regulation. Process of invasion embodies the impacts of spatial agglomeration of tourism elements flow on human settlements of rural tourism destinations. Process of competition is actually the unity of differentiation process and symbiosis process. Process of reaction is the adaptation and adjustment of human settlements system in rural tourism destinations to external interference. Processes of regulation can clarify the internal relations between spatial-temporal pattern of rural human settlements and tourism development, so as to seek constructional path of human settlements of rural tourism destinations of edge type of scenic spot. Inflow process of tourism elements flow is the unification of spatial process and social process. In the process of market oriented tourism development, competition process not only maximizes resources and location value, but also brings deep divisions and social inequalities. Government's effective control is particularly important because the intervening of heter-organization can guarantee the sustainable development of human settlement system of rural tourism destinations. Because of the complexity of rural tourism destination of edge type of scenic spot, the human settlement evolution is of diversity. Due to difference in type, location and development level of core scenic area, evolution process of human settlement of rural tourism destinations may be skipped or incomplete, so the universality of empirical research on "Great Nanyue Tourism Circle" requires further inspection. Comparative study on different types of human settlement evolution of rural tourism destinations of edge type of scenic spot has very important research significance, and it is also the important part of follow-up studies.
This article considers 3 different constructions of Ripley’s K function to deal with the global and local measure of urban spatial distribution in a particular area. Specifically, the first one allows us to identify and measure the distribution pattern of city location and size over space. By incorporating a geography-weighted variable into the K function, the second one may better capture the importance of border effects on the urban distribution disparities across regions. The third one decomposes the K function into the contribution of each individual observation, and provides the suggestion of spatial regimes on city distribution. Based on these three kinds of K function form, we investigate the spatial characteristics of city distribution at the county level in Zhejiang Province, given the population data and per capita income data between 2001 and 2010. The results are as follows. 1) The spatial distributions of city location are not inconsistent with those of city size in Zhejiang Province during this period. That is to say, the location distribution of Zhejiang’s cities has been more dispersed while the size distribution has been more concentrated across space at geographical scales over time. 2) In terms of provincial boundaries and coastlines, the border effects have negative impacts on the spatial distributions of both city location and city size. The negative border effects increase with geographical scale. 3) In the dynamic process of Zhejiang urbanization, three mass-clusters of urban accumulative regions with individual industrial characteristics can be found. However, the negative border effects would limit to the exposition of these urban accumulative regions. In this way, Hangzhou and Ningbo might have a public service responsibility to provide assistance for the whole province. 4) The uneven distributions of city sizes in Zhejiang Province might have been influenced by its market potential, that is to say, its city sizes positively related to market potential, and the growth rate of city population is less than that of market potential at geographical scales.
Modern large flood events were marked clearly by grayish slackwater deposits of silty fine sand on the channel side. The most recent large floods in the upper Hanjiang River occurred on 19 July, 2010 with a peak discharge 21 400 m3/s and 19 September, 2011 with a peak discharge 21 000 m3/s as measured in the Baihe gauge station in the upper Hanjiang River basin. Modern flood slackwater deposits (SWD) were systematically investigated and sampled from upstream to downstream along the upper Hanjiang River in 2010-2012. These results showed that modern flood SWD is sandy clay, clay sand, sandy silt and silty sand in the upper Hanjiang River. There are two parts for the distribution of modern flood SWD. Sediment properties of modern flood SWD in the upstream of Ankang section are sandy silt and silty sand, but they are sandy clay and clayey sand in the downstream of Ankang section. The average clay (< 2 μm) content (5.9%) in the upper stream of Ankang section (LSC site) is higher than that in the down stream (clay content 2.1%). The average fine silt (2-16 μm) content (24.7%) in the upper stream of Ankang section (LSC site) is higher than that (17.0%) in the down stream. The average coarse silt (16-63 μm) content of modern flood SWD is 36.4% in the upper Hanjiang River. Clay and fine silt present high values in the upstream of LSC site and low values in the down stream of LSC site. On the contrary, sand (>63 μm) content shows that the low values (33.3%) in the upper stream of LSC site, whereas high values (44.2%) present in the down stream of LSC site. Mean size and medium size of modern flood SWD in the upstream of Ankang section are finer than that in the downstream. Mean size is larger than medium size of modern flood SWD along the upper Hanjiang River. Both sorting and skewness gradually decrease, but kurtosis gradually increases along the upper Hanjiang River. These results reflect that modern flood SWD are suspend deposits during highly energetic flood flows and deposited at long-term preservation. Grain size distribution of modern flood SWD presents obvious spatial variation along the upper Hanjiang River. Grain-size distributions of modern flood SWD are not only controlled by the lithology, topography, geomorphology and hydrology of the upper Hanjiang River, but also affected by the flood SWD sources, hydrologic conditions and micro-geomorphology of the SWD sedimentary environment. The shapes of particle-size distribution frequency curves in the modern flood SWD are more related to the micro-geomorphology environment and hydrodynamic conditions during flood periods, and reservoirs and dams have week influence on the shapes of modern flood SWD in the upper Hanjiang River. The shape of particle-size distribution frequency curve of modern flood SWD is an important proxy for identifying the palaeoflood SWD. These results provide a basic reference to mitigate flood disasters, palaeoflood science, and soil and water conservation in the upper Hanjiang River.
Seasonal drought index were diagnosed by the methods of Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), Rotated Empirical Orthogonal Functions (REOF) and Mann-Kendall test. What's more, how drought impact on agricultural in Xinjiang that was discussed. The results show that: 1) The REOF could reflect the two whole abnormal anomaly structures of drought and flood in each season in Xinjiang, for example, wet (or dry) in northern Xinjiang and dry (or wet) in southern Xinjiang pattern, wet (or dry) in the eastern Xinjiang and dry (or wet) in the western Xinjiang. SPI3 and time coefficient of the stations in the summer and winter is increasing significantly, the summer and winter in Xinjiang is tend to be wet or drought. 2) The area of influence of each drought in the northwest of Xinjiang and north slope of Tienshan mountains have obviously decreasing trend. Area of influence of each drought decreasing have obviously decreasing trend in winter. 3) Drought-affected crop area have not significantly increased in the northern Xinjiang, while Drought-affected crop area have significantly increased in the southern and eastern Xinjiang. Drought is influenced by irrigation facilities, drought-resistant ability, intensive use of cultivated land and the growth rate of cultivated land area except precipitation.
Based on the eddy covariance technique, the variations of the gross ecosystem productivity (GEP), the ecosystem respiration (RECO) and the net ecosystem carbon exchange (NEE) over Stipa krylovii ecosystem were measured in 2009-2010, and the impaction of the soil environmental factors on the GEP, RECO and NEE. The results showed that the GEP, RECO and NEE over the Stipa krylovii ecosystem showed obvious peak change rule in 2009-2010, and the Stipa krylovii ecosystem had the stronger ability of carbon fixation in 2010. There had very significant relationship between the soil environmental factors and the GEP, RECO and NEE over the Stipa krylovii ecosystem. The soil temperature had more profound influence on the carbon flux components of the Stipa krylovii ecosystem than the soil moisture did, and the soil environmental factors had more profound influence on the GEP and RECO than on the NEE.
Based on monthly precipitation data of 57 stations in the Dongjiang Basin in 1957-2010, comparative analysis of application of the classification of droughts and floods by SPI and Z index methods was did and spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of droughts and floods of the basin in recent 50 years in and its change trend were analyzed. The result showed that: 1) The result for the index of droughts and floods by the SPI method was close to that of the Z index method, which can reflect the actual state of droughts and floods in the basin under three time scales: the flood, non-flood season and the whole year. The Z index method was better when it comes to the extreme droughts grade. 2) Alternating droughts and floods for each decade was obvious in the past 50 years. Floods and extreme floods were more than droughts and extreme droughts. 3) Spatial distribution patterns of droughts and floods in flood, non-flood season and the whole year were consistent and trends of droughts and floods in the south and north were opposite. The spatial distribution of droughts and floods in non-flood season was similar to that of the whole year. 4) On the whole, the Dongjiang Basin had a trend of floods in the south and droughts in the north in the future.
Rainstorm waterlogging disaster, as one of the most devastating natural hazards in Shanghai, has badly affected residents’ lives and operation of urban system. As the accumulation of population and wealth, in the background of global climate change and sea level rises, the vulnerability of coastal city show an increasing trend which may lead a very serious situation of rainstorm waterlogging disaster risk. From the point view of scenario analysis, the vulnerability of the indoor property and structure of the buildings to rainstorm waterlogging disasters in central urban area of Shanghai was analyzed and evaluated combined with the previous studies. The main conclusions were as follows: 1) The vulnerability of different building types presents significant difference. The warehousing and the old-style residence are the most vulnerable building types when exposure to waterlogging disasters. 2) The loss rate, number, and types of damaged buildings increase as the precipitation intensity increases. 3) The structure of buildings was more vulnerable than the properties in the buildings, but the loss rate of building structure was lower than that of the properties in the building in the same condition. 4) The number of building with damaged structure was higher than that of building with damages property under the same scenario. 5) The spatial difference of the vulnerability of buildings is obvious. Over all, the rainstorm waterlogging disaster has the most serious effects on the buildings in Yangpu, Putuo and Xuhui District; the buildings in Changning, Hongkou and Zhabei District have medium vulnerability rank; the buildings in Luwan, Jing’an and Huangpu District have low vulnerability rank.
Hexi area is characterized with a vulnerable ecological system and severe soil erosion in the northwest of China. Analyzing the trend of the average wind speed is critical for wind resources management and soil erosion control in this region. Based on the monthly average wind speed of the 15 weather stations in Hexi area from 1961 to 2010 and using the methods of climate trending rate, 5 years running mean tread, Inverse Distance Weighted interpolation, Mann-Kendall abrupt change test and wavelet analysis method, the spatial and temporal trends of the average wind speed as well as the possible influential factors were analyzed in Hexi area of Gansu Province from 1961 to 2010. The main results are as follows: 1) The annual average wind speed was 2.9 m/s in Hexi area. The annual average wind speed obviously decreased at the rate of approximately 0.14m/(s·10 a) (α=0.001) in Hexi area during the period of 1961-2010. Furthermore, on the seasonal scale, the decreased rate of four seasons was similar. The mainly reason why the annual average wind speed decreased significantly was that the frequency of 5 or more than 5 levels of wind have decreased over recent years. 2) This trend has different spatial distribution in Hexi area. The average wind speed decreased significantly in the whole region and different subregions in recent 50 years, the decreasing rate in Guangzhou County and Yumen City were the biggest and the smallest one was in Wushaoling area. 3) Abrupt change was found in the long-term climate variation. The Mann-Kendall abrupt change test showed that the year of 1985 can be viewed as turning point of the abrupt change on an annual wind speed basis. While from the perspective of seasonal wind speed, the abrupt change points in summer and autumn appeared slightly earlier than those in spring and winter. The abrupt change of the average wind speed happened in 1985 in summer and autumn while that of spring appeared in 1987. The abrupt change of winter happened in 1986. 4) Morlet wavelet analysis revealed that average wind speed exhibited quasi-periodic variations of around 6 years, 19 years and 25 years.
