The approach of social construction of nature has become an important theoretical framework in understanding the interplay between society and nature in western Human Geography as geographers has long endeavored to integrate Human Geography and Physical Geography. “Social construction of nature” not only refers to the process and transformation by which nature is materially formed and commodified, but also emphasizes that the ideas of nature are socially constructed and culturally determined, which intrinsically related to subjective meanings, power, discourse, and representation. This approach therefore arguably sheds new light on cultivating harmonious human-place relationship and substantial development. This article seeks to review on the theory of social construction of nature and related literature, and outlines four aspect of focuses: the politics of nature, the commercialization of nature, social emotion and nature, and everyday life and nature. We argue that social construction of nature is not merely a social constructionist approach that primarily focuses on the knowledge production and social value and meaning imposed on the nature, but also intellectually rewarding in seeing both material and symbolic form of nature as interactively constituted with each other. Most importantly, the material changes of nature are often interactively tied up with the values and meanings of nature. At last, this article proposes the future research areas that requires further theoretical and empirical investigation including the dynamics and effects of social construction of nature amidst China social transformation, power relationships and negotiation underlying the socialize process of nature, capital’s impacts upon the reconstruction of nature, and individuals’ emotional response to social construction of nature. Hence, we argue that the positivist understanding of nature need to articulate with social constructionist approach, which reconcile the material change of nature with social meanings and relationships. This article seeks to enrich the interdisciplinary research of nature in domestic Human Geography and Physical Geography.
With the process of reform and opening up, the market questions are becoming more and more important to Chinese economic growth, especially the questions on the relationships of market potential and economic growth. The measurement of market potential which reflected the the first law of geography is widely used by theories of new economic geography and regional econometrics. This article constructed the theoretical model of market potential and economic growth based on the theory of new economic geography. The article also analyzed the market potential and of Chinese 258 prefecture-level cities quantitatively and explored the spatial distribution of market potential. According to intensity of market potential, the research areas could be divided into three grades of market potential areas. The first market potential zone is the area which owns the highest market potential and the values in the second market potential zone are lower than that. The third market potential zone obtains the lowest values of market potential. This article revealed the characteristics of market potential’s spatial autocorrelation with using exploratory spatial data analysis tools. Moreover, this article introduced the market potential variable as the index of economic spillover effects, because the conception of market potential could reflect the spatial relationships of different areas to a certain extent, especially spatial dependence and spillover effects. So the spatial effects could not be ignored in this article. Taking the spatial effects out of consideration could lead to the results of estimation biased and inconsistent. Therefore, this article established the spatial econometric models (including spatial lag model and spatial error model) to measure the scope of economic spillover effects in China. The results are as follows: 1) The spatial distribution of market potential in China presented the ‘core-edge’ structure, which showed a trend of cascade decrease from the coast to inland areas. 2) The spatial autocorrelation of market potential increases first and then fall with geographical distance. What’s more, for the market potential areas of different intensity, the scope of their spatial autocorrelation is different. 3) Economic growth spillover effects showed a trend of "∽" type with geographic distance. The economic growth effective spillover of Chinese 258 prefecture-level cities is in the range of 200 km. For the market potential areas of different intensity, the scope of the economic growth spillover effects is different. The area that market potential are higher, the spatial agglomeration of economic activities is stronger, and the scope of economic growth spillover effects is broader.
Based on the idea of systems theory, one new theoretical analytical framework for port logistics coordinated development is proposed by the authors. The framework consists of three subsystems, including port infrastructure, logistics operation, and city support. On the basis of it, one comprehensive index system of port logistics coordinated development is established in this research. It contains 3 second grade indexes and 14 third grade indexes. This article abstracts the coupling relationship, between the three subsystems, into vector relation of three forces with different direction in Cartesian coordinate system. Then, the authors construct the coupling coordination discriminate model of port logistics development, by combing the comprehensive evaluation index system with the mechanical model. Furthermore, by using the natural and social economic statistic data from 13 container ports in the Yangtze River Delta in 2013, the comprehensive development level, the coordinated development state and the main restrictive factors of port logistics development are estimated and quantified. The results show that: 1) There are some significant differences in the comprehensive development degree of port logistics among the Yangtze River Delta port system, and it has formed a multi-level port logistics hierarchical structure. Shanghai is the center, Ningbo-Zhoushan, Suzhou and Nanjing are the sub-centers, and the rest of the ports is the supplement. 2) There are some obvious differences in the coordination degree of port logistics in the Yangtze River Delta post system. The overall level of coordination is obviously low. The Yangtze River Delta post system includes five kinds of coordination development types, of which the low-level coordination type is the main types, and it covers 7 ports, accounting for 53.85% of the total ports. In particular, the comprehensive development degree is closely linked with the coordination degree of port logistics, and the relation is in line with the ‘U-shaped’ curve. 3) The concentration characteristic of the deviated direction of the coordination degree is not obvious. The quantity of ports in the lag type of the port infrastructure, logistics operation and city support subsystems is approximately the same. Finally, how to promote the coordinated development of the Yangtze River Delta port logistics has carried on the preliminary discussion.
Promotion of independent innovation is one of the major national strategies in China. Both the central and local states have provided a lot of fiscal subsidies for innovation activities of corporations. However, not many studies in economic geography have paid attention on this issue. While the economists and management researchers have done some initial analyses of the association between subsidies or tax remission provided by government on firm innovation, the theoretical perspectives are contradictory and the empirical evidences are inconsistent. Moreover, few studies have considered the inter-level interactions on this issue. This paper tries to narrow the gap by examining the effects of local fiscal expenditures for science and technology on firm innovation based on multi-level regression models. The data is drawn from China City Statistical Yearbook and Chinese Industrial Enterprises Database, which are by far the most comprehensive and widely used database of manufacturing enterprises in China. It is found that the local fiscal expenditures for science and technology has insignificant effects on innovation performance of manufacturing firms at the national level. However, further analyses reveal that local fiscal expenditures for science and technology do promote firm innovation in the eastern China or the large cities with population over 2 million. Fiscal expenditures for science and technology also has significant and positive effects on large corporations or state-owned firms. These findings have important policy implications.
While road constructionhas made great progress with the economic development in China, the performances of road transportation productivity in various regions are different. Enhancing the road transportation productivity could not only mask uneven conditioning of different regions, but also be in line with the requirements of economic supply-side structural reform. Therefore, under the economic new normal, it is very important to evaluate and analysis the road transportation productivity scientifically, which could be references for decision making. In order to achieve that goal, on the basis of the non-parametric Hicks-Moorsteen total factor productivity (TFP) index model, the road transportation industry TFP in mainland China from 2008 to 2015 is measured and analyzed. Then the road transportation industry TFP is decomposed into in technology progress and change in efficiency, and the latter could be further decomposed into pure technology efficiency, scale efficiency and mixed efficiency. The findings demonstrate that: the annual average TFP of road transportation industry in China shows a 0.77% decrease along with the technology level regression and operation efficiency increase during the period. In detail, while the TFP of road transportation industry in China from 2009 to 2012 increased, which was influenced by police made by government such as “Four Trillion Yuan RMB investment”, the TFP of road transportation industry in China decreased from 2013 to 2015, which was influenced by the economic environment. As to administrative regions, in eastern region, the technical efficiency progression and the TFP index number of road transportation are the best, and the technical efficiency progression is the main factor to drive TFP growth; In central region, while the TFP of road transportation decreased and its technology level regressed also, the operation efficiency of road transportation industry had an average annual increase of 6.89%, which is higher than other regions; In western region, while the TFP of road transportation and the technology level regressed obviously, the operation efficiency had an average annual increase of 6.31%. Compared to eastern region, the outputs mixed efficiency in central and western regions grow faster, which means that the transportation harmony of road passengers and cargos is better than that in eastern region. It demonstrates that the polices of “rise of the central region strategy” and “large-scale development in west China” played an important role on road transportation industry TFP growth. The technology level in central and western regions regressed in recent years, which are still lagging behind. It is worth noting that no matter in eastern region, in central region, or in western region, the scale efficiency underperformed. Finally, suggestions to improve the efficiencies and index numbers are given, which will be different in various regions. As to the road transportation industry in eastern region, the government or the department in charge should improve the utilization of advanced technique. As to the road transportation industry in central and western regions, the most important is improve the technique. At the same time, the government should make police to encourage the eastern region to help central and western region develop.
Spatial linkages of innovative resources synergy (IRS) not only can actively promote the intra-regional dynamic adjustment of IRS level, but also can promote the improvement of the inter-regional potential differences of IRS, thus, leading to a formation of new motivation of regional economic growth. But the existing studies rarely involve in the research on spatial linkages characteristics of IRS and its influence on regional economic growth. This study analyzes characteristics of spatial linkages of innovative resources synergy in 31 provinces of China using trend analysis, gravity model and exploratory spatial data analysis, further constructs a spatial panel model of spatial linkages of IRS affecting regional economic growth, investigates the specific effect of spatial linkages of IRS on regional economic growth by using spatial econometric. The conclusions are as follows: From 2003 to 2014 synergy of innovative resources of China’s 31 provinces overall show the spatial trend of “southeast high, northwest low”, and dynamic spatial differentiation of “high in east, low in west, declining in north, and rising in south”; The spatial linkages of IRS in China has the obvious regional imbalance, and its network structure has changed significantly. It now has developed into a complex multi-core “network-based” structure from a simple embryonic form in 2003 to a “chicken toe”-type in 2009; IRS potential shows the significant positive correlation and the significant spatial agglomeration trend to Eastern Coastal Area; The spatial spillover effect of regional economic growth in China is significant, and the spatial linkages of IRS has a significant positive effect on regional economic growth. It not only can promote significantly the region’s economic growth by the direct effect, but also promote significantly adjacent regions’ economic growth by the indirect and total effect. And the direct promotion effect is greater than the indirect promotion effect. Based on the above research, this article suggests that, the government should adjust the way how the innovative resources can be allocated, make the market to be the decisive role in promoting the interregional innovation resources flow, optimize the network structure of the spatial linkages of IRS, and maximize the spatial spillover effect of innovative resources synergy.
Using the location entropy, coupled coordination model, trend surface analysis and gravity model to calculate the coupling coordination degree of city function and regional innovation and analyze the situation of spatial linkages in the Yangtze River Economic Belt. The conclusions are arrived as follows: 1) in 2004-2014, the coupling coordination degree had a certain degree of improvement of the whole city unit, gradually form three continuous gathering area. The overall coupling coordination degree shows the spatial trend of "lower middle and upper middle reaches" in the Yangtze River Economic Belt; 2) Connection structure of the maximum gravitational line of the spatial linkages is relatively stable, the Yangtze River Delta agglomeration is an important and gathering area for the coordinated development; 3) The complex degree of network density and structure of the spatial linkages in the lower reaches is much higher than that in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River, and gradually form a network structure of the Yangtze River Delta as the core city circle, driving the development of multi polarization in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River.
Using the Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA) method and the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index method (LMDI), this article analyzes the evolution of spatial-temporal pattern of industrial wastewater in the Yangtze River Economic Zone from 2002 to 2013 and the main driving factors affecting industrial wastewater discharge. The study indicates that: 1) In terms of the evolution of temporal pattern, the discharge of industrial wastewater in the Yangtze River Economic Zone increased continuously from 2002 to 2005, reaching the peak in 2005, and then showed a downward trend. As for the evolution of spatial pattern, the discharge of industrial wastewater in the Yangtze River Economic Zone gradually expanded from the upper reaches of Yangtze River to its lower reaches from 2002 to 2013. Regarding the discharge pattern, the high-discharge cities decreased while the medium-discharge cities increased. As for the changing trend, the industrial wastewater discharge tended to transfer from the lower branches of the Yangtze River to the middle and upper reaches, and spread from large cities to small and medium-sized cities. During the study period, the discharge of industrial wastewater in the Yangtze River Economic Zone showed a significant spatial agglomeration. 2) In terms of the driving factors, the economic development effect and the technological development effect are the main factors which lead to the increase and decrease of industrial wastewater discharge respectively. The effect of industrial structure is significant to the industrial wastewater discharge and it leads to the increase or decrease of the industrial wastewater discharge depending on the adjustment of the policy regarding the development of industries. Population effect exerts a little impact on the industrial wastewater discharge. Although the discharge of industrial wastewater in the Yangtze River Economic Zone is gradually decreasing as a whole, the pollution problem is still serious and unbalanced. Therefore, under the background of The Belt and Road Initiative strategy, ideas of developing the Yangtze River Economic Zone should be changed and the comprehensive environmental management of the Yangtze River Basin and ecosystem restoration should be enhanced.
Maritime Silk Route is an important part of Silk Road. Maritime Silk Route in China has been applied officially for the World Heritage List in 2016, but there are few synthesis research output on such a topic. Therefore, this article proposes the first Chinese-English title of the application project, then analyses the international background of nomination for “Silk Road” World Heritage Project (besides Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang’an-Tianshan Corridor, a serial transnational World Heritage Property, there are other 9 tentative properties of “Silk Road” submitted by 8 countries) and the significance on application of “Silk Road: Maritime Route in China” (SRMRC) property. It provides some concrete suggestions for Heritage Sites included in the property: the number of Heritage Sites has been increased from 31 to 141 and the type of Heritage increased from one to two. In the end, the article proposes the idea for benefiting the management of the application: setting up a special foundation on “Silk Road: Maritime Route” World Heritage nomination in UNESCO World Heritage Committee. The nomination of SRMRC accords with the trend of protecting and governing the heritage along Silk Road, it bears many significances. 1) Initiative. During the nomination course of “Silk Road”, China had been in the passive position and without dominant right, which gain by other countries, nomination of SRMRC will help China to get rid of the passive situation and win the dominant right on the nomination of “Silk Road” in UNESCO. 2) Innovativeness. The main Heritage Site in the land “Silk Road” have been included in the World Heritage Project “Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang'an-Tianshan Corridor”, so SRMRC with the Heritage Site along the maritime route is the innovative activity for nomination. 3) Uniqueness. In the Tentative List, beside of “Chinese Section of Silk Road” and “The Chinese Section of Silk Roads”, there is no single property of Maritime Silk Road. It is true that SRMRC will be the unique property. 4) Equilibrium. Silk Road is the worldwide cultural heritage line that includes both land route and maritime route. Therefore, under the situation of having one land route property, nomination of maritime route property will be the balance between land and maritime as far as the series property of Silk Road. As to unbalance situation between land sites and maritime sites, nomination of SRMRC will be the contribution and accord with the Global Strategy for a representative, balanced and credible World Heritage List. 5) Political significance. Within the international communication in the 21st century, “Belt & Road” is the peaceful initiative for the world that proposed by the Chairman Xi Jinping, on behalf of Chinese Government, nomination of SRMRC is the historical explanation under the World Heritage perspective, with an important realistic meaning. 6) Global scope. Within the Tentative List, besides of “Silk Road” properties nominated by eight countries, there are another 15 cultural heritage line properties from Europe, Africa, Mid-east, Asia and America etc. But all of them don’t stand up to the global cultural heritage line “Silk Road”, which includes the maritime route that the others not possess. That is why “Silk Road” has been accepted by UNESCO as the series property that get the representative of global economic & cultural exchange and dialogue.
Along with the upgrade of industrial structure and emerging markets such as e-commerce rapid development, more and more short life-cycle or time-sensitive products rely on air transport. Hence, air cargo transport industry becomes a new growth point in Chinese civil aviation transport industry. According to the statistics, in 2014, Chinese air freight turnover is 18 777 million ton km, and airport cargo throughput is 1 356.08 million ton. Airport is the key node of air transport network, and its accessibility straight forward affects the convenience of air cargo transport. Based on the airline network, this article uses weighted sum of annual available freight tonnage from one airport to others as a measuring index to assess the spatial-temporal change of Chinese civil aviation airport airside cargo transport accessibility in 2001-2013. The result shows that: 1) Airport airside accessibility increases year by year. The mean value of accessibility increase is 1.47 times, or 7.21% in average annual growth rate of accessibility. The standard deviation of accessibility gains 2.3 times, absolute variance of accessibility becomes larger, but the standard deviation coefficient reduces 6.93%, in the meanwhile, the relative variance becomes smaller. In addition, the accessibility of more than 60% airports is below its mean value. 2) Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen airports take the first four positions in the ranking of airports airside accessibility. Western development strategy elevates airside accessibility of southwest airports, the airside accessibility rankings of Chengdu and Chongqing airports go up year by year. The strategy of revitalizing northeast old industrial base has little impact to airside accessibility of northeast airports, and the airside accessibility of Harbin, Shenyang and Dalian airports goes down year by year. 3) The accessibility growth rates of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen airports are below 10%. In top 20 airports, Sanya airport grows faster than others and its annual growth rate of accessibility is 22.5%, while Shenzhen airport remains 6.26% at bottom. This also indicates that accessibility is not proportional with its annual growth rate. 4) The number of airports with greater than 100 000 tons of accessibility increases from 19 to 40, or 45.45%. Those airports are mainly located in capital cities or economically developed areas, and the accessibility rapidly declines in the way of exponential function. 5) The accessibility of regional airports rises year by year and the accessibility gap narrows down between west and east areas. Airport accessibility in north China is highest, while it is lowest in Xinjiang. The spatial difference of accessibility increases in north China, northwest and Xinjiang, but it declines in east China, central south, west south and northwest. 6) The average annual growth rate of airport accessibility varies from seven regional airports. The ranking by growth rate of airport accessibility from high to low is Xinjiang, southwest, northwest, northeast, east China, central south and north China. It also represents airport accessibility grows faster in west area than east and north areas.
Rapid urbanization and industrialization have promoted the rapid expansion of construction land in Jiangsu. By clarifying and coordinating the relationship between land development and use benefit, it’s of great significance for the rational allocation of land resources to improve the coordination of interests and the compensation mechanism. In this article, the spatial distribution characteristics, the coupling pattern and the coordinated development degree of land development and use benefit discussed would provide the scientific reference for policy formulation. Our results show that: 1) During the study period, the index of the degree of land development rises from 0.339 to 0.426, showing a steady growth->rapid growth->steady growth trend. Meanwhile, the index on land use benefit increases from 0.459 to 0.596. 2) There are obvious spatial differences between land development and use benefit. In the last 20 years, the intensity of land development in South of Jiangsu is high, and the use benefit is also significantly improved. Suqian, Huai’an, Yancheng and other cities in the north of Jiangsu have low use benefit, leading to the formation of a significant phenomenon of "central depression". 3) The coupling degree between land development and use benefit is changing. The overall coupling situation can be divided into 3 stages, that is, the weakening, the fluctuation and the enhancement. Although the gravity centers of land development and use benefit are moving towards the southeast, the speed is faster. 4) The coupling degree of land development and use benefit is greater than 0.8 in South Jiangsu, and the low value of coupling is concentrated in Huaian, Yancheng and other places. Various factors, such as regional industrial development, infrastructure, land demand of human settlements, would produce different effects for land development and expansion intensity. The significant difference of land use policy and land intensive use level makes spatial variation on the feedback and degrees of coupling coordination degree between land development and use benefit.
This article collects data from 1991 to 2014 to analyze the spatial correlation of economic growth of inbound tourism in China by using the method of Granger Causality Test and Social Network Analysis. Then, we reveal its influencing factors based on QAP correlation and QAP regression. The results show that: 1) Spatial correlation of China’s inbound tourism economical development is highly connected. There is no independent development area. It exists multiple superimposed effects, and spillovers have been greater than benefit. However, the network is not compact entirely, and connections are dispersive generally. 2) The province economy is more developed, the higher the density of individual network, and the more spatial associations with other provinces. Moreover, the correlations of some central and western regions have more connections and stronger mediating effects. 3) The network structure can be divided into four plates. The first plate is “agent plate” that plays a role of bridge and the second plate is “main beneficial plates” that acts as an engine in the integrated network. The third and the fourth plate are both belong to “main beneficial plates”. The transfer mechanism of spatial correlation is that the second plate conveys energy from the first plate to the third and the fourth plate. 4) Number of inbound tourists, distribution of tourism resources, economic development and traffic convenience are important factors of the spatial correlation of economic growth in China’s inbound tourism.
Based on the data of GDP and GDP per capita of Jilin Province from 2003 to 2015, the population weighting variation coefficient, Gini coefficient and Theil index are used to analyze the basic spatial units in the metropolitan and county regions. This article analyzes the temporal and spatial evolution of regional economic disparities in the 13 years since the implementation of the northeast revitalization strategy in Jilin Province, and discusses the spatial pattern of regional economic disparities in Jilin Province by using the decomposition method of the Theil index. The results show that: 1) the regional economic disparities in Jilin Province are declining year by year; 2) Theil index decomposition shows that: the county is the dominant force in regional overall disparities changes, the inner disparities of changchun city is far higher than other areas, but has a tendency to decrease year by year. The dual structure of Changchun-Jilin is still prominent, which is the main source of regional economic disparity, dominated the regional of the whole province to economic disparities; 3) From 2003 to 2015, the province's rapid economic growth is mainly concentrated in the “three nuclear zone”; 4) This article mainly from the resource endowment, industrial base, polarization effect and policy factors and other aspects, the preliminary discussion of the causes of regional economic disparities in Jilin Province.
Based on the spatio-temporal data of A-grade logistics enterprises in Zhejiang Province from 2005 to 2015, this article analyzes the spatial pattern and formation mechanism of A-grade logistics enterprises in Zhejiang Province from the perspective of time and space using ArcGIS10.0 and Crime Stats 3.3. The results show that Zhejiang A-grade logistics enterprises are divided into initial stage, growth stage and maturity stage in time series, the internal structure of A-grade logistics enterprises is belong to a typical development trend of “middle heavy, two light”, and the development of enterprises in each level is unbalanced. From a spatial point of view, A-grade logistics enterprises obviously trends to be intensive in the northeast and sparse in the southwest. The nearest neighbor index shows that the spatial distribution of A-grade logistics enterprises in the province is in the order of overall >3A>4A>2A>5A>1A. The reason is that the economic development level of these regions is high, forming a relatively perfect traffic network, and the demand for urban distribution system is more and more urgent, the foreign exchanges have become increased frequently, logistics companies settle down one by one, which have become a mainstay of the logistics enterprises in Zhejiang Province. In addition, 1A-grade logistics enterprises and 5A-grade logistics enterprises are less in number, and the former showed a trend of uniform spatial distribution, the latter showed a trend of random distribution. The distance of every enterprise is far apart and scattered distribution. The multi-scale research shows that the distribution pattern of the logistics enterprises of different grades in different spatial scales is mainly in the form of agglomeration distribution, with the random distribution as the supplement, and the degree of aggregation tends to change with the scale, the stability which obeyed the concentration distribution is also restricted by the number and their geo-spatial locations of 1A-grade logistics enterprises. However, the number and the geo-spatial locations of logistics enterprises are impacted by social economy, market demand, transportation networks, government policy and other factors. Hot spot detection analysis shows that A-grade logistics enterprises are located in three areas: the south of the Yangtze River Delta economic development zone, coastal port cities and inland transportation hubs. As a result, revealing the space-time characteristics of A level logistics enterprises in Zhejiang Province, which provides several practical implications to promote further development of logistics industry in Zhejiang Province: 1) increasing the government's support of logistics enterprises; 2) to promote prudent degree of traffic network; 3) the optimization of regional industrial structure; 4) expanding the scale of the logistics market demand, and then ensure the logistics enterprises in Zhejiang Province effective to dock the Belt and Road .
Anhui is a province with a large population. Its age structure has an important impetus to the speed, type and trend of population development, thus affecting the social and economic development. According to the data of population census and sample survey, this paper analyzes the temporal and spatial characteristics of population age structure in Anhui Province from 1953 to 2015 by contrastive analysis and cluster analysis. From the temporal point of view, the population age structure here has been evolving. The number of children decreases compared with that of the past. The proportion of working-age population is relatively stable. The aging of the population is worsening. The total dependency coefficient and the children dependency coefficient have decreased to a large degree while the dependency coefficient of the elderly has increased. From the spatial point of view, the population age structure varies in regions. The impacts of the population age structure of Anhui Province on the social and economic development are as follows. First, the aging of population leads to the slowdown of labor productivity and economic growth, the miniaturization of family size, and the challenge of social security and health care. Second, the decreasing population of children affects the allocation of educational resources. Finally, The regional disparity of population age structure further aggravates the imbalance of Anhui regional development. In order to minimize the negative impact of the demographic age structure on the social and economic development of Anhui Province, we propose the following measures. First, the opportunity of “population dividend” period needs to be made full use of to accelerate economic development and promote social progress. Second, policies, under the guidance, are to be adopted according to regional differences. Third, the social security system needs to be improved so that its coverage can be expanded to the fullest and the gap between urban and rural areas in this aspect can be minimized. Fourth, the pension industry is to be vigorously developed and a socialized pension service system led by the government, supported by policies, participated by the society and operated in the market can be established to meet the various needs of pension at home, in communities, or in institutions.
Vegetation plays a critical role in global carbon, water and energy fluxes and the earth’s climate. Satellite remote sensing is the only practical approach to obtain observational evidence of trends and changes across large regions of vegetation cover. The Heilongjiang Basin within China is a critical hotspot for bio-diversity. In this paper, the spatial distribution and temporal variations of vegetation covered area in the Heilongjiang Basin within China was analyzed based on MODIS NDVI datasets with a spatial resolution of 250 m×250 m from 2000 to 2014. NDVI was used as a proxy for vegetation cover and the Theil-sen Median trend analysis with the Mann-Kendall test were both used to analyze NDVI trends. The combination of the result of Theil-Sen Median trend analysis and Mann-Kendall test,as well as the result of Hurst index were conducted to analyze the sustainability in NDVI trend．Patterns of change in NDVI and their linkage with climate change were also analyzed. The results indicate that: 1) The values of annual NDVI in the vegetation covered area fluctuated between 0.41and 0.46 in the Heilongjiang Basin within China from 2000 to 2014. The NDVI values had increased 0.06% annually over this fifteen-year period. 2) As to the spatial distribution of NDVI, high values of NDVI were located in Da Hinggan, Xiao Hinggan and the Changbai Mountains. Median values of NDVI were located in the northern Songnen Plain, the Sanjiang Plain and the north-central Hulun Buir Grassland. And low values of NDVI were in the western Hulun Buir. 3) From the spatial trends of NDVI, the ratio of increased NDVI values occupied 48.51% of the vegetation covered area, while decreased NDVI values occupied 37.15% and 14.39% remained unchanged. 4) Analysis of sustainability of NDVI trend indicated that 27.17% of the vegetation-covered area presented a sustainable-increased state, 26.62% of the vegetation-covered area presented a sustainable-decreased state, 7.2% of the vegetation-covered area showed a sustainable-unchanged state, and 39.01% of vegetation-covered area could not be identified in the future．5) The vegetation growth in the study area was regulated by climate change. Temperature was the most important driving factor in spring and autumn, whereas precipitation in summer. 6) Also human activity played dual influence on vegetation cover change. Farmland and grassland turned into forestry which led to vegetation cover growth somewhere, and forestry and grassland turned into farmland led to vegetation cover decreased elsewhere. This research is useful for identifying the driving forces behind vegetation cover changes and to support environmental policy development in the Heilongjiang Basin within China.
Studying the long-term changes of the terrestrial system of neighboring countries could be of great significance for the utilization of natural resources and environmental management in China. Based on Landsat TM/OLI images, the paper analyzed the characteristics of land cover change and their driving forces in 1990 and 2015 in the Republic of Korea (ROK) by using object-based images analysis (OBIA). The result shows artificial surface, forests, wetlands, cropland and waterbody underwent great changes from 1990 to 2015. Artificial surface had the greatest increase, 1847.24 km2 with an annual rate of 12.54%. The expansion of artificial surface was mainly located at Seoul economic circle, which was converted mainly by cropland and forests. The area of forests, wetlands and cropland decreased by 776.71 km2, 707.32 km2 and 426.65 km2 respectively. In the past 25 years, the land cover changes mainly occurred where the elevation is under 100 m and the slope is less than 3°. The human factors consisting of population growth, urban expansion, economic development and policy regulation and control played an important role in land cover changes in ROK. The achievements of this study could provide scientific basis for the protection and rational utilization of land resources in China, especially in the Northeast China.
In recent years, slope units have been widely utilized in landslide susceptibility mapping and geological hazard assessment. Slope units automatically derived from high-quality DTMs, partition the territory into hydrological regions between drainage and divide lines. The division method of slope units conducts subwatershed segmentation on elevation and the reversal to extract ridge lines and valley lines, then overlays these terrain feature lines. However, these resultant units are unable to match with geomorphology background where intermountain basins or large open valleys exist. In this article, according to the basic morphometic system of elevation and the derived variables, slope is derivative of elevation while curvature is that of slope, thus the break of slope should be indicated by curvature instead of elevation. The disability of indicating variation of slope is regarded as the main reason for the limitation in the conventional method. According to the theory of watershed segmentation of mean curvature, the division method of slope units is improved by overlaying watershed boundaries on curvature and the reversal in ArcGIS. Firstly, the DEM should be smoothed twice with a 5×5 average filter in order to reduce the effect of noise and small scale variation in the DEM. The curvature is then calculated from the filtered DEM using the Arctool named Curvature. After that, watershed boundaries are generated mainly through computing flow direction, scouting sink and dividing watershed in the curvature image, and this image should be reversed for watershed boundaries on the reversal curvature. Finally, slope units can be separated from each other by these two kinds of boundaries which are further combined into the boundaries of slope units. Giving an example from Huachi County of Gansu Province, elevation layer in the resolution of 20 m was used as input data, and both two methods were then applied for slope unit division. Compared with the conventional method, the revised approach not only uses ridge lines and valley lines to segment slope units, but also utilizes tableland boundaries and open valley boundaries to separate horizontal surface from the inclined. The revised approach may give a new definition that slope units should be divided by ridge lines, valley lines, tableland boundaries and open valley boundaries. Also the revised method utilizes watershed segmentation on curvature instead of subwatershed division on DEM where filling sinks perhaps causes the serious change of reversal elevation. Furthermore, the resultant units have relatively uniform size and shape, more than 80% of them with the area from 0.1×104 to 6×104m2 and about 60% between circle and triangle shape, which are more suitable for landslide hazard evaluation. It is worth mentioning that the revised method would be more competitive than the original in some regions with large area of horizontal surface, just like Loess Tableland and reservoir surface.
Based on topographic maps, remote sensing images, meteorological and hydrological data, glacier change and its impact on water resources are investigated in the Kuytun River Basin under the background of climatic change. Results show that glacier area decreased by 65.4 km2 with a retreating rate of -32.6%, 31 glaciers disappeared, and mean glacier area reduced by 0.19 km2 from 1964 to 2015. Loss of glacier volume is approximately 4.39 km3 with an annual loss rate of 0.084 km3 in 52 years. APAC(Annual percentage of area change)increases since 2000,which indicates that accelerated glacier shrinkage is observed.
Annual mean temperature in the basin exhibits a marked rising trend over the study period with a tendency rate of 0.39℃/10a. Results of MK(Mann-Kendall) mutation test indicate that mutation point of annual mean temperature occurs in 1988, and annual mean temperature increased rapidly since 1988.There is no mutation year for annual precipitation, which exhibits a slightly decreased tendency from 1964 to 2009. Present-day glacier shrinkage is a mix response to past and current climate fluctuation, and glacier ablation is highly correlated to the positive accumulated temperature over the ablation period, while accumulation is originated from the annual precipitation. The analysis shows that expenditure of glacier mass (ablation) caused by the positive accumulated temperature increase during the ablation period larger than mass income (accumulation) originated from annual precipitation is the main reason for glacier retreat.
There is a rising trend for annual runoff with a tendency rate of 0.13×108m3/10a from 1964 to 2010, and mean annual runoff is approximately 6.54×108m3. Annual runoff is on the decline from 1964 to 1993, but displays an upward tendency since 1993. Results of wavelet analysis show that there exists the periodic fluctuation of 3-15 years approximately for annual runoff, which also change since 1993, and maximum wet season appears in the period of 1995-2000. Results of MK mutation test show that no mutation year is found for annual runoff in 47 years.
Net loss of water resources caused by glacier ablation is approximately 39.5×108m3 with an annual loss rate of 0.76×108m3/a, which accounts for 12% of mean annual runoff over the study period. Affected by climatic warming, glacial meltwater increased since 1980s and its proportion in annual runoff rose. Besides, glacier coverage of the basin decreased by 3.4% in 52 years. With the ice loss gradually, the contribution of glacial meltwater to runoff would decrease step by step in the future forecasting warming scenario. Despite the importance of glacier for the local hydrological cycle, there is urgent necessity to reinforce the monitoring and study of glacier status, which could provide the better decision-making value for assessment, allocation and sustainable utilization of local water resources.
Starting from the angle of natural ecological environment, this article selects 16 indicators to establish the land ecological security evaluation system in Dali City from three aspects of natural factors, environmental factors, landscape factors, and uses the MCE module of IDRISI software of OWA multi criteria decision making evaluation of Dali land ecological security evaluation results of different decision under risk coefficient. The results showed that the different risk attitudes of decision makers, difference of land ecological security evaluation results. In practical application, the study area must be combined with the actual situation as well as planning to select different risk coefficient evaluation, to get a more realistic and effective results. As a whole, the land ecological security in Dali City is getting better and better as the decision risk factor increases.
