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Based on the data of 3251 rural households in China, this paper compares the effects of different harvesting ways and social services (purchase of agricultural machinery services) on the loss of harvesting links of wheat, rice and maize. The results showed that compared with manual harvesting, the whole mechanized harvesting generally increased grain losses of the harvesting link, and in terms of varieties, increased rice losses, but it reduced wheat losses, and the semi-mechanized harvesting significantly reduced corn losses. In-depth study found that the purchase of agricultural machinery services can significantly reduce wheat losses in harvesting link. The results of robustness test are consistent. Based on this, this paper believes that, for wheat, we should promote the whole process of mechanization, while for rice and corn, we must develop small-scale and professional agricultural machinery suitable for farmers, so as to advance the mechanization of segments in the short term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water option trading aims at solving the problem of uneven spatial and temporal distribution of water resources. With the change of global climate, rainfall has become an important factor leading to the uneven spatial and temporal distribution of water resources. In this paper, Markov chain is used to divide and forecast the rainfall scenarios. On the basis of rainfall forecast, the related costs of water option trading are determined. The forecast results of rainfall index are integrated into the determination of the ultimate overprice of water options. The improved Black- Scholes option pricing model is used to determine the rights of water options trading based on the forecast results of rainfall. Finally, the rationality of the calculation results is verified by using the extended linear expenditure model, which proves the rationality of the transaction price determined by the model. Taking Guangdong province as an example, this paper verifies the necessity of incorporating rainfall index into water option trading and the rationality of the related costs of water option trading determined by the model, and proves the superiority of fluctuating water price over stepped water price. Water option trading considering rainfall fully reflects the relationship between supply and demand in water market, and improves the scientificity of water option trading pricing in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although scarcity of irrigation water restricts grain production, it can promote agricultural technology progress to increase supply elasticities of grain. To shed light on the comprehensive effect of irrigation water pressure on grain production structure, this paper explores the effects of irrigation water pressure, grain price changes and their interaction on the yields of different crops based on heterogeneous coefficient Nerlove model and panel data of 27 provinces from 2002 to 2017. The results show that: (1) The direct effect of irrigation water pressure on grain production structure is increasing proportion of corn yield and reducing proportions of other crops yields. Specifically, the magnitude of that impact is in a descending order from rice, potatoes, beans and wheat. (2) The indirect effect of irrigation water pressure on grain production structure is decreasing supply elasticities of wheat, beans and potatoes while making supply elasticities of rice and maize even larger, which contributes to the increase of proportions of rice yield and corn yield. (3) With growth of irrigation water pressure from 2002 to 2017, its comprehensive effect on grain production structure makes a significant increase in proportion of corn yield and a significant decrease in proportions of beans yield and potatoes yield. Regional analysis reveals an increase in yield proportions of maize and rice in main grain production areas of Northern China, leading to more irrigation water consumption in this region where scarcity of water is severer. And this finding of our paper is a support for "the paradox of irrigation efficiency". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the basis of the needs of national land space integration theory and method, the paper explores the system optimization method of urban ecological space adapting to the local development characteristics of China's rapidly urbanized areas. (1) Firstly, from the perspective of landscape or land composition based on CHANS (coupled human and nature system), the elements of urban ecological space system are deconstructed as ecological space and urban space. Then, the process framework of urban ecological space conflict analysis is established, which includes three aspects: conflict source, conflict area and conflict impact. The conflict source refers to the driving force of urban spatial growth and the source of ecological spatial change. The pressure of urban spatial change on ecological space results in the formation of ecological spatial conflict area under the conflict source. The consequences of various urban ecological functions (processes) are caused by conflict factors and conflict areas. Lastly, the way of system optimization is proposed based on the systematic diagnosis of conflict process and causes. (2) The case study of rapid urbanization shows that the first conflict source of social and economic activities in urban ecological space conflict is not prominent, and the policy driving force constitutes the main conflict source and runs through the whole conflict process. Through the analysis of road network and land layout planning process, the type and conflict mechanism of conflict area between urban and natural catchment areas are revealed, and the SWMM model is used to simulate and identify four flooding types and key causes. (3) Therefore, the system optimization objectives of urban ecological space are constructed respectively for conflict sources, conflict areas and conflict impact. The traditional optimization objectives aim at the drainage process and facilities formed by end- conflict impacts, and the core objectives aim at the key causes of formation of flooding areas, i.e. the enhancement of storage function and reconstruction of spatial elements in conflict areas of urban ecological space change. The fundamental optimization objectives aim is to change system, policy and planning of urban ecological space. The spatial optimization framework consisting of three types of main functional optimization areas, six types of key points and five types of key channels is identified for the case area. The framework of conflict analysis and the method of system optimization in the paper provide reference for the study of national land spatial integration. The case study covers the succession process of international stormwater management as a whole, which is helpful for the local understanding of the current large-scale land development transformation and the concept of sponge city construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanization becomes the primary source of carbon emissions and energy demand growth in China with industrialization entering the middle-later stages. With the current highconsumption and high-emission urban development model, the resulting resource consumption and carbon emissions become a major environmental issue and a sustainability problem. Based on the panel data of the bay area economic zone of Zhejiang province from 2003 to 2017, this paper analyzed the overall spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of carbon emissions of the economic zone. The main sources of carbon emissions will be studied in detail by incorporating the urbanization level, energy consumption structure, land use, economic development level, industrial structure, population agglomeration, openness, and technological progress into the STIRPAT (the Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence, and Technology) extended model. We further investigated the driving mechanism of carbon emissions and spatial and temporal heterogeneity of carbon emissions from the perspective of urbanization using the geographically and temporally weighted regression (GTWR). The results showed that: (1) The scale of carbon emissions has increased with time, but the growth rate has not been large with a decreasing growth rate. Carbon emissions in different regions are significantly different. The carbon emission is less intense through the years with a spatial distribution pattern of increasing from the southwest to the northeast. (2) The level of economic development and the degree of openness to the outside world are the dominant factors that affect the carbon emission level, followed by energy consumption structure, technological progress, and urbanization. (3) These influencing factors show substantial spatiotemporal heterogeneity that the direction and intensity of the fluctuations of various driving factors vary from time to time and region to region. This paper analyzed the impact of the driving factors of carbon emissions in the economic zone of Zhejiang Bay Area explicitly, providing scientific support for the implementation of regionally differentiated carbon emission reduction strategies. It is necessary to fully examine the actual development of each region to formulate a differentiated carbon emission reduction regulation strategy. In particular, these measures should be taken into consideration for reducing carbon emissions in the area: enhancing the efficiency of comprehensive utilization of resources by accelerating the construction of science and technology innovation corridors, and promoting the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries by fully introducing modern service industries and high-end manufacturing based on information technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The national economy is a complex system composed of many different industries and interdependent industries. Scientifically identifying the correlation conduction structure of industrial carbon emissions is of great theoretical and practical significance for achieving the goal of carbon emission reduction in China. Therefore, the total carbon footprint was defined from the direct and indirect angles. Based on the energy consumption and the direct consumption coefficient of production service, the admissibility of the function improvement was created to update the input-output table and ram the data source base. Then the balanced input output industrial total carbon footprint life cycle model was designed to calculate the total carbon footprint of the industry. Using the WT index method, China's industry total carbon footprint complex networks in the new and old normal periods were constructed, and the characteristics of networks were analyzed from the point of view of the whole network, nodes status and community structure. By comparison, it was found that the structures of China's industrial total carbon footprint complex networks in the new and old normal periods were reasonable. Compared with the old normal period, the total industrial carbon footprint in the new normal period industry linked closer, the core key industries had stronger control influence, and the community structure was generally stable. At last, the paper put forward countermeasures and suggestions, which were a comprehensive consideration of the total carbon footprint of the industry, taking into account the individual and the overall characteristics, focusing on the key nodes and taking full consideration of the characteristics of the industrial community. And we hope this paper could improve the efficiency of China's industrial synergistic emission reduction in the new normal period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In most resource-based regions, their long-term economic growth is slow during the exploitation of natural resources. How to use resource advantages, get rid of resource bottlenecks, and achieve long-term stable economic development are key issues of the resourcebased regions. In view of this, this paper takes the panel data of China's key coal cities from 2000 to 2016 as a sample to explore different ways in which natural resources in resourcebased areas affect economic growth. The results show that resource-based regions benefit from the "resource bonus" in the short term. However, due to being prone to resource industry dependence behavior, these regions have a "crowding out effect" on other economic activities and resources and environment, which affects the long-term economic growth rate. At the same time, resource- based regions are likely to exhibit the "extensive growth" characteristics of relying on physical capital investment to achieve economic growth. The conclusions of this paper not only enrich the literature on the impact mechanism of natural resources on economic growth, but also have some practical enlightenment on how to achieve sustainable development in resource-based regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the perspective of intergovernmental relations and government- market relations, this paper, based on the governance theory, analyzes the development process and overall trend of both Western developed countries' and China's spatial planning system under the influence of national governance changes. While spatial planning has become an important institutional reform and reconstruction system for China's ecological civilization construction, this paper hold the opinion that, under the goal of modern national governance, the reconstruction of the future spatial planning system should pay more attention to the following three questions: (1) The multi-attribute nature of "land space" should be fully understood, while the overall balance of spatial planning for multiple objectives should be emphasized; (2) A spatial planning system that corresponds to government affairs should be established; (3) Planning researches and non-statutory planning should be integrated into the spatial planning system to enhance the scientific nature of spatial planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, China is promoting the modernization of territorial space governance, and the territorial space planning system is also being reconstructed. As a response, the spatial planning of metropolitan area is facing the transformation of political logic oriented by ecological civilization and development logic constrained by resources and environment. Based on the transformation of planning logics, the paper clarifies that the spatial planning of metropolitan area is a special planning with the focus on coordinated development of space as the core in the system of territorial space planning, and puts forward the technical framework of the spatial planning of metropolitan area from the two perspectives, namely, corresponding demand objectives and coordination of local conditions. Based on the above new requirements, the paper considers that the planning should focus on the formulation of conduction and coordination- oriented index system, the optimal allocation and regulation of liquidity factor resources, the planning of spatial pattern of coordinated control and utilization, and the spatial cooperation of cross- border groups. In view of the lack of a unified implementation subject, this paper puts forward the organizational mode of spatial planning compilation in different types of metropolitan areas. Regional cooperation mechanism, dynamic monitoring of the plan, and co-construction of information platform for management, are also proposed. Through the systematic discussion on the spatial planning of metropolitan area, this paper will provide theoretical basis and methodological guidance for the compilation of the forthcoming spatial planning and the modernization of the spatial governance of metropolitan area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National park roads and parkways is an important part of national parks in the United States. The road is integrated with national parks, which is the characteristics and brand image of national parks. National park roads and parkways is not only an important means of transportation in national parks, but also a tourist attraction and destination. For tourists, driving on the national park roads and parkways means visiting the national parks. The development of national park roads and parkways embodies the integration of road engineering and aesthetics, philosophy, recreation, ecology and other disciplines, promotes the transformation of road from a single traffic function to a complex function of recreation, landscape, culture and protection, highlights the gorgeous landscape and imaginative engineering alignment, and also shows how to provide diversified recreational opportunities in protecting priceless natural and cultural resources to achieve a balance between environmental protection and public tourists. This paper makes a thorough analysis of the development process of American national park roads and parkways in the past hundred years from the aspects of concepts, development background, construction idea, development measures, management system, financial support and construction practice, and summarizes the development experience and enlightenment. The conclusion is to grasp the law of national park roads and parkways development in essence. From this point of view, the paper puts forward some suggestions for the development of China's national park roads and parkways. These studies are of great theoretical value and practical significance to the flourishing development of China's national parks, national park roads and parkways, tourist scenic byways and tourist highways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning and borrowing Western experience and criteria played an important role in the establishment of China's modern protected area system. However, at present, after the system took shape, some insufficiency in the international standards have been exposed. For example, they lack a systematic framework for understanding the value of cultural landscapes. Under the favourable circumstances of the recent institutional reform, it is timely to reflect on the tradition of borrowing the Western- based international criteria. This paper first compares the establishment process of the international conservation system with that of China and argues that China was not able to participate in the design and criteria-formulation in the earlier stages, which led to the under-representation of its development phase and the characteristics of the cultural landscape of its protected areas. Secondly, the cultural landscape characteristics of Chinese protected areas are analysed from the perspective of the overlapping geographical distribution of population and the protected areas. It is then pointed out that there has been a distinction between the traditional Chinese concept (syncretism between people and their living environment) and that of the West (the opposition between nature and culture). Thirdly, this paper addresses the dual challenges of conservation and development that Chinese protected areas have been faced with. It challenges the rationality of applying the criteria formulated on the protected areas in a specific population and development context to others in a totally different context. Finally, a more critical view is suggested when we learn from the experience of other countries and deal with the international criteria. It is necessary to take full consideration of the comparability of the human- land relationship and to realise the political implication of international conservation careers as provided by international agreement systems. Meanwhile, it is time to devote more efforts to explore a Chinese approach of sustainable and peaceful development based on the cultural landscape characteristics and developing pressures on Chinese protected areas, which will contribute to a wider range of countries and regions that are faced with similar dual challenges of conservation and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global food security has aroused great concerns in developing areas. In most developing countries, triple burdens of hunger, under- nutrition (inadequate intake of macroand micronutrients), and over- nourishment (in the form of overweight and obesity malnutrition) coexist. There is a long way to achieve the dual goals of food security and nutrition security. By tracing 95 literatures, this paper aims to figure out the concept development and evolution of food security and nutrition security, and put forward the research priorities of future food and nutrition security. The article explores the evolution of the concept of food security and nutrition security and narrates the evolutionary characteristics, and finds that the concept of food security evolves from adequate supply of cereals to all foods, then to foods quality and nutritional security and sustainable development, with the dimensions of food security extending from a single availability dimension to multiple dimensions of availability, accessibility, utilization, stability, and sustainability. Subsequently, we review the research on food and nutrition demand analysis and forecasting, the capacity of food production, and import impacts; furthermore, we review the impact of income, market, urbanization and farmers' agricultural production on food consumption and nutrition security at the family and individual levels. To achieve the goal of the balanced development of nutrition for urban and rural residents, the paper provides an outlook for future food and nutrition research and brings out four important fields deeply touched to extend study scope and depth for food and nutrition security research in China. This review work reveals that it is of great significance to conduct research on agricultural production diversity, crop planting structure adjustment and crop nutrition enhancement, the impacts of urbanization and market development, and the vulnerable residents' welfare on the nutrition enhancement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking 111 prefecture- level resource- based cities in China from 2003 to 2015 as objects, this paper employed the dynamic principal components analysis to discuss the measurement of smart development and environmental quality and used coupling coordination model and panel VAR model to measure the coupling relationship and its interactive response mechanism between smart development and environmental quality in different types of Chinese resource- based cities. The results show that: (1) The smart development in Chinese resource-based cities has relatively low level, and the differences in its regional areas have been weakened. The environmental quality needs to be improved and its regional differences has widened in fluctuations. (2) The coupling and coordination relationship between smart development and environmental quality needs to be improved. The order of coordination from high to low is growth type, recession type, regeneration type and maturity type. (3) There are self- enhancement effects and inertial development trends in response mechanism between smart development and environmental quality in different types of Chinese resource- based cities. Besides, the smart development in Chinese resource- based cities has a significant negative effect on the environmental quality after a positive effect. And that, the smart development has a significant positive enhancement effect on the environmental quality in mature type of resource-based cities. However, the environmental quality in recession type of resource-based cities has a significant positive effect on the smart development after a negative effect and the smart development in regeneration type of resource-based cities has a significant positive effect on the environmental quality after a negative effect. In the next 15 years, the smart development in regeneration and maturity types of resource- based cities will improve environmental quality. Finally, this paper proposes different strategies and suggestions for transformation progress in different types of Chinese resource-based cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid expansions of wells for irrigation water have led to severe groundwater depletion, posing serious challenge to future's food security in China. Finding solutions is critical for sustainable use of groundwater in China. As groundwater is a typical pool resource and its use gives rise to externalities, controlling well density could be a plausible solution. However, little empirical evidence is available in existing literature in China to analyze the relationship between well density and water tables. This paper therefore aims to fill in some of the gaps in existing literature using Lankao county in Henan province as a case study area. Based on household survey data and well census data, the paper conducts spatial analysis and econometric analysis to examine the relationship. It finds that there is a significant relationship between well density and groundwater tables. Specifically, for each increase in the number of surrounding wells within a radius of 100 m, the water table significantly decreases by 15 cm at a 5% significance level. Moreover, the marginal effect of well density on water table decreases significantly when the radius becomes larger and larger. Based on the findings, the paper emphasizes the importance of the government to control well density and develops a groundwater water permit system for sustainable management of groundwater in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grain reserves are of great significance to the maintenance of food security and social stability. Recently, the gap between the time and space in production, supply, and demand of grain in China has been continuously increasing, which leads to the unreasonable regional grain reserves scale problems of China. Taking province as research unit, this paper analyzed the temporal evolution and regional differences of regional grain reserves by utilizing spatial exploratory analysis and dissected influencing factors of regional grain reserves scale through spatial econometric model. It provided a definite method of regional grain reserves scale for different sub- regions. The results showed that: China's grain reserves spatial correlation index is bigger than zero and increased year by year, indicating that different regional reserves scales have significant positive spatial correlation. The overall distribution of China's grain reserves shows a polarization from east to west and has undergone a significant spatial-temporal evolution with high reserves area expanding to the northeast and low reserves area transferring to the west, which caused the increasing regional differences. Regression analysis shows that the scale of regional grain reserves is closely related to grain production capacity, population size, economic development, disaster influence, transportation conditions and social influence. The regression coefficient of the spatial lag term was 0.2451, manifesting that the geographical positive spatial correlation of regional reserves scales transmits through adjacent areas. Based on this, this paper put forward the prediction range of regional grain reserves scale in 2020 by considering the spatial effect and correlative factors, which provides a new perspective for researches on regional grain reserves in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As industrial agglomeration increases, wastewater, waste gas, and solid waste are becoming the main sources of environmental pollution. Therefore, how to correctly deal with the relationship between industrial agglomeration and pollution emissions has become a hot issue in the current academic circles. Agglomeration externality is an important mechanism to reduce industrial pollution emission, and different agglomeration modes correspond to different pollution emission behaviors. Therefore, this study divides agglomeration into four types such as specialization, diversity, related diversity, and unrelated diversity. The research goal of this paper is to investigate the effects of different agglomeration types on pollution emissions. Taking 31 provincial units in China as an example, based on the theory of agglomeration economy, this paper analyses the characteristics of industrial pollution in China and studies the relationship between industrial agglomeration and different industrial pollution. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) There is a significant spatial difference in the intensity of industrial wastewater, waste gas and solid waste. Generally speaking, the discharge intensity of industrial wastewater in the Yangtze River Basin is higher, and that of the northwest and southwest regions are rising significantly. The emission intensity of industrial waste gas and industrial solid waste in the north and northwest regions is higher. (2) Diversity is more beneficial to the reduction of emission intensity of industrial pollution than specialized agglomeration. Diversity has the greatest impact on industrial waste water, and has little effect on the gas and solid pollution. Industrial linkage is an important condition for diversity agglomeration to produce environmental 'self- purification' effect. Related diversity is conducive to the decrease of emission intensity of industrial pollution, and unrelated diversity will exacerbate pollution levels. (3) From the perspective of different polluting industries, the specialized wastewater pollution industries is conducive to the decline of pollution intensity, while the specialized waste gas and solid waste pollution industries will intensify pollution emissions. The diversified development of the polluting industry is conducive to the decline of pollution intensity. (4) The effects of different agglomeration types on industrial pollution are heterogeneous in terms of regional and pollution types. (5) To further reduce industrial pollution, we should improve the diversity of the agglomeration industry. We should also pay more attention to the improvement of the inner correlation between the industries and avoid the spatial concentration of the unrelated industries. At the same time, differentiated prevention and control measures should be formulated according to different regions, polluting industries, and industrial pollutants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is huge spatial disparity between Chinese electricity production and consumption. Most of coal, hydropower, wind and solar power resource are distributed in western provinces while population and industrial activities are agglomerated in eastern provinces, which lead to a huge amount of inter-provincial electricity flow and trade to realize supply-demand balance. Based on the annual reports of the State Power Market Trading and the China Energy Statistical Yearbook, etc., this paper established the inter-provincial electricity OD flow matrix for 2006 and 2015 with a degree of interpretation over 95%. Then, taking the influence, extroversion, acceptability and dependence degree as main indicators, this paper analyzed the scale and strength of output and input points of 25 provincial administrative units and 2 regional units in China. The source and sink points of the inter-provincial electricity flow were determined, their field characteristics were studied, and the differences between the two years of 2006 and 2015 were compared. Further, the characteristics and changes of the spatial structure of inter- provincial electricity network were analyzed with the method of network analysis. At last, some conclusion can be drawn as follows. Firstly, with the development of coal-fired and wind-based clean energy bases in the northwest region and the vigorous development of hydropower resources in the southwest region, the surplus of electricity in the western region has grown rapidly. China's electricity source points gradually shifted from the central to the western region and more concentrated in southwest region. Inner Mongolia, Sichuan and Yunnan became the top three source points of Chinese electricity flow with the proportions of outward electricity to total being more than 10%. Also, their proportions of outward electricity to production were all more than 30%, which means that nearly one-third of electricity was produced for other users. On the other hand, three most prosperous metropolitan regions in China, namely Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Shanghai-Jiangsu- Zhejiang and Guangdong, were still the main sink points with their proportions of inward electricity to total being more than 20%. Secondly, the spatial disparities of the electricity production and consumption increased, leading to the increase of sizes of the source output and the sink input. Also, the scale of inter- provincial electricity flow and network contact density showed an increasing trend. During this period, the size of interprovincial electricity flow increased 3.1 times and the inward electricity flow of Jiangsu- Shanghai- Zhejiang, Guangdong and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei increased 5.0, 3.4 and 2.3 times, respectively. Thirdly, the inter-provincial power flow field presented a significant three-channel pattern of "West- to-East Power Transmission" from north to south, which was affected by geographical location and subordinate regional power grids. From 2006 to 2015, this pattern of three major channels remained unchanged. Further, with the development and application of UHV technology in China, long-distance power transmission became possible so that some large electricity input points can rely on multiple sources of power instead of a single source. Therefore, the inter-provincial electricity network tends to be perfect and balanced in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eco- environmental issues, such as climate change, ecological deficit and water shortage have been prominent in recent years. The influences of a large-scale tourism activity on ecological environment cause widespread concerns from researchers. As an important tool to assess the impact of tourism industry on environment, a series of research results of tourism ecological footprint, tourism carbon footprint and tourism water footprint derived from ecological footprint theory have emerged in recent years, which gradually composed tourism footprint family, and played an important role in assessing the influence of China's tourism industry on environment. This paper aims to grasp the latest research progress and trends of tourism footprint family in China. Based on research scales, research methods and research contents, it makes a summary of the improvements of tourism ecological footprint, tourism carbon footprint and tourism water footprint. The results indicate that analysis system of tourism carbon footprint at different scales has formed, analysis system of tourism ecological footprint is still in the process of perfection, analysis system of tourism water footprint is in the forming process; tourism carbon footprint generally used top-bottom method based on IOA and bottom- top method based on LCA, tourism ecological footprint and tourism water footprint mainly adopted bottom-top method based on LCA; analytical framework of tourism footprint family, including 7 components of tourism transportation, accommodations, catering, sightseeing, shopping, entertainment and waste disposal, is accepted by researchers, however it is not completely used in analysis process; ecological footprint, carbon footprint and water footprint measurement for tourism destinations and tourists are main research contents, and a series of suggestions to reduce tourism footprint are proposed. And then results of comparative analysis show that research scales, research methods, analytical frameworks and research contents are common to tourism ecological footprint, tourism carbon footprint and tourism water footprint, but measurement standard and evaluation function are individual; tourism footprint research is a fresh perspective with comparative advantage in quantitative measurement, research scale, regional comparative analysis, and specific policy compared to traditional research methods. In addition, we find that the insufficiency of tourism footprint approach includes measurement accuracy, evaluation comprehensiveness, spatiotemporal analysis and theoretical innovation, and makes prospects for China's tourism footprint research combined with the trends of international tourism footprint research. We hope that this paper can provide some suggestions for China tourism footprint research and sustainable tourism development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National park is a natural ecological region with national representative resources, and the construction of national park system is an important part of China's land ecological security and ecological civilization system reform. According to the dominant position of national park and the concept of ecosystem service, this paper build the comprehensive evaluation model containing six key indicators including ecological system integrity, ecological importance, authenticityty, biodiversity, natural landscape value and cultural heritage value, based on international experience, national park function and connotation of policy of national park. Single element layer analysis and multi- index superposition analysis were implemented, and then combined with China's ecological geographic area, ecological function regionalization and provincial- level administrative region, selecting factors are extracted and the potential construction areas of national parks are identified. Results show that, the high ecosystem integrity areas of China distribute obviously in large natural geographical units, including mountainous areas, forests, lakes, grasslands and other ecosystem areas. The authenticity in eastern and central regions, especially coastal areas, plains and urbanization areas, is relatively low. The species diversity in Hengduanshan, Qinling, and Xishuangbanna ecological areas is high. There are spatial concentrations of high natural landscape and cultural heritage value areas, mainly in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River and along the Heihe-Tengchong Line. Those areas with high values of the ecological system integrity, ecological importance, biological diversity and ecosystem authenticity have strong characteristics of convergence. Areas with good ecosystem integrity often bear important ecological functions, have high biodiversity and are well preserved. The natural geographical areas are obviously superposed on China's three big ladders. The potential higher score regions in east and west area are of great difference in area that potential regions in the west are more continuous in space and often cross administrative boundaries. In this paper, we select 55 potential areas in total for national park construction in the future. This study can provide a methodological and theoretical reference for the reasonable layout of national park construction in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to figure out the impact of climate warming on crop planting areas, this paper used grid data to analyze agricultural heat resources in China based on methods of Sliding Mean Temperature of Five Days, accumulated anomaly, Manner- Kendall test and multiple regression interpolation. The results showed that: (1) The effective accumulative temperatures (⩾5 ° and ⩾10 ° ) show an overall upward trend, and the accumulative temperature of ⩾5 ° is more remarkable. The southern region has the highest inclination rate, followed by the northern region, and the Qinghai- Tibet Plateau has the smallest, while the cumulative temperatures of the Qinling- Daba mountains show a decreasing trend. (2) The effective accumulated temperatures (⩾5 ° and ⩾10 °) present a similar spatial distribution, namely, the accumulated temperature varied with latitude from south to north and varied with altitude from east to west. The eastern and central regions of China are obviously affected by latitude, while the western region is affected more by altitude than latitude. The area suitable for planting chimonophilous crop is larger than that suitable for thermophilic crop. (3) The effective accumulated temperatures of both ⩾5 ° and ⩾10 ° mutated in 1997, and both of their boundaries show a tendency toward northward and high altitude. The cumulative temperature increment in the south is larger than that in the north. The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and mountain areas with high altitude have the smallest increase, while cumulative temperature increment is negative in the Qinling Mountains. (4) The initial days (closing day) of the effective accumulated temperature (⩾5 ° and ⩾10 °) presented an overall phenomenon of advance (delay), and the number of advance (delay) days is mostly within 0-10 days. Both of their durations increased overall after mutation. The number of initial days (closing day) in advance (delay) is the largest in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land use and management in rural areas is facing more challenges in the implementation of rural revitalization strategy. Therefore, this paper applied stakeholder analysis, game equilibrium analysis, and empirical case analysis to explore the relationship evolution of various land use stakeholders in the context of rural revitalization. The results are as follows: (1) Since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the number of rural land use stakeholders has increased, the game relationships present a feature of complexity, diversification and multidirectionality. (2) There are mainly six kinds of game relationships in the rural revitalization period. We discussed four kinds of game in the process of decision-making in the study area, namely poverty alleviation, development of rural tourism, entry of new business agents, and rural development promoted by urban residents. (3) In the context of rural revitalization, related policies should focus more on infrastructure construction, the coordination of land use efficiency and ecological environment, the sustainability of farmers' livelihoods, etc. The conclusion is that we should be devoted to achieving the optimal balance of land use stakeholders, reducing the risks of stakeholders, protecting the ecological environment and seeking balanced interests among stakeholders in the process of rural revitalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Red tourism network attention degree is a typical method for measuring the performance level of red tourism development promotion, and it is also an important reflection of the influence of red tourism promotion level. This paper takes the "red tourism network attention degree" of 31 provincial- level regions as the research object, and uses the Moran index and panel vector autoregressive model to analyze the spatio-temporal characteristics and the influencing factors of the red tourism network in China from 2011 to 2018. The results show: (1) The network attention of the national red tourism shows a fluctuant growth trend in the study period, and its seasonal difference is significant. (2) The national red tourism network attention shows a decreasing trend from the eastern to central and western regions, but the trend of attention in the red tourism 5A-level tourist attractions is prominent in the western region. (3) The attention of red tourism networks in the 31 provincial- level regions has significant global spatial autocorrelation. The phenomenon of "high-high" and "low-low" agglomerations is concentrated in the eastern region, and central and western region. (4) The contribution of the factors affecting red tourism network attention was ranked as follows: internet penetration rate > per capita GDP > tourism information index > regional media attention > red tourism classic scenic network attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From the perspective of transaction structure, this paper measured the degree of the marketization of primary land market in 104 cities above the prefecture level of the Yellow River Basin from 2000 to 2016, and analyzed its spatio-temporal pattern evolution by spatial statistical model such as the Global Moran's I and G* i index. Grey correlation analysis model was used to explore the main influencing factors of the spatial- temporal evolution of land marketization level in the study area. The results of this study showed that, from 2000 to 2016, the land marketization level of the Yellow River Basin continued to rise at first and then decreased constantly, presenting a pattern "high level in the east, but low level in the west", which showed significant periodic differences. The land marketization of the whole Yellow River Basin had significant spatial autocorrelation. After accelerated expansion, the hotspots area of land marketization centered on downstream major cities shrank slowly. Several factors, such as the level of economic development, upgrading of industrial structure, investment in fixed assets, government revenue and expenditure ratio, foreign direct investment, and location conditions, influenced the evolution of the spatial- temporal pattern of the land marketization level in the river basin. However, due to the impact of social and economic development of China, the influence degree of various factors significantly changed in different years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper adopts the data of 30 provincial-level regions in China from 2000 to 2016 (in which the data of Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and Tibet are not collected), builds the "fourmodernization" (industrialization, informatization, urbanization, agricultural modernization) index system, calculates the four- modernization index, and conducts regional fourmodernization evaluation. Through the OLS and GMM regression models, the influence of the development of the four modernizations on the water footprint intensity is investigated, and the interaction between the four modernizations is set to identify the interaction between the four indicators. The main conclusions of this study are as follows: Firstly, from the perspective of regional development differences at the level of four modernizations, the level of China's four modernizations generally shows that the eastern region is better than the central region, and the central region is better than the western region. The distribution of water footprint intensity is similar. There may be a correlation between the level of development and the intensity of water footprint. Secondly, the econometric model shows that the improvement of the four modernizations has a positive impact on the improvement of water footprint intensity, but the impact of each modernization is different. Thirdly, the influence of the four- modernization interaction on the water footprint intensity is positive, indicating that the improvement effect of the four- modernization development on the water footprint intensity gradually converges. Therefore, priority is given to raising the level of the four modernizations in the backward areas. The improvement of the level of the four modernizations promotes the reduction of water footprint intensity and can effectively reduce the overall water footprint intensity level in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To understand the agricultural production dynamics and sustainability in the hilly areas of southeast China, this paper took Dehua county, a typical mountainous area in Fujian province, as an example to quantitatively analyze the changes of input, output, environmental load and sustainability of farmland-livestock systems from 2007 to 2016, and constructed the indicators of waste emergy ratio and environmental pollution emergy negative output. The results showed that the input of the farmland- livestock system in the study area was mainly based on the purchasing emergy, accounting for 68%-79% of the total emergy input, and the emergy of water resources accounted for 21%-31%. The emergy output of livestock systems accounted for more than 72% of the total output. And the emergy density fluctuated between 2.68×1012 and 3.33×1012 sej·m-2, and emergy per person increased from 1.23×1016 sej to 1.72× 1016 sej. The net emergy yield ratio decreased by 40%, and the environmental load increased significantly, which could have been maintained since 2015. The emergy sustainability index fell rapidly from 1.14 to 0.42 after a brief rise in 2007-2010. From the indicators of construction, the proportion of system waste emergy decreased, and environmental pollution emergy output decreased by about 22%. In terms of comprehensive economic benefits and waste utilization, the sustainable development of Dehua county has gradually improved in recent years. Dehua county is currently adjusting its output structure of farmland- livestock system. It should increase the amount of feedback emergy in the system, control fertilizer and feed input, and improve waste utilization to achieve sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the urbanization of China, construction land is generally distributed as a continuous area, and its change shows distinct spatial aggregation leading to the strong spatial autocorrelation, which is more obvious in remote sensing imagery with a fine spatial resolution. Based on the TripleSat-2 multi-spectral remote sensing images covering Nanjing city in 2016 and 2017, the paper compares and analyzes the performance of remote sensing change detection of construction land after we introduced the spatial autocorrelation index of the change vector as the image feature. Firstly, the three typical spatial autocorrelation indices of local G, Moran's I and Geary's C are extracted, and then the optimal spatial range of Lag and the optimal autocorrelation index suitable for the change detection are determined. The results showed that: (1) The spectral change vector had significant positive correlation. (2) The optimal range of Lag can be determined by global Moran's I and semi-variance. (3) We used the local G and local Moran's I with the spectral change vectors to increase the F1 score of the change detection, and the local G showed the better performance. (4) Using the local G with the optimal range of Lag as additional image features, the F1 scores were 20% higher than that using only the spectral change vectors. Fusing local spatial autocorrelation information especially of the multi- scale local G as the additional image features can effectively improve the change detection accuracy of construction land in remfote sensing imagery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As China's largest CO2 emission agency, industrial carbon emission reduction is crucial to achieving China's CO2 emission reduction goals. Apart from technical upgrading and adjustment of energy consumption structure, industrial restructuring should also be one of the important measures to decrease carbon emission intensity. To understand the relationship between industrial structure and industrial carbon emission intensity, this paper analyzed the CKC relationship between the output value of each department and its CO2 emissions based on Chinese industry and energy data from 1986 to 2016 by classifying 41 industrial sectors into 16 departments. Then, the carbon emission intensity of total industry output was decomposed into the carbon emission department structure, carbon emission factor, energy consumption intensity, and output structure with Kaya function. Further, contributions of four factors to the change of Chinese industrial carbon emission intensity were studied with LMDI method. At last, some conclusions were drawn as follows. Firstly, the relationship between the output and its CO2 emissions of different industrial departments is different. Only the wood processing and furniture manufacturing, papermaking and printing, stationery manufacturing and non-metallic mineral products industries have an inverted U- shaped relationship. The department of machinery/transportation/electrical/electronic equipment manufacturing has an inverted Nshaped relationship, and the remaining departments have a linear or monotonous increasing relationship. Secondly, the decline of energy consumption intensity is the outstanding factor and all departments show the same trend, while the contributions of output structure and carbon emission department structure show different trends of different departments. The capital and technology- intensive industries, such as non- metallic mineral products, chemical industry, pharmaceutical industry, machinery/transportation/electrical/electronic equipment manufacturing, wood processing and furniture manufacturing, show the significant technical reduction effects. The primary product processing industries, such as other manufacturing, oil and gas extraction, textiles and apparel, and chemical fiber and rubber and plastics industries, have significant structure reduction effects, while some energy industries, such as petroleum processing, coke and nuclear fuel processing, metal smelting and processing, and electricity gas and water producing and supplying industry, show a strong size and structure effect simultaneously. Therefore, China needs to formulate a scientific and reasonable industrial structure adjustment policy based on the characteristics of the relationship between the output value of various industrial sectors and its CO2 emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Overseas investment in agriculture is an important part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The research on the characteristics of USA's overseas investment in agriculture can provide scientific basis for a better use of domestic and international markets and resources, not only for drawing on USA's development experience, but also for responding and adapting to the investment behavior of major competitors. Based on the Outward Foreign Direct Investment theory, this paper adopts the logistic model and panel data analysis method to study the spatiotemporal pattern and influencing factors of USA's overseas investment in agriculture from 2000 to 2018, and discusses its policy implications for China's agricultural cooperation. The results show that: firstly, the USA's overseas investment in agriculture is mainly distributed on food processing and other pre- and post- production processes, mainly concerning developed countries such as Western European countries, as well as some neighbor developing countries such as Mexico and Brazil. Secondly, USA's overseas investment in agriculture showed a significant market orientation. In the meantime, it is also affected by geographical and cultural distance, national governance and other factors of the host country. Thirdly, in comparison of differences between China and the USA in characteristics of overseas investment in agriculture, considering the goal of China's international agricultural cooperation under the background of current international economic and trade situation, we suggested that China should further optimize the layout of agricultural industry chain, which will advance the implementation of sustainable development goals set by the United Nations and increase China's pricing power and channel control in the field of global food security. Furthermore we should explore the existing overseas agricultural investment market, reduce the geopolitical competition pressure and fully tap into potential market opportunities, focus on the agricultural technology demands of the BRI countries and region, and ensure that investment objectives are consistent with the investment demands of the host country. More importantly, it is necessary to solve practical problems faced with China's overseas investment in agriculture such as large cultural and institutional differences, which will improve the sustainability of agricultural cooperation projects under the BRI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The compact urban construction is a new way to avoid the disorderly spread of the city, improve the quality of urban development and realize the efficient use of land resources. Therefore, it is essential to coordinate the relationship between urban compactness and urbanization level. Based on this, this paper takes 30 provincial capital cities and municipalities directly under the Central Government as the research object, and comprehensively uses the entropy method and capacity coupling coefficient model to measure the comprehensive level of provincial capital compactness and urbanization, and analyzes the coupling and coordination relationship between them. The results show that: (1) The compactness of China's provincial capitals continued to increase between 2006 and 2016. The compactness of the eastern provincial capitals was slightly higher than that of the central and western cities, showing the characteristics of the current situation of the east, the middle, and the west. (2) The city of compactness is gradually decreasing, and the number of the cities with medium and low compactness is increasing. (3) The relationship between compactness and urbanization of most provincial capital cities in China is mainly on the verge of coordination, and the overall transition changes from disordered state to coordinated state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the proposal of national spatial planning, China's urban-rural planning system has entered a new period of development, and the traditional national spatial development dominated by production space development has also turned to the new national spatial development, in which ecological, living and production spaces are coordinated. However, how to promote the cognition from the traditional national territorial area based on the concept of "Sansheng spaces" (production, living and ecological space) to the complex national attractive territorial area that enriches cultural context, ecological traits, and life foundation, balance the development priorities of different regions, so as to avoid blindly follow the single development model, are major themes facing both the central and local governments. From the perspective of the combination of history and reality, this paper, on the basis of reviewing the spatial cognitive process and rethinking the practice of spatial planning, clarifies the concept and connotation of "national attractive territorial area", puts forward the focus of "national attractive territorial area" in the national spatial planning system, as well as expounds the role and functionality of the "national attractive territorial area" from the aspects of balanced regional development, flexible management adjustment, spatial element flow, and development goal optimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the background that China strongly advocated the chemical fertilizer use reduction and zero growth, how to improve chemical fertilizer use efficiency by farmers has become a crucial issue. This paper measures the chemical fertilizer use efficiency from the perspective of technical efficiency and analyzes the influence direction and degree of land fragmentation on the chemical fertilizer use efficiency through regression analysis and Shapley value framework based on R2. The results show that: (1) The technical inefficiency is high in the use of chemical fertilizers. In the case of other inputs such as unchanged labor and land, about 52.51% of fertilizer input can be reduced with no effect on the yield. Therefore, this could sufficiently achieve the aim of fertilizer reduction with no effect on the yield by improving the management level of farmer's fertilizer use. (2) The land fragmentation has a significant negative impact on chemical fertilizer use efficiency. All other factors being equal, each block of land increase could lead to a fertilizer use efficiency decrease of 0.002. This conclusion is robust to different variable definitions, estimating methods and winsorized sample. In addition, the Shapley value decomposition result shows that land fragmentation is also an important reason for low chemical fertilizer use efficiency of Chinese farmers. On the whole, land fragmentation can conduct 12.15% of farmer's chemical fertilization efficiency variance which is fourth in all the factors only next to village dummy variables, paddy field ratio and food crop planting ratio. Moreover, the contribution of the land fragmentation to chemical fertilizer use efficiency difference is stronger in the western region where the fragmentation is relatively high. (3) The difference in the chemical fertilization efficiency mainly depends on local village characte- ristics and the characteristics of production and management including the management scale, plantation structure, land quality, and whether or not to join the cooperative. However, the explanation of farmer's individual characteristics influenced by collective decision to chemical fertilizer use efficiency is relatively weak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ensuring the supply of important agricultural products, particularly food, is one of the primary tasks of implementing the strategy of rural revitalization. Setting the goal of food self-sufficiency level is the foundation of food security evaluation and food policy formulation, and this directly affects the strategic direction and implementation path of a nation's food industry development. Based on the review of the existing literatures regarding the goal setting of food self-sufficiency in China, this paper summarizes the relevant concepts of China's food self-sufficiency rate, reviews the evolution of food self-sufficiency policy at the national level, and focuses on the systematic summary of the level, basis and significance of the goal setting of China's food self-sufficiency rate, as well as the causes and effects of its change in recent years. The study results show that the concept of "food" is closer to the essential meaning of food security than the concept of "grain". However, in existing studies, there is no clear or unified judgment regarding the level of self-sufficiency required for food security in China, nor regarding the level of self-sufficiency allowed by resource conditions. This study proposes that the current stage take the carrying capacity of resources and the environment as a hard constraint and stable maintenance of grain production as the red line; replace the former grain self-sufficiency rate target with the total grain self-sufficiency target; and compensate for the gap between domestic supply and demand, by making full use of foreign resources and international markets. Doing so will allow us to more effectively achieve a higher level of unity of domestic food production with ecological environmental protection and food security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of the coupling relationship and coupling path of carbon emission efficiency and industrial structure upgrade is of great practical significance to the green development of China in the new era and for the construction of a beautiful China. Firstly, the carbon emission efficiency is calculated by the super- efficient SBM model containing undesired output. Then, the coupling degree between the efficiency of regional carbon emission and the industrial structure upgrade is calculated and analyzed by the extended coupling model, and the provinces are divided into multiple layers according to their coupling degrees and coupling characteristics. Finally, the coupling path of the two factors is designed under the framework of dynamic distribution. The research found that: (1) There lies an obvious difference between the spatial and temporal pattern of carbon emission efficiency and high-grade industrial structure level. In terms of their coupling degrees, nearly half of the provinces are between 0.2 and 0.4, which can be considered as moderately and mildly imbalanced recession. Besides, according to the coupling characteristics, nearly half of the provinces belong to the coupling type of "low level coordination" with low development degree and high coordination degree. (2) There is an obvious inconsistency between carbon emission efficiency and the industrial structure upgrade in China from the aspect of reginal dynamic distribution. The former has a severer degree of cure than the latter. Therefore, China should improve the degree of coupling between regional carbon emission efficiency and industrial structure on the basis of mitigating the solidification of interregional carbon emission efficiency. (3) The paper designs the coupling path of carbon emission efficiency and the industrial structure upgrade in China on the basis of the coupling classification diagram, which can not only alleviate the dynamic incoordination of the two factors, but also effectively enhance their coupling degree among regions of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At present, North China faces serious groundwater overmining problem. In the action plan of comprehensive control of groundwater overmining in North China, it is clearly proposed to strengthen agricultural water saving, and adjust the structure of agricultural planting. Farmers' cognition of water saving irrigation technology is closely related to water saving effect. This paper takes the survey of 269 farmers in Guyuan county, Zhangjiakou city, Hebei province as a sample, uses structural equation model to explore intrinsic mechanism of farmers' cognition of water saving irrigation technology. Results show that, the path of personal characteristics of farmers, characteristics of household production, characteristics of policy advocacy, farmer cognition of water resources scarcity are 0.186, 0.157, 0.469 and 0.200. respectively. It is indicated that water saving irrigation technology subsidy, technical training and visiting high efficiency water saving demonstration area are effective in improving farmers' cognition of water saving irrigation technology. Therefore, on the basis of reliance on government technical financial support, we should find out the farmers' cognition differences in water saving irrigation techniques, and perfect the publicity system of water saving irrigation technology so as to enhance farmers' enthusiasm to use water saving irrigation technology in North China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the unification of territorial space use regulations has been upgraded to an unprecedented level of national strategic deployment, which is an extremely important reform task with overall significance. Based on the systematical review on the institutional evolution of territorial space use regulation since 1949, this paper puts an emphasis on summarizing the major features of previous territorial space use regulations in China. In general, we conclude that the key to implement territorial space use regulations is to control the three important aspects which consist of planning, licensing and supervision, to coordinate the utilization of continental space and ocean space and to discriminate the management of construction and non- construction purposes. On the premise of system construction, we propose four suggestions to institution on how to unify the territorial space use regulations: (1) Establishing a unified control line system for territorial space use regulations at the planning level; (2) Building an abundant and effective measure system for territorial space use regulations; (3) Constructing a unified and explicit regulatory system for territorial space use regulations at the supervision level; (4) Improving the legal system to help territorial space use governance at the support level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The protection of traditional villages and towns is one of the important tasks of newtype urbanization. However, the residential buildings that are tangible cultural heritage and cultural genes are the mainstay of traditional feature in traditional villages and towns, and the traditional villages and towns would have lost the carrier of the inheritance of cultural heritage, if their traditional residential buildings were missing. In this paper, we take the representative architectural landscape characteristic towns and villages as study cases to analyze their regional differentiation of architecture style, and explore the impact mechanism of their regional differentiation of architecture style. The study found that, firstly, there are 12 types of architecture style in Chinese traditional dwellings. The resulting architectural feature areas show that there are obvious differences in spatial distribution between north and south. The northern architectural feature area is divided into two sections with different sizes, and the southern architectural feature area has two "string of pearls" distribution. Secondly, there are obvious regional differentiations in the characteristic of Chinese traditional residential architecture in 5 aspects, namely, settlement environment, spatial layout, modeling style, building materials and detail decoration. Thirdly, from the impact mechanism of architecture style regional differentiation of Chinese traditional residential buildings, the natural environmental factors (including topography, landform, water system, climate, planting material, earth and stone) are the cornerstone of the formation of architecture style regional differentiation of traditional residence. The cultural factors such as the patriarchal ethics, fengshui concept and ethnic culture are the internal impetus of the architecture style regional differentiation of traditional residence. The cultural factors such as population migration, war defense and business economy are the extrapolation forces of architecture style regional differentiation of traditional residence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction of high- speed rail in China improves the comprehensive transportation systems significantly, while challenging the development of domestic air transportation at the same time. Based on the timetable data from 2007 to 2014, the overlapping market of HSR and air network is identified from the perspective of direct connection between city pairs. In 2007, the overlappping network only had 21 city pairs with direct flights and highspeed trains, and the number dramatically increased to 277 in 2014. This paper first analyzes the potential influence of HSR development on airlines and its spatial distribution. Then, a random effect regression model is established to measure the ex- post effects of the entry of HSR on air passenger flows of all the 277 city- pairs, among which, 94 city- pairs connected with the three hub cities, and 183 city-pairs connected with other feeder airports in China. The results are as follows: (1) Despite the fact that HSR and air transportation systems in China are developing in parallel, the entry of HSR has caused a modal shift from air transportation. The reduction on air travel demand caused by G trains is more obvious than that of D trains. (2) The air travel demand between inter-cities within the same or nearby provinces decreases sharply. (3) Distance, GDP, and rank of airports are significant positive factors in increasing air travel demand. (4) Due to various flight networks, preference for air transport, and sensitivity to travel time in hub cities, city pairs connected with Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou are more competitive for air transportation than for HSR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climatic comfort or human thermal comfort has a far- reaching impact on human settlements and human activities. A number of thermal indexes are widely applied in the fields of architectural design, urban planning, human health, and tourism development. As an indispensable and critical part of climatic comfort assessment, scale of thermal sensation not only greatly affects the validity of a thermal index, but also makes the comparison among different thermal indexes possible. At present, a few traditional scales of thermal sensation are generally used for the climatic comfort assessment in different regions without any localized adjustment. Alternatively, experimental investigation and questionnaire survey are adopted to formulate the scale of thermal sensation for a certain area. Therefore, a new approach named "seasonal anchor method" is proposed in this paper, which includes 4 steps --"grading, naming, anchoring, and projecting". Furthermore, based on the long term daily meteorological data (from 1981 to 2010) from 814 national basic meteorological observing stations throughout China, a case study is carried out. In this study, a 7- level scale of thermal sensation, which includes "torrid, hot, warm, neutral, cool, cold, and frozen", is proposed. Meanwhile, the threshold values of each level of thermal sensation for THI (temperature and humidity indexes) and WEI (wind effect index), which can be adopted as a national standard, are generated. Finally, climate-comfortable period and climate-uncomfortable period in China are evaluated, which brings us some meaningful discoveries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking urban agglomeration as the main object to optimize the spatial layout of urbanization is an important part of constructing the national land spatial planning system, and the essence of spatial optimization is to promote the coordinated development of large, medium and small cities within the urban agglomeration. Based on the measurement of urbanization coordination level of 26 cities in the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration from 2001 to 2016, this paper analyses and identifies the urban coordination relationship by using the methods of social network and multi- dimensional- scaling, and explores its internal evolution mechanism. The results show that: (1) With the improvement of the urbanization coordination level of the cities in the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration, the internal space of the urban agglomeration is obviously changed. The high coordination cities gradually show a Zshaped distribution with Shanghai as the core, and the low coordination cities were stably distributed in the expanded area of the urban agglomeration. (2) According to the correlation strength of the coordination level of the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration, the cohesive subgroups were divided. The values of weighted average centrality and the contact density of the cohesive subgroups of the urbanization coordination relationship increased, and the polarization effect of Shanghai was more obvious. (3) The coordination structure of the urban agglomeration was identified from two dimensions of space and time. The Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration has transformed from the "circle layer" structure centered on the provincial capital cities under the influence of spatial distance into the structure of "coreperiphery" under the influence of temporal distance. (4) The evolution of spatial structure of the urban agglomeration was influenced by the change of coordination level of population, land and economy urbanization. Compared with population and economy urbanization, land urbanization has a significant role in promoting the level of urban coordination. The optimizing policies of the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration were proposed from the perspective of coordination after analyses of its spatial structure. This is conducive to the realization of the integration of urban agglomeration and the efficient use of space resources under the conditions of China's existing resource and environmental carrying capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the improvement of the living standards of Chinese residents, the domestic demand for meat, eggs and milk has increased year by year. As the main food protein, soybean meal is the main product of the soybean processing industry. As an important part of the soybean industry chain, the soybean processing industry has influence on the distribution of soybean production, feed, and animal husbandry. This paper chooses the soybean processing plants from 1996 to 2016 as the study object. We explore the spatial pattern of China's soybean processing plants by using the average nearest neighbor analysis and nuclear density analysis method. Then we analyze the factors that influence the layout of soybean processing plants in different periods using the conditional Logit regression model. The results show that since 1996, the layout areas of China's processing plants have shifted from the main soybean producing areas to the coastal ports to soybean market area. Up to now, a belt-like pattern has formed, which takes the coastal port cities as the core, and the Yangtze River, Harbin-Dalian Railway and Longhai Railway as diffusion paths. Raw material supply, transportation cost, market size and potential, agglomeration and policy are all important factors which affect the spatial pattern of soybean processing plants and the main factors are different in different periods. Raw material supply, transportation cost, market size and agglomeration have the most important influence on the layout decisions of soybean processing plants from 2000 to 2015. But the agglomeration and policy were the dominant factors from 2006 to 2010 and it turned into market potential after 2010. The change of distribution of raw materials and soybean meal market lead to the change of transportation cost. The cost and expansion of soybean meal market attracted plants agglomeration from domestic soybean producing areas to the coastal port areas. With the agglomeration in the coastal ports, the increased competition among enterprises promoted the diffusion of enterprises from coastal port areas to soybean meal consumption areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China achieved ten-year consecutive grain production increase which had never appeared in history no matter in China or in the world during 2003-2013. Till 2015, twelve-year consecutive grain output increase has been achieved. The purpose of this paper is to detect the spatiotemporal patterns and the main investigated contributions of grain output increase at the county level during 2003-2013. Based on factor contribution analysis and GIS, this paper analyzed the spatiotemporal patterns of grain output increase at the county level, taking use of planted area output and yield per unit area. The results showed that: 1) the grain output increase had appeared in more than 75% of the counties in China, most of these counties located in the major grain-producing regions in Northeast Plain and the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain. At the scope of grain output increase accumulation, half of national grain output increase concentrated in the top 198 counties (which accounted for 8.49% of counties in China), and 80% of national grain output increase concentrated in the top 550 counties (which accounted for 23.60% of counties in China); 2) the polarization of grain output increase at the county level was significant: the counties in hysteretic growth and overspeed growth occupied 33.98% and 33.15% of counties respectively, in which the overspeed counties mostly concentrated in Songnen Plain, Sanjiang Plain, the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain, Jianghan Plain, Poyang Lake Plain, Loess Plateau, and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region; 3) as for most counties whose grain output increased during 2003-2013, the expansion of planted area and the promotion of yield per unit area were both important reasons. There are 893 counties where the former played more important role, mainly located in Northeast Plain, the west of Inner-Mongolia Plateau, Hexi Corridor, Jianghan Plain, Dongting Lake Plain and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. There are 877 counties where the latter played more important role, mainly located in the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain, Loess Plateau, and the southeast of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. In general, major grain-producing counties were big contributors to the ten-year consecutive grain output increase from 2003 to 2013. Fiscal support for major grain-producing counties was needed to keep the grain production capacity. Only in this way, the national grain security will be ensured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Atmospheric precipitation is the most important link in the process of global water vapor cycle and energy conversion, and it is the material basis for the global ecosystem to maintain stability. Therefore, it is increasingly important to monitor and forecast precipitation for regional climate analysis, water resources evaluation and hydrological process simulation. As an important ecological barrier, the Qilian Mountains plays a critical role in maintaining the natural environment and social development in Northwest China. Thus, it is of great significance to examine the distribution and variation of precipitation in the Qilian Mountains. However, there are relatively few studies on precipitation in mountainous areas due to some factors, such as insufficient measured data, complicated precipitation environment and so on, which limits the further study to some extent. In recent years, with the development of satellite inversion technology, the application of satellite to precipitation retrieval is becoming more and more mature, which provides data support for the study of precipitation in mountainous areas. Therefore, this paper uses the data of TRMM monthly precipitation and ground meteorological station precipitation, combined with the error evaluation and other mathematical statistics and Kriging interpolation method, to calibrate TRMM precipitation, so as to examine the spatiotemporal variations of the zone of the maximum precipitation in the study area. The results show that: (1) The overall performance of TRMM precipitation is good in the Qilian Mountains. The measured annual precipitation of 31 meteorological stations has a high correlation (0.94) with the TRMM data, and the correlation coefficients of the seasonal average precipitation are 0.87 (spring), 0.89 (summer), 0.88 (autumn) and 0.7 (winter). (2) The errors of some stations are large and the low values are overestimated and the high values are underestimated. (3) Annual average precipitation shows a decreasing trend from east to west in the region, and zones of the maximum precipitation in the eastern, central and western parts appear at 4100 m, 4500 m and 4700 m, respectively. The vertical variation rates of the average annual precipitation are 16.6 mm/100 m, 10.8 mm/100 m, 9.8 mm/100 m, respectively. (4) The precipitation fluctuated and increased in the eastern, central and western parts of the study area from 1998 to 2016. The zone of the maximum precipitation also shows a fluctuating upward trend. The maximum precipitation height in each season decreases in the order of summer, spring, autumn and winter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comprehensive suitability evaluation of spatial development and construction land is the scientific basis and guarantee for optimizing spatial development pattern and improve its quality and efficiency. It is of great significance for the implementation of regional coordinated development strategy. In this paper, according to the principles of urban-rural integration and land-ocean co-ordination, we selected Liaoning province as a case, the only both coastal and border province in Northeast China. The suitability evaluation index system was established from 3 dimensions, including natural environment, economy and society, and marine function. To evaluate and analyze the suitability of spatial development and constructive land in this province, we integrated the application of Delphi method, cask theory, linear weighted summation model and multi- factors space overlay analysis. The results show that there exist obvious characteristics of spatial differentiation in the suitability of spatial development and construction land throughout Liaoning. The most and more suitable construction land represent an obvious central peripheral structure, and concentrate along both the Shenyang-Dalian axis and the Binhai axis; the most unsuitable construction land shows a north- south symmetric distribution by the Binhai axis, while the more unsuitable construction land shows an east-west symmetric distribution by the Shenyang- Dalian axis. The construction land areas of most suitability, more suitability, more unsuitability, and most unsuitability are 15504.39 km2, 22645.34 km2, 66833.96 km2, and 68720.99 km2, respectively, and the proportions of landocean area are 8.93%, 13.04%, 38.48%, and 39.56%, respectively. The suitability of natural environment plays a fundamental and decisive role in the development and construction of regional land; and the characteristics of agglomeration and dispersion are significantly different at different levels and regions. The suitability of economy and society obviously modifies that of natural environment. The introduction of marine functional zone has greatly expanded the regional land in Liaoning province, but the spatial distribution of marine functional suitability is extremely uneven. And due to the nature of marine functional zone, the space which can be directly developed and constructed is limited, while the space for protection is great. The contradiction between spatial development and ecological environment protection will be still severe for a long time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The grain production transformation is the core content of the evolution of the rural production system. The breakthrough of grain production transformation research can clearly reflect the evolution of regional rural man-land interactions, and provide a new perspective for deepening urban- rural integration and rural transformation. Based on the analysis of grain production transformation since China's reform and opening- up, this paper attempts to construct an analytical framework for China's grain production transformation. We identified four stages in transformation process of grain production, namely, grain as the key link, gricultural restructuring, comprehensive transformation and urban-rural integration. Using GLRL model, the analytical framework of China's grain production transformation was constructed. It was found that the grain production evolved from "Green Loop" stage to "Red Loop" stage, which was gradually integrated from rural local production network into urbanrural production network. In addition, the disturbance factors driving the grain production transformation have multiple spatial-temporal features and cross-scale effects. Factors such as urban-rural integration development, rural vitalization strategy, rural man-land interactions, and globalization will have an important impact on future grain production transformation. Furthermore, optimizing the relationship between grain production and rural transformation provides guarantees for safeguarding the orderly transformation of grain production, and improving the conditions for creating the rural production system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The continuous degradation of ecosystem services is a common challenge facing human-beings, and it is the focus of global sustainable development research. The ecological environmental protection in the Middle Yangtze River region is of great significance to the construction of ecological security pattern in China. In order to deeply analyze the interference degree of land use activities to ecosystem services value (ESV) in the Middle Yangtze River region, it is necessary to evaluate the spatial-temporal distribution of ESV and the sensitivity of ecosystem services to land use change in the study region. Based on the evaluation results of ESV in the Middle Yangtze River region, this paper constructed the ecological contribution model of land use change and ecosystem services sensitivity model. The results showed that: (1) The average ecosystem service value (AESV) in this region in the years of 1995, 2005 and 2015 was 46244.29 yuan/hm2, 46484.08 yuan/hm2, and 46249.254 yuan/hm2, respectively, and the study region experienced a "first increase and then decrease" change process. The counties with higher AESV were mainly located in the mountainous areas; plain areas, urban agglomeration areas, Wuhan, Changsha, and Nanchang, and major traffic routes tended to have lower AESV; the ESV change rate presented a spatial pattern of "two horizontal and three vertical" distribution. (2) The conversion of cultivated land to forest land and cultivated land to water areas during 1995-2015 were the key factors for the improvement of regional ESV, and their ecological contribution degrees were 33.34% and 32.99%, respectively; forest land converted to cultivated land, forest land converted to construction land and cultivated land converted to construction land were important causes that induced the deterioration of the regional ecological environmental quality, and their ecological contribution degrees were 36.21%, 20.26% and 11.98%, respectively. (3) The ecosystem services sensitivity areas were mainly distributed in areas with frequent human activities, 1% increase in the integrated land use dynamics would result in 0.18% and 0.15% fluctuation in ESV in the Middle Yangtze River region during the periods of 1995- 2005 and 2005-2015, respectively; the ecological sensitivity of food production, raw material production, gas regulation, soil conservation and maintenance of biological diversity increased, and the sensitivity of other ecosystem function gradually weakened during the two study periods. The results of this study can provide scientific implications for the ecological environmental protection and the continuous supply of various sub- functions of the ecosystem services in the Middle Yangtze River region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The urban-rural integrated development is the key measure to realize rural vitalization and promote new-type urbanization, while the land market is an important channel to realize the flow of urban-rural development elements, also a key link to connect urban-rural development. This paper analyzes the scientific connotation and substantial characteristics of urban- rural integrated development, and then explores the driving mechanism of land market on urban- rural integrated development. Based on these foundation, we quantitatively analyze the evolution law of land market and urban- rural integrated development in 273 cities at prefecture level or above in China. Furthermore, the relationship between land market and urban-rural integrated development was tested based on the panel data model to give a feasible proposal for the integration of urban and rural development from the perspective of land market. Main conclusions are drawn as follows: (1) The urban-rural integrated development is a process of the reconstruction of urban- rural values aiming at removing the obstacles hindering urban- rural development. It helps to promote the free flow and equal exchange of urban- rural elements, and achieve the convergence of returns from urban- rural development elements. The essence is to achieve the overall optimization of urban-rural regional functions through urban-rural integrated development and complementarity. (2) The effect of land market on urban- rural integration is a balance of advantages and disadvantages, and the direction depends on whether the land market is benign. Under the urban-rural dual distribution system and the curtain wall of society, the distorted land market impedes the urban- rural integrated development. (3) From 2005 to 2013, the scale of land market, land market price and land marketization degree increased by 113.66%, 274.09% and 37.07%, respectively, while the level of urban-rural integrated development in 59.34% cities have declined. Steadily developing land market and low level of urban-rural integrated development in China presented stark contrast and obvious spatio-temporal differentiation. (4) Currently, land market is more of a hindrance to urban-rural integrated development, but there is a "low level trap" between land market and urban-rural integrated development. Breaking the suppression inflection point of 88.64%, land market can then play a positive role on promoting urban- rural integration. So, reshaping the healthy value orientation of the land market development, accelerating the land marketization reform and exploring the mechanism of population-land linkage are important parts for followup work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To discuss how off-farm employment affect the harvesting decision-making of households with different scales in China's collective forest area is valuable to clarifying the forest management objectives for households and the trend of forest management ownership in collective forest area. This can give evidence for supporting the large-scale forest ownership under the background of the fast growing of out-migration rural labors in China. Based on the theory of New Economics of Labor Migration (NELM), this paper collected the input-output data at plot level of Chinese fir management through a survey of 50 rural households in Zhejiang, Fujian and Jiangxi provinces. Then, it calculated the optimal rotation age of largeand small-scale households with the Faustmann model, and used the econometric model to analyze how off- farm employment affect the harvesting decision-making of households with different scales. The results show that there is no obvious difference of optimal rotation age between large-and small-scale households. The migration effect of off-farm employment causing the expect rotation age is obviously smaller than optimal rotation age for small-scale households; on the contrary, the income effect of off-farm employment caused the expect rotation age is significantly closely related with optimal rotation age for large-scale households. Large-scale ownership is more suitable for raising large timbers and increasing economic and ecological value in collective forest area under the fast growing of out-migration rural labors in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The remote location of resource-based cities is considered to be an important factor restricting the transformation and sustainable development of resource- based cities. With the rapid development of high-speed rail, has the location of resource-based cities been improved? In this paper, with the State Council identifying 126 resources- based cities as the case cities, taking the provincial capital cities of resources-based cities located in these provinces and three regional central cities of Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou which are closely linked to resources-based cities as the reference objects, using the calculation method of time distance, the location of resources- based cities was evaluated among different development types and different regions. The research shows that: (1) From the perspective of overall sample, due to the impact of high- speed railway, the location of resource- based cities has deteriorated. Compared with D-series trains, the impact of G-series trains is even more pronounced. (2) Dseries trains and G- series trains have a consistent effect on the locations of resource- based cities. To a certain extent, D- series trains and G- series trains have an overlapping layout in spatial distribution. (3) From the perspective of resource types, the mature resource-based cities are not only the cities with the most obvious improvements of locations, but also the cities with the most obvious deterioration of locations. (4) From the perspective of different regions, the central region is the region with the most obvious improvement of locations, and the western region is the region with the most obvious deterioration of locations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Mekong River Commission is the only international intergovernmental organization in the Mekong River basin engaged in water resources development and management, but its institutional system effectiveness has been questioned. Especially the "Procedures for Notification, Prior Consultation and Agreement" concluded in 2003, which was successively applied to the Xayabury, Don Sahong and Pak Beng hydropower stations in Laos, not only failed to reconcile the differences of interest and contradictions of member countries, but also caused great controversy. As the mainstream hydropower development accelerates, the objective environment for China to participate in the development and management of water resources in the sub- regions is also changed. There is an urgent need to strengthen relevant theoretical foundation and practical research to promote basin development cooperation and sustainable development. Therefore, this paper mainly introduces the institutional framework, management mechanism and operating process of the MRC prior consultation mechanism, while objectively analyzes its achievements and problems based on the three practices, and then puts forward suggestions for improvement in four aspects, such as supplementing an explanatory document, making provisions for benefit compensation and public participation, as well as perfecting the process of prior consultation. Finally, we discuss the impact of the MRC prior consultation mechanism on China's participation in the whole basin management and effective countermeasures, which will provide reference and enlightenment for China's water resources development and cooperation policy under the Lancang- Mekong cooperation framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improving the efficiency of agricultural production and developing moderate scale management are the directions of China’s agricultural development at present, and land transfer is the main way to realize the scale management of land in China in the system of collective ownership. Based on detailed analysis of spatial-temporal variation characteristics of land transfer in China, this paper used factor analysis method to explore the factors affecting land transfer at the provincial scale. The results showed that: 1) At present, China’s land transfer is developing rapidly, but the regional differences are obvious. The land transfer rate increased rapidly from 5.2% in 2007 to 33.3% in 2015. In 2007, only 4 million hectares of cultivated land were transferred. In 2015, 30 million hectares of cultivated land were involved in land transfer. The scale of land transfer increased by 6 times in 8 years, and 3 million hectares of cultivated land were added to the land transfer process every year. The southern and western regions have slower transfer speed and smaller transfer scale, while the transfer speed is much faster and the scale is much larger in plains. 2) The promotion effect of land transfer on scale management (management scale > 3.33 hm2) is not obvious yet. The ratio of scale management is still at a low level that only 1.42% famers have management scale bigger than 3.33 hm2, and the management scale of cultivated land of 80% farmers is below 0.67 hm2. The fragmentation of land has a great hindrance to the realization of the land transfer effects. 3) Land resource endowment, economic development level, transfer transaction cost, land ownership stability, peasant households’ willingness of land transfer and traffic accessibility are the most important factors that affect the development of land transfer. Land resource endowment, economic development level and land ownership stability are positively related to land transfer, and transaction cost is negatively related to land transfer. 4) There exist regional differences of the maturity of land transfer conditions in China. Heilongjiang, Inner Mongolia and Jilin have the highest maturity of land transfer conditions, and the maturity of land transfer conditions in Guizhou, Yunnan and Guangxi are the lowest. There are policy implications that the high transaction cost in China hinders the realization of land transfer effect and land fragmentation is an important cause of the increase of transaction costs. Carrying out the reform of the rural land system and promoting the farmland contracting rights in a certain area can promote the concentration of small plots, effectively reduce the transaction costs of land transfer and increase the scale of farmers’land management. At the same time, the regional differences of the maturity of land transfer conditions and the major limiting factors of land transfer should be paid attention in the formulation of policies that promote land transfer. Policies should be formulated by regions to solve the land transfer barriers, and moderate scale management fit for local condition should be encouraged. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]