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With the increase in global temperature, the global change situation dominated by climate warming is becoming more and more serious. Climate change will cause differences in the suitable areas of species in different periods. Ginkgo biloba L., a rare and endangered wild plant protected at the national level in China, is the oldest relict plant in the world. Because of severe climate change, only China's wild Ginkgo biloba has been preserved, yet China's wild Ginkgo biloba population is facing extinction risk. Ginkgo biloba has rich ornamental value, application value, economic value, medicinal value and ecological value. Not only can it produce economic and ecological benefits, but it can also produce huge social benefits. Based on the data of Ginkgo biloba sample distribution, bioclimatic variables and soil variables, this paper uses the MaxEnt model to simulate Ginkgo biloba suitable area under current and future different climate scenarios, and analyzes the changes in the potential suitable area of Ginkgo biloba in the future through ArcGIS 10.6. The results are as follows: (1) the results simulated by the MaxEnt model are AUC > 0.9, showing that the simulation results have a high accuracy; (2) the min temperature of the coldest month, precipitation of the wettest month, elevation, and temperature seasonality are the main environmental variables affecting the change in the Ginkgo biloba suitable area; (3) under future climate scenarios, the suitable area of Ginkgo biloba is predicted to expand in the future, covering most of the south and some northeast regions, and moderate temperature and precipitation changes under climate change are conducive for the growth of Ginkgo biloba; and (4) in the future, the distribution center of the suitable area will move to the northeast. According to the conclusions in this paper, it is expected to provide theoretical reference for cultivation and management, sustainable utilization and solution of ecological environment problems of Ginkgo biloba. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese Communist Party and its supporters are increasingly using social media platforms to shape China's public image. This online image is a means of strengthening domestic nationalism and of projecting "soft power" abroad. This paper examines various forms of anti-Westernism that are central to this image-making. It analyzes several recent topics—the Belt and Road Initiative, climate change, the COVID-19 vaccine, the Beijing Olympics, and the conflict in Ukraine—on the r/Sino subreddit page of Reddit and compares them with two online news outlets, the South China Morning Post and China Daily. The paper focuses on how these media frame the contest between a rising China and a failing West, so creating a discourse that competes with the negative portrayals of China outside the country. The paper contrasts the aggressive strengthening of China's image against the West on social media with more sober accounts of the same topics in China's official media and in commercial news outlets. The contribution of the paper is to document an emerging online anti-Westernism that is playing an increasing role in the changing geopolitical landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 20 July 2021, an extreme rainstorm battered Zhengzhou in China's Henan Province, killing 302 people, including 14 individuals who drowned in a subway tunnel and 6 who drowned in a road tunnel. As the global climate warms, extreme weather events similar to the Zhengzhou flood will become more frequent, with increasingly catastrophic consequences for society. Taking a case study-based approach by focusing on the record-breaking Zhengzhou flood, this paper examines the governance capacity of inland cities in North China for managing extreme precipitation and flooding events from the perspective of the flood risk management process. Based on in-depth case analysis, our paper hypothesizes that inland cities in North China still have low risk perceptions of extreme weather events, which was manifested in insufficient pre-disaster preparation and prevention, poor risk communication, and slow emergency response. Accordingly, it is recommended that inland cities update their risk perceptions of extreme rainfall and flooding events, which are no longer low-probability, high-impact "black swans", but turning into high-probability, high-impact "gray rhinos." In particular, cities must make sufficient preparation for extreme weather events by revising contingency plans and strengthening their implementation, improving risk communication of meteorological warnings, and synchronizing emergency response with meteorological warnings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Henan Province is the birthplace of Chinese civilization and one of the earliest human settlements, which means that the area has an important national cultural heritage. Traditional villages are an important facet of this cultural heritage, and studying their spatiotemporal characteristics in different periods has important theoretical and practical significance for the sustainable development and protection of cultural heritage in the region. This paper takes the traditional villages of the Yellow River basin in Henan Province that were formed before 1919 as the research object. Information on the ancient river was obtained through a literature search as well as via field research, and the important tributaries of the Yellow River in different periods were mapped using ArcGIS 10.0 software. The nearest neighbor index, kernel density estimation, standard deviation ellipse and other methods were adopted to analyze the spatiotemporal characteristics of the traditional villages. The factors that influenced the evolution of traditional villages were explored in depth by combining changes in the course of the river and water conservancy projects. The results show that the formation of traditional villages along the Yellow River in Henan Province has experienced a historical track of growth, contraction, growth and prosperity and stability. The traditional villages along the Yellow River in Henan Province generally show a clustered pattern, forming a dense concentration of traditional villages in the middle reaches of the Yellow River. The center of gravity shows a migration trend from southeast to northwest. In terms of influencing factors, the spatiotemporal evolution of the relationship between villages and their distance to water is closely related to climatic fluctuations, changes in channel, water conservancy projects and social and cultural factors. This paper deepens our understanding of the relationship between traditional village evolution and watersheds by improving the consistency between village spatial distribution and historical geography and provides a useful theoretical reference for the sustainable development of China's traditional villages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a conceptual and analytical framework of states' legitimacy-seeking to comprehensively investigate the motivation behind China's climate and environment policy. While previous research has largely overlooked political factors that underlie China's climate policy, this paper argues that these factors are crucial in understanding China's policy changes, which are evident at both domestic and international levels. By examining sources such as government documents, leaders' speeches and authoritative literature, this study contends that China's climate change initiatives are part of a broader effort to enhance domestic and international legitimacy. The issue of climate change has become highly politicised in China under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, and it serves as a crucial test of the ruling party and the state's capacity to govern effectively. As such, legitimacy-seeking is the key driver that links China's domestic measures and international commitments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adaptive farming behavior is a key strategy for farmers to cope with climate change. This paper aims to explore the potential impacts of climate change information sources on farmers’ adaptive farming behavior. This paper clarifies the internal mechanism of three typical information sources, namely government departments, scientific research institutions and neighborhood communication, affecting farmers' adaptive farming behavior. Based on the sample data of 1200 farmers in the main wheat producing areas of Shaanxi Province, the theoretical conjecture is empirically tested. The results showed that the climate change information from government departments and scientific research institutions has a significant positive impact on farmers' adaptive farming behavior, but in the case of considering the three sources of information at the same time, the information source of scientific research institutions has the strongest positive impact on farmers' adaptive farming behavior. After farmers have access to climate change information exchanged by government departments, scientific research institutions and neighbors, their differences in climate change adaptive farming behavior mainly depend on their climate change cognition rather than subject trust factors. Formally organized climate change information represented by government departments and scientific research institutions has a more significant positive impact on farmers' adaptive farming behavior, but this impact depends largely on whether the information obtained by farmers can improve their climate change awareness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We estimate the relationship between high‐temperature exposure and land transaction using daily transaction data from 2013 to 2018 in China. Standard hedonic price method is used to perform multidimensional fixed effects regression on 458,564 transaction samples. This study shows that each additional day of the extremely high temperature increases the average bid price by 0.6%, which is equivalent to an additional annual increase of 15.018 billion yuan in land transaction costs. The effect of high temperature on land prices is considerably stronger for residential and commercial lands. We further find that high‐temperature‐induced changes of mood and cognition play a role. Extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost) algorithm is used to calculate price deviation, which overcome missing eigenvalues and reduce nonlinear measurement error. Our findings indicate that heat can make investors more aggressive, which occurs when bidders continue to raise prices to win. The number of bidding behavior will not drop due to the hidden costs of land transactions. Specially, bidding experience offsets the cognitive output bias. This study contributes to the behavioral finance and decision‐making literature, helps investors make better investment management decisions, and alleviates the negative effect of land transaction premium on the real estate market. Plain Language Summary: Extreme temperatures are becoming more frequent due to climate change. Extreme temperature can affect people's cognitive performance. Using large‐scale land transaction data and a fixed‐effects model, this paper analyzes the impact of extreme temperature on decision‐making. Results show that each additional day of extremely high temperature increases the average bid price by 0.6%, which is equivalent to an additional annual increase of 15.018 billion yuan in land transaction costs. This paper analyzes the impact of extreme temperature on human cognitive performance from the perspective of e climate change and uses land transaction behavior as a measure of decision‐making to reveal the mechanism of climate change affecting cognitive performance. Key Points: Each additional day of the extremely high temperature increases the average bid price by 0.6%Heat can make investors more aggressive, which occurs when bidders continue to raise prices to winBidding experience offsets the cognitive output bias [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change has a profound impact on human survival and development. Climate change is an energy and economic issue, which should be driven by technology. Total factor energy efficiency (TFEE) improvement is undoubtedly a breakthrough in solving energy problems. In this paper, the fixed effect model, impulse response function, and threshold regression model are used to test the complex relationship between export sophistication and TFEE. The results reveal that export sophistication improvement leads to higher TFEE. The impulse response results verify the existence of a phased and positive correlation between export sophistication and TFEE. Finally, the relationship between export sophistication and TFEE significantly varied across different threshold levels of regional corruption score, economic development, and openness. This article led the foundation for supporting China's export sophistication promotion strategy and also provides a reference for energy efficiency improvement and energy crisis response in the post-pandemic era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) offers great opportunities for China and Mongolia to collaborate on tackling climate change. However, few studies have focused on China--Mongolia collaboration on climate change under the BRI's sustainable development framework; in particular, studies have neglected the factors and feasibility of collaboration. Focusing on China and Mongolia, this study first discusses the evolution of legislation in China and Mongolia in the context of dealing with climate change and then explores the factors that influence China--Mongolia collaboration on climate change mitigation from the perspectives of climate environmental governance and energy development at the domestic level. Subsequently, the paper analyzes the Paris Agreement to identify international factors that can influence climate change cooperation between the two countries. Finally, based on the results of this analysis, this paper identifies geopolitical relations, the energy supply, technology and investment, and the demand for a transition to sustainable development as the main driving forces for China and Mongolia to collaborate on climate change mitigation under the BRI. Finally, the paper concludes that collaboration between the two countries is highly feasible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban areas mediate climate transformations and generate new forms of climate urbanism. Looking at climate action in the twelve fastest-growing cities in China with under one million people, this paper proposes a perspective on urban climate politics 'from elsewhere' that foregrounds the potential role of smaller urban areas in mediating climate transformations. The analysis reveals three climate action strategies that reflect practical, institutional, and personal spheres of climate transformations. Planning action in the personal sphere provides opportunities for urban transformations. A perspective 'from elsewhere' calls for greater attention to planning for diverse change strategies for climate transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions has a direct impact on the sustainable development of human society and has gained widespread concern globally. Biological carbon sequestration measures, mainly forests, are conducive to improving the ecological carbon sink capacity and play an important role in mitigating global climate change. Therefore, assessing the efficiency of forest carbon storage (FCS) is key. In view of the lack of evaluation methods for forest carbon storage efficiency (FCSE) on a large spatial scale and long time series, a method based on Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was proposed in this paper. The FCS was calculated using the forest storage expansion method, and the FCSE was calculated using the DEA-Malmquist index to solve the dynamic balance between regional forestry economic input and carbon storage output efficiency. The FCSE in Chinese provinces was analyzed. The results showed that from 1999 to 2018, China's FCS increased annually, from 7558.34 million tons to 9476.73 million tons, and the spatial distribution pattern of total FCS was always different among regions. The average TFP value of FCSE was 1.089, which proves that the FCSE in China has been on the rise in the past 20 years, but the efficiency growth differed between provinces and was affected by different factors such as technical efficiency and technological progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impact of Chinese firms' environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance on their financial constraint and financing activities. We find a negative association between firms' ESG performance and their financial constraint driven by the Chinese government's commitment to tackling climate change. Compared with state‐owned enterprises (SOEs), non‐SOEs have alleviated their financial constraint through both equity and debt issuance, thanks to the stock price appreciation and green credit. High‐pollution firms benefit from both equity and debt issuance, while low‐pollution firms mainly finance through equity issuance. Our findings demonstrate the leading role of the Chinese government in its domestic capital markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Separating existing historical precipitation data into solid and liquid precipitation remains a challenge in the study of climate change, extreme precipitation, and hydrological modelling. Based on historical daily air temperature and precipitation data, as well as visual observations of precipitation phase (weather phenomena records) in China mainland, this study proposed a snow‐day direct definition method (SDDM) to determine the threshold air temperature (TAT) of rainfall and snowfall, and analysed the spatial pattern and its influential factors. The main findings include: (1) the TAT based on the SDDM varied from −1.2 to 6.3°C, with a mean value of 2.8°C for the entire study region; (2) TAT was generally higher and more variable in the low‐latitude areas, and the Qinghai‐Tibet Plateau was characterized by an abnormally high average TAT of 5.2°C, almost twice as large as that of the eastern monsoon region; (3) TAT exhibited a significant positive correlation with altitude and negative correlation with precipitation and relative humidity. The results presented in this paper have potential application for studies of large‐scale snowfall climatology and climate change, weather forecasting techniques, and hydrological model parameterization in areas with complex and diverse geographical and climatic conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have witnessed climate change characterized by increasingly frequent extreme precipitation events, and the assumption of stationarity in traditional frequency analyses is gradually being questioned. In terms of the current research status in China, there is a lack of thorough investigations on the linkage between extreme precipitation and climate change. This paper aims to determine the dominant climate indices as well as the corresponding significant time scales and periods affecting extreme precipitation over China for dynamic assessments of the upcoming rainstorm risk. Correlations between 15 climate indices and precipitation extremes, as well as the correlations among climate indices, are fully explored to identify potential predictors for non-stationary modeling. Then, 21 non-stationary generalized extreme value (GEV) models are constructed, and the optimal covariates as well as their lag times with extreme precipitation at 769 stations are ascertained in a Bayesian framework. Finally, a complete predictive process is developed, and the national rainstorm risk under non-stationary conditions is assessed. The results indicate that precipitation extremes remain stationary only at 74 stations (less than 10%). WPI is dominant in modeling the variability in precipitation extremes for nearly 22% of the total stations, ranking first among all the climate indices. The predominant time scale affecting extreme precipitation at the majority of stations is 3 months. Ignoring the non-stationarity of extreme precipitation inevitably leads to misperceptions of rainstorm risks, and the spatial distribution of the maximum case of the design rainstorms under non-stationary conditions differs remarkably from that under stationary conditions. Our findings have important implications for the in-depth understanding of the real drivers of extreme precipitation non-stationary and enable advanced predictions of rainstorm risks for mitigating subsequent disasters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of climate change, innovative financing solutions and the rapid development of financial technology (fintech) offer great potential for the growth of renewable energy. Based on panel data from 30 provinces in China, this paper explores the impact of fintech on renewable energy growth by employing the instrumental variable-generalized method of moments (IV-GMM). We also pay attention to the nexus between fintech and renewable energy growth at different quantiles. This paper also explores the moderating role of the digital economy and the mediating role of green technological innovation. The main results indicate that (1) fintech positively affects renewable energy growth in China; (2) the positive effect between fintech and renewable energy is stronger in provinces with lower levels of renewable energy growth; (3) the digital economy, on the one hand, can significantly accelerate renewable energy growth; on the other hand, under the help of the digital economy, fintech can play a more effective role in increasing renewable energy growth; and (4) fintech indirectly promotes renewable energy growth by increasing the level of green technology innovation. The findings provide meaningful references for governments and policymakers and encourage the accelerated adoption of fintech in the sustainable energy sectors. • The role of financial technologies "fintech" on renewable energy growth is explored. • Fintech successfully stimulates the development of renewable energy. • The impact of fintech on renewable energy growth is asymmetric. • Digital economy facilitates the positive role of fintech in increasing renewable energy growth. • Green technology innovation is the path through which fintech affects renewable energy growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An analysis is presented of the precipitation bias and change signal in an ensemble of regional climate model (RCM) (RegCM4) projections driven by multiple general circulation models (GCMs) over China. RegCM4 is driven by five different GCMs for the 120‐year period 1979–2099 at 25 km grid spacing, under the representative concentration pathway RCP8.5. We find that the GCMs and RegCM4 reproduce the general spatial pattern of precipitation over China in all four seasons, with RegCM4 providing greater spatial detail, especially over areas with complex terrain. The spatial patterns of precipitation bias show common features between the GCMs and RegCM4, characterized by an underestimation in the wetter regions, and an overestimation in the drier ones. Systematic increases of precipitation are projected in northern China, most pronounced in the Northwest basins, by both the GCMs and RegCM4 in all seasons except summer, when more mixed results are found. In addition, weak correlations of the projected change patterns are found in summer between the GCMs and nested RegCM4, indicating the greater role played by the representation of local convection processes during this monsoon season. The projections across the RegCM4 experiments show higher consistency and lower spread compared to the GCM ensemble, again indicating that the nested model physics significantly modulates the change signal deriving from the GCM boundary forcing. Plain Language Summary: China is a vulnerable country to climate change due to its dense population, unbalanced social and economic development, shortage of water resources, and fragile ecosystems. How future precipitation will change over the region is of great concern for the general public and decision makers. This paper presents a first analysis of precipitation simulations from a set of five RCM (RegCM4) 21st century climate change projections, driven by coarse resolution general circulation models (GCMs) over China. We find that the spatial patterns of precipitation bias show common features between the GCMs and RegCM4, characterized by a precipitation underestimation in the wetter regions, and an overestimation in the drier ones. Systematic increases of precipitation are projected in north China by both the GCMs and RegCM4 in all seasons except summer, when, weak correlations of the projected change patterns are found between the GCMs and nested RegCM4, indicating the greater role of the representation of local convection processes during this monsoon season. The projections across the RegCM4 experiments show higher consistency and lower spread compared to the GCM ensemble, again indicating that the nested model physics significantly modulates the change signal deriving from the GCM boundary forcing. Key Points: The spatial patterns of bias show common features between the GCMs and RegCM4RegCM4 provides greater spatial detail of present day precipitation simulation compared to the GCMs and finer structures of future changesThe change patterns across the RegCM4 projections show a high correlation, but not always between each pair of driving GCM and RegCM4 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the relationship between extreme temperature and online complaints to local government officials. We show that the number of complaints significantly increases by 11.1% on extremely hot days relative to the benchmark temperature. Such effect is most pronounced on the day of extreme weather conditions and muted immediately after the extreme weather day. Among all the complaint areas, we find that 28.6% of the increase in complaints on hot days is related to public service, 42.8% to urban construction, 21.4% to noise, and 7.2% to safety. Moreover, we reveal that the primary motivators of increased complaints on hot days are not likely to be psychological factors; instead, the complaints are more likely to be associated with inadequate provision of public facilities to cope with extreme weather and inadequate management of other environmental disamenities caused by extreme temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we empirically evaluate the effect of climate change on agricultural technical efficiency, considering the moderating effect of mitigation efforts based on emission reduction in China. In particular, we directly measure the intensity of mitigation efforts using the climate change mitigation index. We then apply the two-stage double bootstrap DEA method to build up the empirical model, effectively avoiding biased estimation using the traditional two-stage DEA method. Our results show that the intensity of mitigation measures moderates the impacts of global warming on efficiency and mild mitigation measures are better than drastic ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this study was threefold: (1) to measure farmers' health poverty, (2) to examine the effect of health vulnerability on health poverty and (3) to identify countermeasures that may alleviate health poverty in rural China. Design/methodology/approach: This study built a health poverty measurement model based on the multi-dimensional poverty framework to evaluate farmers' health vulnerability. Further, this paper used an econometric model to assess the impact of health vulnerability on health poverty. The sample for this study comprised 1,115 rice farmers from Hubei province, China. Findings: The medical affordability poverty ratio was 17.95%, where farmers in the low-income group faced severe medical affordability poverty (27.46%). Results from the multi-dimensional analysis showed that, the health poverty ratios were 17.95 and 30.50%, respectively. Our results indicated that climate change vulnerabilities, living habits, medical facilities and medical accessibility were positively related to health poverty, whereas the regular physical examinations reduced mental health poverty. Research limitations/implications: Based on this study's findings, we proposed that: (1) to address illness-induced poverty among members of the agricultural community, national and provincial strategies and programs grounded on a multi-dimensional health poverty framework ought to be formulated and implemented, (2) mechanisms of health knowledge exchange may facilitate the improvement of farmers' health status, (3) robust and comprehensive metrics should be employed to understand and improve farmers' ability to absorb and mitigate the negative health impacts and (4) the improvement in both quality and quantity for medical facilities and medical affordability in the rural areas should be key priorities in governmental-wide initiatives. Originality/value: Existing studies for alleviating poverty caused by disease mainly focus on medical service support to those economic vulnerabilities after a disease happens. However, few studies have focused on the root causes of poverty caused by disease, particularly from the preventive perspective of health vulnerability. To fill this gap, this study, therefore, proposes the health poverty index and analyzes the impact of health vulnerability on health poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon dioxide (CO 2) emissions and climate change risk have become constraints on global economic sustainable development. Environmental regulation (ER) is a key method for achieving synergy in CO 2 and pollution reduction in China. This paper is the first study to explore the effects of ER on CO 2 emissions by exploiting the National Environmental Protection 11th Five-Year Plan (NEP11-FYP). The implementation of the NEP11-FYP significantly decreases CO 2 emissions by 19.73% in key environmental cities relative to other cities. Heterogeneity analyses suggest that this negative impact is larger in western cities and cities with more pressure to reduce CO 2 emissions. Scale effects, structural effects, and technical effects might be three potential influencing channels through which ER contributes to the CO 2 reduction effect. In addition, the results of the spatial externality of the NEP11-FYP demonstrate a positive spillover effect in neighboring cities within a distance of 300 km and a negative spillover effect in cities more than 500 km away. Our empirical findings provide policy implications for implementing low-carbon transition strategies and reducing CO 2 emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of extreme precipitation on Chinese industrial output and its total factor productivity (TFP) using data from the annual survey of industrial firms (ASIF) and daily weather data. The findings demonstrate a significant reduction in industrial firm output as a result of precipitation, with extreme daily precipitation decreasing output by approximately 1.22%. We provide an explanation for this precipitation-industrial output relationship from four perspectives: per capita wages, labor productivity, inventory, and depreciation. The effects of extreme precipitation are more pronounced in high-income and high-precipitation regions, as well as among foreign firms and low-technology firms. Our research suggests that extreme daily precipitation poses a serious obstacle to the development of the manufacturing industry. These results are crucial for understanding the economic impact and concealed costs of climate change, highlighting that extreme precipitation should be recognized as one of the primary sources of damage associated with climate change in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the causal effects of climate change on firm productivity from the perspective of drought, which is a complicated climate phenomenon. Based on the panel data of agriculture-related firms in China, we present strong evidence that drought significantly reduces firm' total factor productivity. Mechanism analysis shows that the negative effect is rooting from higher costs of equity capital, higher operation costs, and lower investment efficiency. Finally, we find that government subsidy and policy stimulating corporate innovation can help firms adapt to climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The politics of international finance for coal power plants have intensified since the 2015 Paris climate agreement was negotiated. Over the past few years, Japan and South Korea have signaled their intent not to fund new coal projects overseas, leaving China and its Belt and Road Initiative as the 'financier of last resort.' In September 2021, China too announced its intent to stop providing finance for overseas coal projects. What accounts for their decision to cease financing overseas coal projects despite prominent differences in political systems, degree of internationalization of their financial systems, and economic size? Drawing on datasets of coal projects and financing supplemented by case material and interviews, this paper explores the dynamics of coal export finance and how the combination of international reputational pressures and declining demand for coal finance diminished the domestic support for incumbent coal exporters in all three countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is one of the countries that are most severely affected by floods worldwide. Due to the geographical and climatic environment, floods frequently occur in China. Rapid socioeconomic growth and urban sprawl in the past decades have significantly changed both exposure and vulnerability dimensions of flood risk in China. In response to high risks of flood, the Chinese government has adopted a series of effective measures, such as the "Spongy City" Program and building many large dams and reservoirs, and some measures have achieved significant results. However, there is still a lack of studies with an integrated view on analyzing the causes, socioeconomic impact trends, and disaster risk reduction (DRR) measures of flood risk in China in the past decades. Accordingly, this paper aims to fill in the gap and provides some new insights into China's contributions in DRR over the period of 1950–2019. Our results show that annual flood-induced fatalities and socioeconomic vulnerability to floods have significantly decreased in China, owing to a range of structural and non-structural measures. Nevertheless, China still faces the complex coupling effects of climate change and urbanization, and thus threats from extreme floods. In addition, China needs to further improve its flood risk management system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking China's provincial panel data from 2010 to 2020 as an example, this paper verifies that climate change, especially extreme climate change, can destabilize China's financial stability and explores the transmission path of climate risks with meteorological disaster losses as the channel variable. Our empirical results demonstrate that: (a) only after the extreme climate change breaks through a certain threshold, thus causing a significant impact on the financial system; (b) we cannot ignore the improvement of disaster prevention and reduction ability brought by the improvement of social and economic development level; (c) the impact of extreme climate change will spread to the financial system through the economic losses caused by meteorological disasters; (d) there is obvious regional heterogeneity in the spread of meteorological disaster losses to the financial system. Our results are robust to a wider battery of checks and have important policy implications. • This paper empirically tests the impact of climate change on financial stability. • Extreme climate change will damage China's financial stability. • The economic losses caused by climate disasters will spread to the finance. • The transmission of such losses has obvious regional heterogeneity. • This paper provides policy implication for coping with climate risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States (U.S.) and China are key to meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement and reaching carbon neutrality by around mid-century. Despite differences, carbon neutrality will be met more rapidly if the two countries coordinate and facilitate synergies in carbon-neutral technologies and policy development and implementation. Building on long-term pathway models in the U.S. and China, current emissions trends and sources, and a policy analysis, this paper puts forward a novel framework for U.S.-China coordination on carbon neutrality. The analysis reveals similar technology and policy pathways, policy gaps, and shared milestones for decarbonization in 2030, 2040, and 2050-2060. The main technological pathways focus on reductions in energy demand and non-energy-related CO2 emissions, decarbonization of electricity and fuels, and increases in electrification rates and CO2 sequestration. Given existing domestic policies and opportunities for further action, areas for coordination on carbon neutrality include common policy milestones; dialogue and technical exchange; research, development, and demonstration (RD&D); and international climate leadership. Despite escalated tensions between the U.S. and China, and challenges for climate cooperation, coordination between both countries on carbon neutrality is both possible and necessary. Carbon neutrality will be met more swiftly if the U.S. and China coordinate and facilitate synergies in carbon-neutral technologies and policy. Despite the rise in geo-political tensions between the U.S. and China, coordination on carbon neutrality is both possible and necessary. An analytical framework for U.S.-China coordination on carbon neutrality, includes technology and policy pathways, and common milestones of key sectors' decarbonization for 2030, 2040, and 2050-2050. The two countries could coordinate on common policy milestones, dialogue and technical exchange, research and development, and international climate leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influences of human activity on regional climate over China have been widely reported and drawn great attention from both the scientific community and governments. This paper reviews the evidence of the anthropogenic influence on regional climate over China from the perspectives of surface air temperature (SAT), precipitation, droughts, and surface wind speed, based on studies published since 2018. The reviewed evidence indicates that human activities, including greenhouse gas and anthropogenic aerosol emissions, land use and cover change, urbanization, and anthropogenic heat release, have contributed to changes in the SAT trend and the likelihood of regional record-breaking extreme high/low temperature events over China. The anthropogenically forced SAT signal can be detected back to the 1870s in the southeastern Tibetan Plateau region. Although the anthropogenic signal of summer precipitation over China is detectable and anthropogenic forcing has contributed to an increased likelihood of regional record-breaking heavy/low precipitation events, the anthropogenic precipitation signal over China is relatively obscure. Moreover, human activities have also contributed to a decline in surface wind speed, weakening of monsoon precipitation, and an increase in the frequency of droughts and compound extreme climate/weather events over China in recent decades. This review can serve as a reference both for further understanding the causes of regional climate changes over China and for sound decision-making on regional climate mitigation and adaptation. Additionally, a few key or challenging scientific issues associated with the human influence on regional climate changes are discussed in the context of future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon neutrality is an important policy in the current global response to climate change and has been widely recognized by various industries. In the process of promoting carbon neutrality, new energy plays a pivotal role. In this study, the definition and connotation of new energy and its role and specific operation in the energy transition of carbon neutrality are firstly explained. Promoting new energy development requires significant green and low-carbon investments. Taking China as an example, this paper analyzes the opportunities brought by the carbon neutral process to the field of green finance and analyzes the main features and development trends of green finance in China at present. Then this paper proposes policy recommendations to strengthen the development of green finance in China in terms of improving the green financial policy system, enhancing the supply capacity of green financial services, and optimizing the supporting environment for green financial development. Finally, this paper analyzes the measures and experiences of the United States in promoting low-carbon development and proposes countermeasures for China's low-carbon development on the basis of the five major relationships that need attention in China's carbon-neutral process. That is, strengthen the top-level design and improve the regulatory policy system; optimize the energy structure and increase the proportion of clean energy; optimize the industrial structure and reduce energy consumption in key industries; build a complete low-carbon technology system and promote low-carbon technology research and development and demonstration applications, and encourage local conditions to explore low-carbon development paths. The development of green finance can contribute to the advancement of new energy technologies, thus contributing to the achievement of carbon neutrality goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to global climate change, the Chinese Government has taken numerous measures to promote low-carbon management practices, but the overall adoption rate has been lower than expected. Empirical studies on the path dependence of farming experience, that is, long-standing planting concepts that will hinder farmers from adopting new technologies, have not been reported. Hence, to fill the research gaps, this paper uses survey data from 805 rice farmers in Zhejiang, Hubei, and Jiangxi provinces, China, to examine the impact of farming experience on the adoption of soil testing and fertilizer recommendations. The results show that farming experience significantly negatively affects the adoption of low-carbon practices, especially among farmers with low resource endowment. However, farmers, who make decisions based jointly on farming experience and social networks, are more likely to adopt low-carbon practices. This means that as long as farming experience is used reasonably, for example, by broadening the social network of farmers and urging them to form a decision-making method that comprehensively utilizes farming experience and social networks, it can also demonstrate value. Our findings contribute meaningfully to the development of efforts to promote the adoption of low-carbon management practices in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is currently facing a critical challenge in completing its second radical energy transition from fossil to zero-carbon energy amidst the impacts of climate change and the international landscape. In order to clarify the concept of energy transition and the challenges facing China's energy transition, this paper adopts a research framework with Multi-Level Perspective to sort out China's energy history. Drawing on China's energy transition experience, this paper derives four key conclusions. Firstly, the energy transition is a comprehensive transformation of the energy system, which is influenced by the macro landscape, socio-technical regime and innovation niche. Secondly, based on the intensity of the transition, the historical energy transitions can be divided into two categories: incremental energy transitions and radical energy transitions. Thirdly, China's past energy transitions are mainly incremental energy transitions. Influenced by the macro environment and socio-technical regime, the transition process is mostly iterative and tortuous. Fourthly, China's energy transition is facing significant challenges in the current stage, with a tight schedule and heavy tasks, and a lack of basic scientific and technological theories and niche innovations. Building on these findings, specific recommendations to policy makers are provided. • The energy transition is a comprehensive transformation of the energy system. • China's past energy transitions are mainly incremental energy transitions. • China's energy transition faces great difficulties at this stage. • China must champion robust institutional reforms and expedite niche innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper used original survey data in Shandong province of China to depict local farmers' perceptions of combined climatic and market risks, and their adaptive behaviors. Two Logit models were developed to capture the empirical relationship between farmers' risk perception of the combined risks and adaptive behaviors. Results show that farmer's risk perception of climate change and market significantly affected their adoption behavior of adaptive measures, including perception of rainfall decrease, gale decrease, drought increase, and price fall of agricultural products. Moreover farmers' adaptive behaviors are more sensitive to their perceptions of extreme climatic events. Addition of demographic factors can improve the explanatory capacity of the Logit model. As illustrated by the models, male and better educated farmers have greater willingness to take actions for averting risks, while household heads with bigger farm are more reluctant. A majority of respondents chose to construct farm structure for irrigation and water conservation to avert climatic risks. Insurance, which is regarded as an effective tool to help farmers mitigate risks and avoid losses, has not been sufficiently accepted by farmers in rural areas in Shandong province. This underscores the need of effective communication of knowledge to enhance farmers' coping capacity and to encourage their active response to risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As researchers suggested, there is no way back for transatlantic politics; it has suffered severe setbacks that cannot be undone in recent years. Although the Biden win promises opportunities for EU-US cooperation, the EU's drive for strategic autonomy would not turn a halt given that the great leap forward for European policymakers and strategists would be to acknowledge that Europe's "autonomy" is actually in the transatlantic interests. Nevertheless, the transatlantic partnership is torn from a "thickening" tie that has bound the US and EU together for decades. Consequently, President Biden's transatlantic strategy to retie would undoubtedly pose challenges for European relations with China. The United States is increasingly intent on decoupling its economy and its technology sector from China as part of the new cold war cliché between the two. Nevertheless, the EU-China partnership has been working closely for the past few decades, and China's market has a great appeal to the world. The time has come for the EU to consider how to survive the turmoil of US-China decoupling caused by the two superpowers' agendas. This paper analyzes the critical transformation in light of not only the politics of today but also the structural trends in the global balance of power between the US and China. And explains the reasons why the pitfalls of US-China decoupling shape the dynamics of European ties with China in the last decade. This paper focuses on the issues: i) The EU's alterations of the EU-China partnership dealing with an increasingly assertive China; ii) US and China on the path to inevitable economic decoupling; iii) The EU drives for strategic autonomy aiming at enhancing the competitiveness in the high tech sector; iv) EU's ambition of safeguarding and reinvigorating cooperation over climate change and global health through the engagement of EU-China Investment Agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The balance between agricultural development and maintenance of agro-ecological environment becomes a huge challenge because of global climate changes. Existing literature on the low-carbon pilot policy proposed by the government of China and whether the problems of agricultural development and agricultural environmental protection can be solved or not have not been reviewed. This paper analyzes the impact of low-carbon pilot policies on agricultural eco-efficiency by using SARAR model based on the data of 281 cities in China. Results show the spatial spillover effects between low-carbon pilot policies and agricultural eco-efficiency. The implementation of low-carbon pilot policy can improve agricultural eco-efficiency. Although restrained by agricultural economic development, this policy has disequilibrium effect on agricultural eco-efficiency, has a relatively large impact on agricultural eco-efficiency in western China and other poor areas, and promotes the reduction of agricultural carbon emission. The effect of the implementation of low-carbon pilot policy is affected by the initial agricultural economic development and urban economic conditions. This research aims to improve the agricultural eco-efficiency and enforce the green development of the agricultural economy via the perspective of the low-carbon pilot policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change has a significant impact on agriculture so it is necessary to adapt to climate change to promote agricultural transformation and sustainable development. The key to achieving such a goal is to promote the development of climate smart agriculture (CSA) against the background of climate change. The paper first uses official statistical data to evaluate the effect of climate smart agricultural technology project, and then uses the statistical method of questionnaire survey to further investigate and statistically analyze the implementation effect of climate smart agricultural technology project in the pilot area. Further, semi-structured interview method is employed to conduct more in-depth investigation and analysis on some main topics on the basis of preliminary investigation and statistical analysis. The interviews focus on the environmental and economic effects of project practice, the difficulties of smallholder farmers' technology extension, and the farmers' willingness to participate. The study indicates that to promote climate smart agriculture technologies is an effective way to solve agricultural problem in practice under the background of climate change, and can achieve at least three benefits. The first is to reduce production costs, which can be reduced by 10% to 15% in terms of fertilizers and pesticides alone. The second is to improve productivity, and preliminary results show that food production can be increased by more than 5%. Finally, it has carbon sequestration capabilities and can significantly reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Therefore, the promotion of climate smart agriculture (CSA) technologies helps to solve the problem of agricultural transformation and sustainable development. To this end, it is necessary to drive the transformation and optimization of regional agricultural ecological environment and production system, and promote the innovation and extension of CSA technology. In addition, some soft conditions (e.g., talent, system and technology, etc.) and hard conditions (e.g., modern agricultural supply chain, agricultural big data and the Internet of Things, etc.), must be created, too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Net precipitation (NP) is the primary source of soil water essential for the functioning of vegetated ecosystems. By quantifying NP as the difference between gross precipitation and canopy interception evaporation, this study examined the dynamics of NP in China from 2001 to 2020 and the contribution of environmental factors to NP variations was investigated. The findings revealed a multiyear mean NP of 674.62 mm, showcasing a 2.93 mm/yr increase. The spatiotemporal variations in NP were mainly attributed to a remarkable increase in precipitation rather than canopy interception. Notably, climate (temperature, wind speed, surface solar radiation downward and vapor pressure deficit) and vegetation factors (leaf area index and net primary productivity) played a dominant role in NP in 61.53% and 15.39% of China, respectively. The dominant factors contributing to NP changes were vapor pressure deficit (mean contribution rate: −43.68%), temperature (mean contribution rate: 11.69%), and leaf area index (mean contribution rate: 2.13%). The vapor pressure deficit negatively exerts a negative influence on the southern and eastern regions. Temperature and leaf area index have the greatest effect on the northeastern and southwestern regions, respectively. The results provide valuable insights into the pivotal role of climatic and vegetation factors in ecohydrological cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research shows that China is experiencing significant greening, with afforestation initiatives being the main cause. Quantitative calculation of vegetation change influencing factors and evaluation of the contribution of afforestation to vegetation greening in China are critical to coping with climate change and improving the implementation and efficacy of forestry projects. We investigated the temporal and spatial dynamics of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) from 1982 to 2020, and quantified the contribution of afforestation initiatives, a typical human activity, to the dynamic changes of vegetation. The results showed that NDVI in China has primarily increased in the last 39 years. 57% of the pixels increased, 27% were stable and unchanged, and 16% decreased. Climate change was responsible for 72.34% of vegetation restoration, while human activities were responsible for 27.36% of vegetation restoration, according to residual analysis. In the future, only 14% of the regions showed continuous growth of the NDVI, while the remaining regions showed obvious antipersistence (59% will go from increasing to decreasing, and 22% will go from decreasing to increasing). The contribution of climate factors to vegetation change will decrease in the future, and human activities will become more complex. Except for Huaihe River and Taihu Lake (SPHRTL), other forestry projects showed an increasing trend of NDVI after the implementation of ecological engineering. However, due to differences in climate conditions and ecological engineering implementation, there are differences in the benefits of forestry projects. Some forestry project areas still have obvious vegetation degradation, and appropriate forestry management is necessary. This work provides a quantitative analysis of vegetation change and its driving factors in China, which will help to cope with future climate change and provide a reference for the implementation and management of ecological projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the correlations between Chinese banana farmers' perceptions of integrated water management technology (IWMT) and their adoption behaviours and examines the impact of IWMT adoption on farm performance. The results revealed that farmers' IWMT adoption correlates significantly with their perceptions of whether IWMT adoption can help reduce farm workload, fertilizer and water, the extent to which the technology is easier to operate, and the extent to which the technology can generate higher economic benefits than furrow irrigation technology. IWMT adoption significantly increases banana yields, gross revenue, net returns and irrigation frequency, but does not significantly affect irrigation expenditure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Continued urban expansion (UE) has long been regarded as a huge challenge for climate change mitigation. However, much less is known about how UE affects carbon emissions (CEs), especially in the urban agglomerations of the Yellow River Basin (UAYRB), China. In this regard, this study introduced kernel density analysis, the Gini coefficient, and Markov chains to reveal the UE patterns and carbon emissions intensity (CEI) in the UAYRB at the county level, and explored the spatial heterogeneity of the impact of UE on CEI with the geographically and temporally weighted regression model. The results show that both CEI and UE in the UAYRB showed a steady growing trend during the study period. The kernel density of CEI and UE revealed that CEI in the UAYRB was weakening, while the UE rate continuously slowed down. The Gini coefficients of both CEI and UE in the UAYRB region were at high levels, indicating obvious spatial imbalance. The Markov transfer probability matrix for CEI with a time span of five years showed that CEI growth will still occur over the next five years, while that of UE was more obvious. Meanwhile, counties with a regression coefficient of UE on CEI higher than 0 covered the majority, and the distribution pattern remained quite stable. The regression coefficients of different urban landscape metrics on CEI in the UAYRB varied greatly; except for the landscape shape index, the regression coefficients of the aggregation index, interspersion and juxtaposition index, and patch density overall remained positive. These findings can advance the policy enlightenment of the high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is no denying that the global climate becomes warmer in the past several decades. And extreme events induce a decline in agricultural production. This paper aims to examine the effects of farmers' disaster experiences on their perception of climate change and adaptive strategies based on a semi-structured survey with 903 farmers in China. The results reveal that the majority of local farmers perceive annual air temperature has increased, annual precipitation has reduced and global is warming (79.07%, 79.73%, and 88.26%, respectively). There are significant differences between farmers with and without disaster experiences in perceptions of climate change, technical adaptive strategies and migration (P< 0.05). Finally, the further exploration by path analysis model underscores that disaster experience has a direct and significant relationship with perceived climate change at 1% probability level. Farmers' perceptions of climate change are directly significantly correlated with adaptive strategies Furthermore, disaster experiences have a highly negative and direct influence on migration at 5% level. However, farmers' disaster experience shapes economic and technical strategies indirectly though climate change perceptions. Finally, targeted policy interventions such as non-farm adaptation options, development of agrometeorological forecast ability, climate smart agriculture, and encouraging land transfers are proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faced with the impact of climate risks, what responses do local governments make, particularly in the domain of social public policy? This study uses provincial panel data from China from 2009 to 2020 to investigate how climate risks affect local government education expenditure and its mechanisms. Analysis using spatial econometric models reveals the following. First, local climate risks significantly increase government education expenditure. This conclusion remains consistent across different proxy variables, model specifications, and estimation methods. Additionally, there is a spatial dependency on local government education expenditure, meaning that educational spending in neighboring areas positively influences the education expenditure of a specific location. Second, further mechanism analysis shows that climate risks lead to credit easing and drive the digital economic transformation of a location, thereby increasing its education expenditure. Third, considering the heterogeneity in the spatial dimension, it is found that this positive impetus exists only in the economically more developed eastern region. This study provides insights into understanding how the Chinese government responds to the impact of climate risks and its fiscal policy choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has committed to achieve net carbon neutrality by 2060 to combat global climate change, which will require unprecedented deployment of negative emissions technologies, renewable energies (RE), and complementary infrastructure. At terawatt-scale deployment, land use limitations interact with operational and economic features of power systems. To address this, we developed a spatially resolved resource assessment and power systems planning optimization that models a full year of power system operations, sub-provincial RE siting criteria, and transmission connections. Our modeling results show that wind and solar must be expanded to 2,000 to 3,900 GW each, with one plausible pathway leading to 300 GW/yr combined annual additions in 2046 to 2060, a three-fold increase from today. Over 80% of solar and 55% of wind is constructed within 100 km of major load centers when accounting for current policies regarding land use. Large-scale low-carbon systems must balance key trade-offs in land use, RE resource quality, grid integration, and costs. Under more restrictive RE siting policies, at least 740 GW of distributed solar would become economically feasible in regions with high demand, where utility-scale deployment is limited by competition with agricultural land. Effective planning and policy formulation are necessary to achieve China's climate goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the largest terrestrial organic carbon pool, soil organic carbon (SOC) plays an important role in the global carbon cycle, but it is easily affected by land use and climate change. The Huang-Huai-Hai Plain (HHHP) in China, which is dominated by dry farming, is experiencing rapid farmland loss and gain (farmland use transition), which may cause drastic changes in SOC storage. To clarify the effects of farmland use transition on SOC in dry farming areas, this study adopted a land use transition matrix and spatial analyst tool to explore the characteristics of farmland use transition and its effects on SOC content and stocks in the 200 cm soil layer in the HHHP from 2000 to 2020. The results showed that the farmland use transition in this area during that time period resulted in a net decrease of 16.06 × 103 km2 of farmland, of which urban built-up land and rural settlements led to a net reduction of farmland by 9.74 × 103 km2 and 6.43 × 103 km2, respectively, which was mainly affected by climate, topography, and economic factors. In addition, the farmland use transition resulted in a net increase in SOC storage of 6.13 Tg C, contributing 44.32% of the net increase. This is likely because the change in land use type led to a change in soil bulk density and soil gravel content while altering the SOC content, which in turn affected the SOC stock. This study has important implications for addressing global climate change and maintaining sustainable agricultural resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technical change has a pivotal role to play in low-carbon development. Recent research has offered different insights regarding the effect of technical change on CO2 emissions but ignored the bias of technical changes which lead to changes in CO2 emissions. To fill the gap, this paper uses the 2008 to 2015 provincial-level data on China's 22 industrial sub-sectors to investigate both the effect of directed technical change on CO2 emissions and its heterogeneity. We find that the technical change in most industrial sectors in China was capital-biased, although a labor-biased trend was evident. Labor-biased technical change is conducive to CO2 reduction, while capital-biased technical change has the opposite effect. Moreover, this effect is different by developmental periods, industries, and regions. Therefore, we propose that the government promotes labor-biased technical change based on the differentiated characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper matched the data for all non-financial listed firms in China from 1990 to 2017 with weather data and used temperature and precipitation to represent climate change. Using daily temperature and daily precipitation data, we constructed temperature bins and precipitation bins. This study presents a potential first empirical analysis that applies the risk perception theory to comprehensively examine the impacts of daily temperature and daily precipitation on firms' debt financing costs. Compared to a day with a suitable temperature, a day with temperatures above 30 °C increases firms' debt financing costs by 0.2411%. Compared to a sunny day, a day with torrential rain increases firms' financing costs by 0.2697%. Approximately $122.13 million and $20.49 million in extra costs were incurred across all firms in 2017. We conducted a series of heterogeneity tests. We found that the negative impacts of climate change on debt financing costs are greater for firms that investor considers more vulnerable. Finally, we found two possible mechanisms. First, from the firm's subjective initiative perspective, firms that respond proactively during seasons of high temperatures and heavy rains can reduce the negative impacts. Second, adverse weather caused by climate change may also increase firms' debt financing costs by blocking travel. These results enrich the literature on firms' debt financing costs and contribute to the understanding of climate change's impact on firms. [Display omitted] • An extra high-temperature day increases firms' debt financing cost by 0.2411%. • An extra heavy-rain day increases firms' debt financing costs by 0.2697%. • The negative impacts will be greater for those firms that investor considers more vulnerable. • Firms' response proactively can reduce the negative impacts. • Climate change also may increase firms' debt financing costs by blocking travel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Average start of the photosynthetic period in China was on the 123rd day of the year. • The average start of the photosynthetic period advances at a rate of 4.3 d (10 a)−1. • 64% of the region is temperature controlled, others are precipitation controlled. • Importance of temperature and precipitation determined by pre-season precipitation. • Climate change increases NPP by advancing the start of the photosynthetic period. In the context of global warming, the advancement of spring phenology in northern and temperate regions due to increased temperatures has been widely reported. Early and delayed start of the photosynthetic period (SOP) directly affects the vegetation net primary productivity (NPP). However, the interrelationship between climate change, the SOP, and the NPP is unclear. In this paper, we use the dynamics of decadal daily solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence data to calculate the response of Chinese vegetation photosynthetic phenology to climate change and its impact on the NPP over the last 20 years. The results found that over the last 20 years, the average SOP in China was on the 123rd day of the year, and the SOP has advanced at an average rate of 4.3 d (10 a)−1, with a faster trend of SOP advancement in highland and high-altitude areas. 64% of SOP in China is controlled by temperature; 36% of the SOP in China is controlled by precipitation, and the relative importance of temperature and precipitation was reversed as the precipitation gradient decreased, with SOP dominated by temperature when pre-season precipitation ≧300 mm, and SOP dominated by precipitation when pre-season precipitation ≦300 mm. Finally, we find that climate change indirectly increases vegetation NPP by advancing SOP. Our study emphasizes the importance of precipitation on phenology. It provides a scientific basis for understanding and predicting the response of spring photosynthetic phenology to climate change and the contribution of spring phenology to carbon estimation in terrestrial ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intensification of the regional water cycle resulting from climate change, coupled with the influence of human activities, has brought about alterations in the frequency, scale, and intensity of droughts. In this study, based on hydrological big data and the standardized runoff drought index (SRI), the multi-scale spatiotemporal evolution of hydrological drought in China from 1948 to 2014 was analyzed using the run-length theory and gravity center model. Meanwhile, the hydrological drought hazard index was constructed to analyze the distribution of the hazard levels of drought in China. The results showed that, during 1948~2014, there was an opposite spatial distribution between the average intensity and the average coverage–duration–frequency of drought in the Yellow River Basin, Haihe River Basin and southeastern river basins. The drought situation in most river basins in China has shown an aggravating trend, among which the southeastern river basins, Haihe River Basin, Songliao River Basin and Pearl River Basin have generally shown an aggravating trend. The drought situation in China was severe in the 1950s and 1960s, gradually reduced in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, and the drought situation was the mildest in the 1990s. After entering the 21st century, the drought situation began to worsen sharply. Meanwhile, from 1948 to 2014, the hazard level of drought generally presented a pattern of high in the west and north, and low in the east and south. The hazard levels of drought in the northwest and northeast were generally higher, and those in the southwest and southeast regions were generally lower. In general, the hazard levels of drought were relatively high in most areas of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]