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Paper‐based composite packages, which have been widely used for beverage in modern daily life, are featured of nutrition preservation and convenience. However, it is also causing environmental problems in urban areas because of the low recycling rate. The introduction of extended producer responsibility (EPR) is helpful to improving the recycling rate of beverage paper‐based composite packaging by extending the producer's environmental‐protecting responsibility for the product from its production to its end‐of‐life treatment. To find out the optimal strategy of applying the EPR system for beverage paper‐based composite packaging, this paper is conducted based on the basic framework of the EPR system, combined with the specific requirements of the EPR System Implementation Plan promulgated by China and the Implementation Plan of the EPR System for Beverage Paper‐Based Composite Packaging. An evaluation index system for beverage paper‐based composite packaging manufacturers is constructed to perform the EPR system, including three management‐level indicators, 10 standard‐level indicators and 42 programme‐level indicators. A comprehensive evaluation method is introduced to help the producers to fulfill the extended producer responsibility. Results suggest that beverage paper‐based composite packaging producers should first fulfill the responsibility in information disclosure, ecological design and use of recycled materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the Reform and Opening up, China's rapid but regionally uneven economic growth has continuously attracted a large number of migrant workers from rural areas to cities, from the central and western regions to the eastern regions. At the same time, the migration structure of migrant workers has gradually changed from individual migration to family migration. Under the linked lives principle in life course framework, this paper makes an in‐depth analysis of the relationship between family structure and the long‐term settlement intention of migrant workers based on a nationwide survey in 2020 by using the binomial logistic models. This paper found that, migrant workers who migrate in couple or with their whole family (spouse and children) have higher intention to live in local areas for longer time than migrant workers who migrate individually. More importantly, this paper argues that that spouses and children have more positive influence on migrant workers' local residence intention in medium and long‐distance cross city or inter‐provincial migration than in short distance within city migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how Chinese transnational investments, as (re)framed in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), contribute to changes in urbanisation processes in Southeast Asia. On the ground, the BRI becomes contextualised and intersects with local and national development trajectories. The growing presence of Chinese actors in the region intensifies urban dynamics, especially in secondary cities and emerging urban sites, where the BRI is used as a lever for local internationalisation strategies. The heterogeneous nature of the links between the BRI and various large urban projects is demonstrated on the basis of case studies involving changing consortia of private and public Chinese and Southeast Asian actors. A regional approach allows us to identify connections and shared processes across Southeast Asian countries. It provides a historically grounded understanding of how the BRI incorporates long‐term interactions with China and more recent partnerships in Southeast Asian countries. The paper paves the way for a research agenda that contests the image of China as a monolithic actor implementing the BRI uniformly and consistently. Further analyses are needed to examine systems and networks of actors as well as the local urban politics that affect the BRI on the ground. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green innovation (GI) can enable win‒win style economic and ecological benefits. Using China's pilot scheme for the construction of the intellectual property protection (IPP) system as an example, this paper empirically tests the impact of IPP system reform on the GI level and its spatial spillover effect. The results show that IPP system reform has significantly promoted urban GI, indicating that a progressive reform model characterized by experimentalist governance is applicable to innovation policy practices in developing countries. The dynamic effect analysis shows that IPP system reform can be applied to continuously promote urban GI. The mechanism analysis shows that such use of IPP system reform can improve the level of urban GI by promoting investment and talent agglomeration, confirming the viewpoint of the institutionalist school. The heterogeneity analysis shows that IPP system reform plays a stronger role in promoting GI in peripheral cities than in central cities, in cities with lower rather than higher scientific and educational levels and in cities with weaker rather than stronger GI capacity. Consistent with the theory of institutional diffusion, IPP system reform has a significant spatial spillover effect, promoting GI activities in surrounding cities while working to improve the local GI level. This paper affirms the effectiveness of the pilot regional innovation policy with Chinese characteristics, with important theoretical significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to information asymmetry, spatial distance will affect the associated credit cooperation relationship among enterprises. This paper employed the real‐world economic data to construct the entropy spatial interaction complex network model, which effectively depicts the associated credit risk among enterprises with the consideration of the influence of spatial distance and regional economic development level. Based on the calculation experiment and the Moran index, this paper reveals the spatial correlation of the credit risk contagion in each region and builds the theoretical model for spatial correlation of credit risk contagion. The research findings indicate the facts as follows. Firstly, enterprises in regions with close spatial proximity or higher level of economic development are more likely to attract enterprises from other regions for cooperation. For instance, due to the close distance between cities and more advanced economy, the eastern coastal region in China presents more intensive enterprise cooperation with other regions. Second, the analysis using the global Moran index reveals a significant spatial credit risk contagion pattern in credit defaults during 2020, attributed to the impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic. Third, the risk contagion effect of long‐distance associated credit is more complex. With the increase of the infection rate of long‐distance linked credit risk, the system will enter a chaotic state, hindering accurate long‐term prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lifestyles signify who people are and who people want to be. They contain one's value orientation toward the world. The speeding urbanization over the globe has made the urban lifestyle mainstream, and so does it in China. The overwhelming range of options in cities represents a consumerist society, but meanwhile, there is an emergent underground alternative, especially from the younger generations who are pursuing a "more meaningful life." This paper does an ethnographic study on young Chinese urbanites' engagement in a village as an essential example of this trend. It argues that young people's choice for rural life is a reaction and a resistance to the social forces of consumerism and urbanization. By reflecting on the reimagination of modernity and life politics in the changing process, the research implies that accompanied by opportunities for social change, young people's promotion of rural lifestyles could be linked to the government's development agenda, and this might potentially cause new forms of inequalities in rural development. By drawing on practical experience, the paper brings narratives about young Chinese urbanites' life choices in rural places into the discussion of modernity and life politics, hopefully exemplifying a broader sociological contribution around the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Journal of Economics is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper explores the impact of the political hierarchies of cities in China from different perspectives. First, we examine the economic disparities between prefectural cities and municipalities. Furthermore, this paper draws upon a quasi‐ experiment to analyze the impact of upgrading Chongqing to a municipality in 1997 using the synthetic control method. The city‐upgrading policy significantly increased Chongqing's gross domestic product (GDP) in the following 4 years. Finally, we find that the policy increased GDP in treated cities within 1200 km of Chongqing by about 10%–13% relative to the control cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the impacts of stringent environmental regulation of firm‐level upstreamness in the global value chains (GVCs). Specifically, we use the non‐uniform promulgation of local water pollution control regulations across cities and over time after the 11th Five‐Year Plan as a quasi‐natural experiment in China, in which firms are forced to adopt cleaner technologies or equipment to reduce pollution after enforcing tighter environmental standards. Using highly disaggregated firm‐level data between 2008 and 2014, we find that firms in cities with stricter water pollution regulations tend to move to more upstream sectors in the GVCs. We find that this effect is more prominent for low‐productivity firms, high‐polluting firms, and firms with a high dependence on water in production. This paper sheds new light on the GVC upgrading of firms in response to environmental regulation changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals background in China, cities are the main force of energy consumption and carbon emission, and their low‐carbon transition development has become the primary task of urban planning. The transitional development of cities not only puts forward higher requirements for the output proportion of new energy, but also puts forward higher requirements for the flexibility of energy system. This paper proposes an optimization model of urban energy system considering the uncertainty output of new energy and new energy vehicles. The uncertainty and operational flexibility of electric vehicles are taken into account at the planning level by using stochastic optimization method. The model considers the expansion and retirement of new energy units and various conversion devices in urban energy system, and ensures the achievement of carbon peaking and carbon reduction goals by imposing constraints on electric vehicles. The case results show that this model can effectively improve the economy and new energy consumption rate of urban energy system, and can meet the carbon reduction demand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stimulating counterurbanization has long been understood as a potential approach to revitalising rural areas. While well‐established in many countries, in China, it is taking a particular time‐limited form and characteristic dominated by issues of domicile and property rights. Rather than being characterised by long‐term life choices, counterurbanization in China is predominantly a shorter‐term leisure and tourism activity in which urbanites 'curate', for a limited period, a gentrified country lifestyle in accessible near‐urban villages. These lifestyles are in some ways akin to second‐home tourism. However, rather than purchase property as an investment, this new movement rents and renovates property as a consumption good with which to welcome other urbanites to visit, to consume and affirm these newly gentrified spaces and leisure opportunities. Based on a case study of Cenbu Village near Shanghai, this paper argues that current approaches to counterurbanization in China have limited impact on the revitalisation of local communities. Rather, newcomers from the cities largely superimpose their needs on the village in a way both ephemeral and removed from local people and village life. This comes about less as a mark of distain on the part of the incomers, and more as a result of their exclusion from key village institutions such as collective ownership, rights of domicile and ability to contribute to local governance. The paper concludes by arguing that mechanisms should be developed to enhance the long‐term confidence of newcomers, to encourage them to engage with community governance as a means of shaping the community and contributing more effectively to endogenous village revitalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws upon a quasi‐natural experiment of county‐city mergers in China to examine whether state‐led urbanisation makes a difference in local labour markets. Based on the difference‐in‐differences framework and three waves of data from the China Household Finance Survey, we show that, on the urban fringe, residents' probability of working in nonagricultural sectors increased by 6.69 percentage points after the policy. Residents responded mainly by shifts from the agriculture sector to being self‐employed. The results indicate that, after fringe counties connect to the corresponding big city in substance, residents in peripheral areas could benefit from the positive spillover effect from large cities and gain employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of China's "Zero‐Covid" policy on subnational cross‐region export performance during 2019–2021. Using monthly export data at the product‐destination level for China's 31 provinces and municipality cities, we find that new infections in a region have a significantly negative effect on the region's export growth, particularly for non‐processing exports and industries with low dependence on remote working and products that are more substitutable and used mostly in the downstream of supply chains. However, restrictions on people inflows have no significant effect. The severity of the pandemic in export destinations is negatively correlated with China's export growth, suggesting an important demand‐side reason for China's export downturn during the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we focus on migrant parents' decision to either bring children to the cities (family reunification) or leave them behind in China. We develop a framework to understand this decision, which takes into account child characteristics, characteristics of migrant parents and characteristics of migrant‐receiving communities. Our research design allows us to conduct comparison of rural‐origin children and urban‐origin children. The rural–urban differences are reflected in lowered probability of bringing children to cities, more hurdles for housing and access to public school education for rural migrant parents and their children. For rural‐origin school‐age children, gender inequality is persistent, that is, girls of school age are less likely to be brought to cities than boys. Finally, a piece of promising news is that migrant parents with more social interactions with local residents are more likely to bring children to destinations. The results suggest that years after China's official policy of 'no extra fees' for migrant children in urban public schools, migrant children, especially from rural areas, continue to face a variety of challenges in moving to cities and having access to local urban public schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmental externalities of place‐based policy have generally been overlooked despite their welfare consequences. This paper studies the air‐pollution effect of development zones in urban China using a geo‐coded data set of 2720 counties from 1998 to 2016. By adopting the generalized difference‐in‐difference framework to resolve the problem of endogenous locational selection for place‐based policies, we find that development zones reduce ambient PM2.5 concentration by around 1.8%, leading to a total social gain of $7.75 billion USD. The environmental benefit varies by the zone's dominant industry, geographical region, administrative affiliation and time of establishment. We further show that development zones are comparably cleaner due to the incentives of central and local governments, manifested by the desire to administratively promote development zones, the attempt to satisfy residential demands for higher quality‐of‐life cities, and the employment of the national environmental monitoring system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geographical distance constitutes friction in searching for research collaborators. Taking advantage of a quasinatural experiment featured by High‐Speed Railway (HSR) lines in China, this paper employs the difference‐in‐differences model to identify the causal impact of a substantial improvement in the intercity transportation infrastructure on collaborative innovation across cities. The data pertain to a universe of patent applications filed by Chinese universities and their citations. We find that HSR contributes to a substantial increase in the innovation quantity and quality of collaborative patenting innovation between universities and corporates. It contributes to industry collaboration by utilizing university academic disciplines in the related technology fields. Lastly, HSR facilitates universities to search for new research partners with better quality beyond the geographical boundary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the impact of Broadband Network Infrastructure (BNI) on urban ecological innovation (EI). The implementation of China's "Broadband China" Demonstration City (BCDC) construction policy provides a quasi‐natural experiment for examining the causal effect of BNI on urban EI. Using the difference‐in‐differences method, we find that BNI significantly increases the number of green patent applications in local cities, and that the effect is increasing over time. Examination of the underlying mechanism reveals that BNI promotes urban EI through stimulating entrepreneurship, improving human capital level, and attracting investment agglomeration. This paper contributes to the understanding of why significant innovation frequently occurs in places with relatively perfect infrastructure, such as networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from the 2015 China Household Financial Survey (CHFS) this paper examines the effect of culture on the gender gap in financial literacy. We exploit geographical differences in culture in China, comparing outcomes between rural and urban areas and between areas in the east and west (Shanghai and Chongqing). Using the Blinder‐Oaxaca decomposition we show that, nationally, the gender gap in financial literacy is entirely the product of differences in the way men and women acquire financial literacy. It is a result consistent with cultural effects. When considering just women in Shanghai and Chongqing we observe a raw financial literacy differential of 13% (favoring Shanghai). This gap is also the product of differences in the way financial literacy is acquired. It provides additional evidence as to the importance of culture when it comes to understanding financial literacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past millennium, Confucian culture has prevailed in China as a typical informal institution, especially its emphasis on human feelings and interpersonal connections (guanxi) that coincides with the incentives for corruption. In this paper, we test the hypothesis that Confucian culture can generate positive effects on the formation of bureaucratic corruption in China. Using the variation in the number of jinshi across Chinese cities as a proxy for the degree of Confucian culture, and using the number of bribery recipients to measure corruption, we find that regions with more jinshi are associated with more bribe recipients. To address the endogeneity, we employ the Confucian sages in a given city as our instrumental variable. The instrumented results are consistent with our baseline claim. The findings remain robust after using a variety of tests, including using the percentage of bribe recipients instead of the number of bribe recipients, using the number of Confucius temples, Confucian academies and chaste women as alternative Confucian cultural measures, and controlling the impact of the North–South differences. In addition, we find the shock of foreign culture can mitigate the positive effect of Confucian culture on corruption. Finally, mechanism shows that the effect of Confucian culture on corruption can be attributed to the attitudes towards income unfairness, the excessive pursuit of vanity and the emphasis on interpersonal connections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using China Migrants Dynamic Survey Project data from 2012 to 2018, this paper evaluates the causal impact of equalisation of basic public health and medical services on the long‐term urban settlement intentions of internal migrants by the difference‐in‐differences approach. The results reveal that the equalisation of basic public health and medical services has a negative impact on the long‐term urban settlement intentions of internal migrants of 4%. Male, middle‐aged, and unmarried internal migrants have a much stronger negative response, in terms of long‐term urban settlement intentions, to changes in basic public health and medical services. Moreover, more recent internal migrants, those in first‐tier cities and those in cities in eastern regions also have a much stronger negative response. Mechanism checks imply that the negative impact on the long‐term urban settlement intentions of internal migrants is caused by social integration decline after implementation of equalisation of basic public health and medical services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the Haken model to explore the synergistic evolutionary characteristics and competition trends of agricultural resilience and eco‐efficiency can establish a theoretical foundation for achieving high‐quality and sustainable agricultural development. The traditional Haken model cannot address the issue of the lack of directionality in synergy values, but incorporating the tendency theory of the coupling coordination model into the Haken model can solve this problem, thus establishing propensity synergistic Haken model to give values directionality. Established a more comprehensive evaluation system for China's agricultural resilience. Measuring agricultural system resilience in China's 31 provinces and cities from 2001 to 2021. The synergistic values between agricultural resilience and eco‐efficiency were measured by the improved Haken model. Results show that: (1) Agricultural resilience exhibits a stable upward trend, but the overall level is low. Regional differences have been increasing over time. (2) Eco‐efficiency is the sequential covariate of synergistic evolution by the two systems. The overall synergy level between agricultural system resilience and eco‐efficiency is higher. (3) Considering the "propensity synergistic," the overall change from low‐level benign synergy to high‐level benign synergy between agricultural resilience and eco‐efficiency in China. (4) The propensity synergy Haken model can compensate for the directionality‐lack problem of the traditional Haken model synergy value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the multi‐period difference‐in‐differences (DID) method to empirically test the effects of Tech‐Fin on the innovation output of companies based on a quasi‐natural experiment to examine China's Tech‐Fin pilot city reform. We find that Tech‐Fin significantly increased the innovation output of high‐tech companies in the pilot cities and in cities with weak intellectual property protection. In addition, Tech‐Fin had no significant effects on the innovation output of pseudo‐high‐tech companies and technology‐intensive high‐tech companies. We further find that Tech‐Fin motivated high‐tech companies to increase their innovation output through innovation correction and risk‐smoothing effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anti‐corruption is an important initiative in China's national governance system. The existing literature usually studies the direct impact of corruption or anti‐corruption on China's environment, while few studies show the spatial correlation impact of anti‐corruption on China's environmental governance. This paper redefines anti‐corruption, uses panel data of 30 Chinese provinces and cities from 2005 to 2019, and empirically analyzes the impact of anti‐corruption on environmental governance efficiency in China using spatial Durbin model. The findings indicate that the direct effect of anti‐corruption on environmental governance efficiency is positive, indicating that increasing anti‐corruption efforts will help improve local environmental governance efficiency; indirect effect of anti‐corruption on environmental governance efficiency is negative, suggesting that due to the existence of "pollution heaven" effect, the strengthening of anti‐corruption in the local region will cause polluting industries to move from local region to neighboring regions, leading to serious environmental pollution in the neighboring regions, and then reducing environmental governance efficiency. The indirect effect of economic development, industrial structure, and economic openness are negative, while the indirect effect of urbanization rate and clean energy are positive. The findings of the study provide a theoretical basis and insight for governments at all levels to improve environmental governance efficiency through anti‐corruption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Regional Science Policy & Practice is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Regional Science Policy & Practice is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Regional Science Policy & Practice is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper provides a feasible way to realize urban innovation through the e‐commerce pilot. Based on the data of 289 cities in China from 2002 to 2019, we examine the impact of the National E‐commerce Demonstration City pilot on urban innovation with a staggered difference‐in‐differences method. The results show that after becoming a pilot city of National E‐commerce Demonstration Cities (NEDC), the quantity and quality of urban innovation have improved. Further, NEDC policy plays a greater role in promoting innovation in economically agglomerated areas, first‐and third‐tier cities and areas with a higher degree of marketization. Finally, NEDC policy can affect the level of urban innovation by optimizing the allocation of innovation factors, improving the efficiency of credit resource allocation and forming the logistics scale effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State monopoly hinders market integration through rising interregional trade barriers. This article provides an account of the market reform on dismantling state monopoly as a natural experiment to investigate the extent to which the reform affects domestic market integration. The state monopoly on China's edible salt market was dismantled by implementing a market reform on the first of January 2017 that terminated the 2000‐year state monopoly on edible salt. Using a set of unique retailing price datasets on edible salt across cities over 10‐day periods every month, we take advantage of the regional and temporal variances of edible salt retailing price between origins of production and other cities to demonstrate market integration nationwide in China. The regression discontinuity estimation is leveraged based on an apparently sharp discontinuity in inter‐city price differences. The results suggest that the dissolution of state monopoly on edible salt market leads to a 3.14 percent decrease in price differences of edible salt between origins and other cities, thus ultimately resulting in the promoted market integration. The results also suggest that the varied iodine contents in edible salt, the market power of state‐owned enterprises and the government‐firm relationships exert promising roles in the influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past 40 years of reform and opening up, China has attracted a large number of foreign investment. However, because of China's weak intellectual property protection environment, it is difficult to protect the intellectual assets of transnational enterprises, which will affect their investment decisions to some extent. In order to optimize the intellectual property system and improve the intellectual property environment, national intellectual property demonstration city policy was proposed in 2012 to improve the institutional environment. To explore the impact of national intellectual property demonstration city policy on foreign capital inflow, we explore the relationship between national intellectual property demonstration city and foreign direct investment (FDI) using the multi‐period differences‐in‐differences (DID) method based on city panel data of China from 2003 to 2019. Results shows the following: (1) Compared with non‐demonstration cities, national intellectual property demonstration cities are profit to FDI promotion. If a city is rated as a national intellectual property demonstration city, local FDI will increase by 5% on average. After a series of robustness tests, the conclusion is still tenable. (2) We find that the national intellectual property demonstration city policy has obvious urban heterogeneity. The effect of national intellectual property demonstration city policy on the increase in FDI is more significant in central cities, western cities, and key cities. (3) The mechanism test shows that national intellectual property demonstration city policies have a positive effect on FDI through increasing the government's strategic expenditure on intellectual property, improving urban technology innovation capacity, optimizing human capital structure, and promoting the marketization of cities. Therefore, China should continue to implement the policy of national intellectual property demonstration city, especially increasing the number of national intellectual property demonstration city in key cities, central cities, and western cities. On the one hand, these findings can help government evaluate the attractiveness of demonstration cities for FDI. On the other hand, it also provides relevant policy enlightenment for the Chinese government to select appropriate demonstration cities and further refine and implement the national intellectual property demonstration city policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze river (MYRUA) is the second largest national urban agglomeration in China, with an excellent ecological foundation. As the construction of urban agglomerations accelerated towards both extension and connotation, land prices of various cities rose, and the contradiction in the demand and utilization of land resources became acute. Therefore, exploring the spatiotemporal evolution and driving mechanisms of land green utilization efficiency within MYRUA had positive significance. This article focused on 28 prefecture‐level cities in the MYRUA and measured their urban land green use efficiency (ULGUE) from 2006 to 2018 using the super slack‐based measure model with undesirable output (Super‐SBM‐U). Then, the improved Fixed Malmquist–Luenberger index was developed to improve the accuracy of dynamic efficiency analysis. Further, the internal and external driving factors were explored using the index decomposition and the spatial error model with fixed effects. The results showed that the land use mode of the urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River was relatively green, but efficiency gaps still existed. Although the green total factor productivity of the whole cluster has improved by 3.30% a year on average, the excessive pursuit of technological innovation has led to the stagnation of urban land management in various cities, and there are numerous inherent contradictions in urban development. But at the same time, feasible economic development directions, industrial upgrading, high‐quality employees, land marketization, and positive environmental behaviors are conducive to the green and sustainable development of ULGUE. This article depicted the internal land use characteristics of the MYRUA from the perspective of spatiotemporal evolution and efficiency, providing a theoretical reference for the green development and coordinated management of urban agglomeration land. Recommendations for Resource Managers: Natural features and socioeconomic heterogeneity lead to a significant discrepancy in the green efficiency of urban land use. Thus, they should be regarded as the scientific basis of policy design for an entire urban agglomeration.Improving regional connections is vital for enhancing the exemplary and radiation effects of core cities on green land use.While the importance of technology has been stressed, the management of related systems should keep pace to provide sustainable forces for the development of urban agglomerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid urbanization has brought numerous aquatic problems to plain river network regions. We selected three categories (five indicators) of characteristics to describe the physical characteristics of river network systems, including quantitative, structural, and complex characteristics. Using the grid method and hierarchical clustering analysis (HCA), the spatiotemporal change pattern of one plain river network of the Yangtze River Delta was addressed from the 1960s to 2014 based on topographic maps. The results showed that the river density (DR), water surface ratio (WP), and box dimension (D0) in over 82% of the area decreased. The spatial pattern of the water system is divided into four categories by HCA: urban areas, river network areas, mainstream areas, and lake areas. The categories of river network areas and lake areas decreased, while the categories of urban areas and mainstream areas increased from the 1960s to 2014 because of urbanization. There are approximately 12.8% grid cells that change from river network areas to mainstream areas, which is the most important change due to the reduction of tributaries and increase of main streams. These results indicate that river network distribution patterns have the tendency to simplify and remain mainstream. Our study suggests that water systems and river networks should be protected, which would provide support for water resource management in highly urbanized plain regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We employ the data of 290 cities in China from 2006 to 2019 as a research sample and use the Multi‐period DID method to test the policy shock of National E‐commerce Demonstration Cities (NEDC) pilots on high‐end service industry agglomeration. We find that after becoming pilot cities, the specialized agglomeration level of its high‐end service industry increases by about 14.1% on average, and the diversified agglomeration level decreases by about 2.7% on average. And NEDC policy can affect the spatial agglomeration of high‐end service industry through three channels: Enhancing the inclusiveness of digital finance, improving the degree of market competition, and promoting regional innovation ability. Moreover, NEDC policy has the characteristics of spatial heterogeneity. NEDC policy has a significant spillover effect on the specialized agglomeration of high‐end service industry in the first‐tier cities, while the second‐tier cities show the characteristics of diversification dispersion. In addition, NEDC policy has a more obvious impact on the agglomeration effect of high‐end service industry under the radiation and driving effect of megalopolis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

North China faces severe groundwater overdraft because of unsustainable groundwater use. However, consumers of local groundwater have rarely been precisely delineated. As such, identifying external consumers of groundwater‐intensive products may promote targeted policies from the consumption side, especially for the most water‐scarce Beijing‐Tianjin‐Hebei (BTH) metropolitan area, which has important links to food security and groundwater overdraft across North China. In this study, we revealed the prefecture city‐level virtual groundwater flows in the BTH region for, to our knowledge, the first time by compiling a nested multiregional input‐output table with 13 BTH cities and 28 Chinese provinces outside BTH in 2012. Our results showed that >50% of groundwater use in BTH cities was driven by agricultural supply for outside provinces, significantly exceeding the local demand of 38.8%. In addition, we simulated different scenarios that focused on redistributing the original agricultural production of the BTH region to other northern provinces. We found that these redistribution strategies would lead to 13%–67% groundwater savings relative to total groundwater use in the BTH region in 2012. Moreover, our results also indicated that BTH cities would save groundwater under higher stress in exchange for increased groundwater use in provinces under lower stress. These findings can be utilized to optimize the agricultural distribution and groundwater conservation policies in other regions or countries facing agriculture‐induced groundwater overdraft issues. Plain Language Summary: The local groundwater resources are influenced by distant consumers who would also lead to groundwater overdraft through interregional trade. The sources of severe groundwater overdraft in North China are not clear. Through combing multiregional input‐output (MRIO) table at city level of Beijing‐Tianjin‐Hebei (BTH) region (which located in North China Plain) with the MRIO at provincial level of China, our study assessed the virtual groundwater flows for cities of BTH. Our results show that groundwater overdraft of BTH is driven by distant consumption of agricultural products from other provinces. To mitigate this trade‐driven groundwater overdraft, we designed scenarios to show that importing or self‐market of agricultural products rather than export would get significant groundwater saving. In addition, adopting this virtual water strategy would decrease groundwater use of BTH with higher stress and increase groundwater use with lower stress in other provinces. Restricting export of agricultural products from BTH would be great helpful for mitigating groundwater overdraft of this region and bring about little harm to other provinces. Key Points: The groundwater scarcity of cities in Northern China is mainly trade‐driven and 51.1% of groundwater use is due to interprovincial exportsAgricultural relocation can significantly mitigate groundwater scarcity of the North cities with little harm for other regions [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantitative assessment of urbanization effect on surface air temperature (SAT) change provides crucial basis for formal detection and attribution analyses of climate change. However, debates about urbanization‐related warming bias in documented regional SAT trend still persist, mainly due to different determination of rural stations. Here the urbanization effect on SAT change over the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region in China during 1980–2019 is estimated through three kinds of ways (i.e., comparisons between urban and rural stations [arithmetically station‐averaged], urban‐dominated and rural‐dominated patches [patch‐weighted mean], and realistic urban and rural areas [area‐weighted mean]). The last method explicitly takes urban and rural land cover fractions into account when calculating urban/rural and regional mean SAT trends. Urbanization‐induced warming in the annual mean SAT change of urban stations (areas) through the three ways are estimated as 0.159°C, 0.195°C, and 0.138°C per decade, respectively. And urbanization effect on regional averaged annual mean SAT calculated by patch‐weighted and area‐weighted methods are 0.113°C and 0.050°C per decade, respectively, which account for 33.8% and 14.8% of the total regional warming. The urbanization effect on observed SAT change estimated by considering realistic urban/rural land cover proportions is much lower than traditional station‐unweighted way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on a new political uncertainty phenomenon, that is, the government official vacancy, and examines its effects on foreign direct investment in China's cities. Using hand‐collected data about the vacancies of the municipal party secretary in China from 2003 to 2018, we find that the government official vacancy reduces foreign direct investment. A one unit (month) increase in the government official vacancy leads to a −2.225% decrease in foreign direct investment. Second, we show three possible channels through which the government official vacancy reduces foreign direct investment: reducing government efficiency, increasing economic policy uncertainty and increasing corruption. Finally, our results show that the effects of government official vacancies on foreign direct investment are stronger in cities with a strong media environment, cities with a low level of innovation and entrepreneurship and cities in the middle region of China. Our main results pass a series of robustness tests. Overall, our research offers novel evidence that political uncertainty has a negative impact on foreign direct investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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We assessed the perceived socio‐economic impact of the Kenyan Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), using an original survey with 132 experts and interviews with 91 community residents across five cities and towns. We found that local and international stakeholders prioritize socio‐economic impacts over other impact domains, while there remain local tensions between economic growth and environmental conservation. SGR significantly helped tourism and moderately enhanced employment, with winners and losers divided by business sizes, sectors and locations. To maximize positive impact, China's infrastructure‐led model may benefit from integrating physical infrastructure with supporting services and facilities to promote more equitable growth worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatial variations exist in migration patterns and the processes causing the observed patterns. Yet, far less attention has been given to the latter. Even if a few studies have engaged in spatial heterogeneity in the process of migration, the scale multiplicity is not emphasised. This research aims to address these gaps with evidence from Chinese cities. To facilitate international comparisons, we use data on intercity migration over a 5‐year interval instead of the floating population. Following an elaboration of highly imbalanced migration patterns at the city scale, we detect spatial heterogeneity in the processes underlying these patterns based on 17 potential determinants in four domains (namely labour market conditions, site‐specific amenities, agglomerative effects, and institutional dividends) by multiscale geographically weighted regression. The results indicate that cities' attractiveness to migrants depends on a broad spectrum of factors whose influences are location‐dependent and exhibit specific patterns, including east–west, south–north, and southwest–northeast gradient patterns, as well as discrete clustered and concentric patterns. The diagnostic analysis has confirmed that the provenance of spatial‐varying effects is irrelevant to the nonlinearity. These effects are also scale‐sensitive, showing that the influencing scales of the labour market status and agglomeration factors tend to be larger (i.e., their effects are spatially stationary) than those relevant to amenities and policies, which vary considerably (i.e., the impacts of some factors change significantly over space). These findings regarding spatial heterogeneity deepen our understanding of migration in China and highlight the fact that there is no 'one size fits all' approach for government policies designed to attract migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Detailed urban information, including land use/land cover (LULC), anthropogenic heat (AH) release, and urban canopy parameters (UCP), play critical roles in meteorological field simulations. It is particularly relevant for the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model coupled with the single‐layer urban canopy model (SLUCM). Thus, we develop high‐resolution LULC, AH, and UCP data sets for Nanjing, a megacity in China, and conduct a series of numerical experiments with WRF/SLUCM to evaluate the impacts of urban parameters on the urban thermal environment. Model simulations with LULC scenarios have good agreement with the observed 2‐m temperature T2 $\left({T}_{2}\right)$ with a correlation coefficient of around 0.85, and present strong spatial homogeneity due to the more realistic representation of urban categories. The LULC change directly decreases the surface wind speed and increases (decreases) the sensible (latent) heat flux (QSH ${Q}_{SH}$ (QLH ${Q}_{LH}$)) in urban areas during the daytime; meanwhile increases QSH ${Q}_{SH}$ and releases ground heat storage (QGH ${Q}_{GH}$) during the nighttime, resulting in urban warming by 0.91°C in urban areas, compared with the control simulation (CTL) that does not take into account urban surfaces. In the LULC experiments combined with the UCP or AH, the UCP change enhances QSH ${Q}_{SH}$ and releases more QGH ${Q}_{GH}$ during nighttime, which increases T2 ${T}_{2}$ by 0.13°C relative to LULC simulation. Also, the UCP effect reduces surface roughness and increases the width of the urban canopy, resulting in slightly enhanced wind speed, which is favorable for a warming environment in the urban area; the AH change contributes to increasing T2 ${T}_{2}$ by 0.19°C through directly enhancing QSH ${Q}_{SH}$ relative to LULC simulation. AH combined with the UCP further strengthens the UCP effect in the urban area. Overall, the influence of urban parameters on the T2 ${T}_{2}$ is more pronounced during nighttime than daytime, which presents a decreasing trend with an increase in wind speed and spatial humidity in the urban area. Plain Language Summary: Detailed information, describing urban land cover/land cover, anthropogenic heat release, and urban canopy parameters can considerably influence the urban thermal environment. However, the effect and the inter‐comparison of these parameters have not been comprehensively investigated. In this study, we develop a high‐resolution urban information data set for a megacity in China, Nanjing, and conduct a series of numerical experiments with WRF/SLUCM to evaluate the sensitivity of the urban thermal environment to the newly developed data set. We find that the urban thermal environment is most sensitive to urban land use, relative to nonurban scenarios. The relative contributions of urban land cover/land cover, anthropogenic heat release, urban canopy parameters, and anthropogenic heat release combined with urban canopy parameters on the average 2‐m air temperature over the urban area are 54.82% (0.91°C), 11.45% (0.19°C), 7.83% (0.13°C), and 25.9% (0.43°C), respectively. These effects are more pronounced during nighttime than daytime, and present a decreasing trend with wind speed and spatial humidity increasing. This study provides insights on the impacts of urban information on the urban thermal environment and demonstrates the vital role of urban information in modeling urban temperature. Key Points: High‐resolution land use/land cover (LULC), anthropogenic heat (AH), and urban canopy parameters (UCP) data sets are developed to examine the impacts of urban information on the urban thermal environmentRelative contributions of LULC, AH, UCP, and AH + UCP on the 2‐m temperature (T2 ${T}_{2}$) are 54.82% (0.91°C), 11.45% (0.19°C), 7.83% (0.13°C), and 25.9% (0.43°C), respectivelyLULC and UCP impact T2 ${T}_{2}$ by changing thermal and dynamical fields, while AH directly affects T2 ${T}_{2}$ by enhancing sensible heat flux [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is currently under tremendous pressures to improve energy efficiency and reduce emissions. As an energy‐saving transportation innovation, electric vehicles (EVs) can alleviate this dilemma. This study adopts the Stimuli‐Organism‐Response (SOR) framework to explore the effect of information overload on consumers' psychological state and subsequent adoption intentions of EVs. Based on the 367 valid samples from Auto 4S shops in EV pilot cities in Mainland China, this study reveals that information overload negatively impacts perceived value and perceived effectiveness but positively impacts perceived risk. Furthermore, information quality offsets the negative impact of information overload on perceived value and enhances the positive impact of information overload on perceived risk. Interestingly, information quality not significantly affect the relationship between information overload and perceived effectiveness. In addition, perceived value and perceived effectiveness are positively related to purchase intentions, while perceived risk is negatively correlated with consumers' purchase intentions. On the basis of these findings, we discuss the policy implications of EVs and provide suggestions for future development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Minimal Living Standard Allowance System (MLSAS), established by the Chinese central government in the late 1990s, was intended to provide basic needs for urban and rural low‐income populations. Although the subsidy standards of MLSAS have increased rapidly over the years, its distributions in time and space were found imbalanced. Using the per capita subsidy income (PCSI) data of 338 Chinese cities from 2008 to 2016, this study quantified the spatiotemporal patterns of the urban‐rural gap and regional differences of MLSAS throughout China and identified the major influential socioeconomic factors of the observed patterns. The results showed that the PCSI of China's low‐income populations increased rapidly but with large variations between urban and rural residents and between geographic regions. The PCSI in rural areas was much lower than that in urban areas, whereas the Gini coefficient of PCSI in urban areas was lower than that in rural areas, indicating the allowance from MLSAS was more unequal among rural residents. Additionally, the higher PCSI was concentrated mainly in three urban agglomerations in eastern China. Most cities in central and western China lagged in terms of PCSI. Correlation analysis between PCSI and socioeconomic factors indicated that the income and GDP per capita were the most important influencing factors. With a better understanding of the overall situation of the urban‐rural gap and regional differences in implementing MLSAS, the current study should help improve the subsistence subsidy policies in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: While timely assessment of long‐term survival for patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) is essential for evaluation on early detection and screening programs of colorectal cancer, those data are extremely scarce in China. We aimed to timely and accurately assess long‐term survival for CRC patients in eastern China. Methods: Patients diagnosed with CRC during 2004–2018 and followed up until December 31, 2018 from four cancer registries with high‐quality data from Taizhou, eastern China were included. Period analysis was used to calculate 5‐year relative survival (RS) for overall and the stratification by sex, age at diagnosis and region. The projected 5‐year RS of CRC patients during 2019–2023 was also assessed using a model‐based period analysis. Results: Overall 5‐year RS for patients with CRC during 2014–2018 reached 78.8%, being 74.9% for men and 86.1% for women. 5‐year RS declined along with aging, decreasing from 84.1% for age < 45 years to 48.9% for age > 74 years, while 5‐year RS for urban area was higher compared to rural area (83.9% vs. 75.8%). Projected overall 5‐year RS of CRC patients could reach 85.9% during the upcoming period 2019–2023. Conclusions: We provided, for first time in China using period analysis, most up‐to‐date 5‐year RS for patients with CRC from Taizhou, eastern China and also found 5‐year RS for CRC patients have improved greatly during 2004–2018. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid urbanization, a massive number of Han and non‐Han people have migrated into Chinese cities. However, the quite different backgrounds of non‐Han migrants may make their cultural integration much more difficult. Using data from the National Migrant Population Dynamic Monitoring Survey (MDMS) in 2017, this study examines whether intermarried migrants have higher cultural integration in the destination municipality than their non‐intermarried counterparts, and explores its mechanisms. To account for the potential endogeneity problem, we use historical intermarriage ratio of the older cohorts in migrants' home municipality as the instrumental variable of intermarriage. Results suggest that intermarriage has a positive effect on cultural integration of non‐Han migrants. Marrying Hans increases non‐Han migrants' cultural integration by about 0.89 standard deviations. The mediating analyses show that social interaction is one potential mechanism but it merely explains 4% of the aggregate effect of intermarriage on cultural integration. We also find that the positive impact of intermarriage on cultural integration is driven by subsamples of female, highly educated, urban‐to‐urban, and inter‐province migrants. These findings have strong policy implications for non‐Han floating population administration in urban China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Precipitation intensity–duration–frequency (IDF) curves play a crucial role in the design and planning of urban infrastructure to reduce the risk of urban flooding and rainfall‐triggered landslides. However, changing rainfall characteristics in a warming climate render conventional IDF curves inappropriate due to the statistical assumption of stationarity. In this study, we develop vine copula‐based projections of future IDF curves at sub‐daily to multi‐day time scales with a multi‐model ensemble of five regional climate simulations over China. Stochastic spatiotemporal downscaling of precipitation is achieved to generate extreme precipitation simulations at a high spatial (0.1°) and temporal (3 hourly) resolution. These downscaled simulations are combined by the vine copula to improve the reliability and accuracy of climate‐model‐based IDF curves relative to historical observations. Our findings reveal that climate‐model‐based stochastic downscaling of precipitation reproduces the IDF curves well based on historical observations in China. The vine copula multi‐model ensemble approach outperforms Bayesian model averaging by generating more accurate and reliable IDF curves. The urban areas of 196 Chinese cities are projected to experience an increase in extreme precipitation of up to 30% in intensity and nearly two times the frequency of historical events under a high emission scenario (RCP8.5). The current urban infrastructure of more than half of the 196 cities would thus be inadequate to prevent losses caused by rainfall‐triggered hazards if designed solely based on historical precipitation observations. Compared to the climate‐model‐based IDF curves, we find that statistical IDF curves based on a nonstationary time covariate (i.e., extrapolating historical trends) are likely to underestimate the risk of urban infrastructure failures under a warming climate. This work highlights that urban infrastructure design guidelines in China should be upgraded to adapt existing IDF curves to the changing climate. Key Points: Stochastic spatiotemporal downscaling of precipitation is achieved to derive intensity–duration–frequency (IDF) curves at sub‐daily to multi‐day time scalesA vine copula multi‐model ensemble approach is proposed to improve the accuracy and reliability of climate‐model‐based IDF curvesExtreme precipitation is projected to increase by up to 30% in intensity and nearly two times in frequency over 196 Chinese cities [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has been witnessing profound changes in the consumption behaviors of its population during the last several decades. To better gauge the current consumption structure of Chinese households and investigate the burden exerted by consumption on resources, we calculated the household material footprint (HMF) in China within the individual consumption classification framework developed by the United Nations. HMF is the only life‐cycle‐based indicator adopted into the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Four types of raw materials and 15 representative consumption divisions were analyzed in this research. The total HMF in China increased by 103% from 1992 to 2017, although the per capita HMF remains lower than the global average. The per capita HMF growth in rural and urban areas differs, with urban citizens consuming 2.8 more metric tons of resources than rural residents as of 2017. The HMF of all materials studied shows a rising trend, especially for metal ores, which underpins the real estate and auto industries. Food‐related consumption is the main contributor to the HMF in China, while consumption of housing and transportation has less proportion yet more growth potential compared with developed countries. This study adds to the literature of studies on the consumption behaviors and domestic demands of China and has further methodologically significant meaning for similar studies in other countries and practical value for policymakers. Overall, this study demonstrates that despite an upsurge in consumption behaviors and gratifying economic records, the incurred resource and environmental burden may fuel risks for sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nitryl chloride (ClNO2) is an important chlorine reservoir in the atmosphere that affects the oxidation capacity by producing first‐ and second‐generation radicals, but it has been rarely observed in the world. Here, online measurements of both N2O5 and ClNO2 at a coastal background site in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) in southern China, a region with high atmospheric oxidation capacity in the daytime, are presented. We observed continuous accumulation of elevated ClNO2 at night, while N2O5 was generally low. The maximum concentrations of N2O5 and ClNO2 were 1.4 and 1.7 ppbv, respectively, associated with a transported urban plume with high levels of O3 and NO2. The average product of N2O5 uptake coefficient and ClNO2 yield (γ × f = 0.02, with average γ of 0.027 and f of 0.71) was roughly twice those in urban areas in China, indicating active N2O5 heterogenous chemistry and effective ClNO2 formation in the background atmosphere. The production rate of Cl radicals (pCl) from the photolysis of ClNO2 was estimated to be an order of magnitude higher than those at coastal and rural sites in the literature. Such levels of Cl radical production could have considerable contribution to the atmospheric oxidation capacity after sunrise. In addition, NO2 produced by ClNO2 photolysis in the morning accounted for approximately 10% of the NO2 increase within several hours after sunrise. Thus, high nocturnal ClNO2 production and its following daytime photochemistry should be considered seriously in regional air quality modeling in the PRD and regions with similar conditions. Plain Language Summary: The heterogeneous process of reactive nitrogen oxides on aerosol surfaces has been increasingly recognized as an essential pathway for nitrate formation and halogen activation in urban and polluted environments. Despite its importance, large variations exist in the uptake coefficient and product yields, and the quantitative understanding is still limited. In this study, field measurements of dinitrogen pentoxide (N2O5) and nitryl chloride (ClNO2) were conducted to quantify their heterogenous reactivity and subsequent impacts at a coastal background site in southern China. The determined heterogeneous reactivity in the background atmosphere was even higher than in previous observations in urban areas. The accumulated high ClNO2 at night could lead to efficient production of chlorine atoms and recycling of NOx in the following morning, significantly affecting the next‐day photochemistry and oxidants formation. The findings highlight the important roles of nocturnal heterogeneous nitrogen chemistry and the need to comprehensively incorporate those processes in air quality models to understand better the atmospheric chemistry in background air. Key Points: Nocturnal N2O5 and ClNO2 were observed with distinct features in different air massesN2O5 heterogeneous chemistry did not completely destroy Ox but also served as a potential source of OxContinuous accumulation of nocturnal ClNO2 had an important impact on atmospheric oxidation capacity and NOx budget in the next morning [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates how the individual and combined effects of urbanization and irrigation affect summer climate using convection‐permitting regional climate model simulations with/without urbanization or irrigation over the Huang‐Huai‐Hai plain (3HP). We found that (a) In dramatic urban expansion areas, T2max, T2avg, and T2min increased by 0.53, 0.43, and 0.40°C, respectively. Urbanization influenced the net radiation (RN), sensible heat flux (H), latent heat flux (LE), and ground flux (GF) by 1.08, 9.58, −10.69, and 0.59 W/m2 (b) Over the irrigated area, T2max, T2avg, and T2min significantly decreased by −1.50, −1.30, and −1.16°C. The RN, LE significantly increased by 10.06 W/m2, 28.40 W/m2, while H and GF decreased by 19.44 and 1.19 W/m2. (c) The combined effect of urbanization and irrigation decreased T2max, T2avg, and T2min by −0.84, −0.77, and −0.71°C. The RN, LE significantly changed by 4.93 and 27.84 W/m2, while H and GF declined by 18.65 and 1.28 W/m2. (d) Urbanization significantly decreased the total precipitation by 0.04 mm/day, while irrigation and the combined effect increased the total precipitation by 0.12 and 0.16 mm/day. Urbanization and irrigation have more influence on the extreme precipitation than on the summer mean precipitation. (e) Specific humidity (Q) changes at high altitude (>2 km) are mainly controlled by thermodynamic changes, while at a low level, Q changes depended on the evapotranspiration, sea‐land breeze, and surface roughness. Key Points: The individual and combined impacts of urbanization and irrigation on summer climate were investigated using ALARO‐SURFEX firstly over 3HPUrbanization reduced rainfall by decreasing convective precipitation, while irrigation enhanced convective and large‐scale precipitationUrbanization has accelerated the warming tendency while irrigation processes have delayed the temperature trend to some extent [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While it is well known that rapid urbanization poses prominent effects on regional or local temperature changes under global warming, possible impacts of urbanization on the changes in atmospheric aridity (measured by vapor pressure deficit [VPD]) are poorly understood. In this study, we provide a national investigation of the spatiotemporal changes of atmospheric aridity over China in recent decades by analyzing observations at over 2,000 weather stations across China during 1971–2017 and further quantify the effects of urbanization on the atmospheric aridity changes in different subregions. The results show that most parts of China have experienced a significant intensification of atmospheric aridity since the 1970s. Especially, stronger drying trends tend to appear in urban agglomerations with higher urbanization levels and denser population, such as Beijing‐Tianjin‐Hebei (BTH), the Yangtze River Delta (YRD), the Pearl River Delta (PRD), and the Sichuan Basin. It is estimated that urbanization contributed to more than 30% of the total increases in atmospheric aridity in urban core areas (i.e., 32.58%, 27.73%, 30.29%, 42.03%, and 37.33%, respectively, for annual, spring, summer, autumn, and winter VPD). Spatially, urbanization exerted significant amplification effects on increasing VPD in most parts of China (nearly 80% grid cells) except for few areas with higher elevation and complex topography (e.g., Qinghai‐Tibet Plateau and Xinjiang). In particular, the areas with higher urbanization (e.g., BTH, YRD, and PRD) underwent even stronger urbanization effects on amplifying atmospheric aridity. Our findings suggest that how to alleviate atmospheric aridity in future urban planning is worthy of consideration. Plain Language Summary: While the effects of rapid urbanization in China on regional temperature changes are well known, how atmospheric aridity changes and to what degree local urbanization affects these changes are poorly understood. Here, we examine the spatiotemporal changes (i.e., spatial variation and temporal changes) of atmospheric aridity (i.e., measured by vapor pressure deficit defined as the difference between the water holding capacity of air at saturation and the actual water vapor contained in the atmosphere) over China during 1971–2017 and quantify the effects of urbanization on the atmospheric aridity changes. We show that most parts of China have experienced a significant intensification of atmospheric aridity, and more serious drying conditions tend to appear in highly urbanized and populated areas. It is estimated that urbanization contributed >30% of the total increases in atmospheric aridity in urban core areas of China. We also find that the areas with higher urbanization underwent even stronger urbanization effects on amplifying atmospheric aridity. Our findings indicate that in addition to global warming, local human activities (e.g., urbanization) can pose profound effects on increasing atmospheric aridity. Urban planning decision makers are thus recommended to consider how to mitigate the threats by drying atmosphere in the future. Key Points: Most parts of China have experienced a significant intensification of atmospheric aridity during 1971–2017On average, urbanization accounts for >30% of the total increases in atmospheric aridity over China's urban core areasUrbanization effects on increasing atmospheric aridity are generally stronger in the areas with higher urbanization and denser population [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyses the linkage between spousal absence and the well‐being and health of married individuals who are "left‐behind" by a spouse who has migrated away from home for work purposes. As the influence of spousal absence on individual well‐being is underinvestigated, this study contributes to the existing literature by examining the effects for men and women in both rural and urban areas and further explores which group of population may be the most disadvantaged. The analysis is based on data from a nationally representative household‐based survey in China. The sample includes 26,355 married individuals, and 1,066 individuals are the left‐behind spouses. The empirical results show that spousal absence is significantly and negatively associated with well‐being of the left‐behind married men and women. An investigation into the interaction effects reveals that the negative influence of spousal absence is particularly problematic for individuals who have not received education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, hundreds of new cities have been built in China with a notable acceleration of this trend in the 2000s. Yet despite their numbers and variety, China's new cities remain marginal to a wave of popular and scholarly attention directed at new towns and new cities globally. This article brings China's new cities into these conversations through review of extant literature on the topic. Research on China's new cities has focused on their functions as sites of accumulation, economic restructuring, globalization, territorialization, and innovation. In this article, we introduce these themes in the literature and show areas that remain ripe for future study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]