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The spatiotemporal variability of droughts over a region can often be characterized by combining orthogonal climate modes with corresponding temporal coefficients. The temporal characteristics of climate modes have been extensively addressed, while their spatial development remains largely unexplored. Hence, this study investigated the spatiotemporal evolution of meteorological droughts from the perspective of climate modes. Nearly 50 years of monthly precipitation records (1960–2007) from 73 meteorological stations in the Poyang Lake basin, China, were used. The standardized precipitation index at a 1-month scale was applied to quantify meteorological droughts. The dominant modes of the droughts over the basin were identified using principal component analysis, K-means cluster analysis, and analysis of variance. Based on the trajectory migration identification method, the role of the climate modes in spatiotemporal evolution was analyzed. The results showed that four spatial modes of the droughts in the basin were identified. The spatial extents, centroids, and severity of the drought clusters based on the identified modes were significantly consistent with those based on the meteorological stations (R2 > 0.8, p < 0.05), which indicated that these modes could mostly match the large areas where serious dry/wet conditions occurred. Moreover, their performances in characterizing the spatiotemporal evolutional features (severity, migration distance, and pattern) of drought events were valid, which indicated that they might be considered as the elementary constituents of the historical meteorological drought events across the basin. The findings might offer some implications to understand drought development and causes through possible connections between the dominant modes and climate variability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The factors affecting tourist behavior are complex and diverse, but research on its effect from a purely spatial perspective is still limited. The aim of this paper is to explore the dichotomous interaction between tourists and islands: the behavioral patterns of tourists in island destinations and the mechanisms by which island spaces constrain tourist behavior. This study uses fine-grained global positioning system (GPS) tracking data actively authorized and released by tourists. We empirically studied tourist behavior from a spatial constraint perspective and discovered the following: island space has a strong influence and constraining effect on tourist behavior; different spatial attributes have different constraining effects on tourist behavior; and people with different identities interact with different attributes of space to produce different spatial properties, resulting in a 'harmony-contradiction' model of spatial interaction. These findings are of great value in expanding the perspective of spatial constraints and exploring the interactions between people and land. They are also of great practical significance in promoting spatial planning synergy, facilitating the construction of high-quality island-based tourism destinations, and building a harmonious relationship between people and land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets. Resource-saving and environmentally friendly industrial structures, production, and living modes are pursued continuously for sustainable ecological development. According to the Second National Pollution-Source Survey, agricultural non-point pollution is still the most important source of the current water pollution. In order to improve the water environment and control the pollution, the meaning and content of the eco-agricultural industrial chain was introduced. Based on this conception, the eco-agricultural industrial chain, integrating a whole circular system with different sessions of crop farming, animal breeding, agricultural product processing, and rural living, was innovatively put forward to control the agricultural non-point pollution and protect the water environment systematically for the first time in this paper. The sustainable development was realized at a large scale from the reduction and harmlessness at the source, resource utilization in the process, and ecological restoration in the end. Core techniques were innovated based on the integration of agricultural industries to achieve the high-quality and green development of agriculture. The system included ecological breeding technologies, ecological cultivation technologies, as well as rural sewage treatment and recycling technologies, in the principle of reduce, reuse, and resource. Based on this, the agricultural production changed from the traditional mode of "resources-products-wastes" to the circulation pattern of "resources-products-renewable resources-products". Thus, the final aim could be achieved to realize the material's multilevel use and energy conversion in the system. The eco-agricultural industrial chain technology was proven to be efficient to achieve both the good control of agricultural non-point pollution and an effective improvement in the water quality.

Understanding the driving forces behind built-up land expansion is crucial in urban planning and management. Using the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration as research area, four landscape metrics were used to analyze landscape characteristics of urban expansion from 1990 to 2015. Spatial autocorrelation analysis was used to study the characteristics of built-up land expansion, while geographical detector was employed to identify the driving forces of urban land growth and their interactions. The results show the extent of built-up land has been increasing, the structure has become more complex, the level of fragmentation has been increasing, and the aggregation degree is in decline. The built-up landscape index shows spatial heterogeneity occurring in the core and peripheral towns of cities, as well as in the core and peripheral areas of the entire region. Also, changes in the built-up landscape index indicate increased spatial aggregation occurring in the past 25 years. Results from the geographical detector show natural, socio-economic, and transportation-related factors have substantial influence on built-up land expansion. Elevation, slope, population density, change in population density, and road network density were shown to have high influencing power. The influencing powers of slope and change in population density were also found to be different from other factors, highlighting their important role in urban development. Also, there were two types of interactions found, enhance nonlinear and enhance bivariate interactions, indicating the compounding influence of interactions between significant determinants. This study provides a new perspective and methodological approach in evaluating the driving forces behind built-up land expansion and their interactions.

Taking the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration, with its rapid economic and social development and dramatic changes in land use, as an example with which to conduct this research, this paper analyzes the influence of traffic accessibility on land use and socioeconomic development by using Internet maps, points of interest (POI), and data about land use and socioeconomic development. The results of this study are as follows: (1) the calculation results of traffic accessibility can reflect the real situation because spatial distribution has an obvious feature of circle-like structure, and the development level of each township has high consistency; (2) major change characteristics in land use are that cultivated and forest lands are decreasing, and construction land is increasing, and it is obvious that the increase of construction land is featured by spatial autocorrelation and clusters of construction areas along the city borders; (3) traffic accessibility has a significant impact on land use status and changes and socioeconomic development, while the number of facilities has weak impact on land use, which is a reflection of advanced infrastructure in the urban agglomeration; and (4) the construction of transport infrastructure promotes the transformation of land use from water to construction land, therefore, more emphasis should be placed on protecting the river system in future infrastructure construction so as to improve the ecological benefits in the river basin., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.