Search

Based on the improved Tapio decoupling model and geographic information system spatial analysis technology, this paper studied the spatial and temporal pattern evolution law of the decoupling relationship between innovation capability and resource consumption in 283 cities in China. The non-residual complete decomposition model was used to decompose the rebound effect of resource consumption in China's urban innovation development. We found (1) during the study period, innovation capability and resource consumption in Chinese cities showed a weak decoupling state. (2) Regions with significant decoupling showed a trend of spatial agglomeration, and the gap in the degree of urban decoupling gradually narrowed. (3) The increase in urban population growth and innovation intensity in China have a positive pull effect on resource consumption. The improvement in resource efficiency has an inhibitory effect on resource consumption, but this inhibition is less than the effect of population scale and innovation intensity on resource consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Achieving sustainable development through China's national territory spatial planning requires comprehensive knowledge of all land characteristics. This paper introduces a land-type map of Jiangsu province (104 km2) in eastern China to provide such knowledge. The land-type map focuses on both physical geographic components (e.g. climate types, landforms, and soil types) and human-related components (e.g. land-use types and intensities). These components were represented by parameter layers and integrated with the help of the Geographic Information System (GIS) overlay function. A hierarchical land-type classification system was generated to provide land mapping units that represented certain degrees of geographic homogeneity and land-use potential. Trading off the relationship between resource protection and resource utilization, the space of Jiangsu was divided into seven land-use zones with different land-use policies based on the land-type map. The land-type map can thus be taken into consideration for land planning and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban designers in China are becoming concerned about the loss of community. Traditional social networks in rural communities are being destroyed rather than sustained by the process of urbanization. Projects to renew or reconstruct villages at the edges of urban areas are simply copying the community designs of cities. This paper reviews the social research on urban design. Both social networks and spatial networks are investigated from the perspective of network science and GIS. We examine the interaction mechanism between these two networks. With the combination of network analysis and spatial analysis, we develop a new perspective on village renewal and argue that sustaining social networks is a key concern. This paper argues that a community can be created, if the community design is based on an understanding of how physical networks shape and are shaped by social networks. We also demonstrate that combination of network science and GIS is an appropriate direction for urban research, and we should foster urban-network-based studies in urban design and planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the publication of the third assessment report of The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, vulnerability to climate change has become an important research question. Vulnerability assessment on the urban scale has become a major issue. This paper describes a conceptual framework for modelling vulnerability at the urban scale, the Climate Change Vulnerability Assessment model. The model is applied to Shanghai, a typical geographically vulnerable and rapidly-urbanizing case study area. Using Arc-GIS, a vulnerability map was created for understanding the spatial dynamics of climate change vulnerability in Shanghai. An additional process, combined with the weighting coefficients, produced different vulnerable areas. Based on the vulnerability map, we located several high risk areas. The vulnerability of each area was assessed. Identifying the risks in each case and associating them with a specific region can be useful for decision makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, local floods have become severely threatening to urban safety in China. As the capital city, Beijing has experienced serious local floods every year. In this paper spatial characteristics of local floods in the Beijing urban area were studied. Local flood locations changed and appeared as a spatial expansion trend from 1981 to 2011. Since all of the local floods were located in built-up areas, we further studied the relation between local floods and built-up areas using the spatial statistics of Geographic Information Systems. The results show that they had the same directional development trend which indicated local floods would get worse with the expansion of built-up areas. It also found that most local floods were located where there were high densities of drainage pipes, so we could infer that pipe systems should not be the only way to solve local floods due to their failures and negative effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]