Search

In the context of urbanisation and the decline of the countryside, reverse entrepreneurship cannot be separated from integration, referring to a process of mutual trust and cooperation between reverse (returnee or immigrant from urban areas) entrepreneur, host community and external stakeholders for sustainable livelihoods. With a geographic focus on poor areas of China, this paper aims to reveal key factors behind successful initiatives of reverse entrepreneurship to address challenges facing local communities, and pathways for mobilising and effectively using various resources, both internally and externally. These objectives are addressed through multiple cases of tourism development in Ganzi, a Tibetan Minority Prefecture of Sichuan. This paper contributes to the literature on entrepreneurial integration to debates on reverse entrepreneurship in three aspects. Firstly, entrepreneurial integration starts from social embeddedness, interconnecting and interacting between reverse entrepreneur(s) and the host community to understand local challenges and share a new vision for sustainable livelihoods. Secondly, entrepreneurial integration is essentially an innovation platform to develop or enhance social capital (both bonding and bridging) for mobilising and effective use of critical resources. Finally, the study outlines five pathways of tourism entrepreneurship, which reflects variations in livelihood strategy, critical capitals, business models, innovation diffusion and application potential. • Rural development calls for mutual trust and cooperation between reverse entrepreneurs, host communities, external stakeholders. • Successful entrepreneurial integration depends upon a platform building to develop social capital (both bonding and bridging). • Five pathways reflect variation in strategy, critical capitals, business models, innovation diffusion,application potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pumped storage plant can help promote the low-carbon transformation of China's power system because of its fast response and energy time shift. Based on the pumped storage electricity price mechanism and conforming to the construction law of China's spot power market, this paper established a life cycle benefit evaluation model of pumped storage plant through different market stages, and the evaluation results can provide decision-making reference for investors and national policy makers. Through the life cycle simulation of the pumped storage plant, it is found that the capacity price approved by the government has a downward trend and tends to be stable, and the capacity electricity revenue shows a "U" change trend. The results show that the electricity price connection mechanism designed in this paper can make the pumped storage plant recover costs and obtain reasonable income in the electricity market. When the market mechanism is not perfect, gradually reducing the proportion of the approved capacity price covering the capacity of pumped storage plants will improve the economic benefits of pumped storage plant and help the pumped storage plant to smoothly convert to the status of an independent market subject. • Analyzes price mechanism's effect on the development of pumped storage plant. • Put forward the price market connection mechanism on pumped storage plant. • A life-cycle economic benefit model undergoing multi marketization stages is proposed. • The policy impact is evaluated by simulating the approval process of capacity price. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivated by the practical needs of improving the rescue efficiency of emergency events and reducing the damage, the problem of emergency material supplier selection arises. This paper aims to propose a novel group decision making framework, this framework can aggregate experts' opinions from different backgrounds to evaluate emergency material suppliers. Firstly, an evaluation indicator system considering the supplier's emergency supply capacity is established, to make up for the insufficient applicability of the traditional supplier evaluation indicator system in the field of emergency material supplier evaluation. Then, the game theory integrated weight (GTIW) method is used to gather the initial weights obtained by Maximum Consensus Minimum Hesitation Model (MCMHM) and expert background weights. Moreover, Exponential TODIM (ExpTODIM) method based on Hesitant fuzzy linguistic set (HFLs) named HF-ExpTODIM is introduced to solve the problem of emergency material supplier selection, TODIM is an acronym in Portuguese for Interactive and Multi-criteria Decision Making. Again, a case study of China on emergency medical mask supplier selection is presented, and the corresponding results are discussed. Finally, the practicality of the proposed framework in a real-world context is discussed, including the necessary preparation, operational priorities and caveats. This paper can provide a reference for group decision making of material supplier selection in emergencies. • A framework for selecting emergency material suppliers has been proposed. • Expert consensus and expert background differences are comprehensively considered. • Supplier's emergency supply capacity is added to the evaluation indicator system. • HF-ExpTODIM is proposed by combining HFLs and ExpTODIM. • The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by a Chinese case study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid and accurate agricultural greenhouse extraction with remote sensing imagery is essential for providing spatial information for precision agriculture. Benefiting from local spatial perception, deep learning based object extraction methods have achieved satisfactory performances in extracting geo-objects. However, they fail to work for large-scale greenhouse extraction since the objects are sparsely distributed in the background and densely distributed in the foreground, where the local spatial perception causes redundant computation and false detection problems. In this paper, we propose a layout attention network (LANet) framework for large-scale greenhouse extraction using remote sensing imagery, which replaces the local spatial perception with spatial layout perception, i.e., a sparse global layout to identify the sparse background and a dense local layout to identify the dense foreground. To address the shortcoming of the sparse background, which leads to redundant computation, a sparse global layout awareness module is formulated as a scene classifier. This accommodates the global layout attention map of the global scene features by adopting a layout-shared convolutional neural network (CNN) backbone for generating class-agnostic layout priors and global channel attention for aggregating discriminative global layout features, ensuring robust sparse background identification. Then, to alleviate the problem of the dense foreground, which causes false detection, a dense local layout awareness module is proposed to incorporate the local layout attention map and rotated region of interest (RRoI) features. The RRoI features are then further embedded to guide the initial RRoIs for object location refinement by aligning the initial RRoI locations in a layout-sensitive attention mechanism and achieving semantic enhancement by taking the local layout density as a semantic prior to assign a reliable class score map. The experimental results obtained on an agricultural greenhouse benchmark dataset and a large-scale agricultural greenhouse extraction dataset illustrate that the proposed framework can outperform the state-of-the-art object extraction methods in both speed and accuracy, and has a high generalization ability for large-scale dense object extraction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one of the most important transportation infrastructure between cities, high-speed rail (HSR) not only had a huge economic effect on the cities along the route, but also had a certain effect on the economic disparity between cities. Based on the panel data of 40 prefecture-level cities along the main railway in China from 2001 to 2017, the economic effect of HSR is investigated by synthetic control methods (SCM) in this paper. The results show that HSR had the strongest significant positive economic effect on the city with higher economic development level and speed, had significant negative economic effect on the city that facing a negative economic growth, had insignificant weak positive economic effect on the city with lower economic development level and speed. Thus the economic effect of HSR had strong disparity. In addition, in order to explore the reasons for the economic effect disparity of HSR, this study further analyzed the mechanism of the disparity. It is found that the indirect economic effects (accelerating the flow efficiency of factors of production and changing the distribution of factors of production) brought by HSR had positive economic effects in certain cities, but had negative economic effects in some others. And it was the main reason for the economic effect disparity of HSR. By contrast, the direct economic effects of HSR (promoting the development of traffic consumption and tourism industry) often only had positive economic effects, and showed strong consistency in different cities. • This paper constructed a new evaluation framework to investigate the mechanism of HSR's economic effect and its disparity. • The results show that economic effect of HSR had strong disparity in cities with different economic condition. • The indirect economic effects brought by HSR was the main reason for HSR's economic effect disparity. • The direct economic effects of HSR showed strong consistency in different cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This paper investigated 10 different Chinese cities. • It investigated current status of C&D waste management in China. • Eight major challenges limiting the promotion of waste management were found. • Recommendations were provided for the policy makers. China produced a large amount of construction and demolition (C&D) waste, owing to the rapid development of construction industry. Although a set of policies and regulations are being drafted in China for promoting C&D waste recycling, execution of these policies in practice seems to be far from effective. Currently, approximately 75% of Chinese cities are still surrounded by large volumes of C&D waste. Therefore, identification of challenges in the development of C&D waste management, specially recycling, is essential. This paper employs site visits to 10 recycling plants in 10 Chinese cities (Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Chongqing, Chengdu, Xi'an, Changsha, Shenzhen, Nanjing, and Zhoukou) and interviews with 25 industry practitioners for examining the challenges. Eight challenges are identified: (1) unstable source of C&D waste for recycling, (2) absence of subsidies for recycling activities and high cost for land use, (3) insufficient attention paid to design for waste minimisation, (4) absence of regulations on on-site sorting, (5) unregulated landfill activities, (6) a lack of coordination among different government administration departments, (7) a lack of accurate estimation of waste quantity and distribution, and (8) a lack of an effective waste tracing system. Recommendations to address these challenges are presented. The results of this study are expected to aid policy makers in formulation of proper C&D waste management in China and provide a useful reference for researchers who are interested in C&D waste recycling industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the survey data onto rural households in China, taking biogas produced by crop residues as an example, this paper analyzed rural households' perceived value of energy utilization of crop residues. Then, "interpersonal trust" and "institutional trust" variables are introduced to improve Zeithaml's perceived value model to explore the key factors influencing rural households' perceived value of energy utilization of crop residues. The results show that although the value of energy utilization of crop residues has been recognized by most rural households, there is still some room for improvement. We believe that strengthening the technical service level and creating an atmosphere of mutual trust in rural society will help to improve rural households' perceived value of energy utilization of crop residues. This paper demonstrates the feasibility of the improved perceived value model as a powerful method for better prediction of human psychological perception, and our findings have significant policy implications given that the government can take measures to improve rural households' perceived value to make energy utilization of crop residues more competitive, thus hastening its deployment. • The value of energy utilization of crop straw was recognized by most households. • Most households are eager to realize the agricultural ecological function. • Trust has an impact on households' perceived value. • The improved perceived value model is more powerful than the original one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The combination of non-fungible token (NFT) with paintings, music, games, videos and other forms of creative content is an innovation to protect the copyright of authors. It digitizes physical works with unique labels. At present, the NFT industry is blooming in the area of digital collections in China, attracting increasingly more artists, art collectors and platform enterprises to interact. However, the NFT digital collection platform is facing challenges and growth limitations. This study adopts the theory framework of responsible innovation. Through semi-structured interview and secondary document review, it analyzes the positive and negative effects of China's NFT digital collections alongside technological, economical, ethical and social dimensions. The paper proposes four development paths to achieve responsible innovation of this emerging new business. Further discussion links NFT with open innovation dynamics, alongside areas for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has radically expanded the role of algorithmic governance in everyday mobility. In China, urban and provincial governments have introduced health codes app as a national contract tracing and quarantine enforcement method to restrict the movements of "risky" individuals through malls, subways, railways, as well as between regions. Yet the health codes have been implemented with uneven efficacy and unexpected consequences. Drawing on glitch politics, we read these unintended consequences as "bugs" emerging from the introduction of platform-based management into everyday life. These bugs mediated individuals' lived experiences of the digital app and the hybrid space constituted by population governance, individual digital navigation, and technology. Drawing on a database of posts scraped from Zhihu, a popular Chinese question-and-answer site, we examine three dimensions of the bug: the algorithmic bug, the territorial bug, and the corporeal bug. This paper sheds light on the significance of end-user experiences in digital infrastructure and contributes to our understanding of the digital geographies of bugs in algorithmic governance and platform urbanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current era of Industrial 4.0, open innovation, and the sharing economy, innovation ecosystems are formed through government-industry-university (triple helix) interaction. The concept of responsible innovation has emerged to explore how innovation can be conducted in a transparent, trustworthy, and sustainable way so as to respond to the public interest. While current literature provides a conceptual framework, details of how responsible innovation can be formed, developed, and sustained in the sharing economy, in particular in developing countries, have been under-explored. This paper aims to explore factors of responsible innovation, linking dimensions with business practice, and identify the dynamic stages of the industry life cycle. Through an in-depth case study of China's shared bicycle industry and the firm Hellobike, this paper has prioritized factors which lead to responsibility, such as user safety and friendliness in product design, real-time operations combined with big data, collaboration between industry and local government for industry standardization, and user credit systems. It has enriched key dimensions based on literature and case studies and proposed dynamic interaction models for industry, government, users, and universities at different stages of responsible innovation in the shared bicycle sector. From this empirical study, future research areas have been identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The correlation between the economic development and the HSR construction is analyzed. • Uses a GWR model to examine the implications of HSR to the economic developments of Chinese cities. • The Cities obtaining HSR benefits are identified. Based on the situation of high-speed railway (HSR) construction in the past decade in China, as well as China's latest national railway network planning proposal, this paper studies the correlation between the economic development and the opportunity of obtaining HSR infrastructure investment for Chinese cities in different periods over time span 2007–2030. The "winners" and "losers" of obtaining HSR infrastructure investments are determined and the reason is explained by a geographically weighted regression (GWR) model. According to the findings, the spatiotemporal development strategy of China's HSR is revealed. Further, the implications of the HSR for the economic development of Chinese cities are presented. It hopes that the results presented in this paper could facilitate Chinese cities with the appropriate urban developing policies for both the economy promotion and HSR infrastructure construction; moreover, the rapid development of China's economy and HSR can bring a good example to other countries in the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, through a case study of the Gengche Township in north Jiangsu (Subei), unveils how a less-favored region breaks out of the old industry path of waste recycling and processing and embarks on a green new one specializing in E-commerce. Drawing on key concepts in evolutionary economic geography, we propose a conceptual framework that addresses how entrepreneurial agents enact the processes of asset modification at multiple scales for new green path development in a rural context. Based on on-site interviews and survey, our analysis reveals that rural lead entrepreneurs and state elites pioneered and opened windows of opportunities for change, then legitimized by the state with wider support towards old path breaking. These state interventions enforce the bottom-up process of new green path development. In this process, extra-regional knowledge linkages and assets help facilitate the E-commerce development. It is concluded that rural new path development processes are not only contingent on local pre-conditions but are tempo-spatially dependent on collective actions of entrepreneurial multi-actors in identifying, transplanting and modifying local and non-local assets. The Gengche case demonstrates that rural new green path development in China requires the formation of strong system-level rural agency engaging in multi-scalar asset modification. • The transformation trajectory of Gengche, a previous poverty township, was investigated. • Rural lead entrepreneurs and state elites pioneered and opened windows of opportunities for change. • State interventions enforce the bottom-up process of new green path development. • Extra-regional knowledge linkages and assets help facilitate the E-commerce development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's energy transformation has been accompanied by potential energy security issues. However, the influence degree and driving mechanism behind this phenomenon remain unclear. In this paper, we developed a complex network-based technical resilience assessment framework and quantified both the historical trajectory and the prospective pathway of energy technical resilience in China. We proposed to reveal the relationship between cleaner energy supply and technical resilience by defining three energy technology resilience indicators: energy robustness, energy recovery rate, and energy performance loss. The results showed a consistent decline in energy technical resilience within China, predominantly characterized by an average diminution of 6.83% in energy robustness from 2010 to 2018. Taking carbon neutrality as a target, China's energy system transformation, characterized by increasing clean energy supply, leads to a significant improvement of 7.73% in energy robustness from 2020 to 2060. Conversely, the nationally determined contribution scenario exhibited negligible changes (±0.57%) in energy robustness, while a decline of 2.21% was noted under the business as usual scenario. Furthermore, energy robustness exhibited increments of 12.07%, 2.3%, and 4.17% for every 10% rise in the share of clean energy supply during 2020–2060, demonstrating greater resilience for cleaner energy systems against disruptions, including energy import interruptions, malicious attacks, and random failures. It has been concluded that enhancing the supply of clean energy can significantly contribute to bolstering China's energy technical resilience, while simultaneously addressing climate change concerns. • Network analysis is used to assess China's energy technical resilience. • Energy technical resilience is evaluated regarding robustness, recovery rate, and performance loss. • Energy system robustness significantly increases under carbon neutrality scenario. • Increasing clean energy supply strengthens resilience against shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural China has undergone dramatic socioeconomic and spatial restructuring as a result of rapid urbanization and the implementation of a series of top-down reforms. In this paper, based on the actor-network perspective, we examine the actor translation process associated with implementation of various governmental strategies in Haoqiao, a poor village located in the northern Jiangsu Province in China. We mainly focus on interactions between participants as well as their influences on the rural restructuring process. The findings proved the crucial role of township government in implementing restructuring at village-level. Motivated by acquisition of land-related finance, the performance evaluation system of local officials, and public accountability, the town government is keen to mobilize others in the action coalition promoting rural restructuring. However, it is noteworthy that many farming households are reluctant to comply with community planning, because they have to cover large price gap between their old houses and residential land and new houses for resettlement. We also discuss the motivations for diverse human actors and the potentially negative impacts that domestic macro-economic situation plays on the circulation of rural residential land consolidation which mainly underpin the rural restructuring. • Linkage among institutional changes, incentives, local actors' behaviors, and rural restructuring is explored. • Actor-network approach is used to describe the actor coalition constructing process leading to rural restructuring. • As one of the public actors, the town government plays a crucial role in promoting rural restructuring. • The land revenue plays major part in mobilizing public actors compared with public accountability. • Farming households with poor social capital are represented by powerful actors in the decision-making process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shale gas plays an important role in energy transformation. The sustainable development of the shale gas industry is a prerequisite for achieving an efficient, green, and long-term use of shale gas resources. This paper uses the WSR (Wuli-Shili-Renli) methodology to determine a comprehensive indicator system for assessing the sustainability of the shale gas industry. Game theory was used to combine two objective weighting methods and determine the comprehensive weight. The sustainability of the shale gas industry was evaluated based on the fuzzy matter-element extension theory. The results of the evaluation show that the overall sustainable development of China's shale gas industry is relatively poor. Shale gas industry in most regions is in a critically sustainable state (The critically sustainable state indicates the sustainability of the shale gas industry in general. The industry as a whole has the basic conditions for sustainable development in the short term; however, efficiency needs to be further improved to avoid the risk of degradation.) and is susceptible to degradation due to environmental changes. The shale gas industry in a few other regions is in an unsustainable state and cannot achieve an efficient and green development of shale gas. This paper evaluated the sustainability of the shale gas industry from a unique perspective. It is expected that the results of this research will contribute to the formulation of sustainable development strategies and further promote the green development of the shale gas industry. • The sustainability of the shale gas industry in some areas of China was studied. • We developed an evaluation model using the WSR methodology and the fuzzy matter-element extension method. • Expanded the application scope of game theory methods. • China's shale gas industry has a poor level of sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The citizenization of peasant migrants is key to understanding China's long-term urban-rural imbalance and ongoing rural transformations. The majority of existing literature focused on structural/institutional or agentive/subjective factors, while an integrated perspective examining both structural and agentive factors related to the citizenization process is rarely seen. Borrowing theories from the strategic-relational approach, this paper unfolds the matching and mismatching mechanisms between the policy design and peasant migrants' intentions of citizenization. Drawing on a case study in China's Guangdong Province, this study finds that: (1) citizenization policies prefer to offer citizenship to the new generation of peasant migrants, which matches the age structure of peasant migrants; (2) although municipal governments are prone to attract young peasant migrants with high educational level and strong competitiveness, peasant migrants generally have a relatively low educational level and weak professional training; (3) the high threshold of citizenization in mega-metropolitan and metropolitan cities mismatches peasant migrants' preference towards the first-tier cities. This paper describes the matching and mismatching mechanisms between structure and agency associated with the citizenization of peasant migrants. The policy reflections proposed by this study point towards enhancing nearby urbanization and in situ urbanization, so as to increase the attraction of young peasant migrants by ordinary cities. Besides, this paper calls for the promotion of rural-urban co-governance, making rural revitalization an alternative and supplement to the urbanization driven by rural-urban migration. • The strategic-relational approach is a critical perspective for understanding citizenization. • As a progressive and dynamic process, the citizenization of peasant migrants intersects with local strategies of urbanization. • Governments should realize that ordinary cities are critical places for most peasant migrants to realize citizenization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Technological progress, represented by artificial intelligence, has a dual impact on employment structure. In order to explore the impact of artificial intelligence development on employment skill structure, this paper, based on the panel data of 30 provinces and cities in China from 2003 to 2017, used the mediating effect regression model and the threshold regression model to conduct empirical tests. The results show that the development of artificial intelligence will significantly affect the structure of employment skills, and regional innovation has a significant mediating effect. From the threshold characteristics, there is a threshold effect of regional innovation. With the improvement of innovation environment, industrial upgrading and technological progress, the influence of artificial intelligence on middle-skill employment is gradually weakened. Under the influence of innovation environment and technological progress, the high-skilled employment shows a U-shaped change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of China's cultural innovation industry, enhancing brand equity and increasing brand value has become the only way for enterprises to achieve leapfrog development. Taking Chinese animation brand equity as an example, this paper constructs a brand equity driven model from the perspective of consumer cognition. Firstly, based on the brand resonance model, the theoretical model of animation brand equity is established. And then from the mass of product reviews, the focus of consumers on the brand is mined to form the latitude of brand equity. Finally, the theoretical model of brand equity is tested based on the Chinese consumer questionnaire data and structural equation model. This study provides a reference for the construction of Chinese animation brand equity, and also provides a new idea for the establishment of cultural brand equity management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The exploration and promotion of new energy constitute a significant initiative for numerous countries in their pursuit of sustainable development and efforts to alleviate climate change. However, the influence of a multitude of uncertain factors on the evolutionary path of new energy is currently poorly studied. By establishing a dynamic evolution model for new energy under polymorphic uncertainty, this paper analyses the complex interaction between new energy, economic growth, and carbon trading over the period 2020–2060, using China as a case study. We employ numerical simulation and sensitivity analysis to investigate the evolutionary trajectories of the new energy system under various parameter value scenarios. We show that the evolutionary trajectories will undergo substantial fluctuations before 2030, subsequently stabilizing from 2030 onwards. The study highlights that an excessively rapid pace of new energy development is detrimental to new energy systems, whereas energy storage system deployment has the opposite effect. There exists a significant risk of the system collapsing as a result of slow new energy development, over-building energy storage facilities, or over-intervening in carbon trading. We also find that overdevelopment of energy storage system may have greater negative impacts on the economic system than underdevelopment. [Display omitted] • Dynamic evolution model of new energy under polymorphic uncertainty is constructed. • New energy production elasticity and energy ratio are innovatively constructed. • Excessive intervention in carbon market can lead to the collapse of new energy system. • Overdeveloped energy storage hinder the synergy of new energy and economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mitigating greenhouse gas emissions is a significant global challenge, and precise prediction of carbon emissions holds the utmost importance for China to attain its dual carbon goal. To overcome the limitations of existing studies using a single forecasting method, based on quadratic exponential smoothing, multiple linear regression, and Gaussian process regression models, this paper constructs a carbon emission combination forecasting model with the generalized induced ordered weighted average (GIOWA) operator and analyzes carbon emission reduction performance. Empirical testing utilizing China's carbon emission data from 1980 to 2020 reveals the following findings: (1) The GIOWA combination forecasting model significantly enhances the accuracy of carbon emission forecasts, with an average accuracy exceeding 99.5% over the sample period, surpassing various single forecasting methods. (2) The carbon emission reduction target can be achieved under three different scenarios of low, average, and high GDP growth rates. Specifically, under the low growth rate scenario, China can achieve a 60% reduction in carbon intensity by 2025 and a 65% reduction by 2030. This study offers valuable decision support for the development of effective carbon reduction policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The extent of flooding in China is greater than in any other country. • Nearly 66% of China's landmass is submerged by flooding. • Financial toll of flooding accounts for approximately 1.42% of the annual GDP. • Various forms of climatic change contribute to flooding. The extent of flooding in China is more significant than in any other country. Our research reveals that approximately 66 % of China's landmass is submerged by flooding, affecting about 50 % of the population. Furthermore, the financial toll of flooding now accounts for approximately 1.42 % of the annual gross domestic product (GDP), which is almost 40 times higher than the corresponding figure for the United States. We have observed that Zhengzhou city in Henan province, which faced a devastating flood in 2021, received a significant amount of rainfall, specifically a total of 552.5 mm within a 24-hour period. The floods in Henan province in 2021 caused considerable damage, including impacting nearly 15 million people, resulting in almost 400 deaths, damaging over 10,000 square kilometers of agricultural land, causing almost $19 billion in economic losses, and leading to the collapse of over 35,000 households and damage to various properties. In a similar manner, the significant flooding that occurred in southern China in 2020 impacted approximately 7.1 million individuals across eight provinces and resulted in 54 fatalities, the collapse of 6,700 houses, and incurred a direct economic loss of US$3.33 billion. We found that rainstorms have significantly increased to 10 % in the last 60 years in China. In this paper, we delved into exploring the existing published articles, reports, and government and authoritative legal texts to analyze the causes and impacts of flooding in China's flood-prone regions and potential mitigation strategies to reduce the repercussions of distressing flood events. We believe this study will help policymakers by providing new insights while formulating policy to reduce the loss caused by high-level flooding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's new town and ghost city phenomenon has attracted interest from academics and the media since the 2010s. There is, however, little research on the lived experiences of people in new towns, or of the transformation of these new towns. This paper uses Lefebvre's spatial triad to examine how the spaces of the new town are produced and transformed by interactions between multiple actors. Using an analytical framework based on the spatial triad, we explore the interactive mechanisms and the dialectical relationships within the triad. Taking Kangbashi, a new town in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, as a case study, we explore how the spatial production of a new town is co-created by multiple actors, and local government-led conceived space plays a dominant role in that creation. Through interactions in the dynamic nexus of conceived-perceived-lived space, the new town space is in the process of transformation from an empty "ghost city" to a comfortable habitable city. This research deepens our understanding of new towns and production of space by connecting state-led and capital-driven urban construction with the lived practices of residents. Moreover, this empirical Chinese study contributes to knowledge and understanding across diverse global urban contexts. • An analytical framework based on the spatial triad is proposed. • The mechanisms for the transformation of a new town space from a ghost city to a more habitable city is examined. • The local government dominates both the production of space and its transformation in the new town. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the development of the blue economy is considered from the perspectives of integrity, relevance, and operability. First, to further expand blue living space and achieve blue growth, development thinking must shift from supporting the development of a single agent to supporting the coordinated development of multiple agents. Thus, we set a list of 116 blue products. Second, we construct a conceptual model of the national blue economic system space. Taking China as an example, the product data, firm data and province data in China's blue economic system are collected and processed based on the needs of the study, and the basic dataset for constructing China's blue economic system space is obtained. Third, based on the blue product space, the blue firm network and the blue province network of China, as well as the mapping relationship that existed among them in 2010, China's blue economic system space in 2010 is constructed. Finally, evolutionary maps of China's blue economic system space from 1985 to 2018 are drawn to identify the spatial structure and characteristics of China's blue economic development. We use application examples to verify that the national blue economic system space can play an important role in assisting countries in conducting systematic multicriteria assessments of blue growth strategies, and the use of such a complex network makes countries more likely to formulate evidence-based policies without being influenced by vested sectoral interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploring the short-term and long-term interests is relevant towards understanding the perceptions of rural collectives around Land Value Capture (LVC) changes caused by land marketization. So far, research has focused too much on the short-term interest, arguing that rural collectives often show positive perceptions because of their LVC gains. However, rural collective perceptions cannot be sufficiently explored if the long-term interest is neglected. This paper attampts to answer "Which kind of interest dominates the perceptions of rural collectives around LVC changes caused by rural land marketization reform?" Empirical answers come from a Chinese case study that varies in rural collectives' types, space, and institutional settings (modes). Data were collected employing 95 semi-structured interviews out of 430 rural land transactions in five counties/districts piloting rural land marketization reform. Within a mixed-method, the qualitative analysis was used as a predominant method in this study. In contrast to the literature, these results indicate that the perceptions of some rural collectives are not so positive, especially if the 'rural land stock cooperative system' has not been put in place yet. The reason for this is that rural collectives focus on the long-term interest rather than on the short-term interest. These findings shed new light on ongoing debates about future trends regarding the collectives. • Some rural collectives are not so positive to LVC changes by land marketization. • Rural land stock cooperative system has not been fully put in place yet. • Rural collectives focus on long-term interest, rather than short-term interest. • The findings support rural revitalization, instead of rural decay. • Collectives won't be overshadowed by governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Greenhouses have revolutionized farming all over the world. To estimate vegetable yields, greenhouse mapping using high spatial resolution (HSR) remote sensing imagery is very important. Although automatic greenhouse mapping methods have been proposed, they are often applied in limited small-scale areas (i.e. a parcel, a city, or a province). Large-scale greenhouse mapping (i.e. national-scale) faces the diversity of greenhouses in different areas, the difficulty of the simultaneous extraction of the number and area of greenhouses, and the dense spatial distribution of greenhouses. In this paper, to solve the problem of large-scale greenhouse mapping, a novel data-driven deep learning framework is proposed, which we refer to as the dense object dual-task deep learning (DELTA) framework. The dual-task learning module simultaneously extracts the number and area of greenhouses by adopting a greenhouse area extraction branch and a greenhouse number extraction branch. A high-density-biased sampler module is proposed to select more samples in areas with a dense distribution, so that the trained model is more effective at dense greenhouse extraction. Six regions in China were selected for evaluation, which obtained a performance increment of 1.8% in mean average precision (mAP) when compared with Faster R-CNN. Finally, the whole of China was taken as the research area, and remote sensing image tiles at a 1-m spatial resolution from all over China were obtained. All the images were captured by different sensors and downloaded from open-source sites or purchased. The experimental results indicate that more than 13 million greenhouses were extracted in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the trend of global low-carbon development, reasonable and accurate prediction of electricity consumption plays an essential role in vigorously adjusting power system structure, promoting electrification, and other energy-saving and emission reduction measures. Considering the development trend of energy consumption, this paper introduces the Logistic model of energy structure into the system structure, and establishes a novel grey prediction model with system structure. According to the division of energy factors with similar attributes, this model seeks the internal relationship of the development of electricity consumption and describes the interaction between related factors and multiple main factors in the form of equations, which makes the model have better applicability and stability. In the validation part, the ten types of energy are divided according to their attributes, and the main factor group and the related factor group are distinguished. The model proposed in this paper is used for simulation and prediction, and is compared with the three types of models (six models). In the two cases, the simulation error of the new model is as low as 3.9790%, and the prediction error is 0.5645%. Compared with other models, the new model has shown good performance in the case of electricity consumption forecasting in China. The effectiveness of the optimization of the model in structure, background, and application is verified. At the same time, based on the analysis and prediction of China's consumption data, this paper gives relevant policy suggestions for developing China's power structure. • A novel model based on energy background (EPMGM(1,M,N)) is established. • The relationship of factors in the system are characterized by the equations. • A Logistic model based on energy structure is introduced to the new model. • China's electricity consumption is effectively predicted by the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has been increasingly involved in debt restructurings for low- and middle-income countries. This paper presents case studies of China's debt relief actions overseas: Iraq (2003), Cuba (2010), Seychelles (2011), Chad (2017), Zambia (2018), Mozambique (2018), Cameroon (2019), Republic of Congo (2019) and Venezuela (in progress). These cases shed light on the commonalities and particularities of China's actions, and underline the evolution of its restructuring terms. We highlight the lack of formal coordination between China and other creditors. China almost exclusively made its own decision on providing restructurings and restructuring terms. The magnitude of China's debt relief actions remains generally limited and varies across countries, depending on whether other creditors have also provided debt restructurings. China seems to have a growing preference for cancellation of accumulated arrears to nominal debt principal reduction. The debt rescheduling cases have significantly increased in recent years as well. This evolution brings China closer to the flow treatment that the Paris Club privileged in its early years of operations and the prevailing practices among private creditors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing peak-valley differences pose a major threat to safe operation of the thermal-dominant power grid in China. Cascade hydropower stations, especially for one-reservoir and multi-cascade hydropower stations (OMHS), as the second largest power supply in China form an important part of peak shaving operation. However, nonconvex and nonlinear constraints have made it deeply difficult to perform the daily peak shaving operation (DPSO) of OMHS. In this paper, an improved DPSO model of OMHS considering water delay time is formulated and solved. Firstly, the confluence coefficient method (CCM) is developed to accurately describe the water delay time of OMHS. Secondly, to reduce the errors and water spillage, aggregation of nonlinear constraints, selection of the linearized area and periodic hypothesis are performed. Finally, an MIQP model integrated CCM is established by considering one-reservoir and six-cascade hydropower stations from the Hongshui River of China as a case study. The optimization results demonstrate that the proposed model can accurately simulate real-world system, and the optimized peak-valley differences on typical days in dry season and wet season reduce by 25% and 33%, respectively. Moreover, the CCM can produce more realistic and executable generation scheduling than the state-of-the-art description method of water delay time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Investigate the usage of plastic bags in China after its 2020 plastic banning law. • Discover a boomerang effect of the pricing policy used in China. • Discover a widely divided usage pattern between old and middle-young consumers. • Recognize loopholes in the design and execution of plastic banning related policies. Reducing the usage of plastic bags has been a pressing task for governments around the world. In China, the government also makes extensive efforts to contrast the negative effects of plastic bag usage by issuing different laws and policies. Conducting an on-site counting of bags used by consumers, this study investigates the usage of plastic bags in China and evaluates the effectiveness of these policies within both supermarkets and vegetable markets (popular markets primarily for vegetables in China). Besides, 5 different factors are investigated to learn their potential influence on the usage of plastic bags, including generation, gender, the price for plastic carrier bags, the packaging style of products, and market type. Results show a boomerang effect of the pricing policy (i.e., charging for plastic carrier bags) in China. Specifically, the policy decreases the usage of plastic carrier bags by 44%. However, the total usage of plastic bags increases, rather than decreases due to the excessive usage of free inner plastic packaging bags used as alternatives to plastic carrier bags. Old and middle-young consumers are disproportionately affected by the pricing policy and behave significantly differently in their usage of plastic bags. Loopholes in management and policies are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cosmogenic nuclides contained in the annual layers of natural materials record temporal variations in the galactic cosmic ray flux. 14C in tree rings and 10Be in ice cores from polar regions are often used to retrieve accurate histories of galactic cosmic rays. However, the variation in 14C produced in the atmosphere is strongly attenuated in the carbon cycle and the amplitude of decadal scale variations in tree rings is approximately 0.2‰. In the case of 10Be in ice cores, the variation remains at a relatively large amplitude; however, the records are accompanied by dating uncertainties. Another material that contains 10Be is sediment in continental areas. Terrestrial carbonate deposits sometimes form clear annual layers; however, detailed analyses on such deposits have not yet been widely conducted. Therefore, we evaluate the possibility of retrieving information concerning the galactic cosmic ray flux from the terrestrial carbonate deposits. In this paper, we report our preliminary results obtained from the measurements of 10Be in travertine and tufa samples from South China. We find that the 10Be flux obtained from the travertines is comparable to the level produced by galactic cosmic rays and that travertines might have potential as a tool for investigating past cosmic-ray variations with annual resolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The effects of green roofs and practical green façades within courtyard area on public buildings investigated for "Hot Summer, cold Winter" region of China. • Internal surface temperatures for areas with and without external greening monitored and compared. • Heating and cooling energy consumption before and after greening compared from computer simulation as well as from smart meter readings. • Actual heating and cooling energy consumption before and after greening compared using statistical analyses. T -statistics and p -values show significant reductions were achieved. The "Hot Summer Cold Winter" climate region of China is one of the most challenging regions for providing occupant comfort in buildings, with high demands for heating as well as cooling, together with high humidity levels. Although the performance of buildings has improved with the implementation of the new Chinese National Building Standards for the Zhejiang Province, it is believed that adding passive strategies could help to alleviate the problem even further. This paper aims to investigate the effects of adding horizontal greening (green roof) and vertical greening in the courtyard area to existing public buildings in the "Hot Summer Cold Winter" climate region of China. Using computer simulation and measurements from a monitored case in the city of Ningbo, the effects of green retrofitting on human comfort and energy consumption are analysed. Simulation results suggest that with partial horizontal and vertical greening, the cooling load could be reduced by 8.8% and heating load by 1.85%. Comparisons between actual energy use before and after greening on the case building showed significant reductions in both winter and summer, confirming the positive effects of vertical and horizontal greening of public buildings in this region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Achieving ambitious climate goals would require enormous structural modifications in fossil energy-dominated power systems. Unpredictability of the future makes a cautious decision necessary in the low-carbon transition in power systems. Choosing a proper decision method when planning could reduce cost losses when unpredictable emergencies have a disruptive impact on a power system. This is extremely crucial for countries whose power system is still expanding rapidly because their development costs are already high enough and the decarbonisation pathway is uncertain and influenced a lot by the way of decision. Therefore, in this paper, we present a multi-region load despatch transition pathway planning model for power systems with huge demand growth, which can be used for both short-term and long-term decision methods. By comparing the transition costs of various decision-making methods, the decision with lower costs can be obtained. China is taken as a case study. Results show that in order to minimise the cost loss caused by inestimable incidents, China's power system adopts long-term or short-term decisions based on expectations before 2036 or 2041. The cost loss of up to 500 billion CNY can be reduced by selecting a decision method with lower costs according to the rough expectation. • A low-carbon transition optimisation model for rapidly expanding power systems is proposed. • Decision-making strategies that can reduce cost losses are found quantitatively. • Planning strategy of China's power system relates to the forecast before 2036 or 2041. • Up to 500 billion CNY cost loss can be reduced by selecting a suitable decision. • Overly positive renewable power generation construction has little benefit in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voluntary environmental regulations play a crucial role in promoting green innovation. However, the existing literature on the subject has yielded inconsistent conclusions. To address this issue, this study utilizes data from China's list companies between 2008 and 2020, employing both the difference-in-differences (DID) and instrumental variable methods to accurately estimate the impact of ISO14001 certification on green innovation. Our findings indicate that ISO14001 certification enhances both the quantity and quality of green innovations. Furthermore, our results remain robust even after implementing the propensity score matching (PSM) method and conducting placebo tests. This paper also excludes heterogeneous treatment effect bias in staggered DID. In addition, the impact of ISO14001 on green innovation is focused on green innovation related to source control. The study also considers the impact of greenwashing and ownership on the relationship between ISO14001 certification and green innovation. Greenwashing is found to have a negative impact on green innovation, especially in terms of quality, and enterprises with more greenwashing tend to have a weaker response to ISO14001 certification. Finally, our mechanism test indicates that ISO14001-induced green technology innovation serves as a leverage effect on existing innovation activities, rather than a crowding-out effect on other technological innovations or a speculative activity aimed at defrauding government subsidies. • Enterprise ISO14001, green patent, and greenwashing data are applied. • ISO14001 certification has promoted the green innovation of Chinese enterprises. • Source control is the direction of green innovation caused by ISO14001 certification. • Greenwashing has a significant negative impact on the improvement of the green innovation. • ISO14001 certification is a leverage effect on the existing innovation activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strict climate goals require a rapid reduction of carbon emissions across society. It is a considerable challenge to design decarbonization pathways considering co-operation in energy and carbon emissions across multiple sectors simultaneously. In order to obtain the decarbonization pathway for the whole society, this paper establishes a long-term multi-sector low-carbon transition pathway planning model. Besides inter-sectoral energy supply and demand, this study fully considers the allocation of carbon emissions quotas among different sectors by modified-grandfathering method, which takes into account both equity and efficiency principles. The decarbonization targets of different sectors, corresponding mitigation pathways and energy consumption can be calculated. China is taken as a case study. Results show that China's total energy consumption peaks at 5 billion tces around 2030, then falls below 4 billion in 2060, with the proportion of primary electricity and other clean energy reaching over 50 percent. Besides, the realisation of carbon neutralisation in China depends heavily on the improvement of carbon capture and storage (CCS) and end-use electrification rate. Moreover, the study of different quota allocation ways shows that the increase in the contribution rate of power system mitigation leads to the reduction of the total low-carbon transition costs, which also aggravates administrative difficulties. • A multi-sector model is set up to plan the long-term low-carbon transition pathway. • Modified-grandfathering allocation method can consider multiple indicator factors. • The clean energy consumption of China accounts for about 55% in 2060. • The end-use electrification rate in China is close to 70% in 2060. • The transition pathway with lower cost increases administrative difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers a timely exploration of the ongoing financialization process in the Chinese rental housing sector, focusing on the financial means used by the asset-light "long-term apartment rental" (LAR) firms in this industry. Particular attention is given to an important financial product – "rental loan" – which accumulates capital pool through tenancy assetization. Using Shanghai as a case study, the paper also examines financial risks and tenants' vulnerability embedded in the new financing strategies used by asset-light LAR firms. Our findings enrich the knowledge of the heterogeneity of financialization as well as the various impacts of financialization on housing rights and urban governance. This work engages with the literature of housing financialization by critically discussing the patterns and consequences of the financialization of rental housing. • The long-term apartment rental industry, particularly of the asset-light model, has grown rapidly as a result of the financialization of rental housing services, rather than through conventional profit-making business models in China. • New financial mechanisms such as rental loans have been applied to private rental housing, reinforcing the role of financial institutions and investors in rental housing. • The financialization processes in rental housing in general neglect tenants' housing rights and expose their rental tenancies to greater financial risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• This paper explains the key concept of marine ecological-economic accounting. • The framework of marine ecological-economic accounting is constructed. • This study distinguishes the inputs of marine ecosystems and humans to GOP. • This paper presents a classification of the marine ecological economy. In recent years, the Chinese government has attached greater importance to marine ecological protection. To contribute to scientific understanding of the importance of marine ecosystems to human well-being, this paper analyzes marine ecosystem service and its accounting, and introduces the concept of "quaternary industry" on the basis of current marine economic accounting framework. Marine ecosystem accounting, marine economic accounting and marine ecological-economic accounting of coastal areas in China during the time series of 2005–2017 are calculated. The results show that compared with Gross Ocean Product (GOP), the average annual growth rate of Gross Marine Ecological-Economic Product (GMEEP) stays stable. The proportion of the added value of quaternary industry in marine ecological economy is relatively large, which is between 46% and 51%. And the ratio of GMEEP and GOP is around 1.9, suggesting a quite close association between GMEEP and GOP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2008, the urban redevelopment in China has entered a new era mainly characterised by the new redevelopment model proposed and practised in Guangdong province. In the new wave of urban redevelopment towards a more inclusive type of governance, the roles of various agents or stakeholders in the decision-making processes have changed correspondingly. Building upon Healey and Barrett's structure and agency approach in the land and property development process, this paper develops an analytical framework specifically to explore the decision-making processes and mechanisms in this urban redevelopment experiment conducted in China. The empirical basis of this paper is a pioneer city in urban redevelopment within Guangdong province, Shenzhen. Through exploring the redevelopment trajectory of a local collective-owned factory, the roles played by different stakeholders at each stage of the redevelopment process are clarified. The conflicts and compromises between land owners and the developer on the distribution proportion of potential profits, and between the district government and the developer on the inclusion and provision of public facilities, have revealed the key decision-making mechanisms of collective-owned industrial land redevelopment in China, which offer valuable insights and experiences for industrial land redevelopment in other cities. • An analytical framework is developed to explore the decision-making processes. • The case study reveals the roles of actors and their interaction patterns. • Various stakeholders have their own rights to participate in the negotiation arena. • The developer has become a key coordinator to ensure the decision-making process. • The roles of the municipal and district governments have changed fundamentally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sponge City (SC) projects offer an effective measure for coping with frequent occurrence of urban flooding as well as water shortage. In China, enormous demand for urban regeneration and short of capital has precipitated the growth of public–private capitalhip (PPP) mode for achieving urban sustainability. Generally, risk identification is perceived as a crucial step as to ensure the success of PPP mode. However, little attention has been paid to identify critical risks in Sponge City PPP projects for emerging countries, for example China. This paper aims to investigate the critical risk factors of Sponge City PPP projects in the context of China. The list of risk factors used for analysis are gathered from literature review, research group brainstorming, and expert interview. Decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) method is employed in the study to prioritize the risks and then analyze interdependence between them as to recognize critical risks. The research results show that inadequate supervision system (C 1), government intervention (C 2), immature law and regulations (C 5), project fragmentation (C 13), and unclear boundary of catchment area (C 14) are the critical risk factors. The findings in this study can provide helpful references not only for the local government to adopt management measures for promoting sustainable SC projects, but also for private capital to effectively mitigate risks in future SC projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grassland Ecological Compensation Policy (GECP) is a large-scale program in which China has invested since 2011 to alleviate grassland degradation and increase herders' income. Although the amount invested in the program has increased each year, little research has been conducted to evaluate the impacts of the program; as such, this study examines such impacts on livestock production, grazing intensity, and structure using panel data from a herders' field survey conducted in 2015 in Inner Mongolia, China. Results from the econometric models show that the forage-livestock balance, which is one sub-policy of the GECP, had incentivized large farms to reduce their total number of sheep, but the implementation of the GECP could not greatly influence the reduction in the number of cattle present on any farm size. This study also reveals that herders made their livestock production and grazing decisions in response to market prices and that herder households that also had off-farm jobs raised fewer livestock and grazed lighter. Several policy implications are discussed in this paper. • We evaluate the impacts of grassland conservation subsidy on livestock. • Herders' survey and econometric models are used. • Subsidies were found to be more effective for larger farms. • Herders make livestock production decisions in response to livestock market prices. • Herder households with off-farm jobs raised fewer livestock and grazed lighter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • The average compliance cost for China's fuel economy regulation by 2020 is $688. • The market share of New Energy Vehicles will be 16.9% and 34.2% by 2025 and 2030. • China's fuel saving target cannot be fully achieved using current schemes. • Vehicles will grow heavier due to the regulation's curb weight based feature. • The favorable test method will make PHEV the most promising fuel-saving technology. Abstract Under the annually strengthened fuel economy regulations for light-duty vehicles, a technology pathway provides automakers with forward-looking guidance to strategically manage their vehicle assortment and fuel-efficient technologies. Because the regulations worldwide are very different in terms of their various schemes and designs, it is difficult to calculate the optimal pathway or to evaluate a regulation's impact on the vehicle fleet without an assessment model specifically designed to do so. To date, China has issued four Phases of Corporate Average Fuel Consumption regulations; however, a bottom-up optimized technology pathway for the regulation compliance of domestic automakers is still missing. In this paper, real-world data on each vehicle model's market and technology parameters are used to describe China's passenger vehicle fleet. Employing a combinational optimization assessment model for China's regulation, this study calculates bottom-up fuel-efficient technology pathways for complying with the 2020 regulation and the potential 2025–2030 regulations. Under scenarios that do not consider the subsidy or super-credit preferential policies for New Energy Vehicles (Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles and Battery Electric Vehicles in China), the average compliance costs for the three future phases of the regulations will be $687.5, $2344.4 and $3111.2. The average fuel consumption rate of passenger vehicle fleet will reach 5.28, 4.07 and 3.33 L/100 km, and the average vehicle curb weight will increase by 4.7%, 6.3% and 9.2%. These results mean that if current schemes are followed, the regulations will fail to achieve their fuel saving targets and to promote lightweighting vehicles. The technology pathway of powertrains and specific fuel-efficient technologies is analyzed in great detail. The results show that the market share of New Energy Vehicles will increase to 16.9% and 34.2% by 2025 and 2030, and that Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle will be the most promising fuel saving technology due to the preferential test method in China. The sensitivity of the compliance cost and the market share of New Energy Vehicles to regulation stringency is further analyzed. For every change in regulation stringency of 0.05 L/100 km in the 2025 and 2030 regulations, the compliance cost will change by 3.03% and 2.31%, while the market share of New Energy Vehicle will change by 0.58% and 0.73%. These results indicate that if the various schemes for regulation compliance are not taken into account, only making adjustment to the regulations' stringency may have little effect on reducing automakers' compliance cost or promoting the market share of New Energy Vehicles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Orderly operations are essential for ports to gain a winning edge amid the fierce competition. The evolution law of port clusters embodies the development orderliness and rationality of source allocation of port system, which have always been concerned by port authorities and port operators. This paper applies the rank-size rule and uses the cargo and container throughputs of major coastal ports in China from 2001 to 2018 as indicators, proving that three-parameter Zipf's model can effectively describe the rank-size distribution of China's major coastal port systems. Studies have shown that the current size distribution of major coastal ports in China is relatively stable, with cargo throughput tending to be decentralized while container throughput tending to be centralized. Meanwhile, the throughput growth pattern of major coastal ports in China shows different spatial characteristics. In addition, macroeconomics, technological innovation, and policies all have a huge impact on the rank-size distribution and evolution of major coastal ports in China. The results of this paper are conducive to port enterprises to better understand port status and to formulate appropriate development plans. The results also provide reference for government departments to formulate port plans at all levels and promulgate administration policies. [Display omitted] • The three-parameter Zipf's law is employed to study ports rank-size evolution. • A case study of main coastal ports of China is developed. • The factors affecting rank-size evolution characteristics are explored. • The research results provide decision-making basis for stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The multi-region input-output (MRIO) model has been widely adopted to capture feedback effects in energy/emission studies. For regional emission studies, linking regional and global datasets is essential to capture both interregional and international feedback effects. However, this will lead to spatial aggregation. This paper deals with spatial aggregation issues in the MRIO analysis of regional embodied emissions/intensities when linking regional and global datasets. When such data are available for two different years, there are also spatial aggregation issues in the structural decomposition analysis (SDA) that may be conducted to investigate the driving forces of changes of regional embodied emissions/intensities between the two years. In this paper, we discuss four such spatial aggregation schemes with different data requirements. An empirical study linking the data of China's 30 regions and 43 world countries for 2007 and 2012 and analyzing the impacts of spatial aggregation on China's regional embodied emissions and intensities and their driving forces between these two years is presented. The study shows the impacts of spatial aggregation on the regional results. It is found that the spatial aggregation has a greater impact on the sectoral results than the regional results. Implications of the findings on regional emission studies are discussed. • We analyze spatial aggregation in the MRIO analysis of embodied emissions/intensities. • The MRIO and SDA analyses are conducted by linking regional and global datasets. • National AEI framework is extended to global AEI framework. • An empirical study of linking China's 30 regions and 43 world countries is presented. • Impacts of spatial aggregation on China's regional results are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to global sulfur emission restrictions, China has established sulfur emission control areas in its coastal areas. This has a huge impact on China's coastal shipping ships. These ships can adopt the following three sulfur abatement options to deal with it: (1) using low-sulfur fuel, (2) using an exhaust gas cleaning system, and (3) using alternative fuel Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). This paper has established two models from two different perspectives to analyze the differences of abatement options between the shipowners and the general public. Sensitivity analyses are carried out on the factors affecting the sulfur abatement options, including remaining lifespan of ships, ship power, initial cost of sulfur abatement options, and fluctuations in the price of fuel. By analyzing the impact of these factors on the choice of the shipowners to reduce sulfur emission, this paper proposes some incentives and subsidy policies accordingly, which can provide references for policymakers. [Display omitted] • This paper optimizes sulfur abatement options in sulfur emission control areas novelly. • It has established two models respectively in two different perspectives, namely the ship owners and the general public. • A Chinese case is conducted to illustrate the models' applications. • Incentive policies are proposed to inspire shipowners to choose options that are environmentally friendly and cost efficient. • This paper can provide the references for policy makers. • To our knowledge, till now, there is no literature doing this kind of research due to its latest happening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Analyzed residents' thermal demand characteristics under the global climate change. • A new thermal comfort evaluation model of traditional dwellings was established. • The new thermal neutral temperature and comfort range of residents were proposed. • Different measures to improve the old and new types of dwellings were put forward. Global climate change has led to increased differences in the indoor thermal environment of traditional dwellings and residents' thermal adaptability, but quantitative research in this area needs to be updated and improved. In this paper, taking the old and new types of traditional dwellings of Guangfu Ancient City in Hebei province, China as the example, we first investigated the current situation of indoor thermal environment and thermal comfort characteristics of residents by means of subjective questionnaire survey and objective data measurement. The measured data showed that the average indoor temperature of old-type traditional dwellings in winter was far lower than the thermal comfort range of human body, and it was also higher than the relevant standard in summer. Secondly, we established a new thermal comfort evaluation model of traditional dwellings and proposed a new thermal neutral temperature of residents: old-type traditional dwellings (18.1 °C in winter and 27.1 °C in summer), new-type traditional dwellings (19.8 °C in winter and 25.7 °C in summer). Although the measured data showed that the thermal environment quality of the old-type traditional dwellings was poor, the residents had strong thermal adaptability. Finally, we put forward the different living performance improvement strategies of old and new types of traditional dwellings: The old-type traditional dwellings should focus on strengthening the thermal performance of the envelope structure, while the new-type traditional dwellings should solve the problem of low indoor humidity in winter. This research improves the evaluation system of human thermal comfort of dwellings in cold region of China, and provides a good case reference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a resource for human survival, energy is inevitably affected by the turbulence of the world. More than 70% of China's dependence on foreign oil poses a potential threat to its energy security. Generally speaking, short-term oil import shortages can be solved through strategic reserves, emergency production and other measures. However, the long-term import shortage must be addressed through energy transition, efficiency improvement and technological breakthroughs. To explore the ability of China's energy system (CES) to cope with the long-term oil import shortage, we established a CES resilience model under the 17 scenarios of long-term oil import shortage based on the resilience theory and system dynamics (SD). The research conclusions are: CES is relatively resilient and can better cope with long-term oil import shortages. Different measures have different mechanisms for restoring system performance, and the measures during the recovery period should be reasonably configured. Compared with the radical energy transition path, the resilience of CES under the steady energy transition path is about 10% higher. • The ability of China's energy system (CES) to cope with the long-term oil import shortage is explored. • This paper establishes a CES resilience model under the 17 scenarios of long-term oil import shortage. • CES is relatively resilient and can better cope with long-term oil import shortages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agglomeration economies have been an increasingly prevalent interest in research communities of regional and urban studies. Recent evidence reports the importance of agglomeration economies closely associated with the urban network. However, limited efforts have been proposed to emphasize the spatial-functional roles of regional agglomeration and their network behaviors. With the use of geospatial big data and network analytical approaches, this paper, therefore, presents a data-driven intraregional case study in China's Greater Bay Area (GBA) to investigate the curiosities related to a regional network of sectoral agglomeration economies. By extracting industry-related points of interest (POIs), industrial activities are derived by topic modeling in representing industrial functional topics. Bipartite network projection is implemented to construct a one-mode network based on the two-mode agglomeration network. Community detection is further applied over the agglomeration networks, for uncovering groups of agglomerations that are closely connected by their industrial functions. The results confirm substantial geographic heterogeneities of agglomeration networks related to locational advantages. A robust radiation effect on the north-western hinterland is observed regarding material and mechanical production industries. It is suggested that complementary relationships in regional cooperative activities have been partially established through intensive agglomeration networks. • Spatial-functional patterns of the regional network in China's Greater Bay Area (GBA) are investigated. • Industrial functions are extracted from Points of interest (POIs) in the manufacturing sector. • A robust radiation effect on the north-western hinterland is observed in material and mechanical production industries. • Spatial-functional heterogeneities of agglomeration networks are confirmed, probably related to locational advantages. • Practical implications associated with stakeholders' concerns are discussed to enhance regional economies' integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The expansibility of mudstone in the foundation for cutting heaved area was investigated. • An in-situ experiment was carried out of the micro-expansion red-bed mudstone in foundation. • The heave mechanisms of cutting for the ballastless track in summer were studied. • The heave mitigation techniques using the water-blocking ditch was proposed. The cutting of the ballastless track for the Lanzhou-Xinjiang high-speed railway (LXHR) shows a transfinite heave deformation in the summer. This paper investigates the mechanisms of cutting heave by analyzing the water content, mineral composition, microstructure, and expansibility of mudstone in the foundation using drilling core sampling in the cutting heaved area for the (LXHR). Besides, an in-situ test is performed on a typical cutting heaving position to investigate the overall expansibility of the micro-expansion red-bed mudstone after absorbing water under different overlying loads. The results showed that the clay mineral content of the mudstone in the foundation was very low, and it does not belong to the category of expansive rock but only has micro-expansion. The in-situ experiment revealed that the swelling value of micro-expansion red-bed mudstone with a thickness of 80 cm was 12.61, 8.78, 7.31, and 5.77 mm under an overlying load of 0, 15, 30, and 45 kPa, respectively, which exceeded the tolerance limit (4 mm). In addition, the study proposed the possible mechanisms that lead to the heave deformation for the LXHR cutting in summer, including the micro-expansion red-bed mudstone in the foundation, the lateral water supply mechanism, and the excavation and unloading. As a result, it preliminarily suggests the heave mitigation techniques for the LXHR by using the water-blocking ditch. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we comprehensively consider the environment and economic performance by employing non-radial distance function to study the regional eco-efficiency of China's Non-ferrous Metals Industry (NMI) during 2000–2016, from the perspective of total-factor through Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA)-Malmquist analysis framework. The change of regional technology gap ratio and the source of regional eco-inefficiency is also explored. Moreover, this paper analyzes the evolution of regional eco-efficiency and the main factors that contribute to changes in eco-efficiency. The results indicate that: First, the eco-efficiency of China's NMI has improved and has shown a certain degree of regional heterogeneity. Second, the main source of eco-inefficiency is management inefficiency in eastern China. The central, western and northeastern China all showed an increasing trend of technology gap inefficiency and a declining trend of management inefficiency during the sample period. Third, eastern China is regarded as a technology leader. The improvement of eco-efficiency in the central and northeastern China is mainly due to the promotion of technological progress, while the western region relies on the improvement of technical efficiency. The study suggests that strengthening scientific and technological research, promoting inter-regional technical exchanges are particularly important for eco-efficiency improvement and regional coordinated development in China's NMI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New outlying development zones are a common phenomenon in the development of Chinese cities, and exploring their development level is a matter of great interest. Using geographic big data that cover the entire country, this paper analyzes the urban development level (UDL) of newly added outlying patches within 275 cities at the prefecture level or above in China from 2005 to 2015. The results revealed the following. 1) High-value cities are primarily located in the east, whereas low-value cities are primarily located in the west. The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration (BTHUA) is a major area with low UDLs, whereas the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration (YRDUA) and the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration (PRDUA) are major areas with high UDLs. 2) The results of a multivariate regression demonstrate that GDP per capita (GDPPC), average elevation (AE), the distance between the new outlying urban patches, the proportion of secondary industry in GDP (PSI), the average land price in the city (ALP), the original urban land areas (DIS), and economic balance (GDPSD) significantly affect the UDL values of these cities. Relatively higher GDPPC and ALP are associated with a significant increase in the UDL, while more AE, DIS, GDPSD and PSI will decrease the UDL. The results of this paper provide a reference to understand the conditions of outlying developmental zones in China over the past 10 years as well as to explore healthy and reasonable urban spatial expansion forms. • The development level of new outlying development zones in China' 275 cities was evaluated using multisource big data. • The causes of the differences in the urban development levels across different cities were explored. • The higher the rank of the city is, the higher the average development level of the outlying expansion patches. • A patch-based indicator showed that 79 cities belong to the desirable urban expansion group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studying systemically important financial institutions (SIFIs) becomes the research hotspots in risk management of financial markets. In this paper, we study China's SIFIs based on the complex network modeling method on multi-time scales. First, we use complete empirical mode decomposition based on adaptive noise (CEEMDAN) and partial cross mapping (PCM) to construct multi-time scale causality networks based on the normalized daily returns of 30 institutions during 2011–2020.​ Then, the SIFIs is investigated from the perspective of connectedness (information transmission and node centrality) on multi-time scales. Finally, using the technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution with entropy weight method (EW-TOPSIS) to comprehensively evaluate SIFIs, and deliver a sensitivity analysis. We find that: (i) interconnectedness primarily concentrates on the inter-institution in the long-term; (ii) the evaluations of SIFIs measurement from perspective of connectedness on multi-time scale are different; (iii) the scores of SIFIs measured by multi-attribute EW-TOPSIS clarify that banks and insurers represent the SIFIs in each economic circle, and SIFIs can be evaluated according to preference for attributes. • We propose using CEEMDAN and PCM to constract multi-time scale causality networks. • The evaluations of SIFIs measurement from perspective of connectedness on multi-time scale are different. • We make use of EW-TOPSIS which combined connectedness with scale to establish a comprehensive evaluation of SIFIs. • The banks and insurers are evaluated as the SIFIs based on equal-weighted attributes in each economic period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]