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Territorial spatial planning involves fixability and flexibility in different driving factors related to control and development orientation, and they play an important role in regional sustainable development, especially in developing countries such as China. With rapid urbanisation and industrialisation, China has been impacted by conflicts between development and protection in territorial space. To integrate the contradictions among different territorial spatial planning measures, planners and scholars have started to focus on studies regarding fixability–flexibility relationships and integration. However, the relationship between and integration of fixability and flexibility in territorial spatial planning have yet to be clearly summarised. This paper explores an innovative research direction for the fixability–flexibility relations in territorial spatial planning from a new perspective, the Food–Energy–Water Nexus, which is a dynamic and comprehensive framework for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) studies. This paper covers the existing research on fixability and flexibility in territorial spatial planning. Moreover, after summarising the conflicts of fixability and flexibility, the dialectical relationship between and the integration of fixability and flexibility are researched. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against the backdrop of an urban-rural dual structure, governance structure significantly influences the fairness and sharing of land value increment profits from land consolidation in various regions. This paper develops a spatial-institutional analytical framework, reflects on the traditional government-led land quota planning management mechanism and advocates optimizing governance structures in land consolidation to facilitate urban-rural element flows and the sharing of land value increment profits. This paper selects two comprehensive land consolidation cases in the Fenghua District and Cixi City of Ningbo, representing government-led and village collective self-organized governance structures. The research shows that the Fenghua case adopts a government-led state-owned enterprise coordinated governance structure, which state-owned enterprises bear operational risks and the majority of profit sharing, while village collectives, as landowners, are insufficiently protected in benefit sharing. The Cixi case employs a government-embedded village-town governance structure, with the village collectives as the main operating body, allowing collective construction land to enter the market to ensure the sharing of community profits. Both governance structures promote the bidirectional flow of urban-rural land resource elements; the former significantly drives urban development, while the latter ensures better benefit sharing for village collectives. The research proposes that optimizing governance structures and improving land quota allocation mechanisms can further stimulate various entities' participation in land consolidation and land value activation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 14th Five-Year Plan for China proposes to promote the urbanization process from a county perspective, presenting an unprecedented opportunity to develop county urbanization. However, in the context of relatively limited resources, insufficient funds, and comparatively lower land values in Chinese counties, how to promote county urbanization remains the primary challenge, which has not been studied yet. This study first analyzes the necessity of promoting county urbanization from four dimensions: national development strategy, industrial policy development, local government status, and enterprise development demands using literature research and survey interviews. Based on field research conducted in 32 counties in China, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis is carried out on the county urbanization process in this study. By analyzing the developmental status and challenges of major urban areas, expansion areas of counties, and their surrounding countryside, this paper proposes a "three-level gradient integration" concept for the spatial integration of county urbanization. Furthermore, the mechanism of multi-agent linkage to promote county urbanization was explored based on the theory of urban governance and the characteristics of county urbanization. Subsequently, relying on the analysis of policies, such as land acquisition and integrated land improvement, and adopting modes, such as "Investor + Engineering Procurement Construction + Operation" (investor + EPC + O) and renovate–operate–transfer (ROT), we propose a pathway for promoting county urbanization through the linkage of government, enterprises, and residents. This study provides insight into promoting the county urbanization process. Additionally, each country faces the common issue of how to use limited resources to promote regional development, and this article can provide valuable insights and inspiration for addressing this shared issue by the principle of adapting to local conditions and adhering to the concept of efficient market and proactive government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shrinkage in China's cities has gradually received increasing attention. Specifically, county-level shrinking cities are numerous and widely distributed. City shrinkage even appears throughout Zhejiang Province, which is highly developed and has stable economic growth. County-level shrinking cities resulting from regional competition can still maintain long-term and stable economic growth, but their economic growth lags behind the whole competitive region. We identified five county-level shrinking cities in Zhejiang Province, and characterized the shrinkage phenomenon in Changshan County using census, nighttime lighting (NTL), and Tencent Location Big Data. City shrinkage resulted from the comprehensive effects of declining traditional industries, backward per capita income, highly skilled labor force shortages, and population age structure changes. Given the shrinkage status of Changshan, we proposed countermeasures and suggestions including aspects of industrial development, urban planning, social governance, and care for the elderly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1998, the land finance model based on residential and commercial land transfer revenue has played an important role in Chinese social and economic growth, especially in urban infrastructure construction. With China's population peak and stable urbanization, the "incremental" land-transfer-heavy development paradigm is unsustainable. At the same time, as a developing country, local governments in China must have enough fiscal revenue to encourage high-quality growth. The transformation of land finance is a practical issue that needs to be explored urgently. This article, which was based on the local government financial balance theory, proposed supporting the optimization of the land finance incremental model with the reform of the property tax system. A local land finance transformation mechanism with increment and inventory synergy was then created. Specifically, to avoid a cliff-like fall in the local government's land-transfer fee, it was proposed that the land-transfer fee change from the original collection, from ordinary commercial housing to improved housing. The property tax should be levied on the second set of ordinary commercial housing to obtain fiscal revenue from the "inventory". Concurrently, the fiscal money from property taxes could be utilized to build cheap rental housing or to support housing vouchers for new urban residents and young people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Massive growth is posing threat to the ecological security and sustainability of cities. Ecosystem service value (ESV) and ecological risk index (ERI) assessment can be conducted to enhance urban ecosystem management through the enhanced recognition of these values and risks in decision-making. This paper aimed to measure spatiotemporal ESV and ERI for Shizuishan City located in central China, and, based on this, how to zone urban ecological space using land cover data (for the years 2010, 2015, and 2020). The management options of different zones were suggested to mitigate and manage any potential negative impacts on urban ecological security. Results show that: (1) The spatial distribution characteristic of ESV is "high in the south and low in the north". The total ESV exhibited an upward tendency from 2010 to 2020. (2) The high-ERI areas were distributed in the peripheral region, while the low-ERI areas were concentrated in the central region. The ERI of water was in decline continuously, whereas the ERI of wetland maintained a high level. (3) The zoning approach integrating ESV and ERI assessment can truly reflect the status of the environment and better clarify the direction of ecological development for different areas. Among four different ecological zones, the high-ESV and low-ERI areas (I) have abundant ecological resources, and they are set as "Priority Development Areas". The low-ESV and low-ERI areas (II) are set as "Ecological Improvement Areas" because the area of ecological lands are confined. The low-ESV and high-ERI areas (III) have a fragile ecological environment, and they are set as "Exploitation-Prohibited Areas". The high-ESV and high-ERI areas (IV) are mainly distributed near water and wetland, and they are set as "Research-focused Areas". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction of both nitrogen and transition metal elements into the carbon materials has demonstrated to be a promising strategy to construct highly active electrode materials for energy shortage. In this work, through the coordination reaction between Fe3+ and 1,3,5–tris(4–aminophenyl)benzene, metallosupramolecular polymer precursors are designed for the preparation of carbon flakes co-doped with both Fe and N elements. The as-prepared carbon flakes display wrinkled edges and comprise Fe3C nanoparticle and active site of Fe–Nx. These carbon materials exhibit excellent electrocatalytic performance. Towards oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), the optimized sample has Eonset and Ehalf-wave of 0.93 V and 0.83 V in alkaline system, respectively, which are very close to that of Pt/C. This approach may offer a new way to high performance and low-cost electrochemical catalysts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is one of the largest carbon emitting countries in the world. Numerous strategies have been considered by the Chinese government to mitigate carbon emissions in recent years. Accurate and timely estimation of spatiotemporal variations of city-level carbon emissions is of vital importance for planning of low-carbon strategies. For an assessment of the spatiotemporal variations of city-level carbon emissions in China during the periods 2000–2017, we used nighttime light data as a proxy from two sources: Defense Meteorological Satellite Program's Operational Linescan System (DMSP-OLS) data and the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite's Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (NPP-VIIRS). The results show that cities with low carbon emissions are located in the western and central parts of China. In contrast, cities with high carbon emissions are mainly located in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region (BTH) and Yangtze River Delta (YRD). Half of the cities of China have been making efforts to reduce carbon emissions since 2012, and regional disparities among cities are steadily decreasing. Two clusters of high-emission cities located in the BTH and YRD followed two different paths of carbon emissions owing to the diverse political status and pillar industries. We conclude that carbon emissions in China have undergone a transformation to decline, but a very slow balancing between the spatial pattern of high-emission versus low-emission regions in China can be presumed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While urbanization acts as an engine of economic growth, rising inequality and exclusion within cities derails development progress. In the past 30 years, the population in China has converged to large-scale cities, which brought a severe housing issue, not least for migrants. In order to relieve the tension between the increasing demand for housing and the scarcity of urban resources, research on housing policy in response to urban growth is a matter of cardinal significance. This paper made an effort to explore the mechanism of public housing policies coordinated with urban growth management. Taking Chongqing City as the study area, the system dynamics model was adopted in exploring the coordination mechanism. The impact of the two policies were simulated, including the urban population control and public housing supply. The results indicated that the combined policy could more effectively cope with the possible urban housing crisis under the long-term trend, and promote urban inclusive growth. Meanwhile, the starting time of intervention also has a significant impact on the policy effect. This study shares China's experience and provides reference for other developing countries to pursue socio-economic sustainability in the process of urbanization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's rapid urbanization and industrialization have continually placed massive pressure on the country's natural resources. The fragmented departmental administration of natural resources also intensifies the problem of sustainable use. Accordingly, China's central government has launched natural resource administration reform from decentralization to unification. This study systematically analyzes the reform requirements from legal, organizational, and technical aspects. The right structure of China's natural resource assets for fulfilling such requirements is examined in this work through a review of relevant legal text, and such a right structure is converted into a draft national technical standard of China's natural resource administration on the basis of the land administration domain model (LADM). Results show that China's natural resource administration covers lands, buildings, structures, forests, grasslands, waters, beaches, sea areas, minerals, and other fields. The types of private rights over natural resources include ownerships, land-contracted management rights (cultivated land, forest land, grassland, and water area), rights to use construction land (state-owned and collective-owned), rights to use agricultural land, rights to use homestead land, breeding rights on water areas and beaches, rights to use sea areas, rights to use uninhabited islands, and mining rights. The types of public rights over natural resources include comprehensive land use, urban and rural, sea use, and territory space planning. Furthermore, various types of these property rights can be converted into corresponding classes in LADM on the basis of the analysis of the property subject, object, and rights. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heteroatom-doped carbon materials have been extensively studied in the field of electrochemical catalysis to solve the challenges of energy shortage. In particular, there is vigorous research activity in the design of multi-element co-doped carbon materials for the improvement of electrochemical performance. Herein, we developed a supramolecular approach to construct metallosupramolecular polymer hollow spheres, which could be used as precursors for the generation of carbon shells co-doped with B, N, F and Fe elements. The metallosupramolecular polymer hollow spheres were fabricated through a simple route based on the Kirkendall effect. The in situ reaction between the boronate polymer spheres and Fe3+ could easily control the component and shell thickness of the precursors. The as-prepared multi-element co-doped carbon shells showed excellent catalytic activity in an oxygen reduction reaction, with onset potential (Eonset) 0.91 V and half-wave (Ehalf-wave) 0.82 V vs reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE). The fluorine element in the carbon matrix was important for the improvement of oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) activity performance through designing the control experiment. This supramolecular approach may afford a new route to explore good activity and a low-cost catalyst for ORR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbon dioxide emissions in developing countries are closely tied to their economy and play a crucial role in the world’s future emissions. In this paper, we put forward an alternative energy use paradigm shift of low-carbon emissions from operational, governance, institutional, and cultural viewpoints (OGIC). An urbanization factor is introduced into the Kaya identity, and three simulations are conducted to forecast the carbon footprint and to explore the effects of the energy use paradigm shift policy. The simulation results show that, in the context of the energy use paradigm shift, the years 2015 and 2024 are the two inflection points that separate the carbon footprint into three periods of extensive consumption (2000–2015), early energy transition (2016–2023), and late energy transition (2024–2030). Overall, the peak carbon emission value is forecasted to appear during the third stage. The findings are expected to demonstrate the effects of the energy use paradigm shift on carbon emissions and assist policy makers formulate a scientific policy framework for low carbon development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]