In the context of economic globalization, the growth of urban agglomerations is closely related to the socio-economic development. Especially in the network society and information age, the importance of urban agglomeration is more and more evident. After 30 years of reform and opening-up, Chinese cities and urban clusters have changed greatly, and urban agglomerations have developed with the times, gathering ability growth and overall development quickly. Urban agglomerations have become an important core area, industrial highly concentrated area, economic growth area and wealth accumulation area. Especially in the urban agglomerations, a number of international cities have evolved, and the cities are playing an increasingly important role. The development of urban agglomerations has become major initiative to speed up urbanization, and it is also the main form of promoting urbanization and modernization. Urban agglomerations will be demonstration areas for sustainable development and first-experiment area of opening-up cooperation.
Under market reforms and as large Chinese cities are experiencing rapid expansion in the last three decades, rural land in the fringes and suburbs has been transformed into tradable commodity. This process has seen peasants losing their traditional livelihood attached to land and unable to cope with new urban-based jobs. This paper is based on a theoretical exploration of China's informal market of rural residential land, supported by a case study of urban villages' in Beijing which have experienced rapid urbanization. Our analysis shows that the dualistic rural and urban land systems which have given rise to China's urban-rural dichotomy in land rights are institutionally the root cause leading to the formation of the informal market. Peasants deprived of such rights receive little compensations when their lands are expropriated. This paper investigates the response and counter-measures of the Beijing peasants in creating an informal market to generate their own incomes and share of the surplus value' resulting from land use conversion. They rent out rooms to low-income earners and undertake informal sales of apartments to Beijing residents. However, the land allocation efficiency in the informal market is inferior and land rent distribution is also inequitable due to imperfect market operations and speculations. The field surveys of Xiaojiahe Urban Village and Taiyuyuan Small Property Housing have characterized this institutional origin, and their operating mechanism is provided in detail. The informal land development has brought wealth to peasants, but incurred low efficiency in land use as well as handicaps in public services provision. It is recommended that, for rural zones situated at the city's fringes subjected to pressures of being urbanized, land codes and public policies relating to both the urban state-owned land market and the rural collectively-owned land market integrated and examined as an entity. Policy considerations such as protection of farmland, regulations on land expropriation including rights to compensation and job retraining for peasants, land use efficiency and services provided are given high priority.
Globalization has increased the international transferability of knowledge and practice in economic development. Indeed, there are many successful examples of transferring international knowledge into local practice and of providing international solutions to local strategic problems. The problems associated with rural development in China may in part be addressed by drawing on experiences and achievements from other countries, including Britain, which may have experienced similar developmental stages as part of their trajectory of rural progression. This paper analyzes the stages and characteristics of rural policy evolution in Britain, and some policy implications for promoting China's rural development are suggested from the perspectives of developing rural policies, implementing rural development programmes and adopting rural development initiatives. It also points out that any international transfer of models and strategies for rural development will need to be modified for the particular cultural, economic and political traditions and circumstances of China.
According to dialect as a main index and county as a unit, Jiangsu province is divided into Chuhan cultural region, Wu cultural region and Jianghuai cultural region.Furthermore the three cultural regions are divided into seven cultural sub-regions. Then on the basis of cultural division, the spatial pattern and evolution trend of economic disparities among cultural regions and cultural sub-regions from 1952 to 2008 are studied by taking per capita GDP as a measure index, and taking Gini coefficient, one-stage Theil decomposition and two-stage nested Theil decomposition as measure methods. Results show that overall economic disparities of Jiangsu cultural regions increase slowly with fluctuations. In terms of the level of cultural region, economic disparities of inter-cultural region increase with fluctuations and has become the main component of the overall economic disparities. At the level of cultural sub-region, inter- and intra-economic disparities of cultural sub-regions are both decreasing continuously with fluctuation, and the former is the most important contributor to the economic disparities of intra-cultural region. As for evolution process, the change of economic disparities at different levels can all be divided into repeated fluctuation and non-equilibrium increase stages with the year 1978 as a divide line. The formation of the economic disparities among the cultural regions and sub-cultural regions is related with disparities of the regional culture and traditions in Jiangsu province. From the level of the three major cultural regions, it can be found that Wu culture, with open mind and practicality as its core spirit, can breed, select and innovate the "Sunan model" and form the dynamic power and cultural connotation to the leading economic development of southern Jiangsu. The Chuhan-culture, based on the traditional farming culture, which has closed, conservative and lagged characteristics, leads to slow modernization process of northern Jiangsu. The analyses show that different regional cultures of Jiangsu Province breed different mental models, social capital and informal institutions. As a result, different internal and external cultural powers leads to economic disparities.
Based on the expansive use of input-output analysis, this study uses an index system to establish regional division models and cross-regional industrial linkage models (including gravity model of inter-regional, gravity model of inter-industry, cross-region model of inter-industry linkage). Also, it explores characteristics of China's industrial division and linkage from the perspective of specific industries. The results show that: (1) In the aspects of industrial division: Central, Northwest and Southwest China are regions with more static comparative advantage industries, but Beijing, Tianjin and coastal region are regions having more dynamic comparative advantage industries. Regional gradient has been formed between industries; however, some of the regions have similar industrial structures and inter-provincial similar industries. (2)Industrial linkage in cross-regional areas: ① Characteristics of inter-regional linkage: Intensity of inter-industry linkage region is greatly affected by economic status and distance of space, and spatial distribution. Linkage of industries between coastal and inland areas is weak, and it is loose between eastern and western China. ② Characteristics of inter-industrial linkage: Integrated correlation of industries has a significant change between 1987 and 2002. The inter-related intensity of industries is gradually increasing. It is positively correlated between industries associated intensity and their comprehensive linkage industries. ③ Interaction characteristics of inter-regional industries: Inter-regional industrial linkage has clear space directivity to the neighborhood area, and the same industry in different regions has different intensities of inter-regional linkage and range of industrial linkage. Adjacent regions have strong linkage between industries. There is a close relation between industry-level linkage and the level of regional economic development. Horizontal linkage of cross-regional industry increased, and the mixed pattern of horizontal and vertical linkage in industries is emerging. Primary industry, tertiary industries and manufacturing industry in secondary industry are weak linkage industries, and there is lack of effective convergence among them. The cooperative areas are more concentrated on low-tech energy and raw material-based industries and related downstream industries, so the regional advantage has not been effectively integrated.
After Beijing became the capital of the Ming Dynasty, the construction of Beijing city began. There were many construction projects such as palaces, temples, walls and tombs throughout the Ming Dynasty. A large amount of wood was needed in all these construction projects. Wood as the main construction material was mostly produced in most parts of South China, thus the logistics practice of royal wood came into being on a large scale. In this article, we have a study on the logistics practice of royal wood in the Ming Dynasty, taking Sichuan wood procured as an example, to expound the logistics practice of logging off, manufacturing, transportation and storage. The wood procurement process, led by the Ming government, reflected the level of achievements in the area of logistics practice in ancient China, which included organizing a lot of manpower to log off, using all kinds of technical talents, making full use of logistics technical means, using rational transport modes, arranging transit time well and attaching great importance to wood storage. Therefore the logistics practice of royal wood in the construction of Beijing city in the Ming Dynasty was a typical case in ancient China, which is worth studying thoroughly.
The article puts forward the concept of Developing Maturation of ReBAM (Recreation Belt around Metropolises) on the basis of recent ReBAM researches which have the tendency towards micro-viewpoint and its relationship with regional environment. The concept is used to describe the developing status of ReBAM in the whole or some special regions. The authors design the evaluation system and methods which include 4 standards and 13 sub-factors. The 4 standards are interior structure, region integration, supporting facilities, and information in Internet. Using the evaluation system and methods, we can realize the quantitative evaluation of ReBAM, and based on the result scores the ReBAM will be classified into 4 developing maturation statuses: embryonic stage, developing stage, approaching maturation stage, and maturation stage. The authors select Beijing city as the case, and divide the Beijing ReBAM into 13 circle-shape regions according to a 10-km distance standard from city center to the farthest edge of ReBAM. On this basis, the authors evaluate the developing maturation status of each circle-shape region using the evaluation system and methods. The evaluation result shows that the Developing Maturation of Beijing ReBAM presents evident spatial differentiation characteristic. In general, the farther it is from the city center, the lower degree of Developing Maturation in the area, but there is also evident waving in the general pattern. The 40-100-km circle-shape regions in Beijing ReBAM are the more active regions in developing, and they will become the major regions for developing in the ReBAM, and tend to maturation.
Marriage migration is an important aspect of population migration in rural areas. Under the background of different economies and societies, the marriage migration of rural residents manifests different spatial characteristics, and with the changes of economy and society, the spatial characteristics present corresponding changes. In this article, by taking Sichuan Basin as an example and adopting method of empiricism research, the main characteristics of spatial evolvement of marriage migration of rural residents in the Sichuan Basin were analyzed based on a large number of on-the-spot investigation data. The results showed that changes of spatial range of intermarriage had taken place in different forms in different periods. From pre-1950s to the 1950s, the intermarriage area of rural residents was the smallest. In the 1960s and 1970s, the period of collective economy, it enlarged gradually. With the carrying out of rural family contracted responsibility system in the 1980s, it began to shrink. After the establishment of market economy system in the 1990s, the intermarriage area enlarged once again. Since 2000, the tendency has been more obvious. But, in general, the spatial range of intermarriage had gradually enlarged with the elapse of times. As far as reasons are concerned, geographic environment, educational level and career type have had close connection with distance of marriage migration, and economic factors have increasingly played a significant role in regional choice of marriage migration. Furthermore, internal mechanisms that cause spatial evolvement of marriage migration of rural residents were discussed in this article. Results showed that with the development of economy and society, manifold factors jointly had brought about the spatial evolvement of intermarriage, including transformation of production and management mode in rural areas, execution of national society policies, pursuit of economic profit, and existence of spatial resistance as well as change of medium means of marriage.
Based on field investigations we obtained four phase land cover spatial data sets by interpreting MSS images of the mid- and late 1970s and three phase TM images of the late 1980s, 2004 and 2008 in the Three Rivers’ Source Regions. We defined the relation between land cover type and ecological grade, land cover change index and land cover condition index to characterize the trends of land cover and macroscopical ecological changes in this region. By calculating the direction and extent of land cover change, land cover change index and land cover condition index, we analyzed temporal and spatial characteristics of land cover change and macro ecological condition change in the source region of three rivers on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau since the mid- and late 1970s. The results showed that the average land cover condition index of the Three Rivers’ Source Region was 38.20, being the fourth grade in the last 30 years. The Yellow River basin had the best land cover condition, followed by the Lancang River basin, and the Yangtze River basin had the worst. Land cover type with high ecological grade transforming to that with low grade was the main phenomena during the 1970s to 1990s and the 1990s to 2004. Land cover with low grade transforming to that with high grade was the main phenomena during 2004 to 2008. Indicated by land cover condition index change rate and land cover change index, land cover and macro ecological condition degenerated (7090 period Zc-0.63, LCCI -0.58)-obviously degenerated(9004 period, Zc-0.94, LCCI -1.76)-slightly meliorated(0408 period, Zc 0.06, LCCI 0.33). This course was jointly driven by climate change, grassland stocking pressure and implementation of ecological construction project.
As the participants and affected persons of ecological projects in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region during the past decade, local farmers should be involved when we assess the effects and efficiency of those ecological projects, and their comments and favorites should also be paid more attention when the government makes decisions on the future ecological project planning. Using questionnaire-based investigation and positivist analysis methods, this paper aimed to explore the ecological project effects in the typical farming-pastoral transitional zone of northern China. The survey covered 144 families in 3 counties of Inner Mongolia (Taipusi Qi, Wuchuan County, and Siziwang Qi). Results showed: (1) Returning cropland to forest/grassland, enclosing grassland to prevent grazing, and seasonal delaying grazing were the 3 main types of ecological project. A high participation rate was closely related to the family's core business. (2) Based on an integrated assessment taking into account water, soil, atmospheric and biological factors, local farmers' responses referred that they did not think the past ecological projects brought obvious and favorable post-effects for the local environments, although our detailed study indicated that ecological projects had prevented local environmental degradation, reduced sandstorm frequency, and increased the number of wild animal species. (3) Family income and the productivities of tillage and husbandry were promoted after the implementation of ecological projects, though the gross yields of grain and livestock were decreased. The critical factors affecting family income included farming/herding production technology and geographical location. (4) Limiting livestock's amounts, returning farmland, and protecting degraded grassland were the 3 most favorite measures to protect/restore local ecosystems for local framers. Further measures for returning farmland and eco-migration would be supported if compensation was enough. The rate of support was related to family income, available labor transfer approaches, and subsequent guarantees.
Based on universal soil loss equation and GIS spatial analysis technique, the authors studied the spatial distribution of soil erosion in Anhui Province. The relationships between soil erosion and terrain, soil types, land uses were investigated in this paper.The results showed that the mean soil erosive modulus is 249.5 t/km2.a and the total amount of soil erosion is 33599148 t/a in 2002. Minute erosion area is predominant, occupying 118391 km2 or 87.9% of the region.Moderate erosion occupies the largest amount (13533009 t/a, 40.3% of the region). Intense erosion area is small, occupying 612 km2 or 0.5% of the total area; Intense erosion amount is 104018 t/a, or 0.3% of the total amount. Spatially, soil erosion is featured by obvious block distribution. The soil erosion is weaker in Huaibei Plain, but stronger in hilly mountain of southern Anhui and Dabie Mountain of western Anhui. Soil erosion is the strongest from 200 m to 500 m in different elevation zones in the study area. In the case of different slope gradients, soil erosion at 15°-25° is the strongest and that >35° is the weakest. In different aspects, soil erosion in the southeast is the strongest, but soil erosion in the east is intermediate. The strongest erosion occurs in grassland soil of different land use types, followed by forestland soil; Erosions in purple soil and yellow-brown soil are most prominent, but erosion in brown soil is the weakest. As a whole, the results can help recognize spatial distribution pattern of regional soil erosion and provide scientific basis for soil and water conservation and sustainable land use.
This paper takes the Yimeng Mountainous Area, one of the most typical regions of the rocky area in northern China, as a case study. There are relatively few studies on the soil erosion monitoring and modeling in this region. According to the national professional standard of SL 190-2007 Standards for Classification and Gradation of Soil Erosion, this study aims to explore the characteristic of the vertical landscape of soil erosion in the vertical belts with each having an interval of 50 m, supported by the technology of GIS and RS and the data of Landsat TM image and relief map. Based on the analysis of the ecological process of soil erosion, this paper selects the proper landscape indexes, including area, patch density, aggregation index and perimeter-area fractal dimension. The result shows that there are evident laws in the vertical landscape of soil erosion. In the landscape level, PD and SEI (Soil Erosion Index) increase at first and then decrease with the rise of the elevation, while AI is on the contrary, and D increases continually. So two relatively stable elevation ranges and one dramatic change range can be identified. The region between the belts of 50 and 200 was regarded as one stable area with low erosion intensity, in which patches are featured by low fragmentation, high connectivity and regular shape, indicating human activities emerged on the landscape. And the other stable area was in the range of 400 to 800 belts, where natural factors dominate the landscape with high patch density, low aggregation and irregular shapes. The soil erosion landscapes changed dramatically in the area ranging from 200 to 400 belts, and with the rise of elevation, the effect of natural factors were increased rapidly. In the class level, the landscape pattern changed differently. The soil erosion landscapes of the minimal and slight intensity have the similar trend with the rise of elevation, and that of the intensity of intense and very intense were almost the same, and the difference between the above two changing trends mainly exists in the area lower than the 300 and the area higher than the 500 belt. The landscape of moderate soil erosion intensity can be considered as the transfer regime between those of the two categories mentioned above.
According to the analysis of grain size for 180 samples from the floodplain deposition of Xiangjiaxiang in the northern suburbs of Xi'an and the record of historical document materials, this paper has studied flood events represented by the floodplain deposition of Xiangjiaxiang. The materials indicate that the deposited layers of flood in Xiangjiaxian are obvious, which can clearly reflect the occurrence of flood and short-term changes of precipitation. High resolution can be a good indicator of flood events and precipitation change. The particle ingredients of sediments reflect the changes of hydrodynamic force in the depositional period: Thicker grain composition indicate the hydrodynamic force of floodplains in the depositional period is strong, however finer grain composition indicates the hydrodynamic force of floodplains in the depositional period is weak. The thickness of flood deposition of Xiangjixiang profile is 5.40 m, which can be divided into 28 layers, indicating 28 different scales of flood events. The changes of particle ingredients of Xiangjiaxiang profile have obvious changing laws in terms of thickness. Considering the fact that terrain increased have influences on particle ingredients caused by deposition thickness, we can see that when these 28 flood events happened, the flood depth and scale were changing from large to small. The flood deposition of the profile mainly includes medium sand, coarse sand and fine sand, indicating that the flood scales were greater at that time than Weihe in Guanzhong floods in recent 120 years. The size and thickness of Weihe floodplain deposition indicate that when these 28 flood events of Xiangjiaxiang profile happened, the depth of flood above the top surface of floodplain is averagely higher than 2.2 m, and the 12th, 14th, and 19th to 28th layers of the profile represent extraordinary flood events. The huge scale of flood represented by the floodplains deposition of Xiangjiaxiang in the northern suburbs of Xi'an is mainly resulted from increasing annual precipitation at that time, which was more than 800 mm.
With the adoption of Durbin-Watson (DW) Autocorrelation Test, Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) trend analysis and other related statistical methods, the spatial and temporal patterns for the tendency of variation in 30-, 100-, 300- and 500-hPa geopotential heights over the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and its margins (70°~110°E, 20°~45°N) during 1979 2005 are analyzed using the 2.5°×2.5°grid geopotential height data extracted from NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis. The main results and discussions are summarized as follows. The regional mean annual geopotential height showed an increasing tendency in the mid-troposphere, which mainly occurred in the winter half-year. With the elevation of isopiestic surface, the increasing trend would be weakened. And the regional mean annual geopotential height decreased significantly in the lower stratosphere particularly in the summer half-year. As for the spatial distribution of mean annual geopotential height, the remarkable declining trend was observed to be roughly latitudinal in the lower stratosphere (30-hPa), which was stronger over the southern than the northern Plateau with the most significant decline over the southeastern Plateau and the northern Bengal Bay. On the contrary, the mid-troposphere (500-hPa) was dominated by the increasing trend of mean annual geopotential height in particular over the northeastern Plateau. Although the variation tendency is minor compared with the geopotential height itself at any level, similar phenomena have been detected in different regions and at different spatial scales, for which much more attention should be paid. The variation of geopotential height filed is related closely not only with the change of atmospheric circulation, but also probably with global warming, the increase of equatorial sea surface temperatures, ozone concentration changes, and so on. And the variation of geopotential height field over the Plateau is correlative intimately to the regional climate change. Consequently furthermore research should be strengthened on the driving mechanism and influence of the spatial and temporal tendency of geopotential height variation over the Plateau and its regional response to global warming.
Based on the data of climate and runoff from 51 weather stations and 68 hydrologic stations of the Haihe River Basin in Hebei Province from 1956 to 2000, the change of essential climatic factors and runoff are analyzed in this paper. The average annual surface runoff of the Haihe River Basin in Hebei Province is 67.0×108 m3, which decreased from 105.3×108 m3 in the 1950s to 54.7×108 m3 in the 1990s. The runoff reduces with the decrease of the precipitation and the rise of the temperature. The models of essential climatic factors and the runoff established by the multiple regression analysis are logarithmic non-linear functions. Finally, based on the prediction of the future climatic change in 2030 and 2050, the surface runoff of the Haihe River Basin in Hebei Province will be 70.0×108~76.8×108 m3 in 2030 and 69.8×108~76.9×108 m3 in 2050,respectively.
China has made great progress in reforestation since the 1990s. More than 686.25×104 hm2 of farmland was converted to forestland and pasture during the grain for green project, which led to some positive changes in ecological system, but did not influence national grain supply significantly. However, to preserve the achievement from expansion of farmland under increasing population pressure and economic development, some new institutional measures need to be taken based on a better understanding of regional farmland change. This paper, taking Yan’an region, one of the earliest test-regions for reforestation, as the study area, analyzes its farmland variation between 1978 and 2007 and studies the impact and acting mechanism of policies. Empirical analysis reveals that the reduction in farmland area was a long-term regional trend from 1978 to 2007 instead of a short-term trend dominated by grain for green policy. The reduction process can be identified into six periods according to yearly change rates, and each period of farmland change was affected by different institutional factors such as soil conservation projects, reforms of agriculture tax, subsidies for grain production and grain for green policy. Although there are different driving factors for different periods of farmland change, it is consistent that the changed farmland turned mainly into orchard land, forest land and pasture. The consistent conversion from farmland to orchard land results in the higher comparative benefit of orchard production, and its gradual change can be attributed to the gradual increase of farmers’ capability in investment. Moreover, the impact of an institutional factor on farmland change is determined by to what extent it changes comparative benefits of land use types and farmers’ capability. Comparative benefit and farmers’ capability seem to be the dominative factors in regional farmland change. Therefore, to preserve forest land and pasture which has low comparative benefit from the conversion to farmland, subsidization for reforestation should be continued for a short period. Meanwhile, long-term measures should be taken as soon as possible, which includes more labor transfer and economic benefit upgrading of forest and pasture through ecological tour, green production and guaranty of forest right.
The multi-scale issue has been one of the hot-spots in the land use/cover change (LUCC) research over long time, and the recent focus is to understand the micro mechanism of LUCC at multi-scale by using the land use/land cover scenario model. In this paper, we constructed a multi-scale land use/land change model from field to village based on the multi-agent system (MAS) and aimed to reveal the micro mechanism of land use/land change under multi-scale. We firstly made a short review in the context of MAS research and proposed that three aspects as constructing clear mechanism, quantitative analysis of interaction and explicating multi-scale simulation model are the key problems when considering human adaptation to the natural and social-economic changes in the MAS research. In section 2, we made the flow chart and the scale transformation mechanism figure. The correspondence between different organization levels and different spatial scales were also given. Based on the prior conception framework, section 3 deals with the transforming architecture of the multi-scale decision-making model. The transforming methods from the field scale to the village scale were given according to the transforming architecture. A case study for Mengcha Village of Mizhi County of Shaanxi Province was explored by using the proposed multi-scale model in section 4, and the model was tested by the LUCC data of 2008. In the last section, we made a discussion on the potentials and drawbacks of the approach. The conclusions can be drawn as follows: (1) The multi-scale LUCC model constructed in the study can reflect the micro land-use decisions and multi-scale space transformation well. (2) The households land use decision presented by continuous numerical value was in consistent with the actual situation. (3) The approach suggested in this study laid a foundation for the future research on the interaction and transformation among different types of households, and was also useful to studies of the impacts of the market and policy on the household land use decision-making. (4) Larger spatio-temporal scale land use decision-making model is needed to bridge the LUCC data and the short-term household decision-making efficiently.
The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is the most ecologically critical region as it is the source area of some large rivers, such as Yangtze, Huanghe, Lancang, and Yarlung Tsangbo rivers. Based on the field investigation and laboratory analysis of soil samples, this paper discussed the soil physical and chemical properties under different types of land use in main river valley areas in eastern Tibet. The results suggested that distinct differences of soil physical properties among soils under various types of land use were found, cropland and bare land had the higher content of sand compared with other types of land uses, while all the soils in this region tended to be desertified in texture; Due to the accumulation of organic matter, the soil in north-facing slopes contained higher nitrogen; While cropland soil contained higher P and K contents after the agricultural practices mainly owing to fertilization; Among all the types of land use, the bare land soil had the lowest nutrient contents, which were significantly lower than woodland soils despite of its relatively high silt content. The soil organic matter content influenced all the other N, P, K nutrients,which was positively correlated with total N, available N total P, available P and available K (R>0.527, N=97). The correlation between soil nutrients and silt content also disclosed the susceptibility of nutrient losses of disturbed soil by tillage, especially on steep hillslopes during rainfall events. Above all, organic matter management, in terms of land use scenario, is crucial for the significant protection of the regional ecology.
