Studying land use change and its spatial expansion along the terrain gradient is of great significance for identifying the direction of land use change and its sustainable use. In this paper, a case study was conducted in Haidian District and Yanqing County of Beijing by comparing land use pattern in 1992, and 2002 with regard to terrain niche index using remote sensing image interpretation. It was found that: (1) A clear difference exists in land use change between Haidian District and Yanqing County. In Haidian District, the built-up area expands to both higher and lower terrain niche areas with economic development and population growth. Farmland and orchard are extruded to the higher terrain niche area due to urban expansion. Woodland in high terrain niche area is well restored, and further expands to the lower terrain niche area. The unused land, grassland and shrubberies are remarkably constricted in the middle and high terrain niche areas with the intrusion of woodland, and reduced in the low terrain niche sections due to farmland increase. In Yanqing County, the built-up area is obviously confined by the terrain niche and is mainly located in the low terrain niche area as well as the farmland. Orchard, however, is shifted to the higher terrain niche area with the economic development. Woodland is well restored in the higher terrain niche area, and the predominant distribution of the unused land, grassland and shrubberies is reduced. (2) A common point was found in both Haidian District and Yanqing County. Ecological conservation was well carried out in the both areas in recent decade, and consequently natural vegetation was restored appropriately. A difference in land use change is that land use in Haidian District is more affected by the economic development than that in Yanqing County. The built-up area spreads out faster in Haidian District, and farmland was extruded to higher terrain niche area under the pressure of urban expansion in Haidian District, while they are both constricted in the low terrain niche area in Yanqing County.
Applications of fractal theory to LUCC have involved calculation of fractal dimensions of different land types, correct research methods, fractal description of land structure and its evolution, fractal modeling of regional landscape patterns, etc. Although many related studies have been done, investigations to determine the spatial fractal characters of land use and its scale character istics should be further attempted. In this paper, the fractal theory is applied to analyze the spatial multi-scale characteristics of structure of landuse as a case study of Liaoning Province at scales of 1 ∶ 100000, 1 ∶ 500000 and 1 ∶ 1000000. The perimeter-area relationships of patches of different landuse types of Liaoning Province at different scales are established. The fractal characteristics of landuse structure in Liaoning Province are analysed, and the relationships between fractal dimensions of landuse spatial structure are established. It is indicated that spatial structure of Liaoning Province's landuse exists at scales of 1 ∶ 100000, 1 ∶ 500000 and 1 ∶ 1000000, the change of fractal dimension at scales of 1 ∶ 100000, 1 ∶ 500000 and 1 ∶ 1000000 is different, and the spatial corresponding models of fractal dimensions for different landuse types in different scales only can be established by the fractal dimension data between scales of 1 ∶ 100000 and 1 ∶ 500000, 1 ∶ 500000 and 1 ∶ 1000000.The conclusions drawn based on data of Liaoning Province are validated by using the landuse data of Guizhou Province.
The property of underlaying surface in urban area is being significantly changed due to rapid increase of population and accumulation of large amount of economic elements. It is important to analyze the variation of urban vegetation and its predictability for scientific planning of the ecological landuse. In this paper recurrence quantification analysis (RQA), an extension of recurrence plots (RPs), was used to measure the predictability of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) series and the spatial patterns by using the SPOT-VEGETATION NDVI data with 10-day temporal resolution and 1 km spatial resolution from 1999 to 2006. The results indicate that all indices of RQA of NDVI series in the study area lie between the stochastic series and deterministic series, suggesting that the property of NDVI series in Shenzhen City belongs to deterministic chaotic time series. The nonlinear properties of NDVI series differ in different landuse and landcover types, and are generally characterized by the highest regularity in woodland, higher regularity in cropland, and lower regularity in the built-up area, inferring impacts of human activities being as a gauss white noise on the NDVI series. Moreover, the second order Rényi entropy, K2, was proposed to indicate the long-term predictability of NDVI time series. The statistical values of K2 in the whole study area are: maximum value 0.76, minimum value 0.32, mean value 0.60, and standard deviation 0.06. The analysis of spatial autocorrelation in ArcGIS 9.2 suggests that K2 shows a better performance for the discerning of the spatial differentiation of K2, resulting from different landuse and landcover. On the whole, spatial distribution of K2 exhibits significant regional differentiation, characterized by lower k2 values, i.e., higher predictability in the northwest and southeast region with higher elevation and dense vegetation cover, and higher k2 values, i.e., lower predictability in the middle and southern residential area, suggesting that human disturbance may be the major driving factor for causing non-stationary dynamic characteristics of NDVI series. The combination of RPs and Geographical Information System is a useful approach not only in displaying the spatial patterns of RPs computing results but also in analyzing relationships among the influencing factors.
In view of the probability of historical documents, it is stressed that the time-scales on the study of LUCC covers the past 300 to 500 years in China. Land statistical figures from official documents before the year of 1911 had more errors which could not meet a criterion of modern statistics, only a special term "fiscal-unit" showing taxation and mixing different land use types. Owing to the complex nature of historical statistics, we need not only textual research and discrimination error of historical documents, but also consistent examination and amendment of the land statistics, not a single one can be omitted. The War of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was an inflection point of cultivated land use change from summit to bottom in Anhui Province during the Qing Dynasty. The thesis makes an attempt on quantization treatment of cultivation in counties of Anhui before and after the War, and also puts forward reestablishment of cultivation data and a feasible interpolation algorithm for the cultivation rate without recorded data by using historical documents, linking with analysis by means of modern technology and taking all error factors into consideration in which the deviation within the limits is under control. Cultivation rate in counties of Anhui before the War is mainly calculated by saturation ratio, and after the War by population losing ratio. Based on the above, we complete reconstruction of cultivation rate in different counties of Anhui before and after the War, and then display the changing pattern of cultivation in Anhui by GIS. It is a relatively reasonable measure to quantize spatial distribution of cultivation and reclamation which is authenticated by historical documents.
Based on the data of plots along altitudinal gradient, this paper classified the type of forest communities using TWINSPAN classification, consequently determined vertical zone spectrum and concerned species composition and life-spectrum on the northern slope of Mt. Laotudingzi, which is the highest peak of the middle mountains with a relative height of 867m in eastern Liaoning Province. The results showed that: (1) The vegetation vertical zone spectrum was composed of 8 belts, namely the deciduous broad-leaved forests dominated by Quercus mongolica and Acer mono between 500 to 720m, the deciduous broad-leaved forests dominated by Tilia amurensis and Acer mono from 720 to 820m, the mixed coniferous and broad-leaved forests dominated by Abies nephroleis and Syringa reticulata var.mandshurica along 820 to 920m, the dark coniferous forests dominated by Abies nephrolepis and Picea jezoensis var.microsperma at 920-1080m, the mixed coniferous and broad-leaved forests dominated by Betula costata and Abies nephrolepis at 1080-1190m, the deciduous broad-leaved forests dominated by Betula ermanii and Acer barbinerve at 1190-1280m, shrub dominated by Acer spp. and Corylus mandshurica from 1280 to 1320m and alpine meadow dominated by Calamagrostis angustifolia and Carex spp. from 1320 to 1367m. (2) The species richness of the 8 vegetation layers were 43, 27, 33, 39, 54, 45, 47 and 34, respectively, indicating that the highest value appeared at the mid-altitude zone on the northern slope of Mt. Laotudingzi. (3) The proportion of Phanerophytes in the community became larger obviously and Hemicryptophytes was smaller with increasing elevation from piedmont to 920m, however, the proportion of Phanerophytes obviously became smaller with increasing elevation and nearly disappeared on the peak, while Hemicryptophytes increased from 21.2% to 79.4% significantly from 920m to the top.
An agricultural watershed generally consists of farmland and road networks, of which unpaved roads are a significant land use type in rural watersheds. Road surfaces are quite different from farmland soil in physical properties, compared with farmlands, road surfaces may limit infiltration and increase the rate of sediment yield in watershed. Also, road networks can influence and change hydrologic and geomorphic processes greatly in a watersheds. Hence, roads distribution patterns should be taken into consideration in soil loss prediction models as crucial factors. In order to explore the spatial distribution characteristics of roads in small watersheds of the Loess Plateau, a field survey was conducted in the small watershed of Zhifanggou located on central Loess Plateau to get roads network data with the aid of GPS in the study. On the basis of field data and DEM of Zhifanggou watershed, GIS spatial analysis and statistical methods were used to analyze road network in view of their quantity, structure and morphology respectively as well as controlling factors. The results showed that roads on Loess Plateau could be classified into 4 types based on their functions and scales. Unpaved roads of classs 2, 3 and 4 are representatives in small watersheds. Total road lengths are linearly related with road classes. Roads network was similar to the stream networks in construction and could be described by Horton laws. Generally, road construction was controlled by landforms and human activities, roads controlled by landforms were distributed along main road and total length changed as exponential function of distance from the main road. Roads that are relatively freely-distributed are mainly in zones of the same elevation with residential zones. Linear relationship exists between the slope gradient sine values of road controlled by landform and that of land surface. Based on which the mean angle between road and contour can be calculated as 29.3. The microcosmic features of roads were different on surfaces of different slopes. Both the curve span and the angle between road and contour are increased with the decrease of slope gradients. Zigzag rarely happens and roads nearly upright with contours when slope is less than 25 . This study will be helpful in a good understanding of road network characteristics in a watershed and can provide powerful supports to the establishment and application of process-based models which estimate the effects derived from road networks on runoff and soil loss in watersheds.
Soil depth is an important index in appraising soil degradation and soil productivity. In the lithoidal mountainous area of northern China, the soil horizon is thin, with high rock fragments contents. In the interest of shortcut soil depth survey, the research was carried out with penetration method, that is penetrating a steel drill of 1.2 m long with a diameter of 0.6cm into the soil vertically until the tip reaching the bedrock, and measuring the length of the section which has been penetrated into the soil. Statistics and analysis of the survey data showed that 76% of the soil depth is less than 20cm, 90% of the soil depth is less than 30cm, and the average soil depth is 15cm. The spatial variability of soil depth in two meters distance belongs to median level. The variability coefficient of 93% of the samples is between 0.1 and 1, 7% higher than 1. The spatial distribution map of soil depth indicated that the soil depth is deeper in the northwest comparatively with the vegetation type of woodland and shrubbery, where the cover rate is high, and human function is sparse. Soil erosion intensity is low. The factors affecting soil depth were also analyzed. The results showed that the correlation of soil depth and elevation was not significant. Because all the elevation of sample point selected is below one kilometer and the elevation is not high enough to cause the element change. Soil depth has distinctiveness within different aspects; the soil depth of southern aspect is smaller than that of the northern. Moreover, soil depth was positively and negatively related with vegetative cover and slope gradient, respectively, for soil depth increased with the vegetative cover and decreased with the slope gradient. So the topographic factors (slope, aspect) and the vegetative cover are the major factors dominating the characteristics of soil depth distribution. The research method is simple and shortcut, and the result will provide basic data for mountain land use and project of soil and water conservation.
Soil surface crust attracted great attention because of its effects on plant growth and output, and further infiltration and runoff production and sediment yield. Soil surface crust formation is the product of soil and rainfall. The sensitivity of soil crust formation depends on soil properties and rainfall characteristics; however, it is difficult to evaluate the sensitivity of soil surface crust formation because key factors of soil crust formation are still unclear. In addition, many types of soils, especially loess soil, purple soil, red soil and black soil with different physical and chemical properties are distributed spatially in serious soil and water loss regions of China, such as the Loess Plateau region and Sichuan. However, soil crust sensitivities of these regions are short of report. Based on experiment results under simulated rainfalls and conclusions of other researchers, the paper considered that fine particles, aggregate stability and high rainfall intensity are three key factors affecting soil crust formation. Among them, fine particles, especially silt particles provide material for soil crust formation. Whereas, soil particles are commonly in the pattern of aggregates, so aggregates stability decides the rate and degree of soil crust development. In addition, rainfalls with high intensity disrupt the aggregates by its impact energy and change the balance condition of soil; so, rainfalls decide whether soil surface crust develops or not. Analyzing the soil properties and rainfall characteristics, soil crust sensitivities of the above-mentioned regions are concluded. In the Loess Plateau region, silt particles are predominant, and aggregate stability is weak, whereas, rainstorms are frequent; therefore, it is sensitive for loess soil to form soil surface crust. In purple soil region, the content of silt and clay particles is more than 50%, and aggregate stability is weak due to the higher content of rock chipping; consequently, it is prone to form soil surface crust under rainfalls with high rainfall intensity. In red soil region, it is difficult to form soil surface crust except soils developed from granite and shale due to high sand particles or stable aggregates. In black soil region, it is impossible to form soil surface crust on typical black soils with aggregate content of more than 50%. However, soil crust can develop on non-typical black soils.
Soil temperature influences many biological and geochemical processes in soil. With the growing interest in the fields of environmental sciences, soil science and global change studies, the spatial data of soil temperature in raster form at a national scale are needed. However, there are only discrete data of soil temperatures in China, which are extracted from meteorological stations. These discrete data of soil temperatures cannot meet the needs now. Thus, it is really meaningful to derive spatially continuous data of soil temperature from discrete data using spatial interpolation methods. Based on the meteorological data from 698 stations in China in the period from 1971 to 2000 and the digital elevation models of China, this paper attempted to predict the spatial patterns of mean annual soil temperatures in China using three different methods. The data of mean annual soil temperatures from meteorological stations were used directly by ordinary kriging and universal kriging methods in the estimation. And the data of mean annual air temperatures and the DEM data of China were used by regression kriging method to predict the spatial patterns of mean annual soil temperatures in China. Prediction was validated using mean absolute error and root mean square error. The results from exploratory analysis on the original soil and air temperature data in China revealed that the two datasets were approximated by the normal distribution, which suggested that the two datasets could be analyzed by geostatistical methods. These three geostatistial methods were compared in the precision and bias of the estimations. The values of mean absolute error and root mean square error produced by regression kriging method were the lowest, which were 1.17-1.25℃ and 1.46-1.58℃, followed by universal kriging method and ordinary kriging method. It indicated that regression kriging method yielded more accurate results than the other two methods. The prediction by regression kriging had less smoothing effect and more details of depicting the local variation under complex terrain. Therefore, regression kriging was the best method for predicting mean annual soil temperatures in China in this study. This was because the regression residuals were incorporated within kriging system in the regression kriging method, and the DEM data were used as auxiliary information to improve the accuracy of predictions of mean annual soil temperatures.
The world natural resources have been depleted both on quantity and types with the increase of population and economic development in recent decades and the regional ecological security problem is getting more and more serious. Central Asia is not only the neighboring region of China, but also has the similar climate characteristics, physical geographic settings and even the same ecological environmental problems of the arid zone of north easternpart of China. Both countries belong to ecological environment's fragile region in the world. In this paper, four different regions of Central Asia's per capita and regional total ecological footprint, ecological capacity, ecological deficit and ecological footprint pressure index (EFPI) were calculated and analyzed based on the concept and method of ecological footprint. And according to EFPI, the assessment on the ecological security of different regions in Central Asia was made. The analytical results showed that :1) the mean ecological deficit of Kirghizstan from 1992 to 2005 is 0.0900 ha/capita and mean EFPI is 0.9388, on the slightly unsafe ecological status.2) The long period mean ecological deficit and EFPI of Turkmenistan and Kazakstan are 0.3303 ha/capita, 0.8379 and 1.1327 ha/capita , 1.2320 respectively, with both regions on the relatively unsafe ecological status.3)The regional total ecological capacity of Ozbekstan decreased from 28807119 ha in 1992 to 28527138 ha in 2005,and total regional ecological footprint presented an increasing trend; the mean EFPI is 1.7540,on the unsafe ecological status. Based on the calculation results, Kirghizstan's ecological environment is relatively good compared with other regions in Central Asia, followed by Turkmenistan and Kazakstan, and the last one is Ozbekstan. In a word, all these four central Asia nations are in the unsafe ecological environment condition, only the unsafe degrees are different. This study results would have academic value for the comparative analysis of the ecological security or sustainable development assessment of other arid and semi-arid regions in China or in the world.
Methane is an important greenhouse gas with high warming potential, most of methane emit from various wetlands. Some studies on methane emission in wetlands were done, however, few studies were reported in China, especially on tidal marsh. Production of methane is the basis of methane emission, and is also the first step of methane emission influencing greatly the emission process.Hence, research on the fields is necessary. The Minjiang River Estuary wetland was one of the tidal wetlands, which is situated on the southeast seashore of China influenced by tide,the concentrations of soil water content, salinity and electron acceptors were changed, and the effects of variation of soil physiochemical properties on methane production were unknown. Phragmites australis was one of the main species in Minjiang River Estuary wetland, distributed on the intertidal belt, so our study took Phragmites australis marsh which is typical and representative as the study areas. The methane production potential from the Phragmites australis marsh soil of the Minjing River Estuary after the import of electron acceptors and salt was determined using an anaerobic incubation technique. The range of methane production potential in different soil layers was 0.0202-0.0871μg · g-1 · d-1, the average value was 0.0378 μg · g-1 · d-1, and the highest methane production potential occurred in the surface soil, differing significantly from other soil depths(P<0.05). Methane production potential was inhibited by electron receptors import. When the concentrations of three kinds of electron acceptors increased from 4 to 12 mmol/L, methane production potential all dropped gradually.The methane production potential after adding nitrate and ferric was significantly different from that of controlling soils(P<0.05), but there was no significant difference when adding sulfate. There was no significant difference when the different concentration levels of the three types 08 electron receptors were applied(P>0.05). The inhibited effect of the three electron receptors on methane production potential was nitrate>ferric>sulfate; and methane production potential was partly inhibited by salt. The methane production potential dropped when the concentration increased from 4 to 12 mmol/L. The difference was not significant between the methane production potential after adding salt and controlling soil, and also the three concentration levels salt import(P>0.05).
It is of great ecological significance to the characteristics of elemental migration and community composition in the process of secondary succession of the conifer and broad-leaved mixed forest.Taking the sample of Korean pine-deciduous mixed forest communities at various succession stages in Zuojia Nature Reserve, Jilin Province, this paper studied the characteristics of nutrient elemental migration through the litter and soil layer A and B and community composition of herbs, scrub of Corylus spp, Quercus mongolica forest, Quercus mongolica-Betula davurica forest and mixed forest communities, by means of field investigation and comparative analysis.The results showed that the habitat was altered from dry-hot to warm-humid, along with the succession from herb community to mixed forest community. Element migration also transited from organic matter aggregation in surface to a distinct down-movement of clays and nutrient elements. Environment changed from neutral to sub-acid.
Soil and wheat samples in wheat-planted area in Beijing were collected for assessing the concentration and health risk of heavy metals.The results show that the average concentrations of As,Cd,Cr,Cu,Ni,Pb and Zn in the soils from wheat fields are 7.4, 0.165, 37.8, 20.3, 24.2, 14.3 and 70.1 mg/kg, respectively, which are lower than the baseline concentration of soil from Beijing. It shows that planting wheat did not definitely increase the concentrations of heavy metals in soil. The average concentrations of As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn in wheat are 0.032, 0.031, 0.967, 7.05, 0.293, 0.17 and 33.7 mg/kg, respectively. The concentrations of As, Cd, Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn are significantly less than the maximum levels of Food Hygiene Standards of China, and there is no significant difference between Cr concentration in wheat and the maximum Cr level of Food Hygiene Standards. Among the heavy metals, the accumulating ability of wheat for Zn is the best and that of As is the weakest.The average intake rates of As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn from wheat for people lived in Beijing are 0.005, 0.004, 0.136, 0.994, 0.041, 0.024 and 4.75 mg/(person day) and there is no significant risk caused by heavy metals intake for common residents in Beijing from staple and vegetables according to the average concentrations of metals and the average consumption.Among the districts of Shunyi, Fangshan, Daxing and Tongzhou, the largest wheat planted areas in Beijing, the average intake rates of Cr, Cu, Ni and Pb in wheat from Shunyi District are higher than those from the other three districts, while the average heavy metal intake rate of wheat from Fangshan is the lowest.
Flow routing algorithm, which is often used to calculate the terrain parameters such as catchment area, specific catchment area, topographic wetness index and so on, is a key point in distributed hydrologic models, soil erosion modeling and other geoscience fields. The results obtained by the flow routing algorithms have distinct effects on hydrological and soil erosion modeling process. So evaluating flow routing algorithms has become a focus in these fields. In this paper, five flow routing algorithms, which are known as D8 (Deterministic eight-node), Rho8(Random eight-node ), Dinf(D-infinite), MFD ( Multiple flow direction algorithm), and DEMON ( Digital Elevation Model Networks), are selected to compare and analyze quantitatively on two Digital Elevation Model (DEM ) with 5m, 10m and 25m horizontal resolution respectively. Coefficient of relative difference, cumulative frequency distributions and XY scatter plot of the Total Catchment Area (TCA) are designed to evaluate the similarities within the selected flow path algorithms. Also the effect of DEM resolution on TCA, obtained from the selected five algorithms, is fully discussed. The results of the paper are summarized as follows: 1) differences between catchment area values estimated by the selected five flow routing algorithms were the greatest along side slopes area, and the differences decreased where the terrain became more convergent or along the channel; 2) the difference exists in any DEM with various resolutions, but is more sensitive to the high resolution DEM; and 3) multiple flow direction (MFD) algorithm is more suitable to estimate catchment area in complex terrain area than single flow direction (SFD) algorithm does that. So if the condition permits or accurate results are needed, high resolution DEM and fine MFD should be used effectively. This study also points out that the choice of flow routing algorithm has potentially important consequences for the calculation of upslope contributing areas, sediment transport capacity, topographic wetness, and several other topographic indices.
Remote sensing of urban heat islands (UHIs) has traditionally used the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) as the indicator of vegetation abundance to estimate the relationship land surface temperature (LST) and vegetation. This study investigates the applicability of Normalized Difference Moisture Index (NDMI) as an alternative indicator. This paper compares the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Normalized Difference Moisture Index (NDMI) as indicators of surface urban heat island effects in Landsat imagery by investigating the relationships between the Land Surface Temperature (LST), NDMI, and the NDVI. Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) and Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) data were used to estimate the LST through the single window algorithm from three different months for the Zhujiang Delta area. Maps of NDVI and NDMI for three different data were generated from band 3, band 4 and band 5 of TM/ETM+ imageries, respectively. The relationships between the LST, NDMI, and the NDVI were analyzed supported by Geographic Information System (GIS). Our analysis indicates that there is stronger linear relationship between LST and NDMI for all three months, whereas the relationship between LST and NDVI is much weaker and varies by different months. With the change of seasons from summer to autumn, the linear correlation relationship between LST and NDMI was gradually lowered. This result suggests that NDMI provides a complementary metric to the traditionally applied NDVI for analyzing LST quantitatively over the three months for surface urban heat island studies using thermal infrared remote sensing in an urbanized environment.
Braess' network can be regarded as a significant metaphor of human geographical phenomena. By means of this simple model, we can reveal many important geographical principles. Based on the problem of traffic assignment in Braess' network, an integrated analytical process is propounded in this paper for efficiently exploring complex geographical systems. For simplicity, only the linear Braess' network without the third expressway is taken into consideration. The question is as follows: how the traffic flow is assigned between the two routes which have odd symmetric structure.Six methods are exerted to solve this problem, including Lagrange multiplier method (LMM), linear dynamical analysis, numerical simulation, numerical computation, Markov chain, and entropy-maximizing method. In the first place, Lagrange multiplier method is employed to give a preliminary solution. Secondly, a pair of linear dynamic equations is constructed for making deep analysis.The dynamic equations are utilized to make numerical computation and simulation. Further, Markov chain is used to make a prediction analysis.All the five kinds of analysis reach the same conclusion by different routes: the traffic flow should be averagely allocated in the two roads.Finally, the method of entropy-maximizing is employed to bring to light the theoretical foundation of average assignment of traffic flow in the Braess’ network.The entropy-maximization of geographical systems suggests the most equity for individuals and efficiency on the whole.All the six methods can be integrated to solve a problem from multifarious views of angles.If the conclusions drawn by different approaches are consistent with each other, the question is clear.However, in practice, some conclusions are not very clear, or even a conclusion based on one method may come into conflict with another one based on a different method.In this instance , the analytical process of multi-views of angles will help us solve the problem more efficiently and rapidly.
European Spatial Planning is the earliest trans |national spatial planning in the world. Its specific spatial planning ideas, trans |national spatial planning practices, and new methodology and institutions have influenced spatial planning in the world. Along with the globalization and the expanding of the European Union (EU), regional inequality is becoming more and more serious in EU. In order to solve this problem and promote social and economic cohesion, sound management of the natural and cultural heritage, and more balanced competitiveness of the European territory, since the 1980s, the EU has launched several spatial planning programs, such as classification of Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics(NUTS), European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP), and Study Program on European Spatial Planning (SPESP). These spatial planning programs have achieved a series of achievements. Some new spatial ideas, such as urban-rural partnership, functional urban area, etc. and criteria for spatial differentiation have been studied and proposed in European spatial planning programs. Besides, policy implications have the same importance as the program itself. The set up of European regional development fund (ERDF), European social fund (ESF) and Cohesion fund or Structural fund, and European spatial planning observation network (ESPON) play a very important roles in the implementation of European spatial planning. Based on summarizing the contents, research achievements and policies of European spatial planning, the paper ended with the authors’ personal constructive suggestions to improve current Chinese spatial planning.
The most important characteristics of the informal sectors, based upon the general knowledge and existing research, are that they are out of the reach of the formal regulation founded by governments. We found that this is partly wrong for the situation of the informal sectors in the urban villages of Guangzhou City. We chose Xiadu, one of the typical urban villages of Guangzhou, as a study case, and conducted deep research mainly through the methods of field investigation, mapping, interview, etc. We also used some materials from various websites in our analysis. The main economic sectors of the informal sectors in Xiadu are retail, restaurant, barber's, photocopying, and other neighborhood services. One quarter of the informal sectors are outdoor fakers, the other three quarters are indoor shops. Most of the informal sectors are spatially distributed near the entrance from outside surrounding areas to the urban village and along the main roads inside it. The main reasons for the gathering of the informal sectors within urban villages are: loose regulation from the municipal government provided easy business environment; cheap houses provided right space; and good accessibility provided market demand. The everyday surviving state of the informal sectors is influenced by a system consisting of players of the municipal government (the real players are its departments involved in urban management, urban planning, and land use administration, etc. ), local community (or village) autonomy, local ruffian group, the local registered residents of the village, and the surrounding areas' residents. The municipal government, according to its various major political aims, is exerting sometimes direct and sometimes indirect, but the greatest influence on the informal sectors; the local community autonomy protects and supports the informal sectors mainly because of seeking the economic interests from them; the local ruffians are exploiting the informal sectors; the local registered residents of the urban villages support and help the informal sectors because they are renting their houses to them; the surrounding areas' residents are partly customers and partly sufferers (from bad sanitation, noise, and pollution, etc. ) of the informal sector, so they are at most time opposed to it. We conclude that the existence and operation of the system is affecting the real surviving state of the informal sectors in the urban village. It could be understood as a special regulation system different from the generally known regulation, also from that of pure informal governance out of governmental regulation.
Although eastern China has been keeping a high speed of economic development and urbanization as a whole since China’s reform and opening-up, each province in coastal area possesses different characters in the process of urbanization and its affecting factors in the transition period. On the basis of defining the factors affecting the urbanization process on the new background in the coastal province in China's transition period, this paper examined the different main factors affecting every coastal province by factor analysis using the economic and social statistic data in 2000. The index and data include not only the traditional factors such as economy and industrial structure, but also the new factors such as floating population and foreign direct investment in the context of reform and opening-up. The result obtained show that, the main factors influencing the process of urbanization are different among coastal provinces. The coastal provinces have presented different types of urbanization characters in affecting factors: the urbanization process of Guangdong province was mainly affected by floating factors in transition period such as floating labors; the urbanization process of Zhejiang province and Shanghai-Jiangsu was mainly driven by the integrative increasing of economy; Shandong province showed a traditional type of urbanization mechanism as driven by industrialization. The difference of urbanization affecting factors among coastal provinces indicated that the provinces in China's coastal area had begun to show diversification in urbanization process in the transition period.
This paper examines patterns and changes of China's urban systems in terms of air traffic flows since the 1990s. The related analysis approach is mainly based on the gravity model and the fuzzy variable method. The main findings are as follows: Firstly, the pattern, the interaction and changes of China's urban systems conform to the law of"Distance Decay".The global cities, or the mega-cities, such as Beijing and Shanghai have enforced their position nationwide. While in some economic centers of the western region, such as Chengdu, Kunming, and Urumqi, the hub airports gradually grow up into regional centers. Secondly, cities of Beijing, Xiamen, Xi'an, Shenzhen, Guanghzou and Shanghai are evident as regional hubs. Most of these cities are located in the urban agglomerations,such as the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region,the Yangtze Delta Region,the Xiamen-Zhangzhou-Quanzhou Region, the Pearl River Delta Region, the Guanzhong Region, and the Chengdu-Chongqing Region etc. While cities in Liaoning, Shandong and Hubei provinces, their airports do not show evident regional hubness. And also other cities, such as Nanjing, Hangzhou, Fuzhou and Chongqing have small hubness index, because of the influence of related gateway cities or primary cities, such as Shanghai, Xiamen and Chengdu. Thirdly, the types of changes of China's main economic centers include the following ones: the steady type (eg Shenyang, Shanghai, Nanjing), the growing type (eg Tianjing, Hangzhou, Qingdao), the decaying types (eg Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Wuhan, Xi'an), the "increasing-decreasing" types and the "decreasing-increasing" ones. Generally speaking, cities in the Yangtze Delta Region show strong roles of regional motors, while those in the Pearl River Delta and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region show steadiness. Hubness of cities in Liaoning Province, the coastal Fujian Province, the Guanzhong Region, and the Jianghan Region, show slow growth, even remarkable decreasing tendency.
It is very important to research the fractal characteristics of the distribution of transportation network. At present the researches in this field mainly focus on the regional road network and have not attached enough importance to the urban transportation network. There are several different calculation methods of fractal dimension value. Length-radius dimension and dendrite-radius dimension of transportation network of Nanjing city are calculated with the help of the software ArcGis in this paper. Xinjiekou, the transportation hinge of Nanjing city is chosen as the calculation center for fractal characteristics analysis, and the radius value changes between 1 to 9km. The results show that the transportation network of the city has fractal characteristics. The value of length-radius dimension is 1.574. The fractal dimension value of dendrite-radius is 1.3934. It shows that the connectivity of the road of Nanjing city should be strengthened. The box dimension of different districts of the main city has also been calculated at the scale of 50 to 500m in this research and the results show that the value is between 1.3568 and 1.4991. The respective value of each district is 1.4991(Xiaguan),1.4902 (Gulou), 1.4401(Qinhuai), 1.4393(Jianye), 1.4129(Baixia)and 1.3568(Xuanwu). The fractal dimension of transportation network of these districts does not have very good relationship with economic index. It can be concluded that besides urban transportation network, there are many other factors that influence the economic development of the districts, such as the existence of water region and upland, which influence the road construction.How to plan the transportation network of the districts with the present economic condition is still a difficult problem. It has also been brought forward that the accuracy of the fractal dimension value is relative because the order of the road has not been considered. How to assign the weight value to the roads with different orders is very important for future research. There is still no answer to the questions such as in which scale the fractal dimension of the transportation network does not have good relationship with regional economy index, and whether they have good relationship in other regional scale. More researches should be done to get the answer to the relative questions.
Recently, under the national new policies of real estates, the commercial-office buildings in Shanghai real estates market are now flourishing. Both the sale price and rent price of commercial-office buildings rise. On the basis of reviewing the existing research at home and abroad, the authors analyze the development situation and features of Shanghai commercial-office buildings, and reveal the rent differentiation of Shanghai commercial-office buildings. By means of collecting rental price samples of commercial-office buildings, which are distributed in the Nanjing Road, the Yanan Road and the Huaihai Road, altogether 24 sample areas, and with the help of multivariate linear regression analysis method, the authors analyze the interaction relations between the rent price of Shanghai commercial-office buildings and geographical location, service facilities, traffic conditions, average floors, average parking spaces and virescent coverage. The regression analysis results show that service facilities and average parking spaces are the main factors affecting the rents of Shanghai commercial-office buildings. The factors of virescent coverage, geographical location and traffic conditions are secondary. The factor of average floors is not remarkable. Finally, aimed at the multi-central patterns of Shanghai commercial-office buildings, some relative issues for further development and administration of commercial-office buildings are discussed.
The significances of traditional culture and indigenous knowledge in biodiversity conservation and naturel management have been widely recognized throughout the world and, therefore, to conserve cultural diversity has been taken as one of the effective approaches to biodiversity conservation. China is a typical nation with multiple minorities and plentiful minority cultures which are important components of so-called natural and cultural heritage. Taboo, one of the most disputed and complex socio-cultural phenomena, was formed during the long historical natural adaptation and social intercommunication. Although most taboos have been changing or even disappeared along with social and economic development, some also play an important role in modern times. More importantly, compared to laws, rules or legislations, some taboos are more easily accepted by local people in some areas. In this paper, based on the review of many kinds of literatures and field survey in Dong Minority located in Congjiang County of Guizhou Province, the background of taboo formation was analyzed, some typical taboos related to rice-planting such as god and ghost worship, ancestor worship, and water worship, fish worship, frog worship, snake worship and so on, and their significance were discussed from the ecological angle, and the positive effects of traditional cultures including taboo in ecological conservation and regional sustainable development were illustrated.
With the rapid development of the tourism consumption,tourism destination has been broken through traditional development pattern of hospitality and changed from resource and product marketing era to thematic conception marketing era.To construct tourism collaborative union and to promote the development of the industrial cluster has been an important stratagem of tourism development.As a new mode of tourism collaboration,thematic tourism union is founded on the similar spatial perception,modern information technology and uniform brand marketing.Attention Economy Theory,Integrated Symbiosis Theory and Tourism Industrial Cluster Theory are the bases of the thematic tourism union.Based on the analysis of more than 20 examples of tourism union,the types of thematic tourism collaborative union are summarized from four perspectives of geographical linkage,theme style, spatial structure and organization form.Taking the Grand Canal from Jining in Shandong province to Yangzhou in Jiangsu province as a study area,the cultural resources and tourism development are discussed,and "Millennium Canal,Century Scenario" is advanced as the theme of the Grand Canal tourism.Then the development stratagem of the Thematic Tourism Collaborative Union is probed into.Firstly, regional resources,cultural itineraries and tradition should be integrated with the collaborative marketing of the theme of the Grand Canal.Secondly,thematic tourism cluster should be organized to perfect the product system of the Grand Canal.Thirdly,spatial organization system should be developed for service center, core area and favorite itineraries.Fourthly,collaborative safeguard mechanism should be market-oriented and driven by the government.Finally,information platform should be established to support the tourism collaboration along the Grand Canal.
Analyzing problems and solutions emerged with the development of agri-tourism destinations in minority areas from the angle of tourist perception is of theoretical and practical significance for solving "three agricultural problems", promoting the construction of new socialist countryside in minority areas and even the whole western area. Using Structural Equation Model(SEM), the paper analyzed three national agri-tourism demonstration sites in southwestern minority areas. The results show that tourist perception model proposed in this paper has more convincing explanation capabilities. The remarkable impacts of featured tourism commodities on tourists' satisfaction and loyalty is solely and quantitatively verified for the first time through application structural equation (γ13＝0.26 ** ), The load of both observed variables named the feature and the quality of tourism commodities are over 0.8 *** , which give sufficiently support for the hypotheses.The research conclusion also indicates that tourists’ satisfaction and loyalty has obvious positive relationships (β21＝0.88 *** ), tourism resources and software service are obviously related to tourists’ satisfaction (γ11＝0.48 *** ,γ12＝0.20*), while tourism hardware service is not necessarily correlated to tourists’ satisfaction. The article quantitatively verified that the key factors attracting tourists for the agri-tourism destinations in minority areas lie on conservation and exploitation of thematic features such as natural scenery, rural scene and minority folk-custom. Exploitation and protection of abundant agri-tourism resources characterized by "two local, three countryside" (local country characteristics, local resources, countryside environment, countryside folk-custom, countryside life) are critical factors. Visitors to agri-tourism destinations in minority areas mainly come from cities inside the province or provinces nearby, among which the urban citizens who have received junior college education and whose monthly individual income ranges from RMB1000 to 4999 are the core customer group. Tour motive mostly derived from the expectation of experiencing village life, leisure and amusement, sightseeing, and enjoying local folk-custom. Hence, in the process of developing agri-tourism, a relaxing and comfortable environment will have better effect on attracting tourists.
With the flourishing development of tourism, competitions among different tourism destinations are becoming tenser day by day. In order to realize the goal of surviving and even sustainable development of tourism, it is urgent and necessary for tourism destinations to enhance the understanding, cultivation and management of tourism competitiveness. Analysis and appraisement on the dynamic developing trend of tourism competitiveness is the fundamental method as well as the basic work to achieve the target above. Taking Shandong Peninsula urban agglomeration as the study area, the article establishes the appraisal index system for the entire region and its interior cities, respectively, which include the following five aspects: driving forces for tourism development, tourism development level, tourism impacts, tourism economic connection and tourism contributions of different cities to the whole region. As tourism competitiveness has the characteristics of comprehensiveness, systematicness and dynamicness, the article establishes the dynamic simulation model by use of the system dynamics, simulates and analyzes the tourism competitiveness trend of the Shandong Peninsula urban agglomeration from 2005 to 2020. The results show that: tourism competitiveness of the interior cities presents a steadily increasing trend in the next 15 years; at the end of the simulation period, the competitiveness rank of the eight cities will be Qingdao, Jinan, Yantai, Rizhao, Weihai, Dongying, Zibo and Weifang; compared with the individual cities, competitiveness of the entire Shandong Peninsula urban agglomeration increases to a greater extent, which reflects that integrated development and regional combination of tourism are important means to upgrade tourism competitiveness in this region.
