Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are universally mutualistic symbionts that colonize the fine roots of most vascular plants. However, the biogeographical patterns and driving factors of AMF diversity of plant roots in grasslands are not well investigated. In this study, we used high-throughput sequencing techniques and bioinformatics to evaluate the AMF richness of 333 individual plant roots in 21 natural grassland ecosystems in northern China, including the Loess Plateau (LP), the Mongolian Plateau (MP), and the Tibetan Plateau (TP). The AMF richness showed a significant parabolic trend with increasing longitude. In regional situations, the AMF richness in the grasslands of the MP (60.4 ± 1.47) was significantly higher than those of the LP (46.4 ± 1.43) and TP (44.3 ± 1.64). Plant traits (including plant families, genera, and functional groups) explained the most variation in the AMF richness across China’s grasslands, followed by energy and water; soil properties had the least effects. The results showed the biogeographical patterns of the AMF richness and the underlying dominant factors, providing synthetic data compilation and analyses in the AMF diversity in China’s grasslands.

Land use/cover change (LUCC) is a major factor affecting net primary production (NPP). According to the LUCC of the Loess Plateau from 2005 to 2015, the LUCC patterns in 2025 in three scenarios were predicted by using the Future Land Use Simulation (FLUS) model. Furthermore, taking the average NPP of various land use/cover types in 16 years as the reference scale, the changes in NPP in multi-scenario simulations are predicted and analyzed, and the impact of different land use/cover transfers on NPP is quantified. The results are as follows: (1) The land use/cover changes greatly in the baseline and fast development scenarios, and changes relatively little in the ecological protection scenarios. (2) The changes in NPP in different scenarios reflected the significant difference in the ecological protection effect. All the three scenarios promote an NPP increase, but the ecological protection scenario can promote NPP increases the most. (3) The changes in NPP caused by LUCC in the three scenarios reflected the significant difference in the various land use/cover types protection effect. Analyzing and predicting NPP changes in multi-scenario LUCC simulations in the future can provide a theoretical basis for decision makers to judge the future changes in ecological environments and ecological protection effects against different policy backgrounds.

?ngstr?m-Prescott equation (AP) is the algorithm recommended by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations for calculating the surface solar radiation (R_s) to support the estimation of crop evapotranspiration. Thus, the a_s and b_s coefficients in the AP are vital. This study aims to obtain coefficients a_s and b_s in the AP, which are optimized for China’s comprehensive agricultural divisions. The average monthly solar radiation and relative sunshine duration data at 121 stations from 1957-2016 were collected. Using data from 1957 to 2010, we calculated the monthly a_s and b_s coefficients for each subregion by least-squares regression. Then, taking the observation values of R_s from 2011 to 2016 as the true values, we estimated and compared the relative accuracy of R_s calculated using the regression values of coefficients a_s and b_s and that calculated with the FAO recommended coefficients. The monthly coefficients, a_s and b_s, of each subregion are significantly different, both temporally and spatially, from the FAO recommended coefficients. The relative error range (0-54%) of R_s calculated via the regression values of the a_s and b_s coefficients is better than the relative error range (0-77%) of R_s calculated using the FAO suggested coefficients. The station-mean relative error was reduced by 1% to 6%. However, the regression values of the a_s and b_s coefficients performed worse in certain months and agricultural subregions during verification. Therefore, we selected the a_s and b_s coefficients with the minimum R_s estimation error as the final coefficients and constructed a coefficient recommendation table for 36 agricultural production and management subregions in China. These coefficient recommendations enrich the case study of coefficient calibration for the AP in China and can improve the accuracy of calculating R_s and crop evapotranspiration based on existing data.

According to the analysis of the climate materials including the topographic map in 1975, the TM and CBERS satellite remote sensing materials from the 1980s to 2005 as well as the air temperature, precipitation, evaporation rate, maximum depth of snow and the biggest depth of frozen soil in the past 45 years, the water level area of four lakes at the southeast of Nagqu, Tibet including Bam Co, Pung Co, Dung Co and Nuripung Co show a distinct trend of expansion in the past 30 years. In 2005, the water level area of the above four lakes increased by 48.2 km², 38.2 km², 19.8 km² and 26.0 km² respectively compared to 1975, with the respective increase rate of 25.6%, 28.2%, 16.2% and 37.6%. That is closely related to the warming and humidified climate change in the recent years such as rise of the air temperature, increase of the precipitation, decrease of the evaporation rate and permafrost degradation.

The characteristics of water vapor transport (WVT) over China and its relationship with precipitation anomalies in the Yangtze River Basin (YRB) are analyzed by using the upper-air station data in China and ECMWF reanalysis data in summer from 1981 to 2002. The results indicate that the first mode of the vertically integrated WVT is significant whose spatial distribution presents water vapor convergence or divergence in the YRB. When the Western Pacific Subtropical High (WPSH) is strong and shifts southward and westward, the Indian Monsoon Low Pressure (IMLP) is weak, and the northern part of China stands behind the middle and high latitude trough, a large amount of water vapor from the Bay of Bengal (BOB), the South China Sea (SCS) and the western Pacific forms a strong and steady southwest WVT band and meets the strong cold water vapor from northern China in the YRB, thus it is likely to cause flood in the YRB. When WPSH is weak and shifts northward and eastward, IMLP is strong, and there is nearly straight west wind over the middle and high latitude, it is unfavorable for oceanic vapor extending to China and no steady and strong southwest WVT exists in the region south of the YRB. Meanwhile, the cold air from northern China is weak and can hardly be transported to the YRB. This brings on no obvious water vapor convergence, and then less precipitation in the YRB.

Eco-geographic regional system is formed by division or combination of natural features based on geographic relativity and comparison of major ecosystem factors (including biological and non-biological) and geographic zonality. In previous studies, soil types were often taken as a basis for soil regionalization. However, the quantitative characteristics of soil indicators are fitter than the qualitative ones of soil types for modern regionalization researches. Based on the second China’s national soil survey data and the provincial soil resource information, by principal analysis and discriminant analysis, this paper discusses the appropriate soil indicators as the complement of eco-geographic region indicator systems and the relationships between these soil indicators and soil types in regionalization. The results show that five indicators are used in eco-geographic zonality in mid-temperate zone of eastern China which are organic matter content, cation exchange capacity, pH, clay content and bulk density in topsoils. With a regression-kriging approach, the maps of soil indicators in mid-temperate zone of eastern China are compiled with a resolution of 1 km in every grid and the indicative meanings of these soil indicators are discussed. By cluster analysis it is proved that these soil indicators are better than the soil types and soil regionalization in delineating eco-geographic regions.

Based on measured hydrological data by using ship-mounted Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) instrument, we analyzed shapes of river cross sections of the middle Yangtze River basin (mainly focusing on Makou and Tianjiazhen river reach). Hydrodynamic properties of river channels were also discussed. The research results indicate that nonlinear relationships can be identified between river-width/river-depth ratio (W/D ratio), sizes of cross section and mean flow velocity. Positive relations are detected between W/D ratio and mean flow velocity when W/D<1; and negative relations are observed when W/D>1. Adverse relationships can be obtained between W/D ratio and cross-section area. Geomorphologic and geologic survey indicates different components of river banks in the wider and narrower river reaches respectively. These may be the main driving factors causing unique hydrological properties of river channels in the middle Yangtze River basin. Narrower river cross sections tend to raise water level in the upstream river reach near narrower river channel, giving rise to backwater effects. River knots can cause serious backwater effects, which is harmful for flood mitigation. However river knots will also stabilize river channel and this will be beneficial for river channel management. The results of this paper may be helpful for flood mitigation and river channel management in the middle Yangtze River basin.

Using NCEP/NCAR reanalysis geopotential height (GHT) and wind at 850 hPa, GHT at 500 hPa, precipitation rate, sea level pressure (SLP) and precipitation observations from more than 600 stations nationwide in June–August from 1951 to 2006, and focusing on the East Asia–West Pacific region (10o–80oN, 70o–180oE), interannual variation of East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) and its correlations with general circulation and precipitation patterns are studied by using statistical diagnostic methods such as 9-point high pass filtering, empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis, composite analysis and other statistical diagnosis, etc. It is concluded as follows: (1) EOF analysis of SLP in the East Asia–West Pacific region shows the existence of the zonal dipole oscillation mode (APD) between the Mongolia depression and the West Pacific high, and APD index can be used as an intensity index of EASM. (2) EOF analysis of GHT anomalies at 500 hPa in the East Asia–West Pacific region shows that the first EOF mode is characterized with an obvious meridional East Asian pattern (EAP), and EAP index can also be used as an EASM intensity index. (3) The composite analysis of high/low APD index years reveals the close correlation of APD index with EAP at 500 hPa (or 850 hPa). The study shows an obvious opposite correlation exists between APD index and EAP index with a correlation coefficient of –0.23, which passes the confidence test at 0.10 level. (4) Both APD and EAP indexes are closely correlated with precipitation during flood-prone season in China and precipitation rate over the East Asia–West Pacific region. The significant correlation area at 5% confidence level is mainly located from the southern area of the Yangtze River valley to the ocean around southern Japan, and the former is a positive correlation and the latter is a negative one.

The goal of this study is to provide information on the process of pothole growth on a gorge streambed. Pothole geometries were measured in a reach of the Dabu river bed at the head of a gorge more than 200 m deeply incising into a 650–750 m high planation surface formed in the middle Miocene in northern Guangdong, China. Geometric and derivative data of the potholes obtained from fieldwork were interpreted using standard statistical methodologies. Our study shows that the formation and development of a stream pothole were only related to local conditions of a stream reach where the pothole occurs; the weaknesses, which are usually intersect fractures, typically interconnected vertical joints, or triangular pits generated by hitting of rock fragments during floods, initiate the pothole development on a streambed; the geometrical dimensions of the potholes are controlled by tectonic joints developed in bedrock of the stream reach; the radius and the depth of potholes are strongly (log) positive correlated; the pothole shapes and the flow patterns are inconstant during pothole growth; a pothole can be formed within a short period, but cannot be fully developed and maintained for a long time in a strong incision streambed. The finding in our study can improve the understanding of Quaternary environment in Guangdong.

Based on the long-term precipitation series with annual time resolution in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and its four sub-regions during 1736?2000 recon-structed from the rainfall and snowfall archives of the Qing Dynasty, the precipitation cycles are analyzed by wavelet analysis and the possible climate forcings, which drive the precipita-tion changes, are explored. The results show that: the precipitation in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River has inter-annual and inter-decadal oscillations like 2?4a, quasi-22a and 70?80a. The 2?4a cycle is linked with El Ni?o events, and the precipitation is lower than normal year in the occurrence of the El Ni?o year or the next year; for the quasi-22a and the 70?80a cycles, Wolf Sun Spot Numbers and Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) coincide with the two cycle signals. However, on a 70?80a time scale, the coincidence between solar activity and precipitation is identified before 1830, and strong (weak) solar activity is generally correlated to the dry (wet) periods; after 1830, the solar activity changes to 80?100a quasi-century long oscillation, and the adjusting action to the precipitation is be-coming weaker and weaker; the coincidence between PDO and precipitation is shown in the whole time series. Moreover, in recent 100 years, PDO is becoming a pace-maker of the precipitation on the 70?80a time scale.

Based on historical documents, modern survey and statistics, as well as the result of predecessor studies, the trend and main process of forest dynamics are recognized. The forest area and forest coverage rates for each province of China from 1700 to 1949 are es-timated backward by every 50 years. Linking the result with modern National Forest Inventory data, the spatial-temporal dynamics of Chinese forest in recent 300 years (AD 1700–1998) is quantitatively analyzed. The study shows that in recent 300 years, the forest area in current territory of China has declined by 0.95×10⁸ hm² (or 9.2% of the coverage rate) in total, with a trend of decrease and recovery. Before the 1960s, there was a trend of accelerated de-scending. The forest area was reduced by 1.66×10⁸ hm² (or 17% of the coverage rate) in 260 years. While after the 1960s, there has been a rapid increase. The forest area increased by 0.7×10⁸ hm² (or 8% of the coverage rate) in 40 years. The study also shows that there is a significant spatial difference in the dynamics of forest. The amplitudes of increasing and de-creasing in western China are both smaller than the ones in eastern China. During the rapid declining period from 1700 to 1949, the most serious decrease appeared in the Northeast, the Southwest and the Southeast, where the coverage rate in most provinces dropped over 20%. In Heilongjiang Province, the coverage rate dropped by 50%. In Jilin Province, it dropped by 36%. In Sichuan Province and Chongqing Municipality, it dropped by 42%. In Yunnan Prov-ince, it dropped by 35%. During the recovery period 1949–1998, the western provinces, mu-nicipality and autonomous regions, including Ningxia, Gansu, Inner Mongolia, Si-chuan–Chongqing, Yunnan, Tibet, Xinjiang and Qinghai, etc, the increase rates are all below 5%, while the eastern provinces, municipality and autonomous regions (except Heilongjiang, Hubei, Jiangsu–Shanghai) have achieved an increase over 5%, among which the Guang-dong–Hainan, Guangxi, Anhui, Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei, Shandong, Henan, Zhejiang, and Fu-jian have an increase over 10%.

Taking the Lhasa River Basin above Lhasa hydrological station in Tibetan Plateau as a study area, the characteristics of the annual and monthly mean runoff during 1956?2003 were analyzed, based on the hydro-data of the two hydrological stations (Lhasa and Tanggya) and the meteorological data of the three meteorological stations (Damxung, Lhasa and Tanggya). The trends and the change points of runoff and climate from 1956 to 2003 were detected using the nonparametric Mann-Kendall test and Pettitt-Mann-Whitney change-point statistics. The correlations between runoff and climate change were analyzed using multiple linear regression. The major results could be summarized as follows: (1) The annual mean runoff during the last 50 years is characterized by a great fluctuation and a positive trend with two change points (around 1970 and the early 1980s), after which the runoff tended to in-crease and was increasing intensively in the last 20 years. Besides, the monthly mean runoff with a positive trend is centralized in winter half-year (November to April) and some other months (May, July and September). (2) The trends of the climate change in the study area are generally consistent with the trend of the runoff, but the leading climate factors which aroused the runoff variation are distinct. Precipitation is the dominant factor influencing the annual and monthly mean runoff in summer half year, while temperature is the primary factor in winter season.

Land use intensity quantifies the impacts of human activities on natural ecosystems, which have become the major driver of global environmental change, and thus it serves as an essential measurement for assessing land use sustainability. To date, land-change studies have mainly focused on changes in land cover and their effects on ecological processes, whereas land use intensity has not yet received the attention it deserves and for which spatially-explicit representation studies have only just begun. In this paper, according to the degree and reversibility of surface disturbance by human activities, there are four main classes of land use intensity: artificial land, semi-artificial land, semi-natural land, and natural land. These were further divided into 22 subclasses based on key indicators, such as human population density and the cropping intensity. Land use intensity map of China at a 1-km spatial resolution was obtained based on satellite images and statistical data. The area proportions of artificial land, semi-artificial land, semi-natural land, and natural land were 0.71%, 19.36%, 58.93%, and 21%, respectively. Human and economic carrying capacity increased with the increase of land use intensity. Artificial land supports 24.58% and 35.62% of the total population and GDP, using only 0.71% of the total land, while semi-artificial land supported 58.24% and 49.61% of human population and GDP with 19.36% of China’s total land area.

Geological disasters not only cause economic losses and ecological destruction, but also seriously threaten human survival. Selecting an appropriate method to evaluate susceptibility to geological disasters is an important part of geological disaster research. The aims of this study are to explore the accuracy and reliability of multi-regression methods for geological disaster susceptibility evaluation, including Logistic Regression (LR), Spatial Autoregression (SAR), Geographical Weighted Regression (GWR), and Support Vector Regression (SVR), all of which have been widely discussed in the literature. In this study, we selected Yunnan Province of China as the research site and collected data on typical geological disaster events and the associated hazards that occurred within the study area to construct a corresponding index system for geological disaster assessment. Four methods were used to model and evaluate geological disaster susceptibility. The predictive capabilities of the methods were verified using the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve and the success rate curve. Lastly, spatial accuracy validation was introduced to improve the results of the evaluation, which was demonstrated by the spatial receiver operating characteristic (SROC) curve and the spatial success rate (SSR) curve. The results suggest that: 1) these methods are all valid with respect to the SROC and SSR curves, and the spatial accuracy validation method improved their modelling results and accuracy, such that the area under the curve (AUC) values of the ROC curves increased by about 3%-13% and the AUC of the success rate curve values increased by 15%-20%; 2) the evaluation accuracies of LR, SAR, GWR, and SVR were 0.8325, 0.8393, 0.8370 and 0.8539, which proved the four statistical regression methods all have good evaluation capability for geological disaster susceptibility evaluation and the evaluation results of SVR are more reasonable than others; 3) according to the evaluation results of SVR, the central-southern Yunnan Province are the highest susceptibility areas and the lowest susceptibility is mainly located in the central and northern parts of the study area.

River basin reservoir construction affects water and sediment transport processes in downstream reaches. The downstream impact of the Three Gorges Projects (TGP) has started to become apparent: (1) reduction in flood duration and discharge, and significant reduction in sediment load. Although there was some restoration in downstream sediment load, the total amount did not exceed the pre-impoundment annual average; (2) in 2003-2014, the d > 0.125 mm (coarse sand) load was restored to some degree, and to a maximum at Jianli Station, which was mainly at the pre-impoundment average. After restoration, erosion and deposition characteristics of the sediment was identical to that before impoundment. The degree of restoration during 2008-2014 was less than during 2003-2007; (3) after TGP impoundment, there was some restoration in d < 0.125 mm (fine sand) sediment load, however, it was lower than the pre-impoundment average; (4) due to riverbed compensation, the d > 0.125 mm sediment load recovered to a certain degree after impoundment, however, the total did not exceed 4400×10⁴ t/y. This was mainly limited by flood duration and the average flow rate, and was less affected by upstream main stream, tributaries, or lakes. Restoration of d < 0.125 mm suspended sediment was largely controlled by upstream main stream, tributaries, and lakes, as well as by riverbed compensation. Due to bed armoring, riverbed fine suspended sediment compensation capability was weakened; (5) during 2003-2007 and 2008-2014, Yichang to Zhicheng and upper Jingjiang experienced coarse and fine erosion, lower Jingjiang experienced coarse deposition and fine erosion, Hankou to Datong had coarse deposition and fine erosion, and Chenglingji and Hankou was characterized by coarse deposition and fine sand erosion in 2003-2007, and coarse and fine erosion in 2008-2014. This difference was controlled by flood duration and number at Luoshan Station.

Taoer River Basin, which is located in the west of Northeast China, is an agro- pastoral ecotone. In recent years, the hydrological cycle and water resources have changed significantly with the deterioration of the environment. Many water problems such as river blanking, wetland shrinking and salinization have occurred in this region. All of these phenomena were directly caused by changes in stream flow under climate variability and human activities. In light of the situation, the impact of climate variability and human activities on stream flow should be identified immediately to identify the primary driving factors of basin hydrological processes. To achieve this, statistical tests were applied to identify trends in variation and catastrophe points in mean annual stream flow from 1961 to 2011. A runoff sensitive coefficients method and a SIMHYD model were applied to assess the impacts of stream flow variation. The following conclusions were found: 1) The years 1985 and 2000 were confirmed to be catastrophe points in the stream flow series. Thus, the study period could be divided into three periods, from 1961 to 1985 (Period I), 1986 to 2000 (Period II) and 2001 to 2011 (Period III). 2) Mean annual observed stream flow was 31.54 mm in Period I, then increased to 65.60 mm in Period II and decreased to 2.92 mm in Period III. 3) Using runoff sensitive coefficients, the contribution of climate variability was 41.93% and 43.14% of the increase in stream flow during Periods II and III, suggesting that the contribution of human activities to the increase was 58.07% and 56.86%, respectively. 4) Climate variability accounted for 42.57% and 44.30% of the decrease in stream flow, while human activities accounted for 57.43% and 55.70% of the decrease, according to the SIMHYD model. 5) In comparison of these two methods, the primary driving factors of stream flow variation could be considered to be human activities, which contributed about 15% more than climate variability. It is hoped that these conclusions will benefit future regional planning and sustainable development.

Focusing on international relations from the perspective of geography, geopolitics exerts powerful influences on the course of economic and political development in the world. In the tide of globalization and information technology, geopolitics has become an important subject for global pattern interpretation and policy making. It is essentially important to have a scientific and systematic review on international geopolitics to promote its development. Based on the bibliometric statistics, the paper reviews the research development of geopolitics on the Web of Science from 1996 to 2015. The history, journals, papers and key research areas of geopolitics have been revealed in the paper. By the analysis of bibliometric statistics, the number of papers recently published in the journals of political geography and related geography journals continues to increase. The key areas of geopolitical papers which are globally highly cited include geopolitical interpretation of the countries and borders, critical geopolitics, emotional geopolitics, feminist geopolitics and other topics. Before the year of 2000, the state and borders were hot topics of the geopolitical research. Yet since 2000, it has been the trend that the geopolitics is increasingly set in the context of geographical implications. At the same time, critical geopolitics appears to be the main area of geopolitical research, especially transitioning from traditional geopolitics towards the humanism-embeddedness (such as emotional geopolitics, feminist geopolitics). The paper then systematically reviews the branch trends of geopolitical research, including the borders and the territory, global geo-culture and geo-economics, Chinese models of geopolitics, resource conflicts and ecological politics, as well as emotional geopolitics. Finally, it puts forward the implication that Chinese geopolitical studies should reinforce the importance of geographical space and scale, use the process of description and multiple methods, as well as integrate humanistic thoughts, in order to further enrich the theories and practices of geopolitical research.

The Beautiful China Initiative (BCI) is a plan for the sustainable development of the Chinese nation as well as for China to fulfill the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Chinese government’s “five-in-one” approach provides strategic arrangements for developing the BCI, and President Xi Jinping proposed a timetable and “road map” for the BCI at the National Conference on Ecological and Environmental Protection. Nevertheless, the theoretical basis, evaluation index system, evaluation criteria and effectiveness of the BCI are currently unclear. This paper begins by exploring the basic content of the BCI from narrow and broad perspectives. It regards the theory of human-nature harmonious coexistence and the five-in-one beauty theory as the core theoretical bases of the BCI and constructs a five-element BCI evaluation index system (ecological environment, green development, social harmony, system perfection and cultural heritage) and utilizes the assessment method of the United Nations’ Human Development Index to assess scientifically the effectiveness of the BCI in 341 prefecture-level cities. The results show the average BCI index (the Chinese Academy of Sciences Beauty Index) score to be 0.28, which is quite low, while the average scores for the individual element indexes of the ecological environment index, green development index, social harmony index, system perfection index and cultural heritage index are 0.6, 0.22, 0.29, 0.22 and 0.07, respectively. All of these are relatively low values, with relatively large discrepancies in regional development, indicating that progress in the BCI is generally slow and unbalanced. To realize the BCI’s timetable and roadmap to a high quality and high standard, it is suggested that a common system for evaluating the progress of the BCI is developed and promulgated so that dynamic monitoring and phased evaluations can take place; BCI technical assessment standards are compiled and published; BCI comprehensive zoning is undertaken; pilot projects adapted to local conditions are launched in BCI sample areas; and BCI results are incorporated into performance indicators at all levels of government.

The concept of ‘Beautiful China’ is a new goal of ecological construction in the new era of socialism and aims to meet the needs of people as they strive for a better life. National land spatial planning is one major component of the Chinese state’s overall planning for various spatial types. The concept of ‘Beautiful China’ is thus a leading goal of Chinese development in the second centenary. The background of this concept aims for ‘ecological beauty’ as well as the combined beauty of ‘economy-politics-culture-society-ecology.’ The construction of ‘Beautiful China’ therefore necessitates a differentiated evaluation index system that is built on the basis of local conditions. This concept is intimately related to land spatial planning and the idea of Beautiful China guides an important direction for this planning which itself provides an important mechanism and spatial guarantee for construction. The establishment of land spatial planning nevertheless needs to strengthen further discussion of the regional system of human-land relationship, point axis system, main functional division, sustainable development, resources and environmental carrying capacity as well as new urbanization, and the rural multi-system. The aim of this paper is to summarize current thinking in land spatial planning, scientifically analyze the natural geographical conditions, the socioeconomic development, the interrelationship of the land space, plan the goal, vision and path of land space, encourage the public to participate in and carry out dynamic evaluation, build an intelligent system platform for land and spatial planning to realize the goal of ‘Beautiful China’ from a geographical perspective. And they can also present key ideas relating to the compilation and implementation of land spatial planning.

To resolve conflicts between development and the preservation of the natural environment, enable economic transformation, and achieve the global sustainable development goals (SDGs), green development (GD) is gradually becoming a major strategy in the construction of an ecological civilization and the ideal of building a “beautiful China”, alongside the transformation and reconstruction of the global economy. Based on a combination of the concept and implications of GD, we first used the Slacks Based Model with undesirable outputs (SBM-Undesirable), the Theil index, and the spatial Markov chain to measure the spatial patterns, regional differences, and spatio-temporal evolution of urban green development efficiency (UGDE) in China from 2005 to 2015. Second, by coupling natural and human factors, the mechanism influencing UGDE was quantitatively investigated under the framework of the human-environment interaction. The results showed that: (1) from 2005 to 2015, the UGDE increased from 0.475 to 0.523, i.e., an overall increase of 10%. In terms of temporal variation, there was a staged increase, with its evolution having the characteristics of a “W-shaped” pattern. (2) The regional differences in UGDE followed a pattern of eastern > central > western. For different types of urban agglomeration, the UGDE had inverted pyramid cluster growth characteristics that followed a pattern of “national level > regional level > local level”, forming a stable hierarchical scale structure of “super cities > mega cities > big cities > medium cities > small cities”. (3) UGDE in China has developed with significant spatial agglomeration characteristics. High-efficiency type cities have positive spillover effects, while low-efficiency cities have negative effects. Different types of urban evolution processes have a path dependence, and a spatial club convergence phenomenon exists, in which areas with high UGDE are concentrated and drive low UGDE elsewhere. (4) Under the framework of regional human-environment interaction, the degree of human and social influence on UGDE is greater than that of the natural background. The economic strength, industrial structure, openness, and climate conditions of China have positively promoted UGDE.

The Chinese government ratified the Paris Climate Agreement in 2016. Accordingly, China aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product (carbon intensity) to 60%-65% of 2005 levels by 2030. However, since numerous factors influence carbon intensity in China, it is critical to assess their relative importance to determine the most important factors. As traditional methods are inadequate for identifying key factors from a range of factors acting in concert, machine learning was applied in this study. Specifically, random forest algorithm, which is based on decision tree theory, was employed because it is insensitive to multicollinearity, is robust to missing and unbalanced data, and provides reasonable predictive results. We identified the key factors affecting carbon intensity in China using random forest algorithm and analyzed the evolution in the key factors from 1980 to 2017. The dominant factors affecting carbon intensity in China from 1980 to 1991 included the scale and proportion of energy-intensive industry, the proportion of fossil fuel-based energy, and technological progress. The Chinese economy developed rapidly between 1992 and 2007; during this time, the effects of the proportion of service industry, price of fossil fuel, and traditional residential consumption on carbon intensity increased. Subsequently, the Chinese economy entered a period of structural adjustment after the 2008 global financial crisis; during this period, reductions in emissions and the availability of new energy types began to have effects on carbon intensity, and the importance of residential consumption increased. The results suggest that optimizing the energy and industrial structures, promoting technological advancement, increasing green consumption, and reducing emissions are keys to decreasing carbon intensity within China in the future. These approaches will help achieve the goal of reducing carbon intensity to 60%-65% of the 2005 level by 2030.

Climate change resulting from CO₂ emissions has become an important global environmental issue in recent years. Improving carbon emission performance is one way to reduce carbon emissions. Although carbon emission performance has been discussed at the national and industrial levels, city-level studies are lacking due to the limited availability of statistics on energy consumption. In this study, based on city-level remote sensing data on carbon emissions in China from 1992-2013, we used the slacks-based measure of super-efficiency to evaluate urban carbon emission performance. The traditional Markov probability transfer matrix and spatial Markov probability transfer matrix were constructed to explore the spatiotemporal evolution of urban carbon emission performance in China for the first time and predict long-term trends in carbon emission performance. The results show that urban carbon emission performance in China steadily increased during the study period with some fluctuations. However, the overall level of carbon emission performance remains low, indicating great potential for improvements in energy conservation and emission reduction. The spatial pattern of urban carbon emission performance in China can be described as “high in the south and low in the north,” and significant differences in carbon emission performance were found between cities. The spatial Markov probabilistic transfer matrix results indicate that the transfer of carbon emission performance in Chinese cities is stable, resulting in a “club convergence” phenomenon. Furthermore, neighborhood backgrounds play an important role in the transfer between carbon emission performance types. Based on the prediction of long-term trends in carbon emission performance, carbon emission performance is expected to improve gradually over time. Therefore, China should continue to strengthen research and development aimed at improving urban carbon emission performance and achieving the national energy conservation and emission reduction goals. Meanwhile, neighboring cities with different neighborhood backgrounds should pursue cooperative economic strategies that balance economic growth, energy conservation, and emission reductions to realize low-carbon construction and sustainable development.

Border area is not only an important gateway for inland opening-up, but also an important part of completing the building of a moderately prosperous society and optimizing national urban spatial pattern in China. Due to the location, natural resources endowment, and traffic accessibility, the urbanization speed is relatively slow in border areas. Therefore, it is a special area that needs to pay close attention to, especially under the background of the Belt and Road Initiative and China’s regional coordinated development program. Based on the county-level data from 2000 to 2015, this paper tries to analyze the spatio-temporal pattern of urbanization in 134 border counties, and applies geographical detector method to study the driving forces of urbanization in border areas. Conclusions are as follows: (1) From 2000 to 2015, urbanization rate in border areas has been lower than the national average, and the gap has been widening. Some border counties in southern Xinjiang, Tibet, northeast of Inner Mongolia, and Yunnan, are even facing the problem of population loss. (2) In the same period, urbanization rate in the northwestern and southwestern border is low, while their urbanization rate grows relatively faster comparing with other border counties; urbanization rate in Tibet border is the lowest and grows relatively slowly; urbanization rate in the northeastern and northern border is slightly higher, but it grows slowly or even stagnates. (3) Transportation and industry are the important driving forces of urbanization in border areas, while the driving forces of market is relatively weak. And there are obvious mutual reinforcements among the driving forces, while the effort and explanatory power of resource force increases obviously after interaction. (4) Urbanization rate in the northwestern and southwestern border areas grows relatively fast, with industrial force and transportation force, market force and administrative force as the main driving forces respectively. Tibet border area has the lowest urbanization rate and growth rate, as the driving force of urbanization with strong contribution has not yet formed in Tibet. In the northeastern and northern border areas, the contribution of transportation force to urbanization is greater than other forces, and its interaction with market and industry has obvious effects.

Finding accurate methods for estimating and mapping land prices at the macro-scale based on publicly accessible and low-cost spatial data is an essential step in producing a meaningful reference for regional planners. This asset would assist them in making economically justified decisions in favor of key investors for development projects and post-disaster recovery efforts. Since 2005, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport of Japan has made land price data open to the public in the form of observations at dispersed locations. Although this data is useful, it does not provide complete information at every site for all market participants. Therefore, estimating and mapping land prices based on sound statistical theories is required. This paper presents a comparative study of spatial prediction of land prices in 2015 in Fukushima prefecture based on geostatistical methods and machine learning algorithms. Land use, elevation, and socioeconomic factors, including population density and distance to railway stations, were used for modeling. Results show the superiority of the random forest algorithm. Overall, land prices are distributed unevenly across the prefecture with the most expensive land located in the western region characterized by flat topography and the availability of well-connected and highly dense economic hotspots.

Saltwater intrusion in the estuary area threatens the use of freshwater resources. If river discharge increases to a critical value, then saltwater intrusion frequency and salinity level decreases. In this study, long-term river discharge and tidal range data in the Yangtze River Estuary (YRE) and salinity data obtained in the upper South Branch of the YRE were used to analyze the characteristics of different variables and the basic law of their interactions. Two methods, namely, the material analysis method and empirical models, were applied to determine the critical river discharge for saltwater intrusion control. Results are as follows: (1) the salinity might exceed the drinking water standard of China when the river discharge was less than 30,000 m3/s. Approximately 69% of salinity excessive days occurred when the river discharge was less than 15,000 m3/s; (2) the tidal range in the YRE roughly varied in sinusoidal pattern with a 15-day cycle length. Exponential relationship existed between daily salinity (chlorinity) and daily mean tidal range. Combining these two features with the cumulative frequency statistics of tidal ranges, it was showed that notable saltwater intrusion occurred when the tidal range was more than 2.7 m at Qinglonggang station. Moreover, the critical discharge was found to be slightly higher than 11,000 m3/s; (3) various of empirical models for salinity prediction could be chosen to calculate the critical discharge. The values obtained by different models were in the range of 11,000-12,000 m3/s; (4) the proposed critical discharge to reduce notable saltwater intrusion was 11,500 m3/s. After the Three Gorges Reservoir operation, the minimum river discharge into the YRE in 2008-2017 was below the critical discharge, thereby suggesting an increase in the minimum river discharge by reservoir regulation in drought periods.

Extreme weather is an important noise factor in affecting dynamic access to river morphology information. The response characteristics of river channel on climate disturbances draw us to develop a method to investigate the dynamic evolution of bankfull channel geometries (including the hydraulic geometry variables and bankfull discharges) with stochastic differential equations in this study. Three different forms of random inputs, including single Gaussian white noise and compound Gaussian/Fractional white noise plus Poisson noise, are explored respectively on the basis of the classical deterministic models. The model parameters are consistently estimated by applying a composite nonparametric maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) method. Results of the model application in the Lower Yellow River reveal the potential responses of bankfull channel geometries to climate disturbances in a probabilistic way, and, the calculated average trends mainly run to synchronize with the measured values. Comparisons among the three models confirm the advantage of Fractional jump-diffusion model, and through further discussion, stream power based on such a model is concluded as a better systematic measure of river dynamics. The proposed method helps to offer an effective tool for analyzing fluvial relationships and improves the ability of crisis management of river system under varying environment conditions.

Understanding the interactions between humans and nature in the Anthropocene is central to the quest for both human wellbeing and global sustainability. However, the time-space compression, long range interactions, and reconstruction of socio-economic structures at the global scale all pose great challenges to the traditional analytical frameworks of human-nature systems. In this paper, we extend the connotation of coupled human and natural systems (CHANS) and their four dimensions—space, time, appearance, and organization, and propose a novel framework: “Coupled Human and Natural Cube” (CHNC) to explain the coupling mechanism between humans and the natural environment. Our proposition is inspired by theories based on the human-earth areal system, telecoupling framework, planetary urbanization, and perspectives from complexity science. We systematically introduce the concept, connotation, evolution rules, and analytical dimensions of the CHNC. Notably there exist various “coupling lines” in the CHNC, connecting different systems and elements at multiple scales and forming a large, nested, interconnected, organic system. The rotation of the CHNC represents spatiotemporal nonlinear fluctuations in CHANS in different regions. As a system continually exchanges energy with the environment, a critical phase transition occurs when fluctuations reach a certain threshold, leading to emergent behavior of the system. The CHNC has four dimensions—pericoupling and telecoupling, syncoupling and lagcoupling, apparent coupling and hidden coupling, and intra-organization coupling and inter-organizational coupling. We mainly focus on the theoretical connotation, research methods, and typical cases of telecoupling, lagcoupling, hidden coupling, and inter-organizational coupling, and put forward a human-nature coupling matrix to integrate multiple dimensions. In summary, the CHNC provides a more comprehensive and systematic research paradigm for understanding the evolution and coupling mechanism of the human-nature system, which expands the analytical dimension of CHANS. The CHNC also provides a theoretical support for formulating regional, sustainable development policies for human wellbeing.

To clarify the impact of non-agricultural employment on rural land circulation in China, we built logit models using the Chinese Household Income Project 2013 dataset, which includes 18,948 household samples over 15 provinces, 126 cities and 234 counties of China in 2013. We use the proportion of non-agricultural income, the proportion of non-agricultural laborers and non-agricultural fixed operating assets to reflect the degree of the households’ dependence on agriculture, the degree of the households’ laborers committed to non-agricultural employment and the stability of non-agricultural employment, respectively. The results show that the stability of non-agricultural employment is an important reason for farmers to transfer out their land, and an increase in non-agricultural income is the fundamental reason. The proportion of non-agricultural assets has the greatest impact on the decision to transfer land, followed by the proportion of non-agricultural income. Per unit increase in the non-agricultural income ratio has a stronger effect on the transfer-out decision than it does on the transfer-in decision, which is a 0.09 increase of the probability of transfer-out the land and a 0.07 decrease of the probability of transfer-in the land. In terms of regional differences, when considering the impact of non-agricultural employment on the land transfer-out decision, the impacts of non-agricultural income and labor force are the greatest in the Central region. The impact of non-agricultural assets is the greatest in the Eastern region. For the Eastern region, the decision to transfer out land is mainly affected by non-agricultural assets and the non-agricultural labor force, and the decision to transfer in land is mainly affected by non-agricultural assets. In the Central and Western regions, the decision to transfer out land is mainly affected by non-agricultural assets, non-agricultural income and the non-agricultural labor force, in that order. The decision to transfer in land in the Central region is not significantly affected by non-agricultural employment. The decision to transfer in land in the Western region is mainly affected by non-agricultural assets, non-agricultural labor force and non-agricultural income, in that order. We note that non-agricultural assets have a prominent impact on land transfer, which shows that the stability of non-agricultural employment has an important impact on land transfer decision-making. Vocational training for rural labor forces may be an effective means to promote stable non-agricultural employment and simultaneously facilitate rural land circulation, especially in Central and Western China.

Since the reform and opening-up policy launched in 1978, the number of inbound tourists increased from 1.8 million in 1978 to 139.5 million in 2017, and that of domestic tourists increased from 344 million in 1991 to 5 billion in 2017. This article conducts research on how the geographical pattern of China’s tourism has evolved in the last four decades on the national-scale and regional-scale, for rare studies before could focus on such an extended date and utilize inbound and domestic tourism data simultaneously. Grounded on viable datasets and multiple vibrant data analysis approaches (including the Gini coefficient, primacy index analysis, hot spot analysis and Pearson correlation analysis), this article unpacks triple vital realities. (1) The overall geographical pattern of China’s tourism development can arguably summarize as “high in the eastern and low in the western part, high in the southern and low in the northern part.” Meanwhile, China’s inbound tourism has long shown a pattern of polarized distribution; While, domestic tourism has experienced a shift from the polarized distribution to the equilibrium distribution. (2) According to the features and characteristics, China's tourism development can be divided into four stages. They are precisely the initial modern tourism stage (1978-1988), the domestic tourism cultivating stage (1989-1996), the rapid development stage (1997-2007) and the new normal stage (2008-present). (3) This article also identified multiple factors underlying the inbound and domestic tourism development in China, including policies, management systems, tourism demand, tourist attractions, economic level, consumption level, industrial development, investment status, traffic conditions, accommodation services, intermediary services and degree of openness.

This paper presents a scenario-based assessment of global future food security. To do that, the socio-economic and climate change scenarios were defined for the future and were linked to an integrated modeling framework. The crop yields simulated by the GIS-based Environmental Policy Integrated Climate (EPIC) model and crop areas simulated by the crop choice decision model were combined to calculate the total food production and per capita food availability, which was used to represent the status of food availability and stability. The per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) simulated by IFPSIM model was used to reflect the situation of food accessibility and affordability. Based on these two indicators, the future food security status was assessed at a global scale over a period of approximately 20 years, starting from the year 2000. The results show that certain regions such as South Asia and most African countries will likely remain hotspots of food insecurity in the future as both the per capita food availability and the capacity of being able to import food will decrease between 2000 and 2020. Low food production associated with poverty is the determining factor to starvation in these regions, and more efforts are needed to combat hunger in terms of future actions. Other regions such as China, most Eastern European countries and most South American countries where there is an increase in per capita food availability or an increase in the capacity to import food between 2000 and 2020 might be able to improve their food security situation.