Taking Yucheng, a typical agricultural county in Shandong Province as a case, this study applied Logistic regression models to spatially identify factors affecting farmland changes. Using two phases of high resolution imageries in 2001 and 2009, the study obtained the land use and farmland change data in 2001-2009. It was found that the farmland was reduced by 5.14% in the period, mainly due to the farmland conversion to forest land and built-up land, although part of forest land and unused land was converted to farmland. The results of Logistic regressions indicated that location, population growth and farmer income were main factors affecting the farmland conversion, while soil types and pro-curvature were main natural factors controlling the distribution of farmland changes. Regional differences and temporal-spatial variables of farmland changes affected fitting capability of the Logistic regression models. The ROC fitting test indicated that the Logistic regression models gave a good explanation of the regional land-use changes. Logistic regression analysis is a good tool to identify major factors affecting land use change by quantifying the contribution of each factor.

The resource development and changes of hydrological regime, sediment and water quality in the Mekong River basin have attracted great attentions. This research aimed to enhance the study on transboundary pollution of heavy metals in this international river. In this study, eight sampling sites were selected to collect the bed sand samples along the mainstream of the Mekong River. In addition, the contents of 5 heavy metal elements and their spatial variability along the mainstream of the river were analyzed. The geoaccumulation index (I_geo) and potential ecological risk analysis were employed to assess heavy metal pollution status in the mainstream of the Mekong River. The results show that the average content of the heavy metal elements Zn is 91.43 mg/kg, Pb is 41.85 mg/kg, and As is 21.84 mg/kg in the bed sands of the Upper Mekong River, which are higher than those (Zn 68.17 mg/kg, Pb 28.22 mg/kg, As 14.97 mg/kg) in the Lower Mekong. The average content of Cr in the Lower Mekong is 418.86 mg/kg, higher than that in the Upper Mekong (42.19 mg/kg). Luang Prabang has a very high Cr concentration with 762.93 mg/kg and Pakse with 422.90 mg/kg. The concentration of Cu in all of the 8 sampling sites is similar, except for in Jiajiu with 11.70 mg/kg and Jiebei with 7.00 mg/kg. The results of the geoaccumulation index reveal that contaminations caused by Zn and Pb while Pb and As are more than those by Zn in Upper Mekong. Cr is the primary pollutant in the Lower Mekong, especially at Luang Prabang and Pakse. Slight pollution with As also occurs in Pakse. The potential ecological risk index indicates that the potential ecological risk of heavy metals in the mainstream of the Mekong River is low. We argue that the pollution of water quality and contamination of heavy metals in bed sediment caused by mining of mineral resources or geochemical background values in the Mekong is not transmitted from the Upper to the Lower Mekong because of the reservoir sedimentation and dilution along the river.

Desertification process as a great problem affects most of the countries in the world. This process has a high rate in arid and semiarid areas. Today, human societies are encountering the desertification phenomenon as a serious problem which causes various irreparable damages to economic and social sectors. In order to assess desertification results in production of different regional models for their application in another region the indices should be re-investigated and adjusted to local conditions. Several models have been developed for desertification evaluation. The present study, attempts to assess quantitatively the desertification process has in an area located at Sistan plain of Iran (Niatak region as a case study) by using Modified MEDALUS method. The obtained results indicated that of the whole studied region (comprising 4819.6 acres), 2651.56 acres (55%) are located in medium desertification intensity class, 1269.48 acres (26.34%) are positioned in severe desertification intensity class, and 898.54 acres (18.64%) are placed in vary severe desertification intensity class.

Urbanization has been the most important process that changed land cover landscape in Guangzhou since reformation, especially since 1990. It is essential for monitoring and assessing ecological consequences of urbanization to understand landscape quantitative characteristics and its changes. Based on four land-cover type maps interpreted from remote sensing TM images of 1990, 1995, 2000 and 2005, combining gradient analysis with landscape metrics, the quantified spatial pattern and its dynamics of urbanization in Guangzhou was got. Three landscape metrics were computed within different regional areas including the whole study area, two transects along two highways (one N–S and the other W–E) and radiation zones with equal distance outwards the city center were set. Buffer zones for transects N–S and W–E were outlined along highways. The following questions should be answered in this paper: What responses were implied with changing spatial grain size or extent for landscape pattern analysis? Could gradient progress of urbanization be characterized by landscape pattern analysis? Did landscape metrics reveal urban expanding gradually? Were there directional differences in land cover landscape pattern during urbanizing development? The results gave some affirmative answers. Landscape pattern exhibited obviously scale-dependent to grain size and extent. The landscape metrics with gradient analysis could quantitatively approach spatial pattern of urbanization. A precise location for urbanized area, like city center and sub-center, could be identified by multiple landscape metrics. Multiple adjunctive centers occurred as indicated by analysis of radiation zones around the city center. Directional differences of landscape pattern along the two transects (N–S and W–E) came into being. For example, fragmentation of landscape in the transect W–E was obviously higher than that in the transect N–S. All in all, some interesting and important ecological implications were revealed under landscape patterns of two transects or radiation zones, and that was the important step to link pattern with processes in urban ecological studies and the basis to improve urban environment.

Land use and land cover changes have a great impact on the regional hydrological process. Based on three periods of remote sensing data from the 1960s and the long-term observed data of groundwater from the 1980s, the impacts of land use changes on the groundwater system in the middle reach of Heihe River Basin in recent three decades are analyzed by the perspective of groundwater recharge and discharge system. The results indicate that with the different intensities of land use changes, the impacts on the groundwater recharge were 2.602×10⁸ m3/a in the former 15 years (1969-1985) and 0.218×10⁸ m3/a in the latter 15 years (1986-2000), and the impacts on the groundwater discharge were 2.035×10⁸ m3/a and 4.91×10⁸ m3/a respectively. When the groundwater exploitation was in a reasonable range less than 3.0×10⁸ m3/a, the land use changes could control the changes of regional groundwater resources. Influenced by the land use changes and the large-scale exploitation in the recent decade, the groundwater resources present apparently regional differences in Zhangye region. Realizing the impact of land use changes on groundwater system and the characteristics of spatial-temporal variations of regional groundwater resources would be very important for reasonably utilizing and managing water and soil resources.

New progresses are introduced briefly about the water cycle study on atmosphere of China made in recent years. The introduction includes eight aspects as follows: 1) precipitation characteristics, 2) stability of climatic system, 3) precipitation sensitive region, 4) regional evaporation and evapotranspiration, 5) water surface evaporation, 6) vegetation transpiration, 7) cloud physics, and 8) vapor source.

Relationship between vegetation and environmental factors has always been a major topic in ecology, but it has also been an important way to reveal vegetation’s dynamic response to and feedback effects on climate change. For the special geographical location and climatic characteristics of the Qaidam Basin, with the support of traditional and remote sensing data, in this paper a vegetation coverage model was established. The quantitative prediction of vegetation coverage by five environmental factors was initially realized through multiple stepwise regression (MSR) models. However, there is significant multicollinearity among these five environmental factors, which reduces the performance of the MSR model. Then through the introduction of the Moran Index, an indicator that reflects the spatial autocorrelation of vegetation distribution, only two variables of average annual rainfall and local Moran Index were used in the final establishment of the vegetation coverage model. The results show that there is significant spatial autocorrelation in the distribution of vegetation. The role of spatial autocorrelation in the establishment of vegetation coverage model has not only improved the model fitting R² from 0.608 to 0.656, but also removed the multicollinearity among independents.

Based on the collection and processing of the China national-wide monthly station observational precipitation data in 1900-2009, the data series for each station has been tested for their homogeneity with the Standard Normalized Homogeneity Test (SNHT) method and the inhomogeneous parts of the series are adjusted or corrected. Based on the data, the precipitation anomalies during 1900-2009 and the climatology normals during 1971-2000 have been transformed into the grid boxes at 5°×5° and 2°×2° resolutions respectively. And two grid form datasets are constructed by combining the normal and anomalies. After that, the missing values for the 5°×5° grid dataset are interpolated by Empirical Orthogonal Function (EOF) techniques. With the datasets of different resolutions, the precipitation change series during 1900-2009 over Mainland China are built, and the annual and seasonal precipitation trends for the recent 110 years are analyzed. The result indicates that the annual precipitation shows a slight dryer trend during the past 110 years, notwithstanding lack of statistical confidence. It is worth noting that after the interpolation of the missing values, the annual precipitation amounts in the early 1900s become less, which increases the changing trend of the annual precipitation in China for the whole 110 years slightly (from -7.48 mm/100a to -6.48 mm/100a).

Based on the field-survey prototype hydrology data in typical years, the effect during the running periods of different dispatch modes of the Three Gorges Reservoir on the water regimes in Dongting Lake area is comparatively analyzed. The results are shown as follows. (1) The influence periods are from 25 May to 10 June, from 1 July to 31 August, from 15 September to 31 October and from December to the next April, among which the influence of the water-supplement dispatch in the dry season is not very sensitive. (2) During the period under the pre-discharge dispatch, the runoff volume slightly increases as well as both the average water level and the highest water level rise in the usual year. While in the wet and dry years, the average increase in the runoff volume is 40.25×10⁸ m³ and the average rises of the average water level and the highest water level are both 1.06 m. (3) As for the flood-storage dispatch, the flood volume increases slightly, in the dry and wet years, the flood volume, the average water level and the highest water level averagely reduce by 444.02×10⁸ m³, 2.64 m and 1.42 m respectively. (4) Under the water-storage dispatch, the runoff volume slightly increases and the water level heightens in a sort in the usual year. And in the dry and wet years, the average decreases in the runoff volume, the average water level and the highest water levels are respectively 185.27×10⁸ m³, 3.13 m and 2.14 m. (5) During the period under the water-supplement dispatch, the runoff volume, the average water level and the highest water levels averagely decline by 337.7×10⁸ m³, 1.89 m and 2.39 m respectively in the usual and wet years. However, in the dry year, the runoff volume increases as well as the average and highest water levels slightly go up.

Overall population exposure is measured by multiplying the annual average number of extremely hot days by the number of people exposed to the resultant heat. Extreme heat is also subdivided into high temperature (HT) and extremely high temperature (EHT) in cases where daily maximum temperature exceeds 35℃ and 40℃, respectively. Chinese population exposure to HT and EHT over four periods in the future (i.e., 2021-2040, 2041-2060, 2060-2081 and 2081-2100) were projected at the grid cell level in this study using daily maximum temperature based on an ensemble mean of 21 global climate models under the RCP8.5 scenario and with a population projection based on the A2r socio-economic scenario. The relative importance of population and climate as drivers of population exposure was evaluated at different spatial scales including national and meteorological geographical divisions. Results show that, compared with population exposure seen during 1981-2010, the base period, exposure to HT in China is likely to increase by 1.3, 2.0, 3.6, and 5.9 times, respectively, over the four periods, while concomitant exposure to EHT is likely to increase by 2.0, 8.3, 24.2, and 82.7 times, respectively. Data show that population exposure to HT is likely to increase significantly in Jianghuai region, Southwest China and Jianghan region, in particular in North China, Huanghuai region, South China and Jiangnan region. Population exposure to EHT is also likely to increase significantly in Southwest China and Jianghan region, especially in North China, Huanghuai, Jiangnan, and Jianghuai regions. Results reveal that climate is the most important factor driving the level of population exposure in Huanghuai, Jianghuai, Jianghan, and Jiangnan regions, as well as in South and Southwest China, followed by the interactive effect between population and climate. Data show that the climatic factor is also most significant at the national level, followed by the interactive effect between population and climate. The rate of contribution of climate to national-level projected changes in exposure is likely to decrease gradually from ca. 70% to ca. 60%, while the rate of contribution of concurrent changes in both population and climate is likely to increase gradually from ca. 20% to ca. 40% over the four future periods in this analysis.

Extreme rainstorm and the subsequent flood increasingly threaten the security of human society and ecological environment with aggravation of global climate change and anthropogenic activity in recent years. Therefore, the research on flood mitigation service (FMS) of ecosystem should be paid more attention to mitigate the risk. In this paper, we assessed FMS in the Upper Reaches of Hanjiang River (URHR), China from 2000 to 2014 using the Soil Conservation Service Curve Number (SCS-CN) model, and further simulated the future FMS under two climate scenarios (in 2020 and 2030). The results reveal that the FMS presented a fluctuating rising trend in the URHR from 2000 to 2014. The FMS in southern URHR was higher than that of northern URHR, and the change rate of FMS in the upstream of URHR (western URHR) was higher than the downstream of URHR (eastern URHR). The future FMS under scenarios of Medium-High Emissions (A2) and Medium-Low Emissions (B2) will decrease consistently. As land use/land cover changes in the URHR are negligible, we concluded that the change in FMS was mainly driven by climate change, such as storm and runoff. Our study highlights that climate scenarios analysis should be incorporated into the assessment of hydrologic-related services to facilitate regional water resources management.

Although several previous studies in Inner Mongolia examined the effects of ecological conservation on the delivery of ecosystem services, they were often limited in scope (few ecosystem services were assessed) and often suffered from confounding by spatial variation. In this study, we examined the impact of conservation measures (changes in grassland utilization patterns) on the provision of selected ecosystem services in three types of grasslands (meadow steppe in Hulun Buir, typical steppe in Xilin Gol, and semi-desert steppe in Ordos) in Inner Mongolia. We examined five utilization patterns: no use (natural grasslands), light use, moderate use, intensive use, and recovery sites (degraded sites protected from further use). Through household surveys and vegetation and soil surveys, we measured the differences in ecosystem services among the different grassland utilization patterns. We also identified spatial factors that confounded the quantification of ecosystem services in different types of grasslands. We found that light use generally provided high levels of ecosystem services in meadow steppe and typical steppe, with the main differences in the supporting ecosystem services. Surprisingly, we found no consistently positive impacts of strict conservation activities across the sites, since the results varied spatially and with respect to differences in the land-use patterns. Our study suggests that appropriate grassland utilization patterns can enhance the supply of ecosystem services and reduce negative effects on both household livelihoods and the environment.

Soil erosion has become a major global environmental problem and is particularly acute on the Loess Plateau (LP), China. It is therefore highly important to control this process in order to improve ecosystems, protect ecological security, and maintain the harmonious relationship between humans and nature. We compared the effects of rainfall and land use (LU) patterns on soil erosion in different LP watersheds in this study in order to augment and improve soil erosion models. As most research on this theme has so far been focused on individual study areas, limited analyses of rainfall and LU patterns on soil erosion within different-scale watersheds has so far been performed, a discrepancy which might influence the simulation accuracies of soil erosion models. We therefore developed rainfall and LU pattern indices in this study using the soil erosion evaluation index as a reference and applied them to predict the extent of this process in different-scale watersheds, an approach which is likely to play a crucial role in enabling the comprehensive management of this phenomenon as well as the optimized design of LU patterns. The areas considered in this study included the Qingjian, Fenchuan, Yanhe, and Dali river watersheds. Results showed that the rainfall erosivity factor (R) tended to increase in these areas from 2006 to 2012, while the vegetation cover and management factor (C) tended to decrease. Results showed that as watershed area increased, the effect of rainfall pattern on soil erosion gradually decreased while patterns in LU trended in the opposite direction, as the relative proportion of woodland decreased and the different forms of steep slope vegetation cover became more homogenous. As watershed area increased, loose soil and craggy terrain properties led to additional gravitational erosion and enhanced the effects of both soil and topography.

As the largest developing country in the world, China’s rural areas face many poverty-related issues. It is imperative to assess poverty dynamics in a timely and effective manner in China’s rural areas. Therefore, we used the poverty gap index to investigate the poverty dynamics in China’s rural areas during 2000-2014 at the national, contiguous poor areas with particular difficulties and county scales. We found that China made significant achievements in poverty alleviation during 2000-2014. At the national scale, the number of impoverished counties decreased by 1428, a reduction of 97.28%. The rural population in impoverished counties decreased by 493.94 million people or 98.76%. Poverty alleviation was closely associated with economic development, especially with industrial development. Among all 15 socioeconomic indicators, the industrial added value had the highest correlation coefficient with the poverty gap index (r = -0.458, p<0.01). Meanwhile, the inequality of income distribution in the out-of-poverty counties has been aggravated. The urban-rural income gap among the out-of-poverty counties increased by 1.67-fold, and the coefficient of variation in rural per-capita income among the out-of-poverty counties also increased by 9.09%. Thus, we argued that special attention should be paid to reducing income inequality for sustainable development in China’s rural areas.

Village is an important implementation unit of national poverty alleviation and development strategies of rural China, and identifying the poverty degree, poverty type and poverty contributing factors of each poverty-stricken village is the precondition and guarantee of taking targeted measures in poverty alleviation strategies of China. To respond it, we construct a village-level multidimensional poverty measuring model, and use indicator contribution degree indices and linear regression method to explore poverty factors, while adopting Least Square Error (LSE) model and spatial econometric analysis model to identify the villages’ poverty types and poverty difference. The case study shows that: (1) Spatially, there is obvious territoriality in the distribution of poverty-stricken villages, and the poverty-stricken villages are concentrated in contiguous poverty-stricken areas. The areas with the highest VPI, in a descending order, are Gansu, Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, Hunan, Qinghai, Sichuan, and Xinjiang. (2) The main factors contributing to the poverty of poverty-stricken villages in rural China include road construction, terrain type, frequency of natural disasters, per capita net income, labor force ratio, and cultural quality of labor force. The main causes of poverty include underdeveloped road construction conditions, frequent natural disasters, low level of income, and labor conditions. (3) Chinese poverty-stricken villages include six main subtypes, and most poverty-stricken villages are affected by multiple poverty-forming factors, reflected by a relatively high proportion of the three-factor dominant type, four-factor coordinative type, and five-factor combinative type. (4) There exist significant poverty differences in terms of geographical location and policy support, and the governments still need to carry out targeted poverty alleviation measures according to local conditions. The research can not only draw a macro overall poverty-reduction outline of impoverished villages in China, but also depict the specific poverty characteristics of each village, helping the government departments of poverty alleviation at all levels to mobilize all kinds of anti-poverty resources.

Household CO₂ emissions were increasing due to rapid economic growth and different household lifestyle. We assessed per capita household CO₂ emissions (PHCEs) based on different household consuming demands (including clothing, food, residence, transportation and service) by using provincial capital city level survey data in China. The results showed that: (1) there was a declining trend moving from eastward to westward as well as moving from northward to southward in the distribution of PHCEs. (2) PHCEs from residence demand were the largest which accounted for 44% of the total. (3) Correlation analysis and spatial analysis (Spatial Lag Model (SLM) and Spatial Error Model (SEM)) were used to evaluate the complex determinants of PHCEs. Per capita income (PI) and household size (HS) were analyzed as the key influencing factors. We concluded that PHCEs would increase by 0.2951% and decrease by 0.5114% for every 1% increase in PI and HS, respectively. According to the results, policy-makers should consider household consuming demand, income disparity and household size on the variations of PHCEs. The urgency was to improve technology and change household consuming lifestyle to reduce PHCEs.

This paper analyses the features and dynamic changes of the spatial layout of air transportation utilization among different provinces in China. It makes use of data for the airport throughput and socio-economic development of every province throughout the country in the years 2006 and 2015, and employs airport passenger and cargo throughput per capita and per unit of GDP as measures of regional air transportation utilization, which is significant for refining indicators of regional air transportation scale and comparing against them. It also analyzes the spatial differences of coupling between the regional air transportation utilization indicators and the key influencing factors on regional air transportation demand and utilization, which include per capita GDP, urbanization rate, and population density. Based on these key influencing factors, it establishes a multiple linear regression model to conduct forecasting of each province’s future airport passenger and cargo throughput as well as throughput growth rates. The findings of the study are as follows: (1) Between 2006 and 2015, every province throughout the country showed a trend of year on year growth in their airport passenger and cargo throughput per capita. Throughput per capita grew fastest in Hebei, with a rise of 780%, and slowest in Beijing, with a rise of 38%. Throughput per capita was relatively high in western and southeastern coastal regions, and relatively low in northern and central regions. Airport passenger and cargo throughput per unit of GDP showed growth in provinces with relatively slow economic development, and showed negative growth in provinces with relatively rapid economic development. Throughput per unit of GDP grew fastest in Hebei, rising 265% between 2006 and 2015, and Hunan had the fastest negative growth, with a fall of 44% in the same period. Southwestern regions had relatively high throughput per unit of GDP, while in central, northern, and northeastern regions it was relatively low. (2) Strong correlation exists between airport passenger and cargo throughput per capita and per capita GDP, urbanization rate, and population density. Throughput per capita has positive correlation with per capita GDP and urbanization rate in all regions, and positive correlation with population density in most regions. Meanwhile, there is weak correlation between airport passenger and cargo throughput per unit of GDP and per capita GDP, urbanization rate, and population density, with positive correlation in some regions and negative correlation in others. (3) Between 2015 and 2025, it is estimated that all provinces experience a trend of rapid growth in their airport passenger and cargo throughput. Inner Mongolia and Hebei will see the fastest growth, rising 221% and 155%, respectively, while Yunnan, Sichuan, and Hubei will see the slowest growth, with increases of 62%, 63%, and 65%, respectively.

From the development of modern transportation to the current era of high-speed transportation networks, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) region has always played a national leading role in land transportation development of China. In order to explore the long-term evolutionary characteristics of land transportation in the BTH region, this paper utilized a temporal scale of 100 years to systematically interpret the development process of the land transportation network. Taking 13 cities within the BTH region as research anchor cities, we took into account “leaping” mode of transportation in order to investigate the evolution of accessibility. Our research shows the following results: (1) The land transportation network in the BTH region has undergone five stages of development: the initial period of modernization (1881-1937); the period of stagnation of transportation development (1937-1949); the network expansion period (1949-1980); the period of trunk construction (1980-1995), and the period of high-speed transportation network development (1995-present). The network structure centered around Beijing has existed from the outset of modern transportation development. (2) The accessibility spatial pattern of land transportation in BTH region has evolved from expansion along traffic corridors to the formation of concentric circles. The stratified circular structure of transportation in anchor cities has gradually developed into a contiguous development pattern. (3) There are clear hierarchical differences in the transportation structures of anchor cities. Beijing has always been at the top of this hierarchy, while the hierarchical position of Zhangjiakou has fallen noticeably since 1949. The Beijing-Tianjin region was the first region to form a short-duration transportation circle structure, while the transportation advantages of the central part of Hebei Province, which is located in the center of the BTH transportation region, have yet to be realized.

In order to advance land use and land cover change (LUCC) research in Nepal, it is essential to reconstruct both the spatiotemporal distribution of agricultural land cover as well as scenarios that can explain these changes at the national and regional levels. Because of rapid population growth, the status of agricultural land in Nepal has changed markedly over the last 100 years. Historical data is used in this study, encompassing soils, populations, climatic variables, and topography. Data were revised to a series of 30 m grid cells utilized for agricultural land suitability and allocation models and were analyzed using a suite of advanced geographical tools. Our reconstructions for the spatiotemporal distribution of agricultural land in Nepal reveal an increasing trend between 1910 and 2010 (from 151.2 × 10² km² to 438.8 × 10² km²). This expanded rate of increase in agricultural land has varied between different eco, physiographic, and altitudinal regions of the country, significantly driven by population changes and policies over the period of this investigation. The historical dataset presented in this paper fills an existing gap in studies of agricultural land change and can be applied to other carbon cycle and climate modeling studies, as well as to impact assessments of agricultural land change in Nepal.

Despite many studies on land degradation in the Highlands of Northern Ethiopia, quantitative information regarding long-term changes in land use/cover (LUC) is rare. Hence, this study aims to investigate the LUC changes in the Geba catchment (5142 km²), Northern Ethiopia, over 80 years (1935-2014). Aerial photographs (APs) of the 1930s and Google Earth (GE) images (2014) were used. The point-count technique was utilized by overlaying a grid on APs and GE images. The occurrence of cropland, forest, grassland, shrubland, bare land, built-up areas and water body was counted to compute their fractions. A multivariate adaptive regression spline was applied to identify the explanatory factors of LUC and to create fractional maps of LUC. The results indicate significant changes of most types, except for forest and cropland. In the 1930s, shrubland (48%) was dominant, followed by cropland (39%). The fraction of cropland in 2014 (42%) remained approximately the same as in the 1930s, while shrubland significantly dropped to 37%. Forests shrank further from a meagre 6.3% in the 1930s to 2.3% in 2014. High overall accuracies (93% and 83%) and strong Kappa coefficients (89% and 72%) for point counts and fractional maps respectively indicate the validity of the techniques used for LUC mapping.

An international consensus is emerging around the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) proposed by the Chinese government, with a growing number of countries seeing it as a way of jointly exploring new international economic governance mechanisms. Meanwhile, with the crisis of neo-liberalism, economic globalization has arrived at a crossroad. In particular, incessant voices speak out against globalization, making the quest for a new way of promoting global development a major challenge. In this context, more and more political elites and scholars consider that the BRI opens up a possible new globalization path, amongst which inclusive globalization warrants exploration. On the basis of a brief analysis of the course and mechanism of global economic expansion and the limitations of neo-liberal globalization, along with the putting into practice of the BRI, this paper outlines some of the core features of inclusive globalization, i.e., inclusive growth with effective and efficient government regulation; inclusive infrastructure development; inclusive development paths chosen nationally that suit national conditions; inclusive participation; and cultural inclusiveness. Although these features are not sufficient to characterize fully inclusive globalization, they do identify some directions for future research, and provide elements of a discursive construction of the BRI.

In concert with developments in global trade and energy resource transportation, there has been a marked increase in reliance on overseas shipping. Unimpeded marine transportation has therefore become a key issue which influences national maritime interests including the security of trade and energy resources. A strategic shipping pivot thus performs a vital controlling function for global shipping networks. In this study strategic shipping pivots are defined and subdivided into sea hubs, channels and areas. We then develop a model to identify strategic shipping pivots on a global scale. The results show that, depending on differences in location, function, and type, the concept of strategic shipping pivot permits the identification of both spatial and structural differentiation with respect to strategic hubs, corridors, and seas. Now 44 strategic hubs have formed across the globe. These hubs have become the control centers of local shipping network organization. At the same time, seven strategic corridors containing most shipping routes and transportation capacity connect important sea areas, and permit a high-degree of control over the transport of strategic materials. The strategic seas, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific provide vital import and export pathways, so that the formation of strategic shipping pivots is mainly influenced by factors such as physical geographical conditions, the spatial distribution of socio-economic activities, business organization, technical progress, geopolitical patterns and geopolitical disputes. Physical geographical conditions provide the potential foundations for strategic shipping pivots, while the spatial distribution of socio-economic activities and communications determine the strategic value of these points. Finally, business organization, technical progress, and geopolitical disputes all function to strengthen the strategic mechanisms and the mutagenicity of strategic shipping pivots.

Trade facilitation is one of the five main agendas of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Social network analysis has helped understand the complexity of trade networks, but existing studies tend to overlook the fact that not all bilateral trade relations are equally important to a country. To fill this gap in the literature, this paper focuses on the top 2 trade relations networks to illuminate the structure and evolution of B&R trade relations, the relative positions of different countries, and changes in the composition of trade communities (e.g., the community leaders) and the changing patterns of trade between them. We find rich dynamics over time both inter- and intra-communities. The overall international trade networks of B&R countries experienced a leadership change from Russia to China on one hand, some temporary communities experienced emergence, disappearance (e.g. the Kuwait- and Thailand-led communities) or reemergence (e.g. Poland-led community), and a community membership was generally consistent on the other hand. Since the future impacts of China’s BRI will depend on the degree of integration of the connected regions, some countries with stable and high centrality indices (e.g. Russia, Singapore, Serbia, Greece, Turkey, Iran, Poland, Hungary and Romania) could be selected by China as strategic regional partners, and countries with a strategically important geographical position but weak trade links (e.g. Myanmar, Pakistan, and Belarus) should be prioritized.

Unimpeded trade is one of the cooperation priorities in the Belt and Road Initiative proposed by China. On 15 May 2017, the Joint Communique of the Leaders Roundtable of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation reaffirmed the participants’ shared commitment to build an open economy and ensure free and inclusive trade. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is not only China's new action to drive its open and global development, but also a platform for an increasing number of countries to explore free and inclusive trade and promote a universal, rule-based, open, non-discriminatory, and equitable multilateral trade system. It is therefore important to examine the topological relationship between the BRI and global trade networks. More specifically, this article first analyzes the community structure of trade networks using a community detection algorithm, and then estimates the topological relationship between different trade communities. The findings of this article are as follows. First, this research identified three trade communities and two sub-communities in the BRI trade network, in which China is the core, Russia is the sub-core of the biggest trade community, and India, United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia are cores of the second trade community (South Asia-West Asia). Second, it identified five trade communities in the global trade network, centred on China, USA, Russia, India-United Arab Emirates, and Germany-Netherlands-France-Britain and other European developed countries. Third, the topological analysis indicated that in the global trade network, most BRI countries are attracted by the core nodes of the BRI regions, such as the China, Russia and India-United Arab Emirates core nodes, and have strong trade contacts with BRI countries. Most Central-East European countries are mainly attracted by Germany-Netherlands-France-Britain and other developed European countries with a low penetration of BRI trade. Although some Southeast Asian countries are incorporated into the Asia-Australia-South Africa community with China as the core, they still need to strengthen trade linkages with BRI countries.

In the past few decades, economic globalization has driven rapid growth of cross-border trade and a new international division of labor, leading to increasing inter-country embodied carbon flows. Multi-region input-output (MRIO) analysis is used to identify embodied carbon flows between major world regions, including seven regions along the Belt and Road (BR), and the spatial distribution of production- and consumption-based carbon intensities. The results show that current embodied carbon flows are virtually all from BR regions to developed countries, with more than 95% of world net embodied carbon exports coming from BR regions. Consumption in the United States and European Union countries induce about 30% of the carbon emissions in most BR regions, indicating that the former bear a high proportion of consumers’ responsibility for the carbon emitted in the latter. For this reason, measuring environmental responsibilities from consumption rather than a production-based perspective is more equitable, while developing countries should be given a louder voice in the construction through dialogue and cooperation, in part in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative, of an inclusive global climate governance system.

Facilities connectivity is a priority area for implementing the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The “China-Europe Railway Express” (CER Express) mode of transport organization links China with Europe by fast-track cargo rail. A major instance of facilities connectivity related to this project is an important practical and symbolic instance of BRI transport cooperation. The strategic significance of the CER Express and a number of operational issues are outlined, as are the implications of limited market potential for costs and competitiveness. A “hub-and- spoke” organizational model that can generate scale economies and reduce costs is proposed. To examine the establishment of an organizational model of this kind, the economic hinterlands of Alashankou, Erenhot, and Manzhouli are identified under high-, medium- and low-cost scenarios using an analytical methodology that determines distance and economic costs, and a number of transport hubs (that include Harbin, Zhengzhou, and Lanzhou) are identified. The results found that the cost of the routes from 314 Chinese cities to Moscow is the lowest via Manzhouli in the high- and medium-cost scenarios, but the routes change via Erenhot in the low-cost scenario. A number of policy recommendations should follow up.

The development of overseas industrial parks is a key component of the Belt and Road Initiative and an expected experimental way of promoting inclusive globalization by inventing new forms of cooperation between China and local host countries. Policy mobility, a classic theory within international political geography addressing the connection between local and global policies, has implications for overseas industrial parks development. In this paper, we argue that policies are not easily moved directly from one place to another; instead, policies are embedded due to the role of local actors in policy mobility. This article first provides an overview of seven China-Southeast Asia economic and trade cooperation zones identified by the Ministry of Commerce, and analyzes their key participants. It then discusses policy mobility by looking into the roles of revenue, land, and talent in developing these industrial parks. The paper finds that these parks face challenges, such as the complicated geographical environments of host countries, huge pressure from enterprise investment capital, the lack of overseas service platforms, and underdeveloped agglomeration economies. In the light of the current situation, policy suggestions for the future sustainable development of overseas industrial parks are put forward.

The United States, Russia and China are militarily and economically among the most powerful countries in the post-Cold War period, and the interactions between the three powers heavily influence the international system. However, different conclusions about this question are generally made by researchers through qualitative analysis, and it is necessary to objectively and quantitatively investigate their interactions. Monthly-aggregated event data from the Global Data on Events, Location and Tone (GDELT) to measure cooperative and conflictual interactions between the three powers, and the complementary cumulative distribution function (CCDF) and the vector autoregression (VAR) method are utilized to investigate their interactions in two periods: January, 1991 to September, 2001, and October, 2001 to December, 2016. The results of frequencies and strengths analysis showed that: the frequencies and strengths of USA-China interactions slightly exceeded those of USA-Russia interactions and became the dominant interactions in the second period. Although that cooperation prevailed in the three dyads in two periods, the conflictual interactions between the USA and Russia tended to be more intense in the second period, mainly related to the strategic contradiction between the USA and Russia, especially in Georgia, Ukraine and Syria. The results of CCDF indicated that similar probabilities in the cooperative behaviors between the three dyads, but the differences in the probabilities of conflictual behaviors in the USA-Russia dyad showed complicated characteristic, and those between Russia and China indicated that Russia had been consistently giving China a hard time in both periods when dealing with conflict. The USA was always an essential factor in affecting the interactions between Russia and China in both periods, but China’s behavior only played a limited role in influencing the interactions between the USA-Russia dyad. Our study provides quantitative insight into the direct cooperative and conflictual interactions between the three dyads since the end of the Cold War and helps to understand their interactions better.

Based on digital land use data from 1995 to 2000 and road data, the land use and landscape changes of Golmud, Qumaleb and Zhidoi are studied on a macro-scale. Land use and landscape changes in highway buffer zones and city expansion are special subjects. A new formula is used to define the exact degree of dynamic land use. To adequately define land use and landscape pattern changes, the buffer zones, illustrating the changes at different distances from the road, are recognized with ArcGIS 8.1 software. Prominent changes took place in land use and landscape patterns from 1995 to 2000, and the area of built-up land increased by 323.8%. The comprehensive degree of dynamic land use is 2.25, and the degree of dynamic land use of built-up land is the highest, followed by cultivated land. Woodland has the lowest value. The used degree index of land resources declined by 38.8 from 1995 to 2000. Landscape changed dramatically which influenced ecological processes immensely. Different from the corridor effect of other traffic routes, the corridor effect of this section of road is not obvious and its "point" radiation effect can be easily seen. The expanding range of Golmud City is confined to a 3 km buffer, while for Wudaoliang, it is 1 km. No land use change happened in the Nanshankou buffer.