One of the basic topics in population geography is how the population distributes and changes on terrain gradients. With the improvement of data accuracy and quality, it is feasible to conduct macroscopic analysis for this question based on kilometer grid cells. This study analyzed the distribution and change characteristics of China's population on the gradients of elevation, ruggedness, and slope from 2000 to 2020, using methods of frequency distribution statistics, based on 1-km grid statistical cells, and using spatial demographic datasets (WorldPop) and digital elevation model datasets (SRTMGL1). The effects of different digital elevation model datasets (including ASTER GDEM and SRTMGL1) and spatial demographic datasets (including WorldPop, LandScan, and GPW) on the results were also compared and the differences between the 1-km grid and 100-meter grid data were further explored with SRTMGL1 and WorldPop. The results show that: 1) The population increasingly tends to be distributed at the lower position of terrain gradients. The half-balance points of the population distribution on elevation, ruggedness, and slope gradients were 95.6 m, 50.7 m, and 3.01° respectively in 2000, and decreased to 77.0 m, 46.8 m, and 2.88° in 2020. 2) Dominant area of population distribution relative to land area has been stably located at a lower position of terrain gradients. The upper boundary of the dominant part of the population over terrain (MU) is stably located at the elevation of 520 m, the ruggedness of 137 m, and the slope of 6.84°, respectively, and the population dominance rate rose from 0.511, 0.248, and 0.217 in 2000 to 0.522, 0.274, and 0.255 in 2020, respectively. 3) Different spatial demographic datasets have no effect on the distribution and change pattern of population on terrain gradients, while DEM datasets have significant effects on the ruggedness gradient and slope gradient distribution of population. There is no difference between 1-km grid and 100-meter grid data for this study, and the 1-km grid dataset is recommended for the study of population distribution at the national scale and above. This study provides a new basic reference for understanding of the relationship between population distribution and terrain in China at the kilometer grid scale.

High tide flooding (HTF)—a kind of minor coastal flooding that usually occurs near the high tide level, becomes more frequent under climate change. It has a certain impact on the coastal socioeconomic system and natural environment, and is a hot issue in low-lying coastal cities. This article examined the definition of HTF, and systematically summarized the main progress of HTF research in terms of its drivers, impacts, risk assessment, and frequency forecasting. In the future, it is recommended to strengthen the research on the drivers, risk assessment, and forecast of HTF frequency. These include extensive monitoring of HTF, quantifying the role of interactions between factors leading to HTF, comprehensively assessing HTF risk, and accurately predicting HTF frequency. All these works will finally contribute to the disaster prevention and mitigation of HTF in coastal cities.

In the process of rapid urbanization, regional human-environment relationships in rural areas have become increasingly complex, and these areas are facing the challenge of integrating limited resources to realize industrial transformation and development. From the perspective of the factor-structure-function transformation of the rural territorial system, this study elucidated the conceptual connotation and driving force of rural industrial restructuring. On this basis, it classified the typical patterns of rural industrial restructuring according to the development direction of the dominant industries, with a specific focus on Guangxi. The study then proceeded to construct the guarantee mechanism for rural industrial restructuring. The following four main conclusions were reached: 1) Rural industrial restructuring can be comprehended as the process of optimizing spatial layout, extending the industrial chain, and enhancing the industrial system through industrial cultivation, adjustment, upgrading, and transformation. This process is grounded in the integration of the basic factors of industrial development—such as labor, land, and capital—in the context of local development conditions and external market environment. Rural industrial restructuring is characterized by the diversification of subjects and business forms, aiming to achieve both the benign and balanced development of rural industries internally and the value output externally. 2) In the practice of industrial restructuring, external driving forces and endogenous development forces of the rural territorial system interact with each other to jointly promote the coupling and coordination of various factors related to industrial development. 3) Rural industrial restructuring comprises five typical patterns, including the specialization of agricultural production, the industrialization of traditional culture, the tourism-driven development, the agglomeration of manufacturing, and service-oriented commerce and logistics. 4) In terms of policy, emphasis should be placed on guiding the concentration of key factors of production in rural areas by breaking down institutional barriers; building modern rural industrial systems by optimizing the industrial structure and improving the industrial layout; and improving the benefit linkage mechanism by adhering to the principle that the central position of farmers should not be compromised. Through a comprehensive approach, an institutional arrangement can be made for promoting rural industrial restructuring and facilitating the revitalization of rural industries.

Through the exploration of positivism, structuralism, and humanism, the methodology of modern human geography research gradually became systematic and complete. This study, based on the Chinese and international literature on rural settlement landscape and renowned geography scholars' arguments, and referring to the modern human geography philosophical thoughts and their derivative methodology and epistemology, concluded that under the guidance of positivism, structuralism, and humanism, the schools of rural settlement landscape studies followed the renewal path of "tradition-criticism-integration-transcendence". Furthermore, the positivism geography mainly underlines spatiality and regionality, which is summarized as spatialized description of order characteristics; The humanism geography is knee to rediscover the place and symbolic meaning of rural settlement landscapes, with diversified people-oriented humanistic care; The structuralism geography pays more attention to the power and social relationships behind the landscape, and its causality interpretation of the power game. In general, the relevant achievements of research of geographical schools on rural settlement landscape are more microscopic than macroscopic, more static than dynamic, and more material space oriented than socioeconomic space oriented, which have their own strengths and weaknesses in guiding the practice of rural revitalization in China. In the future, a Chinese paradigm of rural settlement landscape research with Chinese characteristics should be created from the perspective of human geography methodology, focusing on the settlement landscapes of different types of rural areas to strengthen the deficiencies of various research paradigms, and develop towards the theoretical integration of positivism, humanism, and structuralism to promote rural revitalization from the perspective of geography.

Suburban villages with superior ecological endowments can often realize rural development by virtue of landscape resources and spillover effect of big cities. But due to the rapid urbanization and urban "siphon effect", suburban villages often experience hollow problems such as labor emigration and industrial decay. Taking Yangjiamen, a traditional village in the Songshan Scenic Area, as a case study site, and based on the actor network theory, this study analyzed the process and mechanism of rural transformation by means of semi-structured interviews and participatory observation, and examined how endogenous impetus promoted rural revitalization. The results show that the case study village went through three stages of development: rural resources concentrated in the hands of rural sages, diversified industrial development feeding back to rural residents, and government-led enterprise-resident participation in diversified development, and experienced the change of rural sage→government-led→diversified governance of social networks. The dynamic mechanism changed from endogenous forces to endogenous development forces combined with external forces. This process has promoted the transformation and development of rural population, land, industry, and society, and realized the revitalization of talents, industries, organizations, culture, and ecology. This study provides some theoretical reference and practical guidance for rural revitalization in suburban hollow villages with superior ecological resource endowments.

In the context of a new technological revolution and the rise of public health awareness, wearable technology has experienced rapid development and widespread adoption, deeply integrating into the practice of urban resident leisure-time physical activities. However, the current theoretical exploration on the spatiotemporal effects and mechanism of residents' activities lags far behind the actual development needs. From an interdisciplinary perspective, this study focused on the comprehensive and systematic theoretical research of geography. The initial step of this study involved a quantitative analysis of the literature using the CiteSpace 5.7 software, providing insights into the general research trend and direction in the field. Then, the study summarized the changes in urban resident leisure-time physical activities under the influence of wearable technology from three perspectives: digital decision making, new spatiotemporal characteristics, and diversified experiences. The research implications underscore the need to deepen the understanding of the decision-making mechanism of resident leisure-time physical activity, strengthen the analysis of complex spatiotemporal rules of leisure-time physical activity, and emphasize research on satisfaction with leisure-time physical activity experiences in multiple situations. Furthermore, the article proposed a research framework for urban resident leisure-time physical activity under the influence of wearable technology. It stressed the importance of the crossover and integration of multidisciplinary theories, with a call to enrich analyses across five dimensions: research subject, technology, activity, space, and time. Additionally, the article argued for innovating research methods, expanding research content, and strengthening the application of health-oriented spatial planning practices. This comprehensive approach may enhance the understanding of the dynamic relationship between wearable technology, urban spaces, and resident leisure-time physical activities, and provide valuable references for urban spatial planning practices guided by residents' activity needs in the digital health era.

Urban-rural economic circulation is an important part of the macro economic circulation in China. Optimizing urban-rural economic circulation is a fundamental project for building a new development pattern. This study analyzed the connotation of urban-rural economic circulation from four dimensions: supply and demand relationship, industrial linkage, factor flow, and circulation carrier, and constructed an evaluation index system, taking 2010-2020 as the study period and the Jianghan Plain as the case study area. It comprehensively applied the entropy weighting method and the obstacle degree model to reveal the characteristics of change of the spatiotemporal pattern of urban-rural economic circulation in the study area, and explored the path of its optimization. The results show that: 1) During the study period, the level of urban-rural economic circulation in the Jianghan Plain region was low but continued to grow unevenly. The composite and sub-dimensional indices (supply and demand relationship, industrial linkage, factor flow, and circulation carrier) of urban-rural economic circulation grew from 0.2164, 0.0616, 0.0534, 0.0641, and 0.0373 to 0.4095, 0.1308, 0.0850, 0.0990, and 0.0947, with an average annual growth rate of 8.92%, 11.24%, 5.93%, 5.45%, and 15.35%, respectively. 2) During the same period, the urban-rural economic circulation in the study area generally showed a low level of aggregation, regional differences increased slightly, and the spatial coefficient of variation increased from 0.2055 to 0.2126. The high-value areas of supply and demand relationship and circulation carrier index of the urban-rural economic circulation gradually aggregated to the main transportation arteries and the urban areas along the routes, and the spatial coefficient of variation decreased from 0.3166 and 0.5665 to 0.2636 and 0.4705, but the industrial linkage and factor flow spatial distribution characteristics were not as distinct. 3) The obstacle degree of urban-rural economic circulation in the study area showed a decreasing trend year by year, and the sub-dimension obstacle degree ranked as industrial linkage (28.20%) > circulation carrier (27.89%) > factor flow (23.98%) > supply and demand relationship (19.93%), and the top four indicator obstacle degree ranked as night-light index (11.23%) > proportion of built-up area (10.79%) > output value of agricultural services (10.65%) > loan balance of financial institutions per unit of GDP (9.82%). 4) The optimization of the urban-rural economic circulation in the Jianghan Plain region can be divided into three types and six sub-districts, including single obstacle type, double obstacle type, and triple obstacle type, and according to the different types of obstacles in each district, the appropriate development strategies for the optimization of the urban-rural economic circulation were proposed respectively. The results of this study can provide some theoretical guidance and practical inspiration for the development of urban-rural economic circulation in the new era.

Music geography is an interdisciplinary subject between geography, musicology, culture studies, and other disciplines. Compared with the well-established music geography in Western countries, music geography in China is still in the embryonic phase. This study attempted to provide a literature review for the progress of music geography research outside China by having a close look at its origin, development paths, essential debates, frameworks, and approaches, based on an in-depth bibliometric analysis. First, this study found that international research on music geography has extended its scope from the perspective of cultural geography to an interdisciplinary discourse and received great attention from economic geography, political geography, and urban geography. Second, the core themes of international music geography research can be generally classified into five branches: music regions and cultural diffusion, industrial clusters and networks, temporal-spatial phenomena and influences of music performance, music-based identity and cultural politics, and music geography as a special urban soundscape. In terms of theories and approaches, international music geography research can be divided into four main branches: cultural geography, geopolitics, economic geography, and urban geography, which are respectively influenced by the non-representational theory of new cultural geography, popular geopolitics and the relational turn of economic geography, and other important trends. Lastly, this article proposed that there is a great necessity to pay more attention to music research by Chinese geographers as it serves as an ideal case and instrument to inquire into geographical issues such as local identity, authenticity, and sense of place, local-global connections, creative production networks, temporary projects, urban planning, and social well-being.

Against the background of the current high degree of urban-rural spatial reconfiguration, the new constructed characteristics of happiness and its urban-rural heterogeneity of humans, which are the actors and ultimate target of development, are of great significance to the balanced and effective enhancement of the dividends of happiness in China's urban-rural development. This research introduced capital as a tool into the study of happiness in human geography, and used data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) to design an analytical framework for the construction of happiness by multidimensional capital from the three dimensions of economy, culture, and society. The Probit regression model was used to empirically analyze and explore the constructed characteristics of happiness and its urban-rural differences in the context of high mobility in 2018 from the perspectives of level and structure. The results show that: 1) Chinese residents' happiness was at a high level and relatively balanced between urban and rural areas, and the constructs of urban and rural residents' happiness are diversified under the "level" perspective, that is, the basic effect of economic capital, the transformative effect of cultural capital, and the strong sensitivity of social capital contributed to the enhancement of happiness in urban and rural areas. 2) Having considered the integrity of capital "structure" and ecological niche, the impact of multidimensional capital on the construction of happiness has evolved from one-way enhancement effect to uncertainty and structuralized characteristics, especially the strengthening or missing effects caused by the dominant or deficient local ecological niche, which makes the capital dimension more complex in the construction of happiness. 3) There were significant urban-rural differences in the response strength of residents' happiness to various dimensions of capital, among which social capital showed the strongest sensitivity and the most significant urban-rural differences in the construction of happiness, which indicates that China's current new-type urbanization process should pay attention to the reproduction mechanism and effect of urban-rural social capital. The results of the study are conducive to revealing the modern and local characteristics of the happiness construct in China, and provide a basis for balanced and effective policy formulation to enhance the happiness of Chinese urban and rural residents.

Since the appearance of the "re-materializing" approach in human geography, the subjectivity of material has been reappraised in the research framework of geography of migration. This reflection helps establishing a new research paradigm that combines mobility and materiality to explain the increasingly complex migration situation in the world. Although the concept of "material turn" first appeared in the literature of social sciences, there is limited research that systematically reviews how geography of migration engages with the materialist approach. Therefore, we intended to examine the current research trends, theoretical debates, and research frontiers in geography of migration, and then construct a theoretical framework that foregrounds the interactive relationship between migration and material. This article first examined the philosophical theory of Western material research, finding that the "material turn" trend was originally rooted in Western materialism, new materialism, and body phenomenology. Second, through the quantitative analysis of the migration-related literature in geography, we found that the research engaging "material turn" in the past 10 years mainly focused on four research hotspots: 1) migration infrastructure; 2) migration material culture; 3) immigrants' bodies, emotion, and politics; and 4) more-than-human migration geography. Focusing on the key research on material theories, this article summarized the current insights in Western and Chinese geography of migration to systematically explain the agency of material during the migration process, which may shed light on the importance of material in mediating the relationship between immigrant and place. Finally, this article constructed a theorical model around the relationship of "migrant-material-place", and further put forward the research prospect of establishing Chinese localized immigration theory. The research on "material turn" not only helps to guide new theoretical trends in geography of migration, but also promotes the place integration of international and intraregional immigrants in China.

Improving the carbon sequestration and sink capacity of terrestrial ecosystems is one of the most economical and green ways to achieve the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals on schedule. Soil particulate organic carbon (POC) and mineral-associated organic carbon (MAOC), as important soil organic carbon fractions, are the key to understanding changes in the carbon cycle in terrestrial ecosystems. Previous studies have shown that climate warming has changed the carbon cycle of terrestrial ecosystems and affected the input of organic carbon from plants and microorganisms at the same time, but there is no unified conclusion on the response of soil organic carbon components to climate warming and their controlling factors. This article systematically introduced the framework of soil particulate and mineral-associated organic matter. The formation, transformation, and stabilization of the two components were described. The article reviewed current research progresses on the response of soil particulate and mineral-associated organic carbon to climate warming and their influencing factors. On this basis, the shortcomings of existing research and future challenges were discussed, and the key scientific issues that need to be solved urgently at present and future research directions were proposed, in order to provide a theoretical reference for the formulation of soil organic carbon management and solutions to climate change.

At present, the regional spatial system of traditional villages is hollowing out, and the integration of living-production-ecological system, as a good state of regional spatial system development, can be used as a guiding goal to solve the problem of hollowing out the countryside. Exploring the driving factors and processes of typical traditional tourism-driven villages to achieve the integration of living-production-ecological system can provide a reference for the governance of traditional village hollowing out. In this study, we defined the concept of tourism-driven traditional villages' living-production-ecological system integration from the perspective of theory of practice. We took Dehang Village in Hunan Province as an example, decomposed the relevant variables that affect the traditional villages' living-production-ecological system integration relying on the theory of rootedness, and then constructed the motivation mechanism of the tourism-driven traditional villages' living-production-ecological system integration by using the method of system dynamics. The conclusions are as follows: 1) The ecological subsystem is the fundamental basis for the integration of the living-production-ecological system and consists of two circuits: humanized ecological practices and primitive ecological practices. 2) The production subsystem is the material driving force for the integration, including the three circuits of tourism industry development, tourism industry innovation, and tourism production resistance. 3) The subsystem of living is the key guarantee for the integration and consists of three circuits, namely, the practice of material life, the practice of spiritual life, and the construction of political life. 4) Ecological protection restricts the disorderly expansion of production and living, ecological product creation promotes tourism industry development and improves residents' lives, and residents' living practices in turn counter-promote tourism production innovation and ecological protection, with the three subsystems interacting with each other, and superimposing their functions. Summarizing the system dynamics of Dehang Village's spatial system to achieve the integration of living-production-ecological system under the cycle of multiple causal bonds and causal loops can provide a reference for traditional villages of the same type.

With the rapid development of tourism and the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy, the relationship between tourism development and the realization of rural revitalization has received increasing attention. Encouraging rural residents to participate in governance in an orderly manner is an important issue for rural revitalization in the new era. Rural tourism can break spatial isolation and reconstruct the rural society, while rural residents' concepts and behaviors are profoundly shaped by their social networks. Therefore how tourism drives residents' participation in rural governance from the perspective of social network reconstruction deserves in-depth study. Based on the social embeddedness theory, this study explored whether the path of "developing rural tourism-restructuring rural social network-promoting residents' participation in rural governance" is valid and its mechanism through two progressive studies. The study found that: 1) The development of tourism can enhance the scale and heterogeneity of the rural kinship-geographic-industrial network and the network position of rural residents, increase the communication frequency and trust intensity of residents in the network, promote information sharing, and reconstruct the rural social network from the dimensions of structure and relationship. Social network affects residents' level of participation in rural governance from the four channels of information acquisition, collective supervision, role model guidance, and community consciousness. 2) The rural governance participation level of residents who participate in tourism operation is strongly promoted by industrial and geographic networks, and the rural governance participation level of residents who do not participate in tourism operation is strongly influenced by geographic and kinship networks. 3) Resident participation in rural governance activities are characterized by participation in cultural issues > participation in environmental protection > participation in political issues > participation in economic development > participation in social services.

In the process of rapid urbanization, the imbalance of human-environment relationship caused by the emigration of rural population has exacerbated the problem of rural hollowing out. It is of great practical significance to measure the hollowing out of the countryside and put forward strategies to rectify the problem by focusing on rural revitalization. Taking Baiquan County of Heilongjiang Province as an example, this study used population transfer rate to measure the hollowing level of villages and used the entropy weight TOPSIS method to evaluate the development potential of villages. Combining these two methods, this study identified the type of village development and put forward the differential remediation strategies of hollowing villages. The results show that: 1) Baiquan County's rural hollowing level is 0.6529, and the degree of hollowing is severe. The hollowing at the township level is moderate and high, and the villages are dominated by high and heavy hollowing. Rural population loss is mainly due to the uneven development of urban and rural areas, few rural employment opportunities, low level of rural social security, among other factors. 2) The average development potential of villages in Baiquan County is 0.2279, the overall level is low, and the spatial distribution difference is significant. The development potential of villages around the county seat and along the main transportation routes and major rivers is generally higher than the villages in remote areas. The level of industrial development (0.5026) is significantly higher than that of civilization (0.2703) and ecological environment (0.1472), and low levels of governance (0.0317) and affluence of residents (0.0482) have become shortcomings of village development potential. 3) Villages of Baiquan County can be divided into four types—I: high potential low hollowing, II: high potential high hollowing, III: low potential low hollowing, and IV: low potential high hollowing. Overall the county is dominated by high potential high hollowing, and the development of southern villages is better than the rest of the county. In the future, village development should be guided by the rural revitalization strategies, with a shift of focus towards categories I and II, as well as southern villages and towns. The villages should improve homesteads, ecological land, cultivated land, and other related systems to promote their internal structure adjustment; cultivate cooperatives, family farms, and other new types of management, so as to explore the planning and upgrading of characteristic industries; build a new system of "central town-central village-rural community-village" to enhance urban-rural interaction and promote factor aggregation and resource sharing; and increase environmental regulation, enhance social security, and attract the return of talents, thus realizing village hollowing governance and rural revitalization in the county.

The digital economy is a new driving force for the high-quality development of the tourism industry in the new era. In recent years, with the emergence of blockchain, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, and other emerging technologies, scientific and technological achievements have been rapidly transformed and put into production. Digital technology has become an important force to promote the restructuring of production factors, the improvement of production efficiency, and the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure. The deep integration of tourism—as a tertiary sector of the economy—and digital technology has become the key factor in promoting the upgrading of tourism industry structure. The digital economy, with its powerful productivity and high knowledge intensive form, reshapes the production mode of the tourism industry, improves its efficiency, and injects new momentum into the high-quality development of the tourism industry. However, there is a lack of theoretical exploration and empirical testing of the relationship between the digital economy and the high-quality development of the tourism industry. On the basis of analyzing the role of the digital economy in the high-quality development of the tourism industry, this study constructed an indicator system to measure the level of digital economy development and high-quality development of the tourism industry in 280 cities at the prefecture level and above in China from 2011 to 2019, and used the spatial Durbin model to empirically test the impact of the digital economy on the high-quality development of the tourism industry and its spatial spillover effects. The results show that the digital economy had a direct impact on the high-quality development of the tourism industry, and there was an inverted U-shaped nonlinear relationship. This result is still significantly valid after a series of robustness tests. Further analysis indicates that the digital economy had a spatial spillover effect on the high-quality development of tourism in neighboring regions, and a U-shaped nonlinear relationship existed. The results offer a new perspective for analyzing the impact of the digital economy on the high-quality development of the tourism industry, and provide theoretical reference and empirical evidence for leveraging the digital economy to support the high-quality development of the tourism industry.

The once-in-a-century revolution in the automobile manufacturing industry has triggered a "car-making frenzy" in China, subsequently reshaping the spatial landscape of the country's automobile manufacturing industry. This study used comprehensive micro-enterprise databases and employed location quotient indicators to compare the spatial agglomeration characteristics of the Chinese automobile manufacturing industry between 2013 and 2021. It examined the distinctive location traits of both new energy and traditional automobile manufacturing sectors, while also evaluating the co-agglomeration patterns of three pivotal industries—automobile, electronics, and electrical-in Chinese cities. Additionally, the study employed the negative binomial regression method to investigate the factors that influence the site selection of Chinese automobile manufacturing enterprises. The findings of this study are as follows: Chinese automobile manufacturing enterprises tend to concentrate in cities with a solid historical industrial foundation, showcasing a blend of continuity and change in the industrial layout. The location choices of Chinese new energy automobile manufacturing enterprises are both path dependence and path breakthrough. While cities with established prowess in traditional automobile manufacturing still hold potential for developing the new energy automobile sector, cities with weaker traditional automobile manufacturing sectors, such as Shenzhen, have made remarkable strides in the realm of new energy vehicles. In 2021, only 11 cities in China, including Shanghai, Hefei, and Suzhou, achieved the co-agglomeration of the three major manufacturing industries (automobile, electronics, and electrical). Notably, cities with well-developed automobile industries, such as Chongqing, did not gain specialized advantages in the electronics and electrical manufacturing sectors. Factors such as the diversification index of the manufacturing industry, the complexity of manufacturing knowledge, the size of the resident population, and the location quotient of the automobile manufacturing industry contribute to attracting automobile manufacturing enterprises. Traditional automobile manufacturing tends to gravitate towards cities with a concentration of foreign industrial enterprises, which diverges from the agglomeration patterns observed in the electronics manufacturing sector. The impact of location quotient in the electronics and electrical manufacturing industry on the site selection of Chinese new energy vehicle manufacturing enterprises did not demonstrate statistical significance. This study contributes to enriching the theory of industrial location in China and provides valuable insights for automotive manufacturing companies in their site selection process, as well as informing government policies related to industrial layout planning.

Innovation is an important driving force for regional development. Since the 1980s, scholars in geography and related disciplines have paid great attention to the relationship between innovation and regional development, and have carried out a wealth of research on regional innovation. In the early stage, regional innovation research took regional innovation system as the main research approach and explored the spatial aggregation mechanism and regional characteristics of innovation activities. In the 21st century, however, with the deepening of economic globalization and the prominence of global challenges in the fields of climate, environment, and energy, regional innovation research has shown a diversified trend in theory and research objects. Although scholars have theoretically reviewed regional innovation research, they have not paid sufficient attention to the changes in the socioeconomic background and theories of regional innovation research. To fill this gap, this article comprehensively comprehended the socioeconomic background, research propositions, and main research topics of regional innovation research paradigm change since the 1980s, revealing the evolution of regional innovation research that shifted from closed to open region precondition and from static to dynamic and transformative analysis, indicating the contribution of other perspectives such as technological innovation system, evolutionary economic geography, and transition studies, and suggesting the importance of global knowledge and the normative turn in regional innovation research. Moreover, after summarizing the current progress, this article proposed that future regional innovation research needs to pay more attention to multi-scalar and comparative regional innovation research and focus on the negative side and the role of the state in regional innovation activities.

Amidst economic globalization, commerce and trade have become increasingly interwoven with national security and foreign policy, emphasizing the growing interdependence of commerce, trade, and foreign policy in the 21st century. This trend has intensified in the 21st century, with the rise of multipolar economies and growing trade and technology conflicts, particularly between China and the United States, fueling interest in geoeconomic research. However, geoeconomic studies still lack clear theoretical and conceptual definitions as well as a complete qualitative analytical framework, posing challenges in supporting China's peaceful rise with a theoretical perspective. This study reviewed the current landscape of Western geoeconomic research, uncovering that: 1) the theoretical development of Western geoeconomics has evolved through two phases: germination and initiation; 2) three predominant schools have emerged: geostrategy, economic geography, and critical geography; 3) geoeconomics and geopolitics are deeply intertwined, rooted in "capitalistic logic" and "territorial logic", respectively; 4) extant empirical research spans various topics, including geoeconomic strategies, the application and impact of geoeconomic tools, and the discourse and conceptualization of geoeconomics. Finally, this article pointed out that geoeconomics is a tangible reality and represents a form of political geography driven by capitalistic logic, focusing on geopolitical spatial economics. It is dialectically integrated with geopolitics, serving both as a diplomatic policy practice and an analytical framework. Based on the coupling of existing research and China's contemporary context, this article suggests that future research in China should address geoeconomic resilience, the implementation and effectiveness of geoeconomic tools at varying scales, geoeconomic practices in smaller countries and third countries, geoeconomics from the perspective of urban regionalism, and the interplay between geoeconomic discourses and practices, to advance geoeconomic theories in China. This research is helpful to accurately and comprehensively understanding geoeconomics, grasping the development trends of Western geoeconomics, and better guiding the development of geoeconomics in China, so as to serve the implementation of "the Belt and rRoad Initiative" and the peaceful rise of China.

Analyzing the relationship and interaction between economic activities and the environment is a necessary way to achieve human-environment harmony. Environmental economic geography (EEG) emerged at the historic moment, mainly studying the impact of environmental factors on economic activities, as well as the feedback, adaptation, and transformation of economic activities to natural conditions. This article first reviewed the evolution of the discipline of EEG, constructed a research framework from the perspective of economic cycle, and found that EEG research revealed a transition from the focus on external development to the internalization of costs. Through a bibliometric analysis of Chinese and international economic-environmental literature from 1996 to 2023, the article summarized key stages in the development of EEG research, including the initial period, the construction period, and the rapid development period. Combining global value chains and material flow theory, the study analyzed the globalization, relational, institutionalization and evolutionary turn of EEG research topics. In the future, EEG research will be helpful to addressing ecological environmental governance, green innovation and industrial transformation, energy, resilience, and sustainability problems.

Green finance is also called environmental finance or sustainability finance. As an important kind of financial development, green finance focuses on the win-win situation between the environment and economic growth by supporting the environmental protection industry. On the other hand, the green low-carbon transformation development can form diversified green capital needs, which will induce financial institutions to adjust products and services structure, innovate green finance service models and application scenarios with ecological concepts, and this will promote the development of green finance. Therefore, the concept and practice of green financial development and green low-carbon transformation are highly consistent, and there is an inherent logic of coordination and mutual promotion. However, there is limited literature on the coupling and coordination relationship between green financial development and green low-carbon transformation, and the research on influencing factors needs more in-depth discussions. To reveal the status of coupling and coordination between green financial development and green low-carbon transformation, this study used the entropy method to measure the level of green financial development and green low-carbon transformation, and introduced the coupling and coordination degree model, geodetector, and ArcGIS technology to explore the spatial and temporal variation characteristics and influencing factors of coupling and coordination between green financial development and green low-carbon transformation based on the data of Hunan Province from 2013 to 2021. The results show that the coupling and coordination degree between green financial development and green low-carbon transformation in Hunan Province was on the rise year by year, and continued to improve over time. The status was transiting to a coordinated stage step by step. The coupling and coordination degree in various regions showed a relatively consistent trend with the entire province. The coupling and coordination degree exhibited spatial agglomeration characteristics and presented a green development pattern radiating from Changsha City to the surrounding areas. The spatial differentiation of the coupling and coordination degree was obvious, greater in the eastern region than the western region, and in the northern region than the southern region. However, the growth speed in the western and southern regions was higher than that in the eastern and northern regions. The geodetector test results show that the coupling and coordination degree was influenced by factors of economic development, financial development scale, green R&D investment, digital infrastructure, and regional openness. Among them, the explanatory power of green R&D investment and financial development scale was greater than other factors, and both of them were the driving factors for the coupling and coordination between green financial development and green low-carbon transformation. The research may enable governments to clearly understand the integrated pattern of green financial development and green low-carbon transformation, so as to provide a decision-making reference for the integrated development of green financial development and green low-carbon transformation, and a reliable theoretical basis for cultivating new quality productivity according to local conditions to promote high-quality development.

Since the 1980s, the study of systems of cities has seen two major breakthroughs, that is, the shift from the national scale to the global scale, and the shift from the central place theory to a network perspective. Starting in the late 1990s, world/global city research began to merge with the network perspective, resulting in a growing interest in the study of world city networks. World city network (WCN) research uses a network perspective to study cross-border inter-city relations on the global scale. A considerable amount of theoretical and empirical research on world city networks has emerged over the past two decades. The purpose of this article was to critically review recent advances and the main limitations of theories and methods underpinning current world city network research. The article outlined the global context that gives rise to the fundamental restructuring of world city systems. The essential tenets of the main theories pertaining to world city network research were then discussed, including the hierarchy of world cities, world city hypothesis, global city, and "space of flows". The specifications, key assumptions, and applications of the interlocking network model (INM) were presented, followed by a discussion of several social network analysis (SNA) tools commonly used in world city network research. Finally, the article discussed the limitations of existing theories and methodology and, on that basis, highlighted several areas that deserve further research.

The utilization of the resources and environment and the impact on the Earth system of modern human activities have been undergoing great changes. The environment and sustainable development of human society are facing severe challenges. The study of human-earth system coupling provides integrated approaches for solving ecological and socioeconomic problems. However, the understanding of the rural human-earth system coupling is insufficient. Therefore, reviewing the progress of research on rural human-earth system coupling is of great significance for promoting the development of human-earth system science and supporting the decision making for coordinated and sustainable development. The results of this study show that rural human-earth system coupling is a comprehensive process of interaction and mutual influence between the rural socioeconomic system and the natural ecosystem, forming a theoretical paradigm of "process-mechanism-pattern-effect-regulation". The research themes mainly include five aspects, namely, the process and pattern of rural natural and social elements coupling, the influence and feedback of climate change on agricultural production, the driving mechanism of urbanization on rural development, the telecoupling effect of globalization and agricultural trade, and the regulation effects of policy intervention and engineering measures. The research methods mainly involve the coupling evaluation models and the coupling mechanism models. Given the insufficient research on the mutual feedback and transmission mechanisms of rural human-earth system coupling at multiple scales and the lack of data models, future studies should focus on detecting the coupling process and pattern of rural human-earth system under structure transformation and scale extension, analyzing the coupling mechanism of rural human-earth system under elements flow and effects cascade, exploring the simulation and decision-making methods of rural human-earth system that are data-driven and characterized by model integration, and finding the coordination pathways of rural human-earth system under the objective of harmony between humans and nature and global sustainable development.

Ron Johnston is a world-renowned human geographer and historian of geographic thought. In his fruitful life, he made unparalleled contribution to the discipline of human geography. His contribution is not only reflected in his empirical research in urban geography, political geography, and political science with many academic journal papers, but also in his pioneering research on the history of geographical thought and quantitative research methods, and classic works such as Geography and Geographers. He published more than 40 academic monographs, including Philosophy and Human Geography, On Human Geography, and Putting Votes into Their Place: Geography and Elections in Great Britain, edited or coedited more than 40 academic monographs, including A Dictionary of Human Geography, The Future of Geography, and A Century of British Geography. As a university faculty, teaching is one of the three academic works. Johnston acted as course instructor for undergraduate courses such as Urban Geography, Urbanization, Internal Structure of the City, Philosophy and Methodology of Human Geography, Political Geography, State and Economic Restructuring, Contemporary Economic and Political Issues, Geography of Election, Research Methods, Multivariate Statistical Analysis, The State and the Environment, An Introduction to Geography, and for graduate courses, including Urban Geography, Urban Internal Structure, and Multivariate Statistics/Computing. As an advisor, Johnston supervised 47 graduate students. He wrote several important textbooks, including Multivariate Statistical Analysis in Geography: A Primer on the General Linear Model and Geography of Elections. He also set us a good example in terms of academic service. He coedited both Progress in Human Geography and Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space for 25 years (1979-2004), and served on countless editorial boards. He also often served as an external reviewer, participating in the evaluation of dissertations, research fund proposals, professional training programs, book manuscripts, RAE (research assessment exercise), REF (research excellence framework), professional title promotion, and so on. He published many book reviews to build healthy academic community culture. Ron Johnston's diligence, persistence, kindness, and warm and academic service spirit will always inspire us to move forward. We, as Chinese counterparts, can learn a lot from Ron Johnston as a professor and a member of the academic community.

Flow elements are not only an important force for the temporal differentiation and reorganization of rural vulnerability, but also an important perspective in the study of urban and rural reconstruction. By constructing a social-ecological system vulnerability evaluation indicator system of "sensitivity-adaptability", the dynamic change characteristics of vulnerability and the impact of flow factors of 184 administrative villages in Qingpu District of Shanghai Municipality from 1998 to 2018 were analyzed by means of sequential polygonal area method, spatial exploration and analysis, and fixed effect spatial error model. The results show that: 1) During the study period, the social-ecological system vulnerability of the district increased from 0.521 to 0.622, and the vulnerability level increased from low grade to medium grade. The spatio-temporal patterns show that vulnerability first increased and then decreased, and was high in the east and low in the west. 2) The relative length of the social-ecological system vulnerability temporal path movement in the district showed a trend of gradual decline from the central region to the surrounding areas from 1998 to 2018. The mobility curvature of the vulnerability time path was relatively small, showing the spatial pattern of high in the north and south and low in the central area, and the flow index for vulnerability spatio-temporal transition was 0.509, indicating that the spatial agglomeration structure had relatively high transfer activity in this region. 3) Population flow had become the leading factor for enhancing vulnerability and the coefficient of impact was 0.022, and capital flow and commercial flow were the key to reducing vulnerability. The effect of outflow on vulnerability was generally higher than on inflow, and the most significant effect of population outflow on vulnerability increase was 0.018, while the vulnerability reduction capacity of capital inflow was -0.009. "Sensitivity synergy-adaptive trade off" had become the dominant mode of flow factor impact on vulnerability in Qingpu District. The flow factors had a more significant impact on economic sensitivity and economic adaptability.

Overseas agricultural industry parks are an innovative way of China's overseas investment, and land use is one of the core issues in its development. Agricultural industry park A is a national-level overseas industrial park that has passed the assessment of the Ministry of Commerce. Its land use and cooperative planting model have important reference value for other overseas parks and the high-quality development of the Belt and Road region. Using interviews, field research, and evolutionary game methods and taking agricultural industry park A as an example, this study conducted a game analysis on the behavioral motivations of park and local farmers in the process of land acquisition, and explored the optimal land use model of overseas agricultural industry parks. The research found that: 1) Plantations have a large demand for land, high investment cost, long payback cycle, and high risk and sensitivity of investment. 2) Park A has formed a development model of "multiple plantations in one park, cooperative development, and construction of the whole industrial chain". 3) Land acquisition game between the park and the local farmers and the Indonesian government's special policies for plantations combined to form a cooperative planting land use model of 80% self-operated land and 20% jointly-operated land. 4) Land acquisition in Indonesia is difficult and affected by many factors, such as private land ownership, difficulties in determining land ownership, and Western neo-colonialism public opinion. The development experience of park A in the exploration of overseas land investment has certain reference value for the land acquisition and use of Chinese agricultural industry parks in other countries with private ownership of land.

A series of problems caused by rapid urbanization have a negative impact on the mental health of residents. As an essential health intervention, green spaces facilitate resident exposure to the natural environment and relieve mental stress. However, existing studies mainly use cross-sectional data, making it difficult to reveal the causal relationship between green space and mental health. In addition, few studies focused on the differences in the mental health effect of green space among different social groups. Therefore, we used a natural experiment approach to explore the impact of a large-scale greenway intervention—the East Lake Greenway in Wuhan, China—on residents' mental health. We collected data from the health effect questionnaires in 2016 and 2019 (before and after the intervention) among residents living around the greenway, used the difference-in-differences model to explore the causal relationship between green space intervention and residents' mental health changes, and combined stratified analysis to reveal differences in the causal effect of green space on mental health across various social groups. The results show that: 1) The green space intervention significantly promoted the improvement of mental health for the experimental group. 2) The causal effect of green space intervention on residents' mental health was not significantly different among groups with different gender and education levels, but there were significant differences among groups with different occupations and income levels, indicating that the greenspace intervention has significantly improved the mental health of the unemployed, low-income, and low-middle income groups. Overall, the construction of large green spaces can effectively improve the mental health of surrounding residents, especially for disadvantaged groups such as the unemployed and low-income groups. Green space interventions are critical for improving the mental health of residents and alleviating inequalities in mental health benefits due to differences in socioeconomic status.

In recent years, under the background of a series of national development strategies and the transformation of economic geography patterns, the connections between cities, towns, and rural areas in China have become increasingly close, bringing about a more diversified population distribution than before. However, there are still few studies that simultaneously involve the spatial analysis of cities, towns, and rural areas, as well as the evolution patterns and underlying mechanism of population distribution in regions with different levels of development. Based on the data of the sixth and seventh national censuses (provincial data of Jiangsu Province), this study explored the spatiotemporal evolution of city, town, and rural population distribution and revealed the influencing factors of the comprehensive attraction of city-town-rural areas to the floating population in Jiangsu Province from 2010 to 2020. The results show that: 1) In the past 10 years, Jiangsu Province maintained a population spatial distribution pattern of dense in the south and sparse in the north, but the changes in the size of the resident population and floating population have shown noticeable geographical differences, which is manifested in the continued high growth rate of resident population in south Jiangsu, but the high growth rate of floating population is concentrated in central and north Jiangsu. 2) In the past 10 years, the high-value area of the ratio of floating population to resident population was still concentrated in south Jiangsu. The proportion increased in all cities and some towns in central and north Jiangsu, as well as slightly in some rural areas in south Jiangsu. 3) Comprehensive exploration of changes in the population distribution of the city-town-rural areas has found that although the trend of common growth of resident population in the three types of space was not obvious, the ratio of floating population to resident population in more than half of counties and cities showed the characteristics of city-town-rural area common growth. The increase in the comprehensive index of city-town-rural area attraction to floating population in central and north Jiangsu exceeded that of south Jiangsu. 4) Public affair investment of the government and regional industrial development had a significant positive impact on the comprehensive attraction of city-town-rural areas to floating population, which had a stronger effect in economically developed areas and areas with stronger industrial base. In contrast, advanced industrial structure only had a positive effect in south Jiangsu. Based on the correlation between the change in population distribution and the level of regional urbanization, as well as the analysis of its spatial distribution characteristics and influencing factors in city-town-rural areas, this study put forward specific suggestions for the urban-rural integrated development of the population in different counties and cities.

As an important means to promote changes in cultivated land production input, crop types, and cultivated land value, urban-rural integration is the key to influence cultivated land use transformation. In this study, the entropy weight TOPSIS method was used to measure the level of urban-rural integration and cultivated land use transformation, and panel regression, mediation effect, and spatial Durbin models were used to explore the impact, mechanism, and spillover effects of urban-rural integration on cultivated land use transformation. This study found that: 1) Urban-rural integration positively affects cultivated land use transformation, and the impact is mainly implicit. 2) From the regional perspective, the impact of urban-rural integration on cultivated land use transformation is stronger in the central and western regions. 3) Urban-rural integration has an impact on cultivated land use transformation through infrastructure construction, agricultural industrial structure upgrading, and labor transfer effects. 4) The impact of urban-rural integration on cultivated land use transformation has a spatial spillover effect, and the indirect effect is greater than the direct effect. Therefore, for the integration of urban and rural areas, it is necessary to strengthen infrastructure construction, promote the upgrading of agricultural industrial structure, accelerate the free flow of factors, pay attention to the difference and spillover of the impact of urban-rural integration, and promote cultivated land use transformation.