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  • Original Articles
    HUANG Jikun, YANG Jun, Frank van Tongeren, Hans van Meijl
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    Economic globalization and trade liberalization have been developing smoothly and are expected to continue in the future. The Doha Round of trade negotiation and the recent phasing out of the Multi Fiber Agreement (MFA) have stimulated the process of trade liberalization. The overall goal of this study is to examine the impacts on China and world economy of the recent phasing out of MFA and the proposals for trade liberalization provided by EU, USA and CAIRNS group. Based on a general equilibrium model of the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP), this study shows that the world economy will gain more than US$ 10 billion from the phasing out of MFA, though the loss may present in a few countries. USA, EU, China and India are major gainers. The success of Doha Round negotiation will have much substantial effect on the global economy. World income will increase by about US$ 100 billion in 2010. China is one of major countries that gain most from the Doha Round of trade negotiation. Among the proposals examined, China gains more from CAIRNS and US proposals than from EU proposal. China should press for global trade liberalization as this is consistent with China’s national interests.

  • Original Articles
    ZHANG Yili,ZHANG Wei, BAI Wangqi,LI Shuangcheng, ZHENG Du
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    One of the most difficult and emphasized research problems nowadays is how to get the accurate data of a geographical unit that is intercrossed by the administrative units according to the statistical data. Choosing the Tibetan Plateau in China as a case of the geographical unit, we computed concisely the population and its change based on statistical yearbooks and census data of five periods. The ideas and computing methods about how to study on geographical units according to the survey data based on administrative units were the key points we talked, which gave reference to accurate basic data research on geographical units, especially on Tibetan Plateau. The real data model, equal-density edge theoretical data model, minimum data model, maximum data model and expecting data model were applied in computing population on Tibetan Plateau. The results showed : (1) There were 221 counties or cities distributing in 6 different provinces in the range of Tibetan Plateau in China, 155 of which were inside and 66 of which were on the edge. (2) The result from equal-density edge theoretical data model was the closest to the fact, while the expecting data model was the second. So the equal-density edge theoretical data model is fit for analyzing and computing statistical data on geographical units. The population on Tibetan Plateau in China was 12.04 million or so in 2001. (3) Linking with real inhabitant settlement distributions and other multi-source data to overlap and analyze will give a more accurate result.

  • Original Articles
    GUO Tengyun, XU Yong
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    Based on a long and consistent data set of regional real per capita GDP, in this paper employing the Gini Coefficient (or Gini index) and Generalized Entropy Measurement (GE) we scrutinize the regional economic inequalities and their changing trends, and the inter-regional and intra-regional inequalities in Coastal-Inland, North-South and highly-less urbanized region dimensions in China during the period 1952~2003. And our study results display specific views on China’s macro regional economic patterns during the period. The overall long tendency of inter-provincial economic inequalities in China increased slowly, and rose and fell cyclically over time during the period 1952~2003; Through decomposing the inter-provincial economic inequalities, on one hand, we find that in the Coastal-Inland dimension during 1952~1993 the inter-provincial economic inequalities were made up of intra-regional inequalities between Coastal-Inland regions, but during the period 1993~2003 the inter-provincial economic inequalities were mainly composed of the inter-regional inequalities between Coastal-Inland regions; in the same time, in the highly-less urbanized regions dimension, the inter-provincial economic inequalities were also made up of intra-regional inequalities between highly-less urbanized regions during 1952~1986, but during the period from 1986 to 2003 the inter-provincial economic inequalities were composed of the inter-regional inequalities between highly-less urbanized regions. On the other hand, although the inter-inequalities between Coastal-Inland regions and highly-less urbanized regions were smaller than those of the corresponding intra-inequalities in numerical magnitude during the periods 1952~1993, 1952~1986, respectively, the inter-inequalities between coastal-inland regions, and highly-less urbanized regions tended to increase much faster than the intra-disparities, and transcended the intra-inequalities and became the main parts of inter-provincial economic inequalities after 1993 and 1986, respectively. Whereas, in the North-South region dimension, the inter-provincial economic inequalities were always composed of intra-regional economic inequalities between North-South regions, and the inter-regional economic inequalities between North-South regions were too small to contribute to the inter-provincial economic inequalities during the whole period 1952~2003.

  • Original Articles
    WU shaohong, DAI Erfu, HE Daming
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    Located in north-south directed mountains and valleys in Southwestern China, mainly in Yunnan Province , the Longitudinal Range-Gorge Region (LRGR) is a very important ecological corridor between South China and South-East Asian. Ecological changes in this region directly influence Chinese trans-boundary ecological security and resources security. Under the comprehensive conditions of environmental pattern on landform, climate, water, soil, vegetation as well as human activity, corridor phenomena in the south-north direction and barrier functions in the west-east direction have been showed distinctively on ecological economic system in this region. “Corridor-barrier” functions in LRGR are formed mainly by atmospheric circulation and geographical location; the barrier effect of North-South directive mountains to monsoon; and human activities. “Corridor-barrier” functions and its ecological effect in LRGR can be expressed as three major aspects: obviously three dimension distribution laws of vegetation in north-south direction, west-east direction and vertical direction; developed dry valleys and their fragile environments, and diverse ecosystems and their complicated patterns. Vital scientific research questions in this region include: ecological system changes and their driving factors, ecological effects of significant engineering construction projects, and trans-boundary ecological security as well as countermeasures. For better understanding of trans-boundary ecological security and socio-economic condition, ecological-economic regionalization is required to provide a scientific base. Based on macro ecological region system, social-economic indexes are applied to differentiate ecological-economic regions in this paper. The scheme divides the region into three temperature zones, seven natural zones, nineteen natural divisions and fifty-five economic districts.

  • Original Articles
    LIU Jiping, LV Xianguo, YIN Shubai
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    The term “GAP analysis” was first used by Burley in 1988 and put into practical application in Scott’s famous Hawaii project that identified the “gap” between bird distributions and conservation areas. GAP Analysis(a Geographic Approach to Protect Biological Diversity)provides a quick overview of the distribution and conservation status of several components of biodiversity. It focuses on higher levels of biological organization and conserves habitat and single species. GAP analysis is proved to be one of the good methods for conserving biodiversity on large scale. It focuses on terrestrial craniota and lacks a focus on aquatic biodiversity and other phylums in present. The research on biodiversity process is insufficient. This article analyzes the advantage, disadvantage and development trend of GAP analysis on the base of its definition and advancement. At last the research direction of GAP analysis in China is discussed. Because China doesn’t begin GAP plan, GAP analysis should focus on representative regions of biodiversity or some endangered and rare species at present, and then put the technology and methods into other regions and common species in future.

  • Original Articles
    ZHANG Xiaofei, WANG Yanglin, LI Zhengguo
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    On maintaining ecological balance and promoting economical development, it is necessary to strengthen the spatial relation among the landscape patterns of similar function. The growing awareness of the adverse effects of habitat fragmentation on natural systems has resulted in a rapidly increasing number of actions to reduce current fragmentation of natural systems as well as a growing demand for tools to predict and evaluate the effect of changes in the landscape on connectivity in the natural world.   Landscape ecological system is composed of ordered horizontal levels. The relationships of landscape structure and functions are distinct in different temporal and spatial scales, and it is useful to integrate hierarchy and components of landscape by network concept. Landscape is a spatial structure that is formed by contact corridors and patches, and the flow and interaction of energy, material, and species of landscape must depend on landscape network structure. In order to contact different horizontal levels and structure of landscape, the paper constructed landscape functional network, and divided landscape functional network into ecological functional network and urban functional network based on human survival and development needs, then illuminated framework, functions, and relationship of landscape functional network. We hoped to lay foundation of the theory and application for functional and structural adjusting and for landscape functional system construction.

  • Original Articles
    YU Li, CAO Mingkui, LI Kerang
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    Assessment of ecosystem vulnerability to climate change is imperative as the rate of global climate change is increasing substantially. The ecosystem vulnerability assessment is to identify how the ecosystems respond to climate change, which ecosystems are most at risk, and above which climate threshold ecosystem degradation will occur. Because of the complexities of climate and ecosystem processes and uncertainties in climate change, it is difficult to quantitatively describe and predict ecosystem vulnerability to climate change. In this paper, we reviewed results of the major studies on ecosystems vulnerabilities to climate change in recent decade, and found that many ecosystems, especially natural ecosystems, would become more vulnerable to the predicted future climate change. We also gave a synthetic analysis of methodologies used in vulnerability assessment, and introduced the three major methods that are commonly used: process modeling, assessment with indicators, and threshold of vulnerability. Finally, we overviewed the development of the vulnerability assessment in the future.

  • Original Articles
    CAI Yumei, DONG Zuoji, DENG Hongdi, YANG Feng
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    Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is an international organization regarding developing country with emphasis in research. Since 1970’s, it has been focusing on the research and practice of land use planning and has made a lot of achievement. China has almost same land use structure, with agricultural land as major. And now China is carrying out reform from plan-oriented economic system to market –oriented economic system. So the experience of FAO is a good reference for land use planning in this special stage. Based on proceeding of land use planning in FAO after 1990’s , the characteristics of land use planning in 1993、1995、1997、1999 are put forward respectively. These characteristics display that the goal and content and process is closely relative to national political and economic system, land resource characteristic , social developing stage, tradition, culture and so on. But in summary, there are 5 trends in the future of land use planning in developing country as follows: from coordinating the conflict of different land utilization to coordinating the conflict of different stakeholders; from considering top-down as main process to combination of top-down and top-up; continually paying attention to the consistency and difference of land use planning in different spatial level; and ceaselessly develop land use decision tool serving for planning.

  • Original Articles
    LU Yunge, XU Yueqing, CAI Yunlong
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    Based on remote sensing images, this paper discussed the land-use and land-cover change of Kechou watershed located in Pingba county, Guizhou Province from 1973 to 2000. The images include the MSS data in 1973 with the resolution of 57m, Landsat-TM data in 1989 with the resolution of 25m, and Landsat-TM data in 1995 and 2000 with the resolutions of 30m. Based on the spatial analysis techniques supported by Arc/Info software and other statistical methods, this paper analyzed the spatial-temporal change characteristics of land use in the small watershed, revealed the major patterns and trends of land use and land cover change, and discussed the relation between land use and topography factors. The results show that the major land covers in the watershed are cropland and grassland. During the period of 1973 to 2000, the forest and grassland decreased while the cropland, water area, residential area and road area increased. The conversions of forest to grassland, grassland to cropland and cropland to residential and road area are the major patterns of land use change. The spatial distributions of land use have close relation with the topography factors such as elevation and slope. The elevation and slope of cropland, forest and grassland increased during the period of 1973 to 2000, which are identical with the conversions of land use types.

  • Original Articles
    JIANG Yan, ZHOU Chenghu, CHENG Weiming
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    Akesu River is one of the largest rivers in northwest of China. It is the main tributary of Tarim River, whose upper branches are in the territory of Kirghizstan. Akesu basin lies in arid and semi-arid region of China, and it has typical hydrographical characteristics of inland rivers in northwest of China. Using forty years' annual discharge at five representative gauging stations in Akesu basin, this paper presents several runoff statistical parameters, namely variation coefficient, concentration ratio, concentration period, kurtosis, wet-dry transformation ratio, and the curve of difference accumulation and probability density. It is the fundamental purpose of this paper to analyze annual distribution and change of discharge from year to year with different runoff-supplying sources in Akesu basin. The result shows that the runoff-supplying sources in Akesu basin have vertical zonality and diversification .The characteristics of annual discharge in Akesu Basin have close relations with runoff-supplying sources. The allocation of discharge is extremely uneven, and has a quite high concentration within one year. On the other hand, for many years, variation coefficients of annual discharge have much lower value than other rivers in south of China. The high and low flow years alternate in these years, and the probability distribution approximates to normal distribution. There are not enormously wet and dry years, and the tendency of annual discharge change is relatively steady.

  • Original Articles
    ZHENG Siqi, FU Yuming, LIU Hongyu
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    Using data from a unique-designed survey, this paper examines the willingness to pay (WTP') for residential location of urban residents in China, and the determinants of the relative levels of the WTP'. Firstly, the paper theoretically analyzes the determinants of the gradient of the WTP', and classifies them into two groups: household characteristics and urban attributes. Secondly, the correlation coefficients among the WTP' and those determinant variables are analyzed. Based on above theoretical and descriptive analysis, a model of willingness-to-pay gradient is established and estimated, using samples of the households from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuhan and Chongqing. Empirical results show that higher-income people still prefer to live near the city center, due to the immature state of infrastructure construction and service in suburb. Working place, preference pattern of environment, city size and the infrastructure construction in suburb will all influence WTP' in different ways. These empirical findings have important implications for policy-makers and developers.

  • Original Articles
    HUANG Chong, LIU Gaohuan
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    Cellular automata are discrete and dynamical systems that are divided up into small cells with each cell taking a certain state. The basic idea of cellular automata is to reduce a complex system of complex rules into something simpler. The theory of cellular automata was originally conceived by Ulam and Von Neumann in the 1940s to provide a model for investigating the behavior of complex and extended systems. In recent years cellular automata have been increasing in popularity in the study of modeling real phenomena occurring in biology, chemistry, ecology, economy, geology, mechanical engineering, medicine, physics, sociology, public traffic, etc. The extended cellular automata or cellular models have many advantages in landscape evolution modeling. First, cellular models include both spatial and temporal contents which are important factors in landscape evolution. Second, the rules and computation in cellular models are simpler and not so many parameters are required. Third, through the local interactions among cells, cellular models can exhibit a lot of complex phenomena such as emergence, chaos, reproduction, et al. Some disadvantages are also reviewed, which include the uncertainty of influence of cell size and the difficulty in result validation. Despite the deficiencies, cellular models exhibit a good prospect in landscape evolution modeling.

  • Original Articles
    HUANG Jinhuo, WU Bihu
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    Based on the analysis of the study of the spatial structure of regional tourism at home and abroad, the paper discusses the model and optimization of the spatial structure of regional tourism system, taking Xi’an as an example. Firstly, “the spatial structure model” of Haggett and “destination belt model” of Gunn are evaluated, and the spatial structure model of tourism system is re-constructed, which composes of 6 elements including tourism destination region, tourism district, node, route, gateway and oriented market. Thus, the evolution shapes and characteristics of the model in different stages are explained according to the time order of the tourism development. Secondly, it is proved by the positive analysis that the spatial structure of regional tourism system in Xi’an tourism district at present is at the radiation model stage, and with the re-organization and optimization of its spatial structure and tourism routes, the optimal and perfect model in Xi’an tourism district should be extension model.

  • Original Articles
    WANG Qun, ZHANG Jinhe, DING Zurong, YANG Xingzhu
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    Since the appeal “the water will cause serious social crisis” in the first human environment meeting of the United Nations in 1972, international society has paid attention to water environment. The surface and underground water has broadly been used in tourism industry. With the development of tourism, it is obvious that tourism has serious impact on water environment. Water environment includes water pollution and water supply scarcity, which has become one of the main obstacles to sustainable tourism development. The authors provided a review of oversea studies of tourism impact on water environment. Four important aspects of oversea papers have been described in the following. Section one expounds the main study methods and regions. Problems of water environment are very serious in these regions. The mutual impact between water pollution and tourism has been summarized in section two. We find that tourism development produces many problems of water pollution, and polluted water damages tourism, which results in vicious cycle. The aim of the third section is to analyze the main impacts on equilibrium between water supply and tourism demand. The conclusion is that water demand is not the same in different tourism facilities and regions. The last section offers some measures about policy, technology, economy and education. Then implement results on water environment management are explained. The driving forces for implementing water environment management are extra control, economic factor and ethic factor. Water environment management is most effectively implemented where all three driving forces play an important part. Economic factor is the direct means and ethic is the long-term measure. In China, water management has been placed on the agenda. Tourism water environment will become one of the main domains in sustainable tourism development in the future. So, the authors hope that the review contributes to water environment study and protection for scholars, governments and industrialists at home.