Table of Content

25 June 2011, Volume 30 Issue 6 Previous Issue    Next Issue

Original Articles

Reviews on Impacts of Information and Communication Technologies on Human Spatial-temporal Behavior SHEN Yue, CHAI Yanwei, WANG Donggen 2011, 30 (6):  643-651.  doi: 10.11820/dlkxjz.2011.06.001 Abstract ( )   PDF (451KB) ( )   Save With the rapid development of web services, information and communication technologies (ICT) which are based on computer science have infiltrated into people's life in all the fields and made a great impact on human daily life, which have attracted increased attention from geographic, transportation and planning researchers. This paper reviews the previous literatures and analyzes the findings regarding to the role of ICT in personal spatial-temporal behavior. Foreign scholars combine ICT with spatial-temporal concept which is developed by time geography researchers and discuss the impacts of ICT on human space-time activities which is sometimes called"new time geography". They introduce the core concept of space-time constraints and study the interaction between ICT and them. They also use the notion of fragmentation and multitasking which are original in the field of time use and can be distinctive perspective in ICT research. They use 3D GIS to visualize and help to understand physical activities, virtual activities and the process of their interaction, and carry out data management. References | Related Articles | Metrics

A Review of the Research Progress on Industrial Cluster Formation from the Perspective of Evolutionary Economic Geography LIU Zhigao, YIN Yimei, SUN Jing 2011, 30 (6):  652-657.  doi: 10.11820/dlkxjz.2011.06.002 Abstract ( )   PDF (412KB) ( )   Save Since the 1980s, industrial cluster as a new regional development model has gained increasing attentions from academic researchers and public policy-makers worldwide. In recent years, the investigation on the dynamics, the evolutionary path of industrial clusters from the evolutionary economic geography perspective has become one of the hot study issues. This paper describes the traditional explanations of industry cluster formation and the theoretical and methodological drawbacks, then reviews the research process of the formation of industrial clusters from the perspective of evolutionary economic geography, and finally points out some worth noting issues when the approach of evolutionary economic geography is applied to China's industrial clusters. References | Related Articles | Metrics

Software Industry from an Economic Geographical Perspective: Progress and Implications for China BI Xiujing, WANG Mingfeng, NING Yuemin 2011, 30 (6):  658-669.  doi: 10.11820/dlkxjz.2011.06.003 Abstract ( )   PDF (816KB) ( )   Save Since the 1990s, the rapid development of the software industry has made the software industry become the main part of the informational service industry in many countries. At the same time, Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO) is rising all over the world, which makes the GPN of software industry more complex. In recent years, the research on software industry has become popular in many fields such as economics, management, and economic geography. Though there were many papers on software industry from the economic geographical perspective, most of them focused on developed countries and India, while few academic researchers engaging in economic geography analyzed the software industry in China. Therefore, this paper reviews and studies on the researches on the software industry at home and abroad, and summarizes the general research approaches in order to provide a reference to studies on the software industry in China. This paper tries to give a systematic review of literatures on the economic geographical research of software industry from four aspects as follows: research on the distribution of the software industry at global, regional, and city-level scales, research on the driving forces of the software industry's spatial structure, research on the industrial cluster of software industry, and research on the GPN of software industry. Finally, on the basis of the above reviews, this paper summarizes the research methods and reveals some implications for the future researches on software industry in China. References | Related Articles | Metrics

Geography of Air Transportation: Retrospect & Prospect WANG Jiao'e, MO Huihui 2011, 30 (6):  670-680.  doi: 10.11820/dlkxjz.2011.06.004 Abstract ( )   PDF (628KB) ( )   Save Geography of air transportation is an important part and also a young branch of transportation geography. Based on the study of air transportation in China, Europe and the US, this paper divided the air transportation research into four stages in terms of evolution process, technique innovation, and institutional change: (1) initial stage before the 1950s, (2) theory foundation stage from the 1950s to the 1970s, (3) theory improvement stage from the 1980s to the 1990s, and (4) theory and practice prosperity stage since the 21st century. The research theme of air transportation geography includes several aspects as follows: history records and regional geography study, airport distribution and urban system, network structure and organization effect, the relationship between air transportation organization and regional development, airport planning and its influencing factors, and influence of policies on air industry. Recently, geographers have paid more attention to the development of air transportation as related data are available to the public. The complexity of air transportation network, world (central) city, evolution of the airport system and air transportation network and their development mechanism, and sustainable development of the air transport system are gradually becoming research focuses of international research. In the early stage, China's air transportation research almost kept in the same pace with developed countries but unfortunately lagged behind greatly in the middle stage because of the historical reasons. Recently, more and more scholars have focused in this field with the rapid socio-economic development. Today, Chinese scholars need not only to introduce the fundamental theories since the 1950s and perform case studies, but also to construct the systematic frame of air transportation research. Besides, Chinese scholars are encouraged to constitute the academic framework of air transportation geography and to join in international cooperation. References | Related Articles | Metrics

A Statistical Analysis of Urban Geography Studies in China LIU Yungang 2011, 30 (6):  681-690.  doi: 10.11820/dlkxjz.2011.06.005 Abstract ( )   PDF (1085KB) ( )   Save Urban geography, as a new branch of human geography in China, has developed very quickly since the 1980s, and achieved a lot of important results and significant theoretical methods in the research of many crucial problems, such as urban development and urbanization. Considering with the historical development progress of urban geography, this paper has collected the papers of urban geography from three major academic geographic journals (Acta Geographica Sinica, Scientia Geographica Sinica, and Geographical Research) from the start of the journal to the end of 2008, and summarized the dynamic characteristics of urban geography's research based on the quantity of papers, research types, research methods, research fields, the objects of study and the author affiliations. The core-authors were preliminarily analyzed by means of bibliometrics. the findings show that, with the nearly 30 years efforts, researches on China's urban geography have gained their own characteristics. The research viewpoint has changed from the macro perspective to emphasis on both macro and micro perspectives, the use of quantitative approaches has increased obviously, and case studies on the basis of empirical research has become a mainstream. The research of urban geography, mainly concentrated on three aspects in China: urbanization, urban system and urban spatial structure, was featured with practicality. The number of core-authors and their papers have increased, while the proportion has decreased relatively. It can illustrate the fact that the number of researchers on urban geography has increased continuously. It is suggested that disciplinary construction should be enhanced and the core authors should be supported in China, so as to ensure that the urban geography develops in a sustained and sound way. References | Related Articles | Metrics

Review and Prospect of the Researches on Urban Living Space WANG Kaiyong 2011, 30 (6):  691-698.  doi: 10.11820/dlkxjz.2011.06.006 Abstract ( )   PDF (521KB) ( )   Save With the rise of the humanistic trends, social and life space was paid more and more attention. Strengthening the research on urban living space will help to improve the life quality of urban residents and accelerate urban space optimization. From the perspective of functional space and ontology, this paper redefined the meaning of urban living space and discussed the new perspective of urban space research. The latest progress in existing researches on social and living spaces at home and abroad was reviewed systematically. It was found that urban living space has become a hot research subject in recent years and the research has ranged from macro to micro areas. Living environment and life quality have become the main contents in the research on urban living space. On the other hand, methods also tend to be diversified. In addition to traditional methods of positivism, humanism, structuralism, some effective new methods also appeared such as behavioral geography, time geography, and cultural ecology and postmodernist method. Combination of macro and micro researches should be paid more attention in the future research. The research on specific type and formation mechanism of urban living spaces should be further strengthened. In order to optimize the structure of urban living space, more planning tools and control mechanisms should be applied. References | Related Articles | Metrics

Living Environment Safety Based on the Residents'Perception: A Review YU Jianhui, ZHANGWenzhong, WANG Dai, CHEN Li 2011, 30 (6):  699-705.  doi: 10.11820/dlkxjz.2011.06.007 Abstract ( )   PDF (462KB) ( )   Save With the change of international and domestic situations, living environment safety is becoming the main focus of the government and the academic circle. On the basis of extensive literature, this paper tried to sort out the studies of living environment safety at home and aboard, and to summarize their features and insufficiency. In comparison, studies aboard are relatively more systematic. There are three phases divided by the changing foci, the first emphasizes spatial structure, the second emphasizes physical impacts and the third emphasizes social attributes of the residents. The researches at home started relatively late and the foci are more scattered. They can be divided into two periods which are the start period focusing on the public safety and the developing period focusing on a wide range of independent investigations. References | Related Articles | Metrics

Temporal-Spatial Evolution of the Relationship between Resource-Environment and Economic Development in China: A Method Based on Decoupling ZHAO Xingguo, PAN Yujun, ZHAO Bo, HE Ruifang, LIU Shufen, YANG Xiaoyan, LI Huixian 2011, 30 (6):  706-714.  doi: 10.11820/dlkxjz.2011.06.008 Abstract ( )   PDF (757KB) ( )   Save The relationship between resource-environment and economic development has become a key research subject in regional sustainable development. Decoupling between them is a basic requirement to achieve comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable development of resource-environment and economy-society, and is also an important goal of the regional scientific development. In order to explore the features or rules of the temporal- spatial evolution of the relationship between resource-environment and economic development in China, with the conceptual model of Driving Force-State-Response, this study constructed a regional resources and environmental load index. Using the decoupling theory and the criteria for decoupling degrees based on the improvement of elastic analysis, this paper attempted to make quantitative and comprehensive analyses of the features or rules of temporal-spatial evolution of decoupling degrees between resource-environment and economic development at national and provincial scales, with a time span from 1998 to 2008. The results show that: (1) no matter what the evolution of the time or the space is, the relationship between resource-environment load and economic development was generally in a state of relative decoupling in the country and most of provinces, the order of the evolution was relative decoupling Ⅰ→relative decoupling Ⅱ→relative decoupling Ⅳ→relative decoupling Ⅲ→relative decoupling Ⅱ, and the changes were close to the“normal distribution curve”; (2) according to the division of the four areas: northeastern, eastern, central and western parts of China, the spatial evolution rule of decoupling degrees'comparison of resource-environment and GDP between the nation and the provinces showed that the resource-environmental costs of economic development were lower in the northeast region than in the other regions of China. The resource-environmental costs in the eastern, central and western regions with the rapid economic development showed a declining trend. The resource-environment and the economic development are showing positive interaction in China and they are expected to reach a state of absolute decoupling, which will be helpful for achieving comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable development in China. References | Related Articles | Metrics

Regional Spatial Polarization in the Three Provinces of Northeast China Based on the Ability of Urban Agglomeration SUN Pingjun, XIU Chunliang, DING Sibao, WEI Ye 2011, 30 (6):  715-723.  doi: 10.11820/dlkxjz.2011.06.009 Abstract ( )   PDF (937KB) ( )   Save Based on the concept of spatial polarization, this paper built up a regional development index from the perspective of element flows, which is called urban agglomeration ability, and analyzed the regional development evolution in the three provinces of Northeast China from 1995 to 2008 on the whole. Secondly, the paper used the difference indexes and polarization indexes to measure the degrees of inequality and polarization of the regional development in Northeast China for different concentration levels. The results show that: (1) from the viewpoint of the dynamic evolution of the patterns of regional development, from 1995 to 2008, the regional development of Northeast China had an undulating course, and the overall level was slightly decreased. The agglomeration ability and its evolution trend showed that the center cities, the traffic hub cities and the resource cities played an important role in the regional development pattern evolution. It was showed that the four cities showed that the development trend was increased from north to south. The formed city economic zones began to present their functions, and the Harbin-Dalian Railway became a discrete"polarization axis". The regional development center was gradually moved to the south with the differences of the regional development. (2) The whole region showed a growing trend, in which the municipal administrative areas had a higher degree of polarization than the county level subdivisions, with different directions of evolution. The spatial distribution of inequality index had a sequence of Liaoning Province > Heilongjiang Province > Jilin Province, and the TW index showed a sequence of Heilongjiang > Liaoning > Jilin. The resources cities had an absolute decline, and had a lower polarization degree than the non-resources cities. References | Related Articles | Metrics

Urban Network System in Chengdu-Chongqing Region in the Perspective of Advanced Producer Service TAN Yiming, YANG Yongchun, LENG Bingrong, LI Tiantian 2011, 30 (6):  724-732.  doi: 10.11820/dlkxjz.2011.06.010 Abstract ( )   PDF (825KB) ( )   Save Based on the advanced producer service research, we build a quantified matrix which includes all of the 149 companies located in the 17 smallest units for analysis (FUR), and gain the architecture and features of the urban network system of Chengdu-Chongqing urban agglomeration by analyzing the value, connectivity, and symmetrically and asymmetrically connected networks. FURs cover most of the prefecture level cities, and the Chongqing Development Economic Zone, and the Western Corridor. The results are drawn as follows. Chengdu and Chongqing Development Economic Zone constitutes a first level dual-core structure in the network of advanced producer services. Mianyang leads a number of connections among other FURs outside the first level. There are tiny differences in position and structure among other cities or regions in the Chengdu-Chongqing region, and they interrelate and develop together. The producer services of Chengdu-Chongqing region is at a preliminary stage and the urban network system based on advanced producer services is still in its infancy. Especially, the cities or regions which have developed economies are not connected and the eonomies in the areas between the regional central cities are underdeveloped. References | Related Articles | Metrics

Transportation Accessibility Evaluation Model for Mountainous Areas and Its Application LIU Bintao, TAO Heping, LIU Shaoquan, SHI Zhan, GUO Shili 2011, 30 (6):  733-738.  doi: 10.11820/dlkxjz.2011.06.011 Abstract ( )   PDF (678KB) ( )   Save The delayed development of transport is an important factor restricting the development of mountain areas. Quantitative assessment of transportation accessibility in mountainous areas is significant for understanding the transport spatial patterns and the development of transport in the future. This paper develops a transportation accessibility evaluation model for mountainous areas using three core factors. They are technical grades of transport facilities, time distance between the evaluation area and the central city and road density of the evaluation area. It also uses an index which is named traffic friction coefficient to improve the accuracy of transportation accessibility assessment in mountainous areas. Taking Liangshan region of Sichuan Province as an example, the transportation accessibility was computed by the model. The results show that the area with poor transportation accessibility and very poor transportation accessibility in Liangshan area occupies 61.60% of the total land area, and the area with better spatial accessibility and satisfactory transportation accessibility in Liangshan occupies only 15.49% of the total land area. The result also proves that the model developed in this paper has a high accurary and it is valuable for the mountainous areas of China. References | Related Articles | Metrics

Multidimensional Turns and Research Frame Re-construction of Well-being Geography WANG Shengyun 2011, 30 (6):  739-745.  doi: 10.11820/dlkxjz.2011.06.012 Abstract ( )   PDF (497KB) ( )   Save Social science research on human well-being has made a great progress in recent years.Well-being geography is an important branch of human geography. The research paradigm and the frame of human geography affect deeply well-being geography. To research both the philosophical basis (ontology, epistemology, methodology and ethics) and research approaches (positivism, humanism and structuralism) is a prerequisite for re-constructing the research frame of well-being geography. Theoretical analysis frame of welfare geography constructed by Smith is an important basis for further research of well-being geography. The contents of this paper cover conceptualizations of well-being, and multidimensional turns of well-being. Geographic papers offer many useful suggestions for future research on well-being geography and aim to provide insights into the issues on how well-being geography might be better researched. It is necessary for us to re-construct the research frame of well-being geography from the perspectives of the philosophy of human geography. This paper provides a broad description of well-being geography research. Finally,this paper rebuilds a WOSTEEM research frame of well-being geography which is constituted by both principal axis (ontology, epistemology, methodology and ethics) and auxiliary axis (space and time). References | Related Articles | Metrics

Construction of Recreation Opportunity Spectrum in Suburban Mountain Region of Beijing XIAO Suili, JIA Liming, WANG Ping, LI Jiangjing 2011, 30 (6):  746-752.  doi: 10.11820/dlkxjz.2011.06.013 Abstract ( )   PDF (812KB) ( )   Save Since the 1950s, the number of people visiting forests has been increased. The Recreation Opportunity Spectrum (ROS) was developed by the managers and scientists of USDA FS to protect natural resources and provide quality recreation experiences. The fundamental premise of ROS is to satisfy different demands by providing diversity of opportunities. Such opportunities are described by the setting which is composed of physical, social, and management attributes, each varying along a continuum. As a concept and a framework, it is used for resource planning and management by classifying the settings and making resource inventory. This paper intruduced the ROS theory and constructed the ROS in the suburban mountain region of Beijing on the basis of integrating the forest recreation demand characteristics and the present management system and the development status of Beijing. Using indicators of"naturalness","access","encounter"and"management", the forest recreation areas of Beijing are classified into five distinct settings: suburban developed, suburban natural, rural developed, rural natural and semi-primitive. Considering the current uses and management of the recreation resources in Beijing, the distribution of these recreation opportunities is displayed in map by GIS. The demand and supply of recreation opportunities are compared and recommendations to help plan and manage the suburban mountain forests of Beijing are provided. References | Related Articles | Metrics

A Correlative Analysis of the Spatial and Temporal Relationship Between Climate Comfort Degree and Tourist Network Attention for Typical Cities MALijun, SUN Gennian, YANG Rui, LONG Maoxing 2011, 30 (6):  753-759.  doi: 10.11820/dlkxjz.2011.06.014 Abstract ( )   PDF (558KB) ( )   Save Climate is an important environmental factor which affects tourist's traveling activity. It not only affects the temporal variation of the number of tourists in a year, but also affects the distribution of tourists. Network is a tool which helps tourists to make a decision. The network attention paid by tourists is also affected by climate. Based on the data of climate and network attention paid by tourists, the spatial and temporal variation of climate comfort degree and tourist network attention in 30 cities are analyzed. Based on the data of comprehensive comfort index, GDP, tourism resource and numerical valued fictitious factors, spatial and temporal models which show the correlative relationship between climate comfort degree and tourist network attention are built by the method of OLS. The results are shown as follows. 1) The spatial and temporal variation of climate comfort degree is mainly affected by the latitude. The 30 cities can be divided into four types including those looking like respective"V", respective "U","M"and wide"U"by the variation of the comprehensive comfort index in a year. 2) The spatial and temporal variation of tourist network attention is mainly affected by climate comfort degree, GDP and tourism resource. The 30 cities can be divided into three types including those looking like respective"V","W"and"M"by the variation of tourist network attention in a year. 3) The temporal variation of tourist network attention is mainly affected by climate comfort degree. Monthly index for tourist network attention of climatic elasticity coefficient in Changchun, Beijing, Nanjing and Haikou are respectively 0.542%, 0.46%, 1.182% and 0.8%. 4) Climate comfort degree is an important factor which affects the spatial distribution of tourist network attention. The quantity of tourist network attention will increase (or decrease) by 6410 if the comprehensive climate comfort index changes by one. References | Related Articles | Metrics

Industrial Structure and Competitive Strength of Guangdong International Tourism Based on SSA GE Jun, LIU Jiaming 2011, 30 (6):  760-765.  doi: 10.11820/dlkxjz.2011.06.015 Abstract ( )   PDF (587KB) ( )   Save Based on Guangdong and national statistical yearbooks (2001-2008), this paper analyzes the industrial structure of Guangdong international tourism with static and dynamic SSA. The results show that in the Guangdong international tourism industry, accommodation, restaurant and entertainment have a strong competitive strength, while long-distance transport, postal communications and scenic tour do not have. Besides, the upgrade of Guangdong international tourism structure is not clear. The departments that have high demand-income elasticity such as sales, entertainment and postal communications are not upgraded apparently. On the contrary, the industrial structure of the departments that have low demand-income elasticity such as accommodation, transportation and restaurant still have greater contributions to the growth. References | Related Articles | Metrics