In recent years, China’s industrialization and urbanization have entered a new transformational stage of development. The contradictions between innovation-driven development and institutional constraints are intensified, and the problems of resource shortage and inefficiency of resource allocation are becoming increasingly prominent. Therefore, multiple planning integration that merges economic and social development planning, urban spatial planning, and land use planning into an overall planning system has received wide attention from academics and governments at all levels. Promoting multiple planning integration and innovating the theories and technical methods of regional planning, as well as constructing the spatial planning system of national territory with Chinese characteristics, have become an important issue in further reform. This study analyzed the practical problems of planning segregation and essential characteristics of multiple planning contradictions and discussed the strategic positioning of multiple planning integration. Then we constructed a basic theoretical framework of multiple planning integration with “three primaries” and “three separations”. Finally, the technical approaches and long-term mechanisms for gradual multi-plan adjustments were proposed. It can be concluded that the essence of multiple planning integration is to integrate and coordinate all plans at the strategic level of regional spatial structure optimization, and guide the optimization of urban-rural land allocation so that it can achieve spatial consistency, functional integration, and coordination in the development process. Multiple planning integration is neither to prepare a plan nor to focus on solving the greatest common divisor of existing multiple plans, but to promote the formation of a regional planning system with the characteristics of overall-and sub-planning, clear hierarchy, and functional specificity.
We carried out a comprehensively bibliometric analysis of the top 500 highly cited articles published in four major Chinese geographic journals: Acta Geographica Sinica, Geographical Research, Scientia Geographica Sinica, and Progress in Geography, with regard to the temporal distribution of articles, ranking feature, keywords, authors, research institutions, and respective regions of first author institution. This article aimed to reveal the characteristics and trends of Chinese geography research. The results show that: (1) With regard to the temporal distribution of published articles, the four journals differed while highly cited articles concentrated in the period of 1995-2010. (2) The four journals showed a descending trend of negative power function in citation curves by citation ranking. (3) A similar trend appeared in both author and keywords’ numbers per article with the highest number of articles having 2~3 authors and 3~5 keywords, and the numbers of keywords are relatively high. (4) The keywords category statistics distinguished the key fields of the four journals while the core keywords statistics revealed key research topics and geographic relationship among various articles, with high frequency core keywords such as space, urban, land, change, ecology, China, region, tourism, environment, and development. (5) Most of the well published lead authors engaged in human and economic geography research and a group of academic leaders and active researchers made outstanding contributions. (6) Acta Geographica Sinica, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Beijing were at the top of the lists of journal, institution, and region rankings. Finally, this article discusses the directions for future work such as timeliness of study and explanatory power, domestic and international research data integration, construction of a comprehensive index system for academic contribution evaluation and research team evaluation, and balanced development and internationalization of Chinese geographic research.
Under the background of global change and low-carbon development, regional natural-social system carbon budget became a hot multi-disciplinary research field in geographical, ecological, environmental, economic, and management sciences. Regional natural-social system carbon budget studies will not only offer important methods for evaluating the impact of human activities on the environment and provide theoretical basis for carbon cycle pressure assessment of the coupled natural-social system, but also has great significance for regional low-carbon development and collaborative emission reduction. Based on a regional system perspective, this article first defined regional natural-social system carbon budget, analyzed its characteristics, and presented a conceptual model of the system. Then the impacting mechanism of regional anthropogenic activities on the dualistic carbon budget of the natural-social system was discussed, and the relationship between regional natural-social system carbon budget studies at different spatial levels was analyzed. The research progress of regional natural-social system carbon budget at different spatial levels including the global, national, provincial, city, urban district and county, neighborhood, and typical industrial sector and human activity levels was summarized. Finally, the trends of regional natural-social system carbon budget research were put forward: integrated modeling and spatial differentiation of regional carbon budget, inter-regional carbon compensation, the relationship between regional carbon budget and resources and environment effects, and the comprehensive regulation and control of regional natural-social system carbon budget.
Migrant workers’ residential communities in China emerged in the 1980s, as a result of rapid urbanization, industrialization, institutional arrangements, and cultural background. The development of Chinese research on migrant workers’ residential community can be divided into three stages, that is, the initial stage, the expansion stage, and the stage of refocusing on social space and community governance. In general, the contents of this research field witnessed a sustained expansion and evolvement. The study of spatial forms is changing from static to dynamic state. The study of social network is experiencing a change from group to spatial. The research perspectives of formation mechanism are shifting from traditional sociology, urban geography to new institutional economics, cultural geography, and production of space. The governance of migrant workers’ residential community is turning from reconstruction to collaborative governance. Moreover, the research methods are becoming increasingly more diversified, combining traditional survey method and quantitative and qualitative research. Comparatively, the study of immigrant communities in western countries can be traced back to the early 20th century, with “Chicago School” in the United States took the lead in research. International studies have experienced four research paradigms, including assimilationism, pluralism, heterolocalism, and transnationalism. Such studies have produced abundant research findings, and constructed relatively complete theoretical and research frameworks. This article compares Chinese migrant workers’ residential community and Western immigrant community studies from the perspectives of research paradigms, perspectives, and focuses, and discusses the prospect of future research on Chinese migrant workers’ residential community.
Human spatiotemporal behavior increasingly draws attention in modern human geography, and obtaining individuals’ spatiotemporal location data in travel activities is the precondition to study the spatiotemporal behavior of people. Limited by data acquisition technology, previous studies about behavior in space and time mostly focused on behavior in the outdoor space of a city. With the occurrence of technology for indoor positioning, the spatial scale of this type of study has been extended to the indoor space. Although there is a wide range of technologies and methods for indoor positioning, according to the manner that these data are acquired, indoor positioning data can be divided into three categories, that is, geometric location data, fingerprinting location data, and symbolic location data. Currently, studies based on indoor positioning data can be divided into the following categories: (1) spatiotemporal distribution of people in indoor space; (2) movement pattern of people in indoor space; (3) behavioral habit and attribute inference of people in indoor space; and (4) interaction between people and indoor surroundings. However, most of these studies are still at a primary stage and there are no commonly accepted theories and methodologies at present. We believe that studies in the future may pay attention to the following issues: (1) with regard to data acquisition, the positioning system accomplished through “smart phone plus WiFi” that has wider coverage and lower cost, requires no special equipment, and interacts easily compared with Bluetooth, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), and Infrared Ray (IR),and so on, is the most promising indoor positioning technology; (2) with regard to research contents, behavioral characteristics in space and time will be the basis, individuals’ attribute inference and interaction between individuals and indoor surroundings will be the focus, and analysis of multiscale fused spatiotemporal location data will be the trend of future development; (3) in terms of scientific ethics, privacy issues must be highlighted concerning the recording of individuals’ travel activity data at the micro scale.
Two-step floating catchment area (2SFCA) method is an important method of research on spatial accessibility to public services, which has been widely applied in studies on the spatial layout of public service facilities. Various extensions of 2SFCA have been developed. However, the application of the 2SFCA method and especially its extensions is still very limited in China. Thus, this study systematically summarizes the major extensions of the 2SFCA method. Such extensions found in existing literature can be classified into four categories. The first category focuses on the distance-decay function, replacing the dichotomous distance-decay form of the original 2SFCA by a multilevel discrete form as in the Enhanced 2SFCA, or continuous forms such as in the gravity-style, Gaussian-style, and Kernel-density-style distance-decay functions. The second category deals with the delimitation of catchment areas. The original 2SFCA form adopts a buffer-ring (BR) method delineating the catchment areas as concentric circles with certain radii of physical distance or travel time. A number of extensions have improved the BR method, including the Variable 2SFCA, the Dynamic 2SFCA, and the Multi Catchment Sizes 2SFCA. Moreover, a novel nearest-neighbor (NN) method for delineating the catchment areas by identifying a finite number of nearest facilities for each demand node has been proposed. The third category strives to improve the accuracy of 2SFCA by accounting for the competition among demand nodes or among supply nodes. The initial extension of this category is the Three-step Floating Catchment Area (3SFCA) method, following which other extensions such as the Modified 2SFCA and the Huff 2SFCA are proposed to make further improvements. The fourth category extends the travel means of the demand side, including the Multi-mode 2SFCA taking into account various potential transportation modes, and the Commuter-based 2SFCA integrating service visits and commuting behavior. The advantages and disadvantages, scenarios appropriate for their application, and potential improvements in the future of these extensions are also discussed. This study can contribute to the choice of method in relevant studies and promote the implementation and development of the 2SFCA method and extensions in relevant research fields in China.
Against the background of economic globalization and technological development, innovation network has been a heated topic in the field of economic geography research. However, the scale of research of innovation network remains debatable. Among the global, nation, and local scales, which one is important? The concept of “glocalization” provides a new perspective to this research. Glocalization refers to the twin process whereby, firstly, institutional arrangements shift from the national scale both upwards to the global scale and downwards to local configurations and, secondly, economic activities and inter firm networks are becoming simultaneously more localized/ regionalized and transnational. Based on solid theoretical reviews, this article defines the concept of glocal innovation network and then discusses the main issues and research methods of glocal innovation networks. In this article, glocal innovation network is defined as the sum of knowledge network channels of various innovators, for example, firms, universities, and research institutes, which increasingly connect globally scattered innovation resources together. Local innovation networks, which are the sub-networks of global innovation networks, are connected by trans-local knowledge flows. Glocal innovation networks are organized by the negotiation among industrial associations and technology alliances and their members. Network knowledge measurement is the suitable method to analyze the structure, evolution, and mechanism of glocal innovation network. The concept of glocal innovation networks provides a new perspective to analyze the approaches of local/regional innovation capabilities promotion and economic development by utilizing global and local knowledge. We conclude that existing research remains at the stage of conceptual discussion and case studies. Therefore, the following issues should be further studied: (1) glocal innovation network evolution dynamics and its connection with economic development; (2) comparative study of glocal networks of different industries and technologies; (3) characteristics of Chinese glocal innovation networks, which can provide empirical evidence of latecomer regions in the catching-up process for further theoretical discussion.
GIS spatial analysis technology provides new path and research perspectives for accurately classifying spatial morphology. Extracting the industrial production space information of the Pearl River Delta region in 2013 through high resolution Google Earth image and summarizing the overall distribution pattern of the industrial production space, this study quantitatively analyzed the morphological characteristics of the industrial production space by introducing the fractal model, compact ratio, discrete degree, and density index, then analyzed the main influencing factors of industrial production space distribution by GIS spatial analysis and statistical analysis tools. The results show that: (1) The total area of industrial production space in the Pearl River Delta region in 2013 was 2604.71 km2. Its spatial distribution presents a typical core-peripheral structure. The industrial production spaces mainly distributed in the flat plain area and formed three spatial distribution models, that is, interlaced, scattered, and concentrated. (2) The industrial production space in the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration showed clear fractal characteristics, and the fractal dimensions in the core area were smaller than that in the periphery area, but the stability of spatial structure in the core area was higher than that in the periphery area. Among the cities of the Pearl River Delta region, Zhuhai had the highest compact ratio of industrial production space, but Guangzhou had the lowest value; Huizhou had the highest discrete degree of industrial production space, whereas Zhongshan had the lowest value. The scale of each city’s industrial production space significant differed, and was positively correlated with economic scale, population, and the number of enterprises. The density index values of Dongguang, Shenzhen, Zhongshan, and Foshan were too high and these cities should promote efficient and intensive use of industrial production spaces. (3) On the basis of a comprehensive analysis, the article concludes that natural environment and traffic conditions, urbanization and economic development zone, policy guidance and regulation, and economic globalization were the main influencing factors of the distribution of industrial production space in the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration.
Logistics enterprises are specialized economic organizations that carry out the tasks of logistics distribution among cities. With the emergence of global city network, research on city network of logistics enterprises, however, is relative few. Therefore, using the data of headquarters and branches of the top 100 logistics enterprises in China, this article analyzes the spatial structure and influencing factors of the city network of the Yangtze River Delta region in 2015. Characteristics of network spatial structure are interpreted from the view of production logistics and daily living material logistics in order to enrich the content of China’s city network research and provide supports for the formulation of regional city network development strategies. The results show that: (1) Spatially, connectivity based on production logistics and daily living material logistics in the Yangtze River Delta region shows an “one body and two wings” pattern and a diffusion trend from the regional center to central Jiangsu and south Zhejiang. (2) The spatial structure of “one core area and two sub-core areas” is gradually being broken, and some new features are emerging, including a transition of spatial structure from “Z” shape to “one axis and multiple core areas” and gaps in connectivity across regions in several middle- and small-sized cities. (3) Under the background of enterprise interest maximization and innovation of traffic and information technology, the development of city network of the Yangtze River Delta region is mainly influenced by GDP and urbanization rate. Distance to Shanghai, administrative level of the city, and average wages of staff are important factors in regional development but did not pass the significant test. In conclusion, the spatial structure of the Yangtze River Delta region is not entirely consistent with the characteristics of the existing urban hierarchy.
By incorporating per capita carbon emission factor into human development index (HDI), this study proposed a carbon emission sensitive human well-being index (HWI) framework. By using this framework, we performed quantitative evaluations of change and regional patterns of human well-being in China from 1980 to 2010. The driving factors and spatiotemporal differentiation and change of human well-being were analyzed by logarithmic mean divisia index (LMDI) method. The results show that: (1) With over 30 years of reform and opening up, human well-being in China has been enormous increased and now is heading towards a high level compared to the global average. At the same time, however, carbon emission sensitive human well-being index of China presented an inverted U-shaped trend, which suggests that the environmental costs were also rising. (2) At the national level, the improvement of human well-being from 1980 to 2010 was mainly dependent on economic growth and limited by ecological efficiency. Before 2000, the change of human well-being was driven by economic growth together with technological advancement, but after 2000 the improvement was mainly dominated by the effect of economic growth. (3) Economic growth, technological advancement, and ecological efficiency were the main factors that jointly affected the change of human well-being at the regional level. Among these factors, economic growth and technological advancement were key driving forces but ecological efficiency was a main constraining force. Human well-being improvement in eastern China was mainly driven by technological advancement and economic efficiency, and in central, western, and northeastern China it was driven by the economic growth factor. (4) At the provincial level, driving factors of human well-being change can be divided into four types: in Shanghai, the change was mainly driven by technological advancement effect and in Jiangxi, Hunan, Sichuan, and Gansu it was economic growth that drove the change. In Beijing, ecological efficiency effect plus technological advancement effect led to the improvement in human well-being, and in other provinces the driving factors were economic growth and technological advancement. (5) We suggest that low-carbon human development strategy should be implemented to reverse the negative impact of low ecological efficiency. Economic development-driven human well-being improvement should be changed and more attention should be paid to advance technology development and reduce the negative effect of low ecological efficiency in China.
Adaptive capacity and its evaluation framework provide a new direction for the study of livelihoods of farming households. Considering the arid environment and based on theories about sustainable livelihoods of farming households and adaptive capacity, this article explores adaptive capacity and adaptive actions of farmers in the Minqin Oasis area. An adaptive capacity assessment index system of farming households was constructed. The research data were collected through a questionnaire survey and field investigations. Based on the classification of adaptive actions of farmers, this research measured the adaptive capacity of different adaptive types of farming households and analyzed the influencing factors of farmers’ adaptive types. The results are as follows: (1) With regard to the adaptive actions of farmers, more people chose active adaptive actions, while those who opted for reducing consumption and participating in social insurance were fewer. With regard to the adaptive types of farmers, the proportion of farming households that adopted comprehensive adaptation was the largest, whereas passive adaptation was adopted by the smallest number of households. (2) In terms of the adaptive capacity of farmers, generally speaking in each of the six dimensions a relatively balanced distribution was observed across different types of farming households, but there were significant differences between farming households with regard to natural resource endowments and social resources. On the other hand, material possession, financial resources, labor resources, and education were more balanced. Among different adaptive types, the adaptive capacity of comprehensive adaptation type was more stable, but the stability of migrant worker-dominant adaptation and passive adaptation types was poor. In the six dimensions of adaptive capacity and six adaptive types of farming households, material possession accounted for the largest contribution to adaptive capacity, while natural resource endowments contributed the least. (3) Among the indicators of adaptive capacity, household physical assets, proportion of non-agricultural employment, social network, per capita area of “returning farmland to forest and cutting down wells and field”, level of education, and so on had significant influences on farmers’ choice of adaptive actions.
Accurately identifying spatial distribution of forest is critically important for dynamic monitoring and sustainable management of forest resources. In this article, in order to acquire a spatially explicit forest cover classification based on the national forest inventory (NFI) statistics at the provincial scale, we developed an identification method using threshold values based on forest area from NFI statistics in 1999-2003 and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) surface reflectance data in 2000 with a spatial resolution of 500 m for Heilongjiang Province. Based on the seasonal difference of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) of various forest types, threshold values between different forest types in satellite data were set using the NFI statistical data as criteria. Four forest types were differentiated: evergreen needleleaf, deciduous broadleaf, deciduous needleleaf, and mixed forests. Due to the stratified random sampling method used in this study and reliable threshold identification, the accuracy assessment result shows that the spatial pattern of forest cover classifications is highly consistent with the ground reference map, with an overall classification accuracy of 78.1%. Specifically, the applied method resulted in higher classification accuracy for deciduous forests that have distinct seasonal variations of NDVI (with user accuracy above 80%). The study provides a practical method for spatially explicit forest coverage estimation, and for quantifying changes in biomass and carbon stock in the ecosystem at the regional scale based on several periods of NFI statistics and remote sensing data.
