In the process of promoting the coordinated development of high-tech parks in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration, the extent of integration of high-tech parks in this region decides the quality and depth of collaborative development. In the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration, 10 high-tech parks in Tianjin and Hebei have signed intergovernmental cooperation agreements with the Zhongguancun Science Park. The cooperative industries are primarily electronic information industry, advanced manufacturing industry, new energy and energy saving industry, environmental protection industry, and biological medicine industry, which are also the five leading industries of the Zhongguancun Science Park in terms of revenue and share. The dynamic mechanism of coordinated development of high-tech parks in the region can be divided into hierarchical industrial transfer mechanism, market demand driven mechanism, science and technology industry incubation and transformation mechanism, government guidance driven mechanism, and market cooperation driven mechanism. The collaborative development models can be divided into the Zhongguancun Haidian-Qinhuangdao High-tech Park model that was mostly driven by the government, the Gu'an Industrial Park’s industrial town model that was mostly driven by market cooperation, and the Baoding-Zhongguancun Innovation Center model that was mostly driven by science and technology industry incubation and transformation.
With the rapid expansion of city scale, the competition between central cities and their surrounding cities is increasing and therefore accurate identification of urban hinterland area is beneficial for the assessment of urban development strength and potential. Delineating the maximum limit of the hinterland area of cities has become an important research question, whose result can provide support for cities to formulate developing strategies and improve their comprehensive strength, and to achieve the joint development of cities and hinterlands. This study first used weighted average travel time as an indicator to measure the national spatial accessibility for China in 1991, 2010, and 2020. Second, we selected 30 provincial administrative regions as the research object and used the Huff model to identify the influencing hinterlands of cities at the prefecture level and above, without breaking the administrative boundaries. The results indicate that the shortest weighted average travel time decreased from 14.37 h in 1991 to 5.12 h in 2010. The weighted average travel time will further decrease from 5.12 h in 2010 to 4.39 h in 2020 due to the large-scale operation of the high-speed railways. For the same reason, interurban spatial accessibility has notably improved. The Huff model comprehensively measures potential energy between hinterland cities and central cities using the shortest traffic road-network distance and urban synthesized scale value, and selects maximum value of potential energy to determine the membership of hinterland cities. The advantage of this model is to maintain the existing administrative boundaries, which is convenient for practical planning. The shortest interurban time distance matrix was calculated for 15 national mature-growth urban agglomerations by using spatial network analyst in order to evaluate interurban economic linkage intensity. The economical linkage intensity between every district was accumulated to reflect economic function intensity in an area; and urban agglomerations were measured according to the urban comprehensive scale value, commute time, economic linkage intensity of urban agglomeration and total GDP of districts. The result was compared with planned urban agglomeration scales, thus putting forward suggestions for detailed adjustments for urban agglomerations. This study selected representative urban agglomerations of the Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan area as a case study and by using the social network analyst method, such as network density analyst, centrality, and core-edge construction, the spatial influence scale of urban agglomerations were comprehensively measured. The results can provide a scientific basis and methodological reference for urban agglomeration planning.
Urban system study is an important field of urban geography. Identification of the physical space of urban systems is a precondition and basis for the research on urban systems. Existing research on urban system identification primarily took city as the minimum unit since urban systems are aggregations of towns and cities. They determine whether a city belong to an urban system through the comparison between values of selected indicators and the criteria set by subjective estimates, which unfortunately lacks consideration of spatial morphology. The morphology of the physical space of urban systems has self-similarity, which can be expressed by the feature of fractal. Through the analysis, identification, and extraction of fractals we can describe the spatial objects objectively based on morphology. In this study, by referencing the experience in identifying boundary of individual cities by fractal, we measured the spatial fractal feature of towns of urban systems from the perspective of spatially identifiable minimum unit at different scales, and proposed a method to identify the towns of urban systems. Through the change of identifiable minimum unit we obtained different scales of towns by which we derive their spatial fractal feature. Then, the range of spatial fractal features was identified, and the identification of urban systems that is the spatial distribution of urban systems was achieved by mapping the range to the space. Finally, this study applied the method to the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban system and achieved the identification of the system based on Landsat images in 2016.
With the enormous radiation range, great potential and vigor, urban agglomerations are deemed as the core growth pole both at present and in the future under the background of globalization and new-type urbanization in China. Behind the seemingly ever-growing urban agglomerations, however, massive input elements such as resource, labor, capital, and other factors are needed. It is of profound significance to evaluate the economic performance of urban agglomerations, which may vigorously promote the sustainable and healthy development of urbanization. How to objectively evaluate the efficiencies such as industry scale concentration, resource allocation, and technological change of urban agglomerations has become an important question. Therefore, in this study we applied the data envelopment analysis (DEA) model to quantitatively measure the input and output efficiency of typical urban agglomerations in China from 2000 to 2013, based on time series data including capital input, urban construction land increment, labor supply, scientific-technological investment, and economic output value. Moreover, we analyzed urban agglomerations' total factor productivity index (TFP) dynamically by means of Malmquist productivity index method and lucubrated their spatial and temporal differentiation patterns, mechanisms of change, influencing factors, and other related contents. The results show that the urban agglomerations' stationery cross-section input and output efficiency made significant strides but an unbalanced spatial distribution pattern remained. In 2000, the average comprehensive technological efficiency was only 73.1% of the optimal level with barely three large urban agglomerations achieved the optimal DEA efficiency. After years of steady development, the corresponding index reached 96.8% of the optimal level with eight urban agglomerations achieved the optimal DEA efficiency. However, from the perspective of dynamic time series analysis, urban agglomerations' TFP decreased by 6% from 2000 to 2013 mainly due to the poor performance of technology change index. Unlike the disappointing performance of technology change index, other indices such as comprehensive technological efficiency change index, pure technological efficiency change index, and scale efficiency change index all shaped up, indicating that the level of resource allocation and utilization efficiency rose steadily during this period. The lag of the contribution of technological progress to a certain extent offset the positive effects brought by the expansion of urban agglomeration and the optimization of resource allocation. Specifically, only the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomerations gained ascending contribution of technological progress, which illustrates that the current development stages and dynamic mechanisms of urban agglomerations in China maintained diversified characteristics. To conclude, this article puts forward a series of specific suggestions to optimize the development of urban agglomerations in China, namely, moderately expanding the scale of urban agglomerations, placing emphasis on input and output efficiency leaning against technological changes and transforming the present unbalanced regional development situation.
Spatial accessibility is an important index to evaluate the configuration of educational facilities, and potential model is an important method to measure the accessibility of educational facilities. This study improved the potential model from two aspects: by introducing the factor of primary school service ability, and constructing the school influence factor by considering the influence of schools with different grades of service capability and local residents' travel time limit. Based on the data of Xiantao City in Hubei Province by the end of 2010 on primary schools, residents, traffic network, and so on, the improved potential model was applied to assess the variation of spatial accessibility to primary schools in Xiantao City. The results show that: (1) At the village-level settlement scale, the spatial accessibility of primary schools for the residents is universally high at township centers and along transport corridors, and shows a distance attenuation effect at certain radius, but the spatial accessibility of primary schools at settlements between townships is relatively low. (2) At the township scale, the towns with higher spatial accessibility are mainly distributed in the northern area along the G318 road. (3) The improved potential model could reasonably evaluate the spatial accessibility of primary schools in each rural settlement and township. Also, when the value of friction coefficient (β) is set as 2, the educational resources available for rural residents can be reflected more accurately, and this provides a reference for the decision making by relevant government departments.
To provide experience and case support for the financial innovation of the China Pilot Free Trade Zone and financial geography research, this article analyzes the development process from "tax haven" and spatial agglomeration, primary offshore center and spatial reorganization, to developed offshore center and strengthening of spatial agglomeration of the British Virgin Islands by literature review and case study. The study showed that the international political and economic environment provided the possibility for the establishment of the offshore financial center, the unique natural and cultural-economic conditions provided the basis for the establishment of the offshore financial center, and the continuous improvement of laws and regulations guaranteed the sustainable development of the offshore financial center. Based on this analysis, China should actively explore the feasibility and implementation plan of establishing separation-infiltration type offshore financial centers in the free trade zones in Shanghai, Guangdong, Tianjin, and other places, and establishing a tax haven offshore financial center in Sansha City, South China Sea; gradually improve the policy and legal system; and effectively control financial risks
Under the new-normal mechanism of coordinated regional development, the trend of urban integration has been gathering momentum and consequently intensifying urban heat island effects. Spatial-temporal changes in urban heat island effects are a result of interactions between changing land-use pattern, underlying surface variation, and human activities. Base on the case of the Guangzhou-Foshan urban integration area, this study examined the changing intensities of urban heat island effects in the heightened process of Guangzhou-Foshan integration. Apart from analyzing the land-use classification data in the Pearl River Delta as well as formulating a meteorological numerical model—Weather & Research Forecasting Model (WRF), this research aimed to ascertain the determinant factors of urban heat island effects through the following methodology: (1) use the constantly changing nightlight data to investigate the expansion of built-up areas in the Guangzhou-Foshan region between 2000 and 2010; (2) use data on population density, household numbers, and total output values to conduct correlation and multiple regression analyses with the variation of air humidity to reflect the intensity of urban heat island effects in the Guangzhou-Foshan urban integration area. The research findings show that, with the development of Guangzhou-Foshan integration, temperature of the Liwan, Nanhai, Baiyun, Sanshui, Panyu, and Shunde areas at the junction of Guangzhou and Foshan is clearly higher than that of other areas, and the monthly mean relative humidity is clearly lower than other regions, which results in the formation of a large-scale urban heat island and urban dry island. Meanwhile, the size of the built-up area in the city-region is a major factor contributing to the intensity of urban heat island effects in the Guangzhou-Foshan urban integration area. Considerable intensifying impact has also been brought about by population growth and resultant increase in regional output values, the correlation coefficient of the two exceeded 0.68, which indicates that human activities and changes in land-use pattern have also played their part.
The natural forest protection project (NFPP) is one of the most widely implemented ecological construction projects in China. By establish multiple ecological indicators, this study try to evaluate its ecological effect, which has important scientific value for the future decision. This study used remote sensing and ecosystem quality data and related indicators to assess the characteristics of change of macro ecological pattern, ecosystem quality, and ecosystem services in the Xiaolongshan region, Gansu Province during the NFPP from 2000-2010. The results show that: (1) After the implementation of the NFPP, broadleaved deciduous forest, broadleaved deciduous shrub, and grassland areas increased substantially, and the ecosystem quality in general clearly improved. The improvement was greater in the Yellow River basin as compared to the Yangtze River basin. (2) The average values of the ecosystem quality indicators of LAI and FC was 0.022 and 0.510 during 2000-2010, with an increasing trend. (3) In 2010, the carbon storage value was 700.20 t/hm2, increased by 4.69% during the first-phase of the NFPP. The slope value of water conservation was 0.08, with an increasing trend as well. The slope value of soil conservation was 1.68, also with an increasing trend.
In order to ascertain the dynamics of vegetation and its impacting factors in the period of 2000-2014, based on MOD13Q1, the DEM data, and the land use classification map, this study analyzed the characteristics of the spatiotemporal distribution and future trends of the administrative areas of Ningxia Autonomous Region at different altitudes and slopes, as well as with different types of vegetation, using the Sen + Mann-Kendall nonparametric test, the Hurst index, and other methods. Based on the center of gravity migration model and transition matrix, this study analyzed the temporal change of vegetation patterns from 2000 to 2014. The results are as follows: (1) NDVI values were high in the north and the south, but low in the central area, due to its arid condition; NDVI values were significantly positively correlated with elevation and slope. (2) The transition matrix of vegetation coverage shows that the percentage of area of higher vegetation grew from 17.29% in 2000 to 31.55% in 2014, which was mainly developed from lower vegetation coverage in the beginning of the period. (3) The center of gravity migration direction indicates that moderate and higher vegetation cover centers moved: the moderate vegetation cover center migrated toward the northeast by 129.49 km, and the higher vegetation cover center migrated toward the southeast by 89.49 km. (4) The trends of NDVI show that overall, NDVI of Ningxia improved from 2000 to 2014. The area where the values of NDVI significantly increased accounted for 59.63% of the total area, while the slightly improved area accounted for 31.72% of the total. The significantly improved area of woodland and paddy accounted for 71.50% and 70.80% of the total woodland and paddy areas. The significantly improved area of NDVI firstly increased and then decreased with the increase of elevation and slope. The area in the south with increased NDVI was larger than that in the north. (5) The trend of NDVI change indicates that vegetation restoration in Ningxia is sustained—89.24% of the vegetation-covered area continued to show an improving trend, while 5.7% continued to decrease, which was mainly in the Yellow River irrigated district. The areas in southern Ningxia where NDVI presented a positive sustained development was greater than that in the north.
In the desert-oasis ecology system of northwest China, water cycle in the mountain region is very important for the water resources management in downstream regions. To accurately understand the hydrological processes in high altitude and cold mountainous areas, a MIKE SHE model was applied to the Yarkant River Basin based on the remote sensing data of precipitation, temperature, and potential evapotranspiration, and the hydrological processes were analyzed based on the simulated outputs of runoff, snow, and evapotranspiration. The results suggest that the corrected remote sensing data are suitable for hydrological modeling of the Yarkant River Basin. At the Kaqun station, Nash efficiency coefficient and correlation coefficient are 0.71 and 0.85 at the daily scale. The annual mean stream runoff was 146.66 mm, among which base flow was 21.3%. The annual mean snowfall was 231 mm, which accounted for 74% of precipitation; 73.9% of the snowmelt occurred in July to September, and the snow storage is primarily distributed in the elevation zone above 5000 m. The evapotranspiration mainly occurred in the mid-low mountains covered by vegetation in June to September. The satellite data processed by appropriate methods are useful for the hydrological study in high-cold alpine catchments; multiple hydrological components could improve the understanding of water resources’ transition, storage, and distribution, which will contribute to the water resource management in the downstream regions.
Bikesharing as a new mode of public transport has experienced a rapid development globally. This study combined the method of knowledge map analysis and traditional literature research analysis to examine existing studies on the subject. Using the CiteSpace software, we derived data on highly cited literature, keywords, important research areas, key authors and journals, and hotspot countries in the field of bikesharing. The existing research has the following features: (1) The research contents and research methods are diversified. The research topics focused on user characteristics, bikesharing travel characteristics, factors influencing bikesharing travel, and the impact of bikesharing on health, the environment, and other modes of transport. (2) Users in different areas have different socioeconomic and travel characteristics. The purpose of travel is related to the spatial and temporal patterns of bikesharing travels. (3) The main factors influencing bikesharing use are users perception, the weather, and the built environment. The development of bikesharing has had a positive influence on transport system, the environment, and citizens health. (4) Future development of bikesharing in China should emphasize improvements in the operation, management, services, and promotion of the systems.
Under the global effort to cope with climate change, tourism has become an important and leading industry for the low carbon transition of economy in many countries and regions. As one of the core branches of the tourism industry, the tourist accommodation sector is playing a key role in this process. This study reviewed the related literature from the following three aspects: the necessity, barriers, and countermeasures of saving energy and reducing the carbon emissions of the accommodation sector. The review found that numerous studies have shown that the energy consumption and carbon emissions of the tourist accommodation sector are very high, and there is a large space for improvements. The review of the barriers and countermeasures for saving energy and reducing carbon emissions in the sector was focused on three main stakeholders: the government, the industry, and customers. At last, we summarized the methods of accounting the energy consumption and carbon emissions of the tourist accommodation sector. Based on this summary, we discussed the drawbacks in the existing research, and pointed out the directions for further research. Generally, some achievements in the research of energy saving and carbon emission reduction of the accommodation sector have been made internatinally, but such research is lagging behind in China. Next, we should carry out the following research based on the international experiences and the actual situation in China. We need to strength the study of energy consumption and carbon emissions of all forms of accommodation services to understand the research subjects comprehensively, determine the measuring framework and indicators in order to establish the accounting system, and extend the research on the topic from doing the subdivision studies in stages, types and regions.
