During the 1980s and 1990s, China's economic transition and institutional change characterized by the triple process of marketization, decentralization, and globalization enabled it to emerge rapidly as a global supplier particularly of the low-end, labor-intensive manufacturing industries, resulting in enormous spatial and temporal variations of the economic landscape. However, since the early 2000s, the "race to the bottom" that typified the "China price" and the model of export-oriented industrialization has been challenged by various factors, which triggered another round of industrial restructuring and produced new economic geographies of production and employment in China. This article provides a review of existing research on the geographical and industrial dynamics of China's manufacturing industry, by paying particular attention to two strands of literature. One strand examines China's "old" economic geographies during the 1980s and 1990s, while the other strand builds on recent insights in economic geography on industrial clustering, global and regional production networks, upgrading, relocation, and national and regional industrial evolution, and takes into account the role of state actions and institutional contexts, the rise of China’s domestic market, the role of local agents, and other factors that have been often overlooked in traditional industrial restructuring literature.
Understanding human mobility patterns and spatial structure is of great important to urban planning, traffic management, emergence response, and so on. With the development of information and communication technologies, it is possible to collect large-scale, long-term human tracking data, which brings great opportunities and challenges for human mobility behavior studies. This article first introduces the main datasets being used for studying human mobility patterns, then reviews the recent progress from the perspectives of human travel behavior and urban spatial structure respectively. We found that most studies follow the route of "data-human travel behavior-urban spatial structure," mining and understanding human mobility patterns from the datasets and further giving insights on the characteristics of urban spatial structures. However, there exist few studies on the influence of urban spatial structure on human travel behavior. In the future, it is necessary to integrate multi-source spatiotemporal data to understand the interaction between human mobility and urban spatial structure, develop spatiotemporal analysis theory and models for dealing with mobile location big data, and focus on understanding the coupling relationship between human mobility and urban spatial structure.
Soil erosion investigation has important significance for preventing natural hazard-induced disasters and promoting the sustainable use of land. Due to the absence of long-term hydrological observation data in some areas, research on historical soil erosion often needs to use surrogate indicators. As the sink of erosion products in drainage basins, sediments in lakes and reservoirs record the characteristics of soil erosion in a long period of time and have high application value and potential in many fields. Focusing on the questions of determining the age of soil erosion, reconstructing the erosion processes, and searching for sediment sources, this study first reviewed the application theories and methods of radioactive isotopes, mineral magnetism, grain size, and geochemical indicators. Second, we summarized the research in the above fields with the sediments in lakes and reservoirs respectively, thus confirmed the important role of these sediments. Finally, we discussed the uncertainty in soil erosion investigations and identified the potential research directions.
Using the slacks-based measure (SBM) model, this study analyzed the temporal and spatial differences of green efficiency of water resources and the shift of spatial center of gravity in China by constructing the meta-frontier and group-frontier functions, and convergence tests of the green efficiency total factor productivity (TFP) of the frontier water resources of the group-frontier. The result shows that the technology gap ratio in the eastern region is as high as 1 and only 0.404 and 0.551 in the central and western regions, and verifies that the green efficiency of water resources in the frontier of the group is more reasonable and can reflect the green efficiency of the water resources, and proved the necessity of zoning research on the green efficiency of water resources. The green efficiency of water resources in different regions of China has a large technological gap relative to the different technological frontiers, and the average green efficiency of water resources in many areas is lower than the national average. The green efficiency of water resources in China is generally low and there is still much room for improvement. In the early stage of the study period, the green efficiency of water resources in the eastern part of China increased continuously, while the central and western regions experienced declines. In the later period, imbalance is observed in the east-west and north-south directions. Green efficiency of water resources in the mainland of China as a whole and the central and western regions exhibited TFP σ convergence, indicating that the overall green efficiency of water resources TFP difference will disappear automatically with the passage of time. At the national level and in the eastern, central, and western regions, absolute β convergence and conditional β convergence are significant, indicating that the green efficiency of regional water resources TFP differences will convergence to a steady state with the passage of time.
The change of Earth's gravity field is an important factor that leads to the change of terrestrial water storage. Using GRACE (gravity recovery and climate experiment) gravity field recovery and climate experiment gravity satellite data, combined with GLDAS (global land data assimilation systems) global land surface data assimilation system and measured groundwater level data, inversion of the dynamic changes of terrestrial water storage in the Hetian area during four seasons in 11 years was simulated and the trend of change in equivalent water height was calculated, and the estimation model of groundwater level was constructed. The results indicate that the terrestrial water storage showed an increasing trend in the Hetian area in the spring and summer, in contrast to the autumn and winter; inversion of the terrestrial water storage by GRACE is more intense than simulation of the water resources change by GLDAS, but correlation of the dynamic changes of the two kinds of data is very high; equivalent water height by GLDAS second order differential, change of water resources by GLDAS reciprocal first order differential, change of terrestrial water reserves by GRACE reciprocal transformation, and change of groundwater reserves first order differential are most sensitive, and the stepwise regression model is superior to the linear function. The lower the water level, the higher the applicability of the stepwise regression estimation model.
The Tibetan Plateau is of great significance to the study of global climate. Precipitation data are also important to hydrological, meteorological, and ecological research. With the change of research content and scale, the demand for historical precipitation data with high spatial and temporal resolutions is increasingly more urgent. This study selected six factors including the normalized vegetation index(NDVI), elevation, slope, longitude, latitude, and precipitation to obtain the historical precipitation data with high spatial and temporal resolutions of the Tibetan Plateau from 1982 to 1997. This research is based on the precipitation data of TRMM 3B43, AVHRR NDVI, and SRTM DEM. The factors were entered into the random forest model. A historical precipitation model was constructed to obtain the spatial resolution of 0.0833° for annual precipitation. Monthly precipitation was estimated according to the proportional coefficient. In order to improve estimation accuracy, the simulated monthly precipitation was corrected using station data. The results show that the method can simulate historical precipitation with high spatial and temporal resolutions. The coefficient of determination R2 is between 0.4 and 0.9, with an average value of 0.6767. The model performed better in summer and worse in winter. The root mean square error and average absolute error is below 50 mm. RMSE mean is 22.66 mm. MAE mean is 15.97 mm. Deviation bias is between 0.0 and 0.1.
Continuous rainstorm caused by typhoons is one of the major meteorological disasters in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. This study focused on the hazard assessment of typhoons, identified the high hazard areas,and provided references for the disaster prevention and mitigation capabilities of typhoons in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. Based on the typhoons that affected the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region from 1974 to 2015, spatial variations of precipitation and wind speed are examined using 42 years of data from 148 meteorological stations, and the spatial distribution patterns are depicted by ArcGIS. Gumbel distribution is used to calculate the values of meteorological parameters at the stations under different return periods (RP 5 a, 10 a, 30 a, 50 a). The results show that the maximum daily precipitation is 190.62 mm, the maximum cumulative precipitation is 253.04 mm, and the maximum wind speed is 16.81 m/s (RP=50 a). Southeastern Beijing, northern Tianjin, southeastern coast of Hebei Province, and the Taihang Mountains are the high hazard areas.
In this study, a stable oxygen isotope chronology from tree-ring cellulose (δ18O) in Bashan fir(Abies forrestii) from Mt. Shennongjia in Hubei Province was correlated with meteorology records of the Badong meteorological station, circulation index data, and sea surface temperature of the South China Sea (SST). The chronology spans the time period of 1790-2011. The results indicate that the tree-ring δ18O chronology is closely correlated with local climate factors. The tree-ring δ18O chronology has a significantly positive correlation with March to April monthly mean temperature, has a significantly negative correlation with June to July monthly mean precipitation and June to July monthly mean relative humidity. Meanwhile, the tree-ring δ18O chronology has a significantly positive correlation with February to March area index of the northern hemisphere subtropical high (5E-360), September area index of the South China Sea subtropical high (100E-120E), January polar vortex area index of the Pacific Ocean (Zone 2, 150E-120W), and April to May sea surface temperature of the South China Sea (SST). A significantly negative correlation was found between the tree-ring δ18O chronology and January southern oscillation index (SOI). These indicate that the tree-ring δ18O chronology records at a large scale of atmospheric circulation information.This study is helpful to further understand the potential value of tree ring stable oxygen isotopes in the past climate change studies in Mt.Shennongjia, and provide a scientific basis for further research on climate reconstruction.
Cross-boundary flows of e-waste have been addressed in economic geography literature, reflecting the deep conflicts of values between environmental protection and resources recovery at the global scale. Based on the principle of extended producer responsibility, a division of activity between the informal sector and formal recycling plants has formed in China with the state subsidy to the latter to buy waste products collected by the former. Using the Wilson spatial interaction model, this study depicted the interprovincial flows of e-waste in China in 2014, and compared the estimation with the results from a survey on formal recycling plants. Both results show that around 1/3 of the e-waste flowing to the formal recycling plants came from interprovincial transportation, despite the government intention to plan a regional self-sufficient system for e-waste recycling at the provincial level. We discussed the reasons for the mismatch between the planned and the real spatial patterns of e-waste flows. In conclusion, we identified several implications from the experience of China for the global e-waste management.
Studying the regional specialization of China's export products will help us to understand China's industrial geography and regional economic development. Based on an indicator (Average technological Relatedness, AR) of regional specialization recently defined by evolutionary economic geography which can reflect a new concept called related specialization, this study analyzed the spatiotemporal patterns and influencing factors of regional specialization of China's export products of the manufacturing industry during 2000-2011. Cities with higher regional specialization gradually expanded from the eastern coastal region of China to the central and western regions, which highly coincided with the regional economic development of China. Products with higher-tech and higher value-added had a higher level of regional specialization. Results from the empirical model show that higher technological relatedness density, local economic complexity, and product sophistication are helpful to increasing the level of regional specialization of export products, but local government intervention in export products tends to distort market direction, which is against regional specialization.
Under the background of prosperous development of E-commerce and old city renewal, traditional wholesale markets are declining, and their transformation and upgrading are needed. In order to guide the upgrading of wholesale markets and old city space, this study took the Guangzhou Yide Seafood Market as an example to examine the mechanism and effects of its transformation. The author conducted an in-depth field research from November 2016 to March 2017 by methods of participatory observation, structured interview, snowball sampling, and questionnaire survey. Based on the history of the Yide Market from the Ming Dynasty, this article draws an preliminary conclusion that the market in recent years experienced a recessionary stage, followed by the emergence of E-commerce and comprehensive upgrading. The article then discusses the transformation mechanism and its effects by constructing an actor-network model of E-commercialization of the Yide Market. It analyzes the effects of human and non-human actors in the process of transformation by in-depth field investigation and shows that the Yide Market contains five kinds of actors—customers, the government, businesses, commodities, and network platform. In the stage of "problematization," the non-human actors, networks, and seafood dry cargo commodity showed strong guiding power and control. Then the government mobilized other actors to participate in E-commerce in the stage of "enrolment and mobilization," and businesses made different choices in the "interestement" stage. Next, role differentiations of businesses and customers became apparent, caused mainly by the actor network. Finally, the measures of self-guiding and self-management by the chamber of commerce maintained the feasibility of E-commerce along with supervision by the government. Thus the alliance of interests of the actor network was finally built. The research found that after the E-commerce transformation, traditional wholesale market would not develop to the extremity of single E-commercialization or geospatial invalidation, but form comprehensive and multiple commercial activity forms such as combinations of online and offline wholesale and retail, and that diverse powers of actors would lead the transformation of traditional wholesale markets. Non-human subjects such as products and the Internet are contributing great effects, for example, the objective characteristics of goods to be inspected hinders the elimination of geographical space, while the Internet causes people to reconsider the importance of space and upgrade the physical goods.
A sustainable new type of urbanization in China should be "people-oriented." Migrants are the main body of new urban residents, and their subjective wellbeing is one of the significant criteria for measuring the quality of urbanization. A plethora of literature has shed light on the low quality of migrants' lives, however, little research has been done to understand how migrants evaluate their own lives in host cities, and no study has been undertaken to link migrants' subjective wellbeing with their residential environments. Using the data collected from a questionnaire survey in Guangzhou and multilevel linear models, this study examined the determinants of migrants' subjective wellbeing in host cities. It particularly focused on the extent to which and how migrants' social ties and residential environment influence their subjective wellbeing. The results indicate that in general, migrants have a lower level of subjective wellbeing than local residents, and the cognitive and emotional components of migrants' subjective wellbeing are influenced by different factors. Social support and neighborhood environment matter in determining the cognitive component of migrants' wellbeing (life satisfaction), but the emotional component of their wellbeing (positive and negative affects) is influenced partly by some of the selected variables of neighborhood social or built environments, and no evidence shows any impact of social support. Meanwhile, dwelling conditions also show an impact on migrants' life satisfaction and negative affect.
Public health has become a key issue in urban study particularly under the background of China's urban transformation. Previous research has little concerned about residents' health from a perspective of daily activities, and most of the existing studies were conducted in cities of Western developed countries. Based on a questionnaire survey, a structural equation model was applied to explore the relationship between the built environment, daily activities, and health of different gender groups. It is concluded that there exist different paths and degrees of influence of different gender groups. Built environment and daily activities have greater influence on women' s health. Health disparities also exist between female subgroups. As a vital variable, daily activity helps to understand the gender difference of effects on health. These conclusions broaden the framework of health influencing factor and mechanism study, and deepen the understanding of health in gender roles from a perspective of daily activities.
