Modern technologies develop rapidly in the areas of computers, Internet, aerospace and aeronautics, automation and sensor network, environmental remediation and ecological restoration, and so on, which overlap with a large number of basic and applied basic research disciplines. With the application of new technologies, the geography, which characterizes of integrity, interdisciplinary and regionality, has been strongly promoted. The highlights include: 1) The spatial and temporal coverage of research can expand to the entire globe at near real-time, and the accessibility of data on remote and extreme geographical environments has greatly improved. 2) Multi-methods and multi-channels of data acquisition promote the explosive growth of data. The analysis of rules and patterns has been developed from relying on limited spatiotemporal information to relying on new technologies to acquire high spatiotemporal dynamic data for big data mining. 3) The research scopes expand from static knowledge acquisition and mechanism analysis to dynamic works including ecological restoration and environmental management. 4) The disciplines developed at broadened scopes, and embedded with cross-cutting new technologies that in return brought about new vitality to geography. With the help of new technologies and the injection of big data "fuel", the development of geographic sciences in the new era will play an important role by providing "complex" solutions in the process of global and regional social and economic development.
China and Europe are located at the east and west ends of Eurasia. The smooth flow of trade between China and Europe is an important part of the development of the Belt and Road region. At present, China-Europe economic and trade ties are still mainly maintained by sea. The connection between Chinese and European ports through shipping network is the guarantee of smooth trade. Therefore, studying the development and change of China-Europe port shipping network is of great significance for understanding and enhancing the supporting capacity of China-Europe trade links. Based on the shipping data of the past 20 years, the network of Chinese and European port routes is constructed. By portraying the complexity of the port shipping network, the spatial differentiation of the portability changes of different port nodes is revealed. Then we explored the characteristics of change of the China-Europe shipping network by the transit port system and the network organization structure. The result shows that: 1) Since 1995, the port nodes linked to the China-Europe routes have increased significantly, and the network coverage has expanded significantly. In 2005 and 2015, the network showed obvious small world and scale-free characteristics; the changes in the breadth and depth of connection and accessibility of the different ports were significantly different, with 84% of the ports being more accessible, and a few ports in the Mediterranean and the Arabian Sea showed reduced accessibility. 2) The transit port system of the China-Europe shipping network has changed from V-shaped to U-shaped. The core transit ports have become differentiated, the transit nodes have gradually become systematic, the transit paths have become more diversified, and the network stability has increased. 3) The hub and spoke structure of the China-Europe shipping network is continuously optimized, the network operation efficiency is significantly improved, and the route links are more diversified and complicated. The hub-spoke spatial model of the China-Europe port shipping network has experienced three stages of change from triangular to balanced dumbbell type and unbalanced dumbbell type, which finally formed the multi-level hub-spoke spatial organizational structure, with Shanghai and Rotterdam as the main hubs.
In recent years, with the gradual implementation of the Medium and Long-term Railway Network Plan, China has entered the era of high-speed railway (HSR) network, and the impact of HSR on urban and regional spatial structure has become a hot topic of human geography research. In this study, the network structure and evolution characteristics of cities in China was analyzed from various aspects, including overall scale, network density, timing variation of node centrality, and network connection mode and strength, by using social network analysis and the ArcGIS visualization tool based on the HSR passenger flow data from 2014 to 2019. The results are presented as follows: 1) City network density has increased with the increase of HSR cities and their connections. Statistics show that 76.09% of the cities in China had been opened to high-speed trains by 2019, and each city can reach 66 cities by high-speed trains without transfer. 2) Changes in the status and functions of nodal cities have reshaped the spatial pattern of the network. The network pattern dominated by a few eastern cities in the past has changed, showing a trend of multi-center and balanced development. The core position of cities from the eastern part in the network has been further strengthened. At the same time, some cities in central and western China begin to play a more important role in the network connection, which is the link and bridgeof trans-regional connection. 3) In terms of spatial pattern, the city network expands from east to west as a whole, and an interlocking and complex network-like structure on the country scale has replaced the banded structureatthe regional scale, which is similar to the eight vertical and eight horizontal HSR network. High-speed railway has weakened the constraint of geographical distance on city connections, and the corridor effect has diminished. 4) During the construction period of HSR network, the correlation strength of city network was low, and the high-intensity city connection was scattered in several city clusters in the east, which was shown as an independent and closed regional system on the whole. With the formation and expansion of the HSR network, the original pattern of city connections has been consolidated, and continued to spread and divide, forming four distinct levels of connections.
The structure of commercial space is vital to the vitality of cities, therefore it is essential to quantitatively identify and analyze the distribution of different types of commercial sites so as to optimize the configuration of commercial resources and facilitate the orderly development of cities. Taking the main urban area of Urumqi City as the case study area, using 136975 business-related points of interest (POIs) including six types of businesses in 2018 and open street map (OSM) road network, and based on head/tail division rule, this study identified high-density commercial parcels and used kernel density estimation to estimate the core region of business activities. The Getis-Ord G * method was used to identify the overall and different types of commercial hot spot areas. Geographic detector analysis was performed to explore the determinants of overall and different types of commercial site distribution in Urumqi, and Pearson correlation coefficient matrix of commercial sites was established to estimate the impact of the combination and coordination of business forms on commercial space. The findings of this study suggest that the key features of high-density commercial parcel distribution are central-peripheral, separated by highways and internal loops; the number of high value parcels from the center to the peripheral area reduces progressively; and the distribution of the six types of commercial sites varies. Commercial zone presents multi-core distribution characteristics, the agglomeration characteristic is apparent in the urban center region, and the northern commercial agglomeration is gradually becoming obvious. There are six main commercial centers including Nanhu, Zhongshan Road, Youhao, Huizhan Center, Midong New Area, and Tieluju. Tuwu Expressway and Wukui Expressway together constitute the two axes of commercial hotspots. Hotspots of the six types of commercial sites can be divided into three spatial structures. Business and finance show a single-center distribution trend; accommodation and food & restraurant are of banded extension type; while services and shopping spots are of banded dual-core type. The primary determinants of the spatial distribution of commercial sites are: land price, agglomeration effect, and road network density. The influence of population and central accessibility is secondary; elevation has no significant effect. In particular, for business and financial services, land price and center accessibility are the main factors affecting the distribution. Accommodation and food & restraurant are affected by road network density. Shopping and services are significantly affected by population density. Business and finance sites, food & restraurant and shopping sites all have strong synergistic effects on the formation of urban commercial space, while others are not significance.
As more than 80% of the sites in the list of China's Great Relics Sites are located in suburban or rural areas, relics protection and tourism development will inevitably affect the rural social space around the heritage areas. Analysis of the patterns of social and economic development is the key to achieving the rural revitalization strategy. This study took the heritage area of Qin Shihuang Mausoleum as a case study area and used questionnaire, face-to-face interview, field survey, and other methods to examine the development of rural society around the area in the past 30 years. The study transformed the traditional society-space binary opposition analysis and constructed the society-space dialectical analysis method based on the Space Production Theory and David Harvey's Capital Circulation Theory to explore the mutual feedback mechanism of society and space in the countryside around the heritage area of the Qin Shihuang Mausoleum under the influence of capital. The results show that: 1) The flow of capital to the optimal location results in the differentiation of rural social space in the study area. Due to the differences in the natural environment, traffic conditions, constraints of protection zones, and the distance from the developed heritage sites, the selective investment of capital has resulted in the differentiation of rural social space in the heritage area. 2) The adjustment of rural production mode is the internal driving force of the evolution of social space in the heritage area. Under the framework of cultural relic protection, rural social space production in the relics area is a process in which the positive externality of tourism development promotes the capital flow to adjust the rural production mode, thereby affecting the social relations. 3) The government policy to the restriction of capital access in the heritage area is an external factor. The vulnerability of cultural relics in the heritage area determines that the government's strong intervention must be guaranteed in the process of display and utilization. The transformation of rural production mode that may lead to the conflict between protection and development requires the intervention of the governments, further affecting the adjustment of rural production mode. The spatial production of rural social space in the heritage area is a process of dynamic evolution and spiral rise. Only by the effective management of the government and reasonable participation of the market and rural community can we guarantee the rational development and transformation of rural communities in the heritage area.
China's aid to Africa (Aid) has received increasing attention from the international community as this aid is breaking the original aid pattern in this continent, but existing literatures paid little attention to the spatial relationship of aid to Africa between China and the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development). Based on the data of Aid from China and ODA (Official Development Assistance) from OECD to 44 countries in Africa from 2001 to 2012, this study analyzed the geographical distribution features and the spatial evolution of the Aid and the ODA, and identified quantitatively their spatial convergence relationship by constructing a static panel regression model. The results show that: 1) The temporal change was synchronistic with significant increase in the amount of aid, and timing correlation was obvious as the changes of rank-size distribution of African countries tended to converge. 2) There exited homogeneity in spatial distribution, the degree of spatial match was high, and the main recipient countries were similar. 3) In addition to the consistency of response mode, there was a steady and significant positive relationship between the Aid and the ODA, and the degree of response to the ODA from the Aid was more sensitive and marked. 4) The influencing factors were similar, especially manifested in terms of GDP per capita and the incidence of malnutrition.
The impact of greenspace exposure on mental health has long been the focus of scholars in different fields in China and internationally. Most studies are based on a single individual perspective, such as activity time, range of activities, and so on, or a single environmental perspective, such as the number of green spaces, green space accessibility, among others. Few studies have measured individuals' perception of the environment from the perspective of the interaction between the individuals and the environment. This study constructed a conceptual framework for the impact of green environment exposure on mental health based on considerations of residents' visual perception and spatiotemporal activities. In addition, this study also proposed a green visual exposure measurement method based on green view index and individual spatiotemporal activity, and estimated the green rate using convolutional neural network model and machine learning. This study took Nanjing City as an empirical research object, and used structural equation modeling to compare and analyze the differences in the impact of green rate, green view index, and total green visual exposure on mental health. In addition to observing the direct influences, environmental perception, physical activity, and sense of belongingness were selected as mediating variables to analyze the pathways of different indicators that affect mental health. The results show that the three greenspace exposure measurement indicators have a significant correlation with mental health, but the degree of influence and pathway are different. It is important to establish a more comprehensive green environment exposure evaluation index system. Subjective built-up environment perception can be used as a mediator of the impact of green view index and total green visual exposure on mental health. Physical activity only serves as a mediator of the impact of the total amount of green visual exposureon mental health. This study expands the research framework of the impact of greenspace exposure on mental health, and has important reference value for the planning and management of urban greenspace system.
A series of studies have been conducted on the phenomenon of co-offending from the aspects of relationship and relationship structure of offenders, but there is a lack of stability analysis on the regional relationship between offenders. Based on the data of the street fraud cases in Beijing in 2005, 2010, and 2014, this study constructed a regional relation network model of offenders based on the principle of social network, and analyzed the structural characteristics and changing trend of the regional relation network of offenders participating in co-offending by means of network analysis. The main results are as follows. The spatial distribution of origins of offenders participating in the co-offending in Beijing was gradually concentrated, and a pattern of coexistenting multicenters was formed with North China as the main area. The small-world effect of regional relation network of offenders gradually strengthened and developed from power-law distribution mode to exponential distribution mode. Among the offenders who participated in the co-offending, the influence of offenders from Beijing gradually decreased, while that of offenders from Hebei Province gradually increased. The cohesive subgroup structure of the regional relation network of offenders gradually polarized, and a few offender regional subgroup structures that are closely related to co-offending appeared. This study also explored the reasons for the existence and evolution of the cross-area co-offending network from the perspectives of social relation reconstruction and subculture of floating population. The results of this study have some implications for the further research on the relationship pattern of the offenders' co-offending.
As a significant spatiotemporal characteristic of crimes, repeat and near repeat pattern has received much interest in criminology research. The purpose of this study was to explore the formation process and features of crime hotspots by using near repeat principle. Robbery cases in six districts of Beijing inner city from 2012 to 2014 were used to examine the extent to which repeats and near repeats spatially intersect robbery hotspots. All the case chains within crime hotspots satisfying repeat and near repeat principle were screened out. From this, by dividing the case characteristics into criminal factors and environmental factors, the characteristics of case chains were analyzed to describe the features and formation of hotspots. The results suggest that there were three main crime hotspots in the six districts of Beijing inner city, namely "a", "b", "c", and most of the cases located within the hotspots were repeats and near repeats. The hotspot "a" was located in Shuangjing and Jinsong, and the hotspot "c" was located in Dahongmen Bridge. The characteristics of the criminal factors of these two hotspots were more consistent than that of the environmental factors, which indicates that the formation of the hotspots were more likely to originate from the repeated crimes committed in the area by criminals. The hotspot "b" was located in Fenzhongsi area by the southeastern third ring road. The characteristics of the environmental factors of this hotspot were more consistent than that of the criminal factors, which indicates that the formation of the hotspot was more likely to originate from different criminals committing crimes in this area. The research findings presented in this article can aid decision making on crime prevention and detection in policing.
Explaining the choice of crime location is one of the central themes of crime geography. The existing research on the choice of the location where street robbers commit crimes mainly focuses on the following two aspects: analyzing the spatial pattern and influencing factors from a comprehensive perspective, and analyzing the time difference from a comparative perspective. In general, these studies not only enrich the research perspectives, but also clarify the spatiotemporal patterns and their formation mechanisms. Therefore, they have important theoretical and practical significance. The literature also shows that offenders' subsequent crime location choices are affected by their prior crime location choices. However, the published studies have focused on the influences of time and place of a previous crime, and have not yet verified the role of crime experiences of the former offense. Therefore, this study further examined the influence of the prior individual robbery experiences on the subsequent street robbery location choices by using a mixed logit model and data on arrested robbers in ZG City, China. The results suggest that the individual criminal experiences of street robbers such as the interval of crimes, criminal travel, and arrest on the spot have a strong effect on subsequent street robbery location choices, that is, a shorter time interval, a shorter distance of journey to prior crime location, and less possibility of being arrested in the act of a prior street robbery significantly increase the likelihood of a robber returning to the previous location. Finally, through police interviews and theoretical analysis, it is found that the last situation is formed by the offenders' fear of being arrested on the spot, the special ways of police intervention, as well as the social cohesion and crime prevention of communities. Therefore, the extension of the results may well provide references for the police departments' work on prevention and pre-event control and active intervention.
As a ticklish social problem, crime committed in hotels has been concerned by both Chinese and Western scholars. Theft is one of the most frequent crime types occurred in hotels, especially in star hotels. Previous studies on influencing factors of hotel theft cases mainly focused on star hotel and personal attributes of victims at the micro level from the perspective of sociology, rather than considering the built environmental factors at the macro level from the perspective of geography. Using the data on the star hotels with theft cases in 2012-2014 in ZG central city obtained from Municipal Public Security Bureau, this study examined the spatial-temporal characteristics of these hotels. Then the environmental indicators within 500 m around the hotels were examined and the negative binomial regression method was used to make a systematic analysis on the factors affecting the theft of different types of star hotels in various time periods. The main results are as follows: 1) The spatial-temporal distribution of star hotels showed obvious agglomeration features. Generally, most of the main hotspots in the high incidence areas of hotel theft were time invariant, all of them are highlighted near the old city central business district, the eastern extension of the main road and the railway station. However, the spatial distribution of secondary hotspots was time-varying. 2) The overall model analysis indicates that the improvement of the service level was the most effective way to reduce the theft cases of all star hotels. The surrounding property and community points of interest (POIs) will significantly increase the opportunity for all star hotels to be stolen, while road intersections play a significant regulatory role in the theft of all star hotels. 3) The results of the sub models demonstrate that the effect of service level on the theft of three-star and five-star hotels is significant, and the effect of road intersection on the theft of four-star hotels often used by guests of business travel is stronger; the number of POIs has more obvious effect on three-star and four-star hotels. Large-scale retail business center can significantly increase the number of theft cases in hotels in the peak season and the weekend, and the number of road intersections is significant for the monitoring of stolen risk of the star hotels in the off-season period and the working days. These results have shown that the built environment played a significant role in affecting the opportunity and cost of hotel theft. The results verify the applicability of the daily activity theory in the study of hotel crimes in large cities in China, and expand the research results of crime geography in the direction of star hotel theft, which has a guiding effect for the prevention of hotel theft.
Drug crime is a criminal act of common concern in many places of the world. Many scholars have carried out research from different professional fields. The causes of drug-related crimes have been analyzed in the existing literature. Because of the limitations of data, there is little research on the spatial and temporal distribution of drug-related crime hotspots at the micro-scale. This study took NH and DM residential communities in SZ as an example. Based on the data of drug crime cases, this study used exploratory data analysis and spatiotemporal scanning to identify the distribution of hotspots of drug crimes. Then, by combining the spatial data of land use types and dynamic population flow, it quantitatively analyzed the influencing factors of the spatiotemporal distribution pattern of drug crime cases. The results show that: 1) Drug crimes mainly distribute in developed commercial areas and urban villages, and the hotspot distribution of drug crimes in urban villages occurred earlier than in developed commercial areas, and the scope of influence is larger in the former; 2) The distribution of drug crimes in different land types is uneven; the land use types of accommodation, tourism, and entertainment, wholesale and retail commercial department stores, and catering and business services are highly correlated with drug crimes. 3) The proportion of the area in hotspot areas with high flow of people has a certain correlation with the occurrence of drug crimes. When the proportion of hotspot areas is greater than 5% or 0, it can restrain the occurrence of drug-related crimes; when the proportion of hotspot areas is between 0 and 5%, it can promote the occurrence of drug-related crimes.
Child trafficking crime causes physical and psychological trauma to the victims and great grief and long-term trouble to the families of the victims. Therefore, it has attracted the attention of the society and the academic community. Research from the perspective of criminal geography in this field started relatively late and mainly focused on the macro analysis, so it is urgent to focus on high-incidence areas and key groups for detailed analysis. Based on the data of Sichuan Province—the most severely affected area for trafficking crime in China—this study analyzed the spatiotemporal pattern and influencing factors of child trafficking crime by means of text analysis, mathematical statistics, spatial analysis, and case analysis. The study found that: 1) The trafficked children were mainly from rural areas, and the trafficked males were significantly more than females. The trafficked children tended to be young, showing a double-peaks pattern. 2) Temporally, the annual change of crime showed a roughly inverted V-shaped pattern, which frequently occurred during 1981-2000. The trafficking crime was concentrated in the summer half year. 3) Spatially, the number of trafficked children was unevenly distributed. There was a high-incidence area (Chengdu) and a few smaller high-incidence areas. At the county scale, the crime pattern presented the characteristics of "high-high" and "low-low" distribution and trafficking-out hotspots continue to spread south and east. The trafficking routes presented a decentralized trafficking-in to the east feature, which showed that South China and North China were the main trafficking-in areas. 4) Through the analysis of the causes of the high incidence of crimes from 1981 to 2000, it was found that education level and the income gap between urban and rural areas were the main factors that affect the crime of child trafficking.
China has large mountain areas with low level of economic and social development. Promoting the sustainable development of mountain areas is the key to the process of modernization in China. As the core spatial unit of the regional system of human-land relationship, rural settlements in mountainous areas are the research focus and hotspot of rural geography in China. Based on the method of literature backtracking and review, this article systematically analyzed the general situation of mountain development and the influencing factors, characteristics of change, and driving mechanisms of rural settlements spatial distribution, and clarified the conceptual connotation and strategies and methods of rural settlements spatial reconstruction. Also, the main models and optimization strategies of spatial reconstruction of rural settlements in mountainous areas of China were summarized. This study considered that the spatial reconstruction of rural settlements has many typical characteristics, such as multiple subjects, multiple objectives, and diverse models, which is a dynamic and complex spatial optimization and reorganization process. In the new era of development in China, research on the reconstruction of rural settlements in mountainous areas should focus on the following five aspects: 1) The mechanism and model of rural settlements spatial reconstruction under the background of rural revitalization in mountainous areas. 2) The mechanism of impact of land use transformation on the spatial reconstruction of rural settlements in mountainous areas. 3) The impact of rural housing land system reform on the spatial reconstruction of rural settlements in mountainous areas. 4) The interactive relationship between the development of emerging industries and the spatial reconstruction of rural settlements in mountainous areas. 5) The innovation of research methods on spatial reconstruction of rural settlements in mountainous areas in the era of big data. Through the empirical analysis of the background, economic and social driving factors, mechanism, and research methods of spatial reconstruction of rural settlementsin mountainous areas, this study enriches and improves the theory of spatial reconstruction of rural settlements in mountainous areas, with a view to promoting sustainable development in mountainous areas and promoting the process of modernization.
Land sparing and land sharing are two alternative land-use strategies, which was framed by Green in 2005. The land-sparing versus land-sharing framework was initially designed to explore trade-offs between food production and biodiversity conservation by means of the density-yield curve. A debate on whether the land-sparing strategy or the land-sharing strategy is optimal has been on-going in the last 10 years and it has enriched relevant theories. Considering that there are many land-sparing practices but limited relevant research to provide guidance for land management in China, in this article we introduced the land-sparing versus land-sharing framework as a new perspective. We reviewed 317 articles in the Web of Science database and conducted bibliometric analysis for a better understanding of the context, methodology, and principles of the framework. The current status and historical trend referring to major topics and research subjects were analyzed. We also summarized decision-making options in previous studies and further advanced the framework from two aspects, focusing on land multi-functionality and the parallel between agriculture and urban systems. We found that land-sparing strategy was more prominent comparing with land-sharing strategy in studies and practices around the world in spite of the pros and cons of each. The advanced framework in this study extended the research object from agriculture to urban, and integrated the diversity of ecosystem services. This study may provide some guidance for the sustainable development of the social-ecological system and enrich the theoretical basis of the land-sparing versus land-sharing framework.
