Educational attainments of talents are different, and exploring the spatiotemporal distribution of talents with different educational attainments and its driving factors is of key significance for formulating different kinds of talent policies and optimizing the high-quality economic development pattern of the urban system. Using data of the 2005, 2010 and 2015 population sample surveys of China, this study examined the differences in the spatial and temporal patterns of China's talents with college, undergraduate, and graduate degrees from 2005 to 2015 at the prefecture level, and used a spatial econometric model to explain the driving factors of these differences. The results show that: 1) The spatial distribution of China's talents with different educational attainments was highly uneven, and talents with college, undergraduate, and graduate degrees were mainly concentrated in the municipalities, provincial capitals, and independent plan cities. There was also some concentration of talents with college and undergraduate degrees in resource-based cities of the northwestern region, such as western Inner Mongolia and northern Xinjiang. The level of uneven distribution of talents increased with the increment of educational attainments and the unevenness was alleviated through time, but the degree of its alleviation decreased with the increase of educational attainment. 2) The dynamic agglomeration of talents showed the Matthew effect—the higher the proportion of talents at the beginning of the study period, the greater the increase of the proportion of talents during the period. The intensity of the Matthew effect of dynamic agglomeration of talents gradually increased with the increase of educational attainment. 3) The concentration of China's talents with college, undergraduate, and graduate degrees was mainly economic driven, and salary played the most important role in influencing the concentration of talents with different educational attainments. The reduction of regional salary gaps in China had caused a decrease in the level of uneven distribution of talents with different educational attainments. The rapid growth of service industry and improvements in social amenities such as secondary education, medical service, and transportation had also promoted the agglomeration of talents with different educational attainments. Nevertheless, environmental factors such as elevation and green leisure space did not significantly boost the agglomeration of talents in China. The role of both economic development and social amenities in promoting talent agglomeration showed a tendency to increase with increasing educational attainments.
The digital economy is a new driving force for China's economic development and an important growth point for expanding domestic demand. This study examined the mechanism of the digital economy affecting household consumption. Based on the panel data of 31 provinces of China from 2011 to 2020 and using the mediation effect model and the spatial Durbin model, this study examined the mechanism and spatial effects of the digital economy on household consumption and conducted an expanded analysis from the temporal and regional dimensions. The results show that: 1) The digital economy can directly promote household consumption. 2) The indirect effect of the digital economy on consumption is to improve the diversification of products on the supply side, increase household income on the demand side, and promote market integration on the market side. 3) While promoting local consumption, the digital economy also has positive spillover effects among provinces with similar economic levels. 4) The results of the expanded analysis show that the role of the digital economy in driving consumption is sustainable over time, which increases with the improvement of the economic level. Meanwhile, the effect is stronger in the central and western regions than in the eastern region, showing the characteristics of benefiting the poor and favoring the less developed regions. These results expanded the research perspectives of digital economy driving consumer consumption, and provide a decision reference for the strategy of boosting consumer demand based on the digital economy.
Regional economic integration has become a necessary path to promote regional high-quality development in China, but relevant studies from the perspective of private enterprise investment are rare. Using statistical analysis and social network analysis methods, we analyzed the process of regional economic integration through the evolution of private enterprise investment network in the Lanzhou-Xining (Lan-Xi) urban agglomeration from 2013 to 2021, and explored the mechanism of change. The study showed that: 1) The Lan-Xi urban agglomeration was in the middle and late stage of industrialization, but the private enterprise investment network still showed an obvious inter-provincial "dual-core separation" structure, with a relatively high level of integration in Qinghai Province, and there were large differences in the inter-provincial investment behavior of different industries within the urban agglomeration. 2) The formation of the dual-core separation structure of the private enterprise investment network was mainly influenced by the current development stage of the region, and the provincial capital cities played a dominant role in this polarization, leading to extremely weak inter-provincial investment ties. 3) The administrative region economy and institutional thickness exerted a deterrent effect on the inter-provincial investment of private enterprises through external environment and internal decision making, respectively. Based on the above conclusions, starting from the low level of regional economic integration in the Lan-Xi Urban Agglomeration, this paper puts forward relevant policy recommendations to promote the formation of inter-provincial complementary regional economic layout with the goal of high-quality development.
In order to establish the Yellow River Cultural Tourism Belt, it is urgently needed to increase the number of tourism destinations and strengthen the tourism links among destinations with the Yellow River culture. On the basis of defining the concept of growth of tourism destinations, taking 68 prefecture-level cities in the Yellow River Basin as nodes, and connecting the nodes with tourism information Baidu Index, this study constructed the tourism information correlation networks of cities in the Yellow River Basin. Based on the networks, a quantitative evaluation of the growth of tourism destinations in cities in the basin was carried out. The research found that: 1) Among the 68 cities in the Yellow River Basin, 19 showed significant tourism destination attributes (average DI value ≥ 0.11). 2) From 2011 to 2019, except for Huangnanzhou, the destination attributes of 67 cities showed reasonable growth, which can be divided into three types: star cities (growth rate value 13.02%-65.45%, DI value 0.46-1), high potential cities (growth rate value 7.29%-26.18%, DI value 0.11-0.29), and rapid growth cities (growth rate value 4.18%-183.31%, DI value 0.001-0.10). 3) From 2011 to 2019, the cooperative growth of the tourism destination of the Yellow River Basin was healthy, and the degree of tourism integration had gradually strengthened. Five major groups with star and high potential destinations as cores had been formed within the region, including three intra-provincial groups and two inter-provincial groups. 4) Developing rapid growth cities into tourism destination cities, enhancing the international influence of star and high potential tourism destination cities, transforming the intra-provincial groups into inter-provincial groups, and strengthening the connection among inter-provincial groups are urgently needed to speed up the construction of the Yellow River Cultural Tourism Belt.
Farming households are the main actors of traditional village protection and tourism development, and their livelihood sustainability is closely related to the sustainable development of traditional villages. In the past decade, under the influence of national policies and relevant systems concerning the protection and utilization of traditional villages, village cultural heritage protection and tourism development are gradually integrated into the original livelihood system of farmers and a complex and dynamic livelihood system has being formed. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the sustainable livelihoods of farmers in traditional village tourism areas from a systematic and comprehensive perspective. This can not only provide decision-making support for farming household sustainable livelihood construction and poverty alleviation, but also help to understand the internal reasons for the hollowing out and decline of traditional villages, and provide a scientific decision-making basis for stimulating the endogenous development power of traditional villages. Based on the Sustainable Livelihood Framework (SLF) proposed by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and the special attributes of traditional villages as living heritages, a sustainable livelihood evaluation indicator system of traditional village farming households in the context of tourism development was constructed from five aspects: Vulnerability background, livelihood capital, livelihood strategy, structure and process transformation, and livelihood outcome, and four typical traditional villages, including Shazhou Village in Rucheng County, Banliang Village in Yongxing County, Aoshang Village in Suxian District, and Yangshan Village in Guiyang County of Chenzhou City, Hunan Province, were empirically examined. The study found that: 1) The sustainable livelihood level of farming households in Chenzhou traditional village tourism areas is at a medium level, and the levels in different traditional villages are significantly different. Shazhou Village is at a relatively high level and the other three are at a medium level. 2) The sustainable livelihood level of farming households participating in tourism in traditional villages is significantly higher than those who do not participate in tourism. Participation in tourism can not only improve the sustainable livelihood level of farming households, but also help them to understand the policies and institutions related to the protection and utilization of traditional villages, increase their awareness of cultural relic protection, cultural inheritance, and environmental protection, and enhance their cultural confidence. 3) The shortage of natural and human capitals, the lack of diversity of farming household livelihood strategies, the low willingness of farmers to participate in tourism, and the weak role of the government and tourism enterprises in promoting tourism are the key factors hindering the sustainable livelihood of farming households in Chenzhou traditional village tourism areas. Therefore, the sustainable livelihood level of farming households in traditional village tourism areas should be improved by optimizing the quality and structure of household natural and human capitals, encouraging farmers to actively participate in tourism, and strengthening the leading role of the government and enterprises.
Clarifying the status of China as a developing great power is an important basis for the development of China's diplomacy. In recent years, Western countries led by the United States have repeatedly raised doubts about China's status as a developing great power and attacked China in diplomatic negotiations. In response to Western suspicions, Chinese scholars of international relations, international political economy, and geopolitics have mainly demonstrated China's developing country attributes and status from the perspectives of country comparison of development factors. At present, there is a lack of research that integrates comprehensive, regional, spatiotemporal, and scale thinking of geography. By reviewing the literature of national development status and China's status as a developing great power, this article summarized the problems and deficiencies of existing research. National development status can be understood as a nation's position in the global system. The level of national development and national influence as two indicative dimensions of national development status, respectively, reflect different identity characteristics of the national development status, and the characteristics of a country in the global development pattern, "core-periphery" structure, hierarchical structure, network topology structure, and national influence pattern are all the external manifestations of the country's status in the global system and have the characteristics of scale effect. Based on this understanding, this study interpreted the conceptual connotation of national development status from three dimensions of time, space, and scale. Based on the classic geographic research paradigm of pattern-process-mechanism-decision, an analytical framework integrating geographical thinking for the study of China's status as a developing great power was proposed. Furthermore, the core issues such as the division of national development types and the main research line of China's status as a developing great power integrating geographical thinking were discussed. The integration of geographical thinking into the study of national development status can not only enrich and improve the national development theory and world system theory, but also contribute to the development of regional (global) geography theory. In addition, it can also provide valuable references for the related studies on the status of China as a developing great power.
With the advent of the post-industrial era, a "green turn" has gradually become the basic principle of global urban renewal. However, green initiatives and practices in urban renewal often focus on environmental sustainability, neglecting the green gentrification that can be triggered at the social level. In the context of urban renewal in China, urban greening practices have emerged with many representations similar to the phenomenon of green gentrification, but this has not attracted the attention of scholars in China. This study adopted a qualitative research method to investigate the effects and mechanisms of green gentrification in the context of urban renewal, taking the greening practices of urban agricultural parks as an example. The study found that: 1) In the context of urban renewal, urban greening practices imply a logic of gentrification in action, and the postmodern aesthetic and experiential landscape it creates becomes a place representation of green gentrification. 2) Greening practices oriented to serve the urban elite have triggered landscape segregation and stratification, but under the guarantee of the Chinese land tenure and management system, the indigenous people are not displaced but receive dividends from the recapitalization of the land. 3) The government, village collectives and residents, and developers have formed green growth alliances to meet their political and economic demands for the purposes of urban governance, land rents, and economic interests, respectively, eventually forming a government-led green gentrification operation mechanism. This study empirically analyzed green gentrification, which originated in western societies, in the institutional and social contexts of China, expanding the connotation and explanatory validity of green gentrification in the context of multiple geographies, and providing new theoretical perspectives and practical insights for understanding the change of human-land relationship in the context of urban renewal in China.
Health is an old but ever-present topic for human beings, which is closely related to the geographical environment. The new health geography emphasizes the role of place in influencing individual and public health. Multisensory therapeutic landscape research reveals the interactions between elements of place and health practices at various spatial scales. In the context of deep integration of tourism and health, this study used the theoretical framework of therapeutic landscape in health geography, which advances the traditional methodologies that examine the single dimension of visualscape. Taking Nanjing Purple Mountain National Forest Park as a case, this study explored the elements of multisensory therapeutic landscape and its mechanism of health impact in tourism destinations from the perspective of human-land interaction. The user-generated content that directly reflects tourists' perception was adopted to analyze the components and mechanism of health impact of multisensory therapeutic landscape in Nanjing Purple Mountain National Forest Park. Based on the results of analysis using the grounded theory, the therapeutic landscape in Nanjing Purple Mountain National Forest Park was decomposed into four dimensions of visualscape, soundscape, smellscape, and haptiscape, which have unique attributes and complex relationships. The findings confirmed that the therapeutic landscapes in tourism destinations are multisensory while the visualscape is not always dominant. Furthermore, through the multiple correspondence analysis, the meaning of multisensory therapeutic landscape in Nanjing Purple Mountain National Forest Park were clustered into three themes: nature, tranquility and coordination, revealing the health impact mechanism of place in the continuous dynamic interactions between the destination and the tourist. The concept of multisensory therapeutic landscape indicates the interactions between environmental factors and health practices at various spatial scales, which provides a new perspective to explore the relationship between place and human health. The intersection of health geography and tourism geography will enrich the theories and methods of landscape research, and promote the sustainable development of tourism destinations with multisensory therapeutic landscape.
Studies have shown that the illicit trafficking and consumption of counterfeit and substandard drugs have become one of the fastest-growing criminal enterprises during the past two decades globally. To date, China's counterfeit drug crime situation is exceptionally serious and there is an urgent need for its prevention and control in society, but geographic research in China has not covered this topic. Using data on 18203 sales-based counterfeit drug crimes in 367 cities in China from 2014 to 2019, this study explored the spatio-temporal evolution and regional types of China's sales-based counterfeit drug crimes by Thiel index, Herfindahl index, exploratory spatial data analysis, k-medoids clustering algorithm, and word cloud analysis. The main findings can be summarized into four aspects. 1) China's sales-based counterfeit drug crimes have evolved in two phases: first, the rise in sales-based counterfeit drug crime from 2014 to 2015 and the increase in inter-city differences; second, its decline after 2016 and the weakening of inter-city differences. 2) China's sales-based counterfeit drug crimes gradually spread from the southeastern coastal areas to the northern and central regions and evolved from a single-core or dual-core clustered distribution form to a multi-core diffusion distribution form and constitutes a more obvious "herringbone" band distribution pattern. 3) The spatial autocorrelation of China's sales-based counterfeit drug crimes is significant, and the clustering is unstable, with the migration and diffusion of high-high and low-high clustering areas, and showing a simultaneous clustering in the northern and central regions consistent with the overall pattern of sales-based counterfeit drug crimes. 4) In China's urban system, the changes in sales-based counterfeit drug crimes can be divided into four regional types, including rising cities, falling cities, fluctuating cities, and low-level cities, and the number and distribution of cities in each type are significantly different. For example, rising cities are mainly concentrated in the northern region, including Baoding, Taiyuan, and Beijing; falling cities are mainly distributed in Guangdong Province, including Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan, Jiangmen, and Zhongshan; fluctuating cities are concentrated in Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces, the central China plains, the Northeast, and the western region; and low-level cities are the most numerous and widely distributed. These findings are informative for crime prevention and social governance. For example, in cities of rising crime, we can strengthen the supervision of the online purchase and logistics of beauty and health supplement drugs; in cities of falling crime, we can focus on investigating the sales of special effect or specialty drugs in physical stores; in cities of fluctuating crime, we can promote and establish a collaborative mechanism to jointly combat sales-based counterfeit drug crimes. This study contributes to filling the gap in crime geography in China on counterfeit drug crime research.
Pest disasters are serious threats faced by the forest ecosystem of China. This study selected 316 research papers on forest pest disasters with the selection criteria that primary data of the research were completely obtained from ground survey. We compiled the time of occurrence, location, affected area, and intensity of each forest pest disaster (FPD) event. Then, using Meta-analysis on these records, we depicted the spatial and temporal variability of forest pest disasters in China. A total of 962 FPD records were compiled. These records involved 299 counties in China and covered a temporal range from 1985 to 2018. The results showed that there were 242 county-times of serious FPD events during 1985-2018 with an annual mean of 7.1 county-times. From 1985 to 2005, the annual county-time number of serious FPD events increased at 0.4 county-times per year, but the upward trend was replaced by a decline of -0.6 county-times per year from 2005 to 2018. Spatially, there were more FPD events in the Wuyi Mountains in southeast China and the Qilian Mountains in northwest China compared to other regions. The frequency of serious FPD events exhibited a declining trend from the southeastern coast of China to the northwestern inland region. The Wuyi Mountains area was the most serious FPD region of China. Meteorology factors were considered the primary factor that influenced the FPD. The interannual fluctuation of FPD frequency was negatively correlated with winter temperature of the previous year in the southern part of the semi-arid area and the warm temperate semi-humid area; while it is negatively correlated with spring temperature in the north sub-tropic area and the central sub-tropic area in the south.
A rare persistent high temperature event occurred in the Yangtze River Basin in summer 2022, which caused serious impacts on the life and production of the provinces in the basin. Scientific analysis of the causes of this high temperature process is of great significance for improving the prediction and early warning of high temperature processes. Based on the NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data and the daily temperature data collected from 699 stations in the Yangtze River Basin, this study examined the atmospheric circulation characteristics and the causes of this high temperature process. The findings indicate that: 1) The high temperature process that occurred in the Yangtze River Basin in 2022 ranked the highest in terms of the area of influence, intensity, duration, and comprehensive strength since 1961. 2) There were mainly two circulation causes that attributed to this high temperature process. The first was the impact of local circulation, that is, the middle and upper layers of the troposphere over the Yangtze River Basin was controlled by the abnormal anticyclonic circulation generated by the equivalent barotropic mechanism. The second was the impact of large-scale circulation, that is, the South Asia High and Western Pacific Subtropical High moved in an opposite direction and overlapped over the Yangtze River Basin. Under the control of high pressure, the sinking movement over the Yangtze River Basin and the solar radiation reaching the ground are obviously strong, which led to strong extreme high temperature. 3) The main reason for the long duration of the abnormal circulation is that with the Rossby wave transmitting energy eastward from Western Europe and the Lake Baikal, the circulation distribution presented a "two grooves and one ridge" model from west to east in the middle and high latitude of Eurasia and a stable "three-wave" model in the middle and high latitudes in the northern hemisphere. Therefore, the energy converged in the subtropical region above the Yangtze River Basin, which helped maintain the intensity of the subtropical high and the occurrence of the abnormal positive height anomalies over the Yangtze River Basin.
Administrative division is the basic supporting unit for a country to carry out local governance. The adjustment of administrative divisions is related to the grassroots social governance system and capacity building, and constitutes a part of the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity, which has a long-term impact on economic development and regional governance. This article systematically reviewed and analyzed the literature on China's administrative division research in the past 30 years, and summarized the development status of China's administrative division research from the aspects of history, type of models, effectiveness evaluation, influencing factors, and comparison within China and internationally. The research found that the setting of administrative divisions serves the national development strategy, and the research is closely related to national policies. The promulgation and implementation of relevant policies stimulate the research of administrative divisions, and vice versa. The study of administrative division has a strong historical continuity and spans multiple disciplines. Drawing on the useful experience of developed countries, it also has very strong local characteristics. In the process of integration of administrative divisions into national governance system and governance modernization, scientific and practical research on the setting and adjustment of administrative divisions should be strengthened. We should give full play to the advantages of multiple disciplines, strengthen the theoretical and methodological research on the setting and adjustment of administrative divisions, and comprehensively improve the effectiveness of national spatial governance.
Production of space systematically integrates Marxism and spatial theories into a materialistic system with both dialectical and historical thinking, opening up a new horizon for interpreting and analyzing spatial practice processes. Using the CiteSpace bibliometric method and based on publications in China and in the field of production of space, combined with in-depth reading of typical literature, this study examined the progress of the application of the theory of production of space in the field of urbanization research in China, and summarized the overview, highlights, and shortcomings of research. The results indicate that: 1) The rapid development of urbanization in China and the expansion of the dissemination and influence of the Western theory on the production of space have jointly promoted the relevant research in China, which is characterized by diverse objects, broad themes, flexible perspectives, and a combination of practical interpretation and problematic criticism, focusing on the correspondence between foreign theories and local practices. 2) The generalization of spatial patterns of urbanization and the critique of urbanization effects are the two key points of the application of the production of space theory. The former is to apply production of space to sort out diverse and specific localization practices, while the latter is the revelation of contradictions in specific spatial production practices based on human-centered values. There still exist several shortcomings: 1) The lack of attention to the richness of historical practice and the special focus on the logic of capital have led to the suspicion of economic determinism and relatively neglected other important areas such as everyday life. 2) Insufficient attention to the localization of historical practices and the biased dogmatic appropriation of Western theories has limited the growth of critical theoretical innovation. 3) Insufficient attention has been paid to the need to guide practice, and the value of Marxism for guiding practice is still limited. 4) From the standpoint of historical materialism, the outlook of theory application was proposed in the light of the specific trends and needs of high-quality development of urbanization in China, that is, from productive space analysis to living space concern, from spatial problem analysis to the construction of a Chinese system of theories, and from the interpretation of spatial theory to the guidance of spatial practice.
Urban transportation resilience reflects the ability of the transportation system to maintain its basic functions and structure through its resistance, mitigation, and absorption under extreme conditions, or the ability to restore the original equilibrium or reach a new equilibrium state within a reasonable time and with reasonable cost. Global warming, sea-level rise, and rapid urbanization all increase the risk of compound extreme weather events, presenting challenges for the operation of urban-related infrastructure including transportation infrastructure. In this context, some questions become important. For example, how to measure the strength of urban transportation resilience under extreme weather events (including the impact of different extreme weather event intensities on its strength); how to monitor its spatial and temporal features and evolution trends; and how long will it take for the entire system to restore balance? At present, effective monitoring methods for transportation resilience under the influence of extreme events are lacking, especially the monitoring of the temporal and spatial dynamic changes of transportation resilience under climate change, to answer these questions. Therefore, it is urgently needed to solve the problem of accurately identifying the state of urban transportation resilience under extreme weather events and improving the level of prevention and control of transportation system impact of natural hazard-related disasters. The development of big data mining technology and deep learning methods for spatiotemporal prediction made the construction of spatiotemporal datasets for evaluating and predicting urban transportation resilience possible. Such datasets can reveal the spatiotemporal evolution features, changing trends of urban transportation resilience intensity under the influence of extreme weather events, as well as the mechanism of influence. It indicates the key research areas that should be focused on for transportation resilience under climate warming. This article reviewed and summarized the research on transportation resilience in China and internationally in the past 50 years, analyzed the deficiencies in the existing research based on the relevant research results of transportation resilience in China and globally, and identified the key areas and directions of the research on transportation resilience under climate warming in order to provide new ideas for future research on transportation resilience.
