Root system architecture (RSA) refers to the spatial distribution and extended morphology of plant root systems in soil. RSA not only determines the ability of plants to obtain water and nutrients but also affects other ecological functions. Hence, it plays a dominant role in the overall health of plants. The study of RSA can provide insight into plant absorption of water and fertilizers, the relationship between above- and belowground plant parts, and the physiological health and ecological functions of plants. Therefore, this paper summarizes research on the morphology, functionality, plasticity and research methods of RSA. We first review the basic structure, physiology, and ecological functions of root systems. Then the soil factors that shape RSA—including soil moisture, nutrients, temperature, aeration, and others—are summarized. After that, research methods for studying RSA are described in detail, including harvesting, two-dimensional morphological observation, and three-dimensional image reconstruction. Finally, future research developments and innovations are discussed to provide a theoretical basis for further investigations in this field.

The global ski tourism market has been in a relatively mature period. However, passenger flows are stagnating in many countries and the growth perspectives are not very appealing. This change of the tourism market troubled the entire ski industry with new challenges, leading to the ski tourism industry model established in the 20th century failing to meet the current development needs. According to multiple data sources, including relevant industry reports and the latest data from internetm, this article based on a variety of these reports and the latest data from website, analyzed the ski tourism market’s both sides of supply and demand, systematically summarized the evolution of ski tourism industry since the 21st century, discussed the process of the ski tourism industry’s development and the economy’s growth, and revealed the relationship between the influencing factors of ski tourism market’s potentials. Meanwhile, the main problems and challenges in the ski market were also summarized. The results showed that global ski tourism had entered a mature stage since the beginning of 2000. Moreover, there was a specific correlation between skiing participation rate and GDP, which varied with the regional economic level and the maturity degree of skiing industry. Despite some impacts from COVID-19, the ski industry in most regions exhibited signs of recovery in 2021. The Winter Olympic Games in China have brought new opportunities to the skiing industry and have been expected to encourage global participation in skiing. However, some existing ski resorts in different countries and regions may not significantly contribute to the future development of global ski tourism, and the potential growth of ski tourism market might be small and mainly concentrated in China. At present, the biggest threat to the ski market is baby boomers having long been the bulk of ski resort visitors. The ski market is faced with this aging problem and the widespread phenomenon of ski culture fault. How to meet the needs of this new generation of customers who lack ski backgrounds or cultures is a severe challenge for all emerging and existing ski resorts around the world. Besides, public transport accessibility, service quality and resorts operation capacity have also been the improvement direction of the ski market in dire need.

To deeply reach target markets and attract more tourists, a variety of media have been leveraged by tourism destination marketing organizations, particularly video games become a brand-new approach for destination marketing. With Assassin’s Creed: Unity as the research object, based on the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) model, this article analyses and presents the influences of tourism destination factors in video games on the players’ perception of tourism destination image and their intention to visit. In this case, a conceptual model has been built with game factors as the independent variable, tourism destination image as the mediating variable and the players’ intention to visit as the dependent variable. Moreover, Multiple Regression is used in the analysis, proving significantly positive effects of game experience, character attachment, and tourism destination image on players' intention to visit. Consequently this study provides research support for the combination of tourism destination marketing and video games.

Using ArcGIS to analyze the spatial distribution of traditional villages in Yunnan Province in combination with the actual local conditions of traditional villages, the purpose of this study is to determine the development model suitable for their characteristics. The results show several important features of traditional village distribution. (1) The traditional villages in Yunnan Province have spatial structural characteristics of unbalanced cohesive distribution, and they are mainly distributed in the higher-level cities and prefectures such as northwest Yunnan, west Yunnan and south Yunnan. Among them, the traditional villages of Baoshan City have the highest distribution density of 66.33 per 10000 km². This is followed by Dali Prefecture and Honghe Prefecture, where the densities of traditional villages are 44.13 per 10000 km² and 37.66 per 10000 km², respectively. (2) The factors affecting the spatial distribution structure of traditional villages in Yunnan Province are natural geographical factors, humanistic historical factors and transportation factors. Among them, the natural geographical conditions with a large vertical gap in Yunnan Province gave birth to the human settlement environment of traditional villages. The history of a farming civilization that has been passed down from generation to generation has laid a brilliant and splendid humanistic foundation for traditional villages, and the high-altitude areas are relatively primitive. The transportation conditions have delayed the destruction of traditional villages by urbanization and industrialization. In summary, these factors have affected the spatial distribution pattern of traditional villages in Yunnan Province to some extent. (3) According to the law of the spatial distribution of traditional villages in Yunnan Province, it is necessary to explore the activation path of traditional village tourism with regional characteristics and ethnic characteristics, and also to carry out differentiated development according to the different endowment characteristics of local resources, that is to develop a series of activation modes including agricultural tourism, cultural tourism and ecological tourism.

Research on spatial flow as it relates to the relationship between the supply and demand of ecosystem services supports a significant connection between the supply of ecosystem services and human well-being. Understanding the entire process of the production and flow, as well as the use of ecosystem services, accurately assessing the balance of supply and demand of ecosystem services, and establishing a two-way feedback relationship between supply and demand are vital for the scientific management of the ecosystem and ensuring the sustainable development of regional resources. Based on a large number of relevant publications, this paper comprehensively summarizes the concepts and assessment methods of ecosystem service supply and demand from the perspective of ecosystem service supply and demand, and discusses the impacts of land use and climate change on the temporal and spatial changes of ecosystem services under the background of global change. Then, an analysis of the research progress in the ecosystem services spatial flow indicated that there are still deficiencies in the quantification of cultural services, the dynamics of ecosystem service flow and the driving mechanism of ecosystem services. We also propose that clarifying the driving mechanism and transfer process of ecosystem services, and realizing the mutual conversion between different spatial-temporal scales of ecosystem services, is an important approach for improving the application of ecosystem services research in practice in the future.

China’s Yellow River Delta represents a typical area with moist semi-humid soil salinization, and its salinization has seriously affected the sustainable use of local resources. The use of remote sensing technology to understand changes in the spatial and temporal patterns of salinization is key to combating regional land degradation. In this study, a feature space model was constructed for remote sensing and monitoring land salinization using Landsat 8 OIL multi-spectral images. The feature parameters were paired to construct a feature space model; a total of eight feature space models were obtained. An accuracy analysis was conducted by combining salt-loving vegetation data with measured data, and the model demonstrating the highest accuracy was selected to develop salinization inversion maps for 2015 and 2020. The results showed that: (1) The total salinization area of the Yellow River Delta displayed a slight upward trend, increasing from 4244 km² in 2015 to 4629 km² in 2020. However, the area’s salting degree reduced substantially, and the areas of saline soil and severe salinization were reduced in size; (2) The areas with reduced salinization severity were mainly concentrated in areas surrounding cities, and primarily comprised wetlands and some regions around the Bohai Sea; (3) Numerous factors such as the implementation of the “Bohai Granary” cultivation engagement plan, increase in human activities to greening local residential living environments, and seawater intrusion caused by the reduction of sediment contents have impacted the distribution of salinization areas in the Yellow River Delta; (4) The characteristic space method of salinization monitoring has better applicability and can be promoted in humid-sub humid regions.

Satellite remote sensing provides the changes information of Earth surface on large spatial scale in a long time series and has been widely used in ecology. However, the possible impact from human activities generally occurs on a smaller spatial scale and could be detected in a longer time, which requires the remote sensing data having the both higher spatial and temporal resolution. Meanwhile, the development of the spatiotemporal data fusion algorithm provides an opportunity for the requirements. In this paper, based on deep learning, we proposed a residual convolutional neural network (Res-CNN) model to improve the fusion result considerably with brand-new network architecture to fuse the NDVI retrievals from Landsat 8 and MODIS images. Experiments conducted in two different areas demonstrate improvements by comparing them with existing algorithms. The model performance was evaluated by a linear regression between predictions and observations and quantified by determination coefficients (R²), regressive ecoefficiency (slope). The two excellent models, ESTARFM and FSDAF, were compared with the new model on their performance. The results showed that the predicted NDVI had the higher exploitational on the variability in the Landsat-based NDVI with the R² of 0.768 and 0.807 at the urban and grassland sites. The predicted NDVI was well consistent with the observations with the slope of 1.01 and 0.989, and the R-RMSE of 95.76% and 93.58% at the urban and grassland sites respectively. This study demonstrated that the Res-CNN model developed in this paper exhibits higher accuracy and stronger robustness than the traditional models. This research is full implications because it not only provides a model on the spatio-temporal data fusion, but also can provide the data of a long time series for the management and utilization of agriculture and grassland ecosystems on the regional scale.

The Beijing Winter Olympics brought a historical miracle to the development of China’s ice and snow tourism. It is both an opportunity and a challenge to reap the extra dividends of the times and to develop China’s ice and snow tourism. By selecting 18 academic papers, this special issue deeply discusses the status quo and the future measures of ice and snow tourism in China from three aspects: ice and snow tourism development and management, the ice and snow tourism experience and its influencing factors, and ice and snow tourism impact assessment. Moreover, one part entitled “Tourism Culture and Ecotourism” has been set up to emphasize those cutting-edge research topics. It is worth mentioning that this issue is in-depth and has profound connotations. First of all, the research area ranges from national to regional to the city-level, including both longitudinal and horizontal research. In additon, the research methods are practical, innovative, and at the frontier of scientific research, and include industrial correlation analysis methods, kernel density, spatial autocorrelation and other geospatial analysis methods, content analysis methods, sentiment analysis methods, structural equation models, Delphi methods, spatial statistics methods, geographic detector method and many others. In general, this special issue combines qualitative research with quantitative research, provides a variety of theoretical perspectives such as perceived value theory, institutional evolution theory, etc., and builds various useful models like the pre-competition evaluation model for ice and snow tourism heritage, the consumption skill-travel radius decision-making influence model under the moderating effect of the ski resort comprehensive leisure environment, the evaluation model of the suitability of glacier tourism resource development, the model of the relationship between tourists’ experience value and loyalty in the context of ice and snow tourism, among others. These studies are expected to provide theoretical and practical guidance for the development of ice and snow tourism in the post-Winter Olympics era, and help ice and snow tourism develop in a sustainable and high-quality direction.

The high-quality development of culture and tourism is an important path for promoting the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy, urban-rural integration and development, and realizing common prosperity. This special issue focuses on the major issue of “rural revitalization and high-quality development of culture and tourism”, and contains 22 academic papers with in-depth discussions on five themes: “Rural revitalization and rural tourism high-quality development”, “rural tourism destination and homestay development”, “tourism environmental behavior and farmers’ participation in tourism”, “tourism resilience and tourism risk”, “cultural tourism and tourism high-quality development”. This collection of articles has three characteristics: Rich research areas and diverse research objects; diverse research methods that are inventive, logical, and scientific; and diverse theoretical viewpoints that span several disciplines. Considering the shortcomings of the current research, it puts forward future research directions such as strengthening localized theoretical research, expanding research areas and perspectives, and further deepening and enriching the research contents. In addition to supporting China’s efforts to promote high-quality culture and tourism, as well as comprehensive rural revitalization, this special issue can offer theoretical directions and actual experience in these areas.

Against the backdrop of global climate change, the threat of extreme rainfall and flooding hazards to urban safety is becoming increasingly serious, and there is an urgent need to improve the resilience of cities through the construction of sponge cities. However, improving the sponge city’s capacity for resisting the risk of urban flooding is challenging. The relevant concept of ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction (Eco-DRR) is currently one of the main international theories of urban resilience, and it has important value for enhancing urban stormwater resilience. An approach for improving the stormwater resilience of sponge cities is presented in this paper, using the urban design of Jiangchuanlu Street in Shanghai as an example and the stormwater model to simulate flood disasters on Jiangchuanlu Street. In addition to the simulation results, the population and property conditions of the site were combined in order to conduct a comprehensive risk assessment through the risk matrix. Then, the Eco-DRR measures were implemented to enhance the urban stormwater resilience of Jiangchuanlu Street based on the assessment results. Finally, the ecological infrastructure of the study area was constructed, and the safety and health units were created on the basis of the ecological substrate to prevent and respond to public health emergencies. The results show that the stormwater resilience enhancement approach based on Eco-DRR can effectively alleviate the flood risk of Jiangchuanlu Street. At the same time, the safety and health units created through the ecological infrastructure can also help to prevent and respond to public health emergencies. The results of this study provide a resilience enhancement approach for sponge cities based on Eco-DRR, as well as a theoretical reference for the planning and construction of safe and resilient cities.

Farmers’ livelihoods and their impacts on the ecosystem are important indicators of human-land relationships. Appropriate livelihood strategies for farmers can meet the needs of human well-being and promote the sustainable use of natural resources, thereby maintaining the health and stability of natural ecosystems. Scholars have carried out a great deal of research on the changes in farmers’ livelihoods, as well as the driving mechanisms and ecological effects, but there are still many controversial issues about the ecological effects of farmers’ livelihood transformation. On the basis of collecting and sorting out the relevant literature, this paper analyzes the previous research results on the transformation mechanism and ecological effects of farmers’ livelihoods, and further explores the coupling relationship. Through the analysis and summary, we find that the choice of farmers’ livelihoods is affected by natural factors, subjective willingness and social policies. The transformation of farmers’ livelihood changes the ways of production, consumption and resource utilization, which in turn profoundly affects the evolutionary process of the natural ecosystems. This paper establishes a research framework for the livelihood transformation mechanism of farmers and its ecological effect, and finally summarizes two directions that need to be studied further in the future: (1) Exploring the interactions between the driving factors of farmers’ livelihood transformation; and (2) Exploring a win-win sustainable mechanism for farmers’ livelihood needs and natural resource utilization.

The condition of the tourism environment is the key factor that affects the tourism experience. A comprehensive evaluation of the tourism environmental suitability score is of great significance for guiding tourism planning and decision-making, improving the suitability score of the tourism environment in a targeted manner and guaranteeing the sustainable development of tourist cities. By adopting various indicators, such as the Universal Thermal Climate Index, the amount of precipitation, the vegetation index, the concentration of fine particulate matter in the atmosphere, and the ultraviolet radiation intensity index, this study quantifies the comfort level of weather, the weather impacts, the vegetation status, the atmospheric environment, ultraviolet radiation, and other key factors. Based on employing the AHP-TOPSIS algorithm, this study then conducts a comprehensive evaluation of China’s tourism environmental suitability score and a comprehensive comparative analysis of the tourism environmental suitability scores of three typical tourist areas: the Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan area, the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta. The results show that the tourism environmental suitability score in China has obvious characteristics of spatial differentiation: the scores in East and South China are the highest while the score in the northwest inland area is the lowest. Among the three typical tourist areas, the Pearl River Delta region has the highest tourism environmental suitability score, followed by the Yangtze River Delta region, and the Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan region has the lowest score. The northern regions of the Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan area, the southern regions of the Yangtze River Delta and the surrounding areas of the Pearl River Delta are more suitable for the sustainable development of the tourism industry. PM_2.5 is the main factor limiting the tourism environmental suitability scores in the Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan area and the Yangtze River Delta, so atmospheric environment management will be an effective way to improve their tourism environmental suitability scores.

Investigation of the invasion of Prosopis juliflora and its effects on indigenous plant species are important for the control of the species. The study aimed to assess: (1) the effects of Prosopis juliflora invasion on the diversity of plant species in Awash Fentale and Amibara Woredas; (2) the effects of Prosopis juliflora invasion on the regeneration potential of native woody species. Sample collection was performed in habitats of Prosopis juliflora thicket, Prosopis juliflora mixed with native species stands, non-invaded woodlands, and open grazing lands. The vegetation was stratified into invasion levels of Prosopis juliflora and then a random sampling technique for data collection. Among species of plants, the highest proportion of species, 75 (47.8%), was recorded under non-invaded woodlands, but the lowest proportion of species, 22 (14%), was recorded under open grazing lands. The invasion of Prosopis juliflora reduced the Shannon diversity index. The mean values of the Shannon diversity index and species richness under Prosopis juliflora mixed with native species (H′=2.22, R=14) and non-invaded woodlands (H′=2.23, R=13) were significantly higher than Prosopis juliflora thicket (H′=1.96, R=12) and open grazing lands (H′=1.84, R=10). The highest total density (358 stems ha^?1) of seedlings was recorded under Prosopis juliflora mixed with native species. But, the lowest total density (153 stems ha^?1) of seedlings was recorded under Prosopis juliflora thickets. Moreover, 102 trees ha^?1 native woody species were recorded under Prosopis juliflora thicket, but 1252 trees ha^?1 native species were recorded under non-invaded woodlands. If the invasion of Prosopis juliflora and its effects on native species diversity continue coupled with a drier climate, plant diversity of the Afar flora region will be highly affected and its ecosystem services will be under question. Thus, the participation of all stakeholders and multidisciplinary research approaches should be designed for the management of the species and rehabilitation of the rangelands in the region.

As an emerging mountain vacation tourism product, ski tourism is becoming increasingly important in the domestic tourism market. As an important theory for studying the quality of consumer experience, perceived value has been widely employed in tourism research in recent years, and improving the ski tourism experience value has become the focus of competition among ski tourism destinations. Taking the ski tourists in Chongli District of Zhangjiakou as an example, 305 valid questionnaires were collected by using online and offline methods. Based on the theory of perceived value, this paper adopted principal component analysis and cluster analysis to conduct a preliminary study of ski tourism experience and market segmentation. In addition, this paper examined the differences in demographic and behavioral characteristics of different types of ski tourists. This study finds that: (1) The perceived value of ski tourism experience includes four dimensions: facility value, perceived price, safety value and service value. (2) Using the perceived value to segment ski tourists, three different customer segments are identified: comfort-pursuant, price-sensitive and safety-oriented. (3) There are significant differences in key metrics, such as number of visits and stay time, among different types of ski tourists according to their demographic characteristics such as gender, age, monthly income, and behavioral characteristics. These results reveal the different dimensions of the perceived value of ski tourism experience and determine the market segments and characteristics of ski tourists. Developing a corresponding marketing strategy based on the different market segments can better promote the perceived value of ski tourists, and ultimately strengthen the competitiveness of the enterprises.

As a very important part of the urban ecosystem, the urban green space system plays an active role in maintaining the urban ecosystem stability, providing ecosystem services, and improving the quality of the urban environment. In order to deal with the problems brought about by the deterioration of the urban ecological environment, it is necessary to study and analyze the spatial distribution pattern, evolutionary characteristics and ecosystem services of urban green space to maximize its ecological benefits and comprehensive functions. In this study, we took Beijing urban area as an example, and based on the spatial distribution data of urban green space and remote sensing data, we first calculated the urban green space type transition matrix, landscape pattern index and ecosystem services. Then, we analyzed the changes in urban green space landscape patterns, ecosystem services and their spatial distributions from 2000 to 2020, and studied the interactive relationships between landscape changes and changes in ecosystem services. The results showed three key findings. (1) Beijing’s urban green space construction has achieved remarkable results from 2000 to 2020. The area of green space has increased by 77.41%, mainly from cultivated land and construction land. (2) From 2000 to 2020, the amounts of dust retention, SO₂ absorption, NO₂ absorption, cooling and humidification, carbon fixation and oxygen release, and rainwater runoff reduction in Beijing's urban green space have shown continuous increases in general. (3) There is a close relationship between urban green space landscape changes and green space ecosystem services, and total area (TA) has the highest correlation with ecosystem services. Except for rainwater runoff reduction, the correlation coefficients between TA and ecosystem services are all higher than 0.85. This research can provide theoretical guidance for optimizing Beijing's green space and determining how to maximize the effect of green space for improving the ecological environment, and ultimately provide a scientific basis for the construction of Beijing's ecological environment.

Based on the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2000 to 2018, the mutual relationships and mechanisms of influence between industrial upgrading, total factor energy efficiency and regional carbon emission were investigated. The results show that the sophistication of industrial structure has a significant inhibitory effect on carbon emissions in all regions. The intensity of inhibition in different regions shows a sequence of “western > central > eastern”. The inhibitory effect of the rationalization of industrial structure on carbon emissions varies greatly among the different regions, with a significant restraining influence in the central and western regions, but much less influence in the eastern region. The inhibition of carbon emissions through the improvement of total factor energy efficiency is significant in all regions, and the inhibition intensity shows the sequence of “western > eastern > central”. Furthermore, the mediating effect test shows that the total factor energy efficiency in different regions has either a partial or complete mediating effect on the influence of industrial upgrading on carbon emission, so it can promote and strengthen the inhibitory effect of industrial upgrading on carbon emissions. Therefore, upgrading the industrial structure and improving the total factor energy efficiency are effective means to promote carbon emission reduction. Reducing carbon emissions by relying solely on industrial upgrading is not ideal, and it needs to be combined with improvements in the total factor energy efficiency to effectively promote carbon emission reduction.

Promoting the green development effect characterized by green total factor productivity (GTFP) is the key to achieving high-quality development in the new era. Using the 2001?2021 inter-provincial panel data, the energy and environmental factors were simultaneously included in the analysis framework for assessing the green effect of environmental regulations in China. The Malmquist-Luenberger index based on the SBM directional distance function was used to measure the GTFP and its decomposition terms, the dynamic panel model was further constructed, and the GMM method was used to empirically test the direct and indirect effects of three types of environmental regulation and foreign direct investment (FDI) on GTFP. The results show that China’s GTFP is growing at an average annual rate of 2.13%, green technology progress is the source of GTFP growth, and the GTFP regional gap is expanding. There is not a non-linear effect in command-controlled environmental regulation, while the economic incentive type and the voluntary agreement type of environmental regulation respectively show a “U” shaped relationship and an inverted “U” shaped relationship. The control type regulation does not have an indirect effect on GTFP through FDI, but the incentive type and protocol type regulations can drive the promotion of GTFP indirectly through FDI. The GTFP lifting effects of the different types of environmental regulation and FDI show regional heterogeneity. Exploring the green development effect and characteristics of environmental regulation has important theoretical significance and practical value for selecting rational environmental regulation types, adopting differentiated environmental regulation intensities, implementing two-wheel drive to boost GTFP growth, realizing the benign interactions between environmental regulation and FDI, and ultimately promoting high-quality economic development.

Digital cultural tourism is an important part of the digital economy and digital China. The development of rural digital cultural tourism is an important engine for implementing the strategy of rural revitalization and leading the high-quality development of China’s rural tourism in the new era, which helps to promote the coupling and coordinated development of the high-quality development of rural tourism and common prosperity. This study examines the opportunities and challenges in using digital cultural tourism to promote rural revitalization, discusses the mechanism and model for enabling the common prosperity of the rural digital cultural tourism industry to achieve digital cultural tourism in the promotion of rural revitalization, and finally proposes a development path. The findings indicate that: (1) Digital cultural tourism has emerged as a significant force behind the growth of the rural tourism sector, and is a key route for achieving the objective of rural revitalization. (2) Digital cultural tourism and rural revitalization have mutually beneficial relationships; digital cultural tourism enables rural revitalization, and rural revitalization unlocks digital cultural tourism’s development potential, resulting in a positive interaction mechanism. (3) Four models of digital cultural tourism promoting rural revitalization are proposed, considering the rural classification scheme and related research. They are the digital cultural tourism for urban-rural integration and revitalization model, the digital cultural tourism for characteristic village revitalization model, the digital cultural tourism for agriculture, culture and tourism integration and revitalization model, and the digital cultural tourism for arts revitalization model. (4) To thoroughly promote the development of the rural digital cultural tourist sector, it should adhere to the product as the core, digital technology as the foundation, talent revitalization as the leader, and policy as the guarantee. The findings of this study enrich the research findings in digital cultural tourism and rural revitalization, which can serve as theoretical references and a practical foundation for the development of digital cultural tourism to empower rural revitalization.

Preparations for the Beijing Winter Olympics have promoted the rapid development of ice-snow tourism in China, which contributes to achieving the goal of having “300 million people participate in ice-snow sports”. This paper analyzes the status quo and problems associated with the growth of ice-snow tourism in China based on the methods of documentation and field investigation. The results indicate that China’s efforts have born abundant fruits. Notwithstanding, there are still some problems due to the limited time and hastened process of ice-snow tourism development, including unreasonable exploitation, low-quality products and services, imperfect investment and financing system, inadequate management, a single marketing mode, and insufficient talent teams. Compared with developed countries in Europe and the United States, ice-snow tourism in China is in the stage of rapid development. To achieve the high-quality development of ice-snow tourism in China, this paper proposes actions from eight aspects which involve policy, products and services, marketing, safety management and control, talent teams, standardization construction, science and technology, and community participation. This study can provide references for the high-quality development of ice-snow tourism in China, as well as perfecting Chinese theoretical research on ice-snow tourism.

The Huaihe River Basin is one of the typical large river basin economies, promoting its ecological protection and high-quality development is a strategic choice to improve the quality of China’s economic development and narrow the regional development gap, which has far-reaching strategic value for the region and the country in the new era. Based on the theoretical connotation of watershed ecological protection and high-quality economic development, starting from the special characteristics and practical features of the Huaihe River Eco-economic Belt, the panel data of 28 prefecture-level cities in the Huaihe River Eco-economic Belt from 2003-2018 are used as the research samples, the improved entropy method, Dagum Gini coefficient method and panel Tobit model investigate and analyze the time and space of ecological protection and high-quality development in the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt Evolution characteristics and promotion drivers. The results show that the overall ecological protection and high-quality development level of the Huaihe River Eco-economic Belt is 1.4824, showing an overall upward trend, with obvious periodic fluctuations; the high-value areas are mainly located in the lower and middle reaches of the basin, with the spatial agglomeration characteristic of “double core leading”, while the upper reaches are always in the stage of “low level and stable growth trap”; the hypervariable density is the main cause of the regional disparity; per capita output, opening to the outside world, human capital and government intervention drive the improvement of ecological protection and high-quality development. There are significant differences in the driving factors of ecological protection and high-quality development in the upper, middle and lower reaches of the city. The study of the development status of the Huaihe River Eco-economic Belt and its evolution law are of great theoretical significance, practical value for analyzing the synergistic enhancement path of urban ecological protection and high-quality development, promoting the ecological protection and high-quality economic development of the entire Huaihe River Basin.

Climate is an important factor that affects the livability of a region. The climate suitability of a region’s environment for human settlement profoundly affects the regional socio-economic development and the population distribution. Tibet is an area that is sensitive to climate change. Given the impact of global climate change, the climate suitability of Tibet has undergone significant changes. In this study, the temperature humidity index (THI) values for Tibet were calculated, and the relationships between the population distribution and the THI were analyzed quantitatively. In this way, the zoning standards for climate suitability in Tibet were determined such that the climate suitability could be evaluated. The results show that the average annual temperature in the southeast of Tibet, where the population was densely distributed, was relatively high. The mean annual relative humidity showed a trend of gradually decreasing from south to north. Regions with a suitable climate, including the high suitability areas (HSAs), the moderately suitable areas (MSAs) and the low suitability areas (LSAs), accounted for only 7.90% of the total area but accommodated over 40% of the total population. The critically suitable areas (CSAs) accounted for 37.81% of the land area and 48.24% of the total population. Non-suitable areas (NSAs) were widely distributed in Tibet and accounted for 54.29% of the total area and 11.33% of the total population. The results of this study may provide a reference for guiding the reasonable distribution of population and promoting the optimization of the spatial planning in Tibet.

Wetlands are one of the most complex ecosystem types on the planet, and ecological sensitivity assessment is an important foundation for the scientific planning of wetland park systems. The Minjiang River estuary, located in the coastal city of Fuzhou, has outstanding regional characteristics in terms of its ecosystem and biodiversity. The nearby waters are among the richest in marine species in the world and the richest in offshore marine species at that latitude in the northern hemisphere. It has at least four indicators meeting the criteria for internationally important wetlands. In this study, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was used to determine the weights of factors, and the comprehensive ecological sensitivity of Minjiang Estuary National Wetland Park was evaluated using the weighted-overlap method by the Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information System (GIS). An ecological sensitivity evaluation index system for wetland parks was constructed using Delphi, and then an ecological sensitivity assessment of Minjiang Estuary National Wetland Park was built. The sensitivities of different areas in the Minjiang Estuary National Wetland Park were divided five ecological sensitivity levels: extremely sensitive, highly sensitive, moderately sensitive, minimally sensitive, and insensitive. The results show that the riverbanks, beaches, canals, ponds, and surrounding areas were in the range of highly and moderately sensitive areas, while insensitive and minimally sensitive areas were distributed in the artificial landscape environments such as woodlands, farmland, and parks.

The successful bid for the Beijing Winter Olympics has brought historic opportunities for the development of ice and snow tourism in China. An index system for the evaluation of tourist satisfaction in ice and snow tourism destinations was constructed from the target layer-factor layer-index layer approach in this paper. Taking tourists with ice and snow tourism experience as the research object, and integrating a questionnaire survey and the Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) method, a total of 840 valid questionnaires were collected to assess the satisfaction of tourists in snow and ice tourism destinations, and the promotion model of tourist satisfaction in ice and snow tourism destinations was put forward. This process led to three main results. (1) Ice and snow tourists in China are characterized as young and better-educated, with college students aged 19 to 25 as the main consumer group. More than 70% of ice and snow tourists are pretty satisfied with the current development of ice and snow destinations in China, and are willing to participate again. (2) Other than “ice and snow souvenirs”, tourists’ perceptions of importance are all higher than the level of perceived satisfaction, and the importance values of the 13 indicators including “Scenic spot security” and “Diversity of ice and snow entertainment and sports” are especially high, showing that tourists have high expectations and demands of the destinations. However, the perceived satisfaction level of tourists for all indexes is generally low, mostly at the general satisfaction level, indicating that ice and snow tourism destinations have only partially met the demands of ice and snow tourists, and there is still much room for improvement. (3) After IPA analysis, five suggestions for improving the satisfaction of tourists in ice and snow tourism destinations were put forward, including diversification of the tourism business model, construction of tourism facilities, a market diversified cultivation model, a humanized mode of tourism service and a refined management model. The results of this study will help to enrich the theory of ice and snow tourist satisfaction and promote the high-quality development of China's ice and snow tourism in the post-Winter Olympics era.

This study mainly examines the factors influencing mountain outdoor tourism development in light of the regional economy, human environment, infrastructure, talent services, and other aspects. It analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of mountain outdoor tourism development in the process of regional development by combining qualitative research with quantitative research, and puts forward corresponding sustainable development measures in combination with an actual investigation. These measures can provide certain guidance and practical information for the ultimate realization of mountain outdoor tourism in harmony with the residents, which is a win-win situation. Taking Siguniang Mountain as the research area, we adopted the methods of literature review, questionnaire survey and field interview, and used SPSS26 and Smartpls to construct a structural variance model for the related dimensional impact analysis. The results show that the attractants of a mountain outdoor tourism destination and the humanistic environment of the destination have a highly significant relationship with tourist satisfaction. Mountain outdoor tourism destination services and facilities have a low degree of significant relationships with tourist satisfaction. Among them, the path coefficient of outdoor tourism destination consumption in mountainous areas is close to 0, and the significance level is greater than 0.05, so the relationship between destination consumption and tourist satisfaction has not been affected. The correlation analysis of Smartpls showed that the tourist satisfaction of mountain outdoor tourism destinations in Siguniang Mountain is mainly affected by the cultural environment, tourism attractions and tourism facilities of the mountain outdoor tourism destinations. The analysis of the final results of the structural equation model indicated that the cultural environment and tourist attractions of the tourist destination have high positive significant relationships with the satisfaction of tourists, while the significance of the relationship between the facilities of the tourist destination and the satisfaction of tourists is weak, and the positive relationship between the service factors of the tourist destination and the satisfaction of tourists is also weak. Therefore, the functional relationship is “two strong, one weak and one weak”. Finally, suggestions are put forward for optimizing and improving tourist satisfaction from the aspects of human environment, infrastructure, talent services, and the comprehensive development of tourist destinations, which have a certain reference value for improving tourist satisfaction and the sustainable development of tourist destinations.

Research on forest phenology is an important parameter related to climate and environmental changes. An optical camera was used as a near-earth remote sensing satellite device to obtain forest images, and the data of Green excess index (GEI) in the images were calculated, which was fitted with the seasonal variation curve of GEI data by double Logistic method and normalization method. LSTM and GRU deep learning models were introduced to train and test the GEI data. Moreover, the rationality and performance evaluation of the deep learning model were verified, and finally the model predicted the trend of GEI data in the next 60 days. Results showed: In the aspects of forest phenology training and prediction, GRU and LSTM models were verified by histograms and autocorrelation graphs, indicating that the distribution of predicted data was consistent with the trend of real data, LSTM and GRU model data were feasible and the model was stable. The differences of MSE, RMSE, MAE and MAPE between LSTM model and GRU model were 0.0014, 0.013, 0.008 and 5.26%, respectively. GRU had higher performance than LSTM. The prediction of LSTM and GRU models about GEI data for the next 60 days both showed a trend chart consistent with the change trend of GEI data in the first half of the year. GRU and LSTM were used to predict GEI data by deep learning model, and the response of LSTM and GRU deep learning models in forest phenology prediction was realized, and the performance of GRU was better than that of LSTM model. It could further reveal the growth and climate change of forest phenology in the future, and provide a theoretical basis for the application of forest phenology prediction.

Tourism resources are the basic materials of tourism development, and they also provide the support for regional tourism spatial competition. The development of tourism depends on the degree to which tourism resources are utilized, and it is of great guiding significance for their development and utilization to study their spatial structure. Based on a large sample of data on tourism resources, and starting from the characteristics of multi-type, multi-level and multi-combination, this paper puts forward a framework and method for analyzing the spatial structure of tourism resources. Taking Hainan Island as an example, this paper describes the spatial structure of tourism resources in Hainan Island by using the method of point pattern analysis, identifies the tourism resource development zones, and puts forward some suggestions for the development of tourism resources. The results are as follows: (1) The characteristic scale of the spatial structure of tourism resources in Hainan Island is 30.5 km, and there are significant differences in the distributions of all kinds of tourism resources. (2) Through the spatial structure map of tourism resources, the tourism resource development zones are identified, including three tourist central city levels, “one horizontal and three vertical” tourist belts and four tourist combination areas. (3) By combing the distribution of tourism resources and the development zones in Hainan Island, the cross-border characteristics of the tourism resources and development zones are obvious. In order to give full play to the spatial combination and superposition effect of tourism resources, a change from a single isolated development mode to the overall combined development between regions is suggested. On the provincial scale, it is relatively accurate to describe the spatial structure of tourism resources for point data with a large sample size. However, the method of point pattern analysis can not only accurately describe the spatial structure of tourism resources, but it can also provide reference for other types of regional spatial analyses. The research results provide a scientific basis for the spatial planning of regional tourism resources and have practical significance for the development of regional tourism.

The present study aimed to assess if the people are satisfied with the relief fund scheme in the three different user committees belonging to 10 Buffer Zone User Group (BZUG) of Shivapuri-Nagarjun National Park (SNNP) in the situation with the higher incidents of conflict on those areas. Differences in local people’s attitudes and the effect of socio-economic factors like age, education, economic status, the quantity of crop damage, and their influence on the satisfaction level of people towards the prevailing relief scheme were mainly captured using a semi-structured questionnaire survey of the households. A total of 162 households (HHs), comprising 40.5% of the total 377 households, were surveyed using a purposive sampling method. People’s attitude towards relief schemes was measured at three levels (positive, negative, or neutral) while the Chi-square test at 5% level of significance was used to determine whether people’s attitudes and relief schemes were dependent or not. Similarly, Chi-square test was used to determine the dependency of different socioeconomic factors and people’s attitudes towards the relief scheme. The results showed that the majority of respondents i.e. 56% were not satisfied (negative attitude) with the relief scheme, 26% were neutral and only 18% of respondents were positive towards the relief fund (satisfied). A mere 41.93 USD was provided as relief against the crop loss of 101 USD at an average in the study area. Similarly, 73 USD was the relief amount for livestock loss (goat) of 124 USD per case. Owing to inadequate and delayed payment, the relief fund scheme was unable to bring a satisfactory change in the attitudes of people. Thus, the regular amendments of relief guidelines to address insufficient and delayed payment are recommended. Additionally, further studies on the wildlife damage relief schemes and its cost-effectiveness and appropriate measures to manage the drawback of this scheme are required.

With the progressive aging of China’s population, the contradiction between the supply and demand of elderly care service facilities is increasingly prominent. This study takes Wuxi City as the research area, and evaluates the accessibility characteristics of the elderly service facilities in Wuxi City by using geographic statistics, buffer analysis, Gaussian two-step mobile search and other methods. It then analyzes the spatial distribution and supply and demand of the elderly service facilities in Wuxi City, and introduces the XGBoost algorithm to calculate the factors influencing the distributions of different types of elderly services. The results show that the distribution of home-based and institutional endowment resources in Wuxi is spatially heterogeneous, but there are problems of mismatch between supply and demand and uncoordinated regional development. The accessibility of endowment services varies greatly in different regions, and the number of hierarchical endowment institutions is relatively small. The distribution of community home care service stations is relatively more equitable, but still does not match the size of the elderly population. There are obvious differences in the factors affecting the distributions of nursing institutions and community home nursing service stations. The distribution of nursing institutions is affected by transportation infrastructure, the size of the elderly population, the number of medical resources, the environment, economic level and other factors; while community home care is mainly affected by the size of the elderly population. In order to better meet the elderly service needs of residents, Wuxi needs to increase its investment in elderly service facilities and take various measures to promote the development and improvement of its elderly service facilities.

This study aims to survey the literature and factual evidence on the nexus between deforestation and agriculture through an assessment of the potential impacts of climate change in the context of the world, India, and the Western Ghats. The Western Ghats region was chosen for this study because of its deep ecological significance. A few underlying themes were created and findings were documented under each theme that ranged from the causes of deforestation, the transformation of forest land for agriculture, the nexus between agriculture, deforestation and climate change, climate-driven agricultural vulnerability and the reconciliation of forest protection with agriculture. These findings suggest that shifting agriculture has been a dominant source of deforestation. The primary climatic impacts on agriculture are seen through crop yield falls. India’s arid and semiarid tropical regions have witnessed high climate-driven agricultural sensitivity. This could be on account of the fact that India’s tropical forests have witnessed high deforestation. The presence of higher tree densities in areas under Joint Forest Planning and Management in the Western Ghats create the potential for sparing remaining land areas for non-forest uses such as agriculture.

Food resources play a great role in human livelihood, so it is meaningful to investigate their utilization and structural evolution, especially in developing countries. This study takes data from FAOSTAT and the World Bank, and applies the emergy method to analyze Uzbek food consumption changes and characteristics from 1992 to 2019. Two main results were obtained: (1) National food consumption showed a persistent increase and had a remarkable change in stages, with the first stage of low-level repetition, the second stage of speeding up and the third stage of high development. The increase of animal-based food consumption was more notable than that of plant-based food consumption. (2) Per capita annual food consumption had a tendency of change that was similar to that of national food consumption. The proportion of animal-based food in the total per capita annual food consumption usually remained about 2-fold higher than that of plant-based food consumption. The main food consumption pattern was the combination of crops such as wheat and rice with meat such as beef. The fruit and vegetable consumption also increased. With the growing population, various changes in food demand will inevitably happen, so it is necessary to take sustainable measures in time to satisfy the new demand and to protect resources and the environment.