The international financial crisis (IFC) is a new economic geography phenomenon that happens suddenly in some areas with rapid spatial expansion and fast regional response. The study of the forming mechanism of IFC in specific places, the spatial expanding process of IFC, and the regional response rule is a new proposition of economic geography research. In view of the strong economic attributes of causes and evolution of IFC and the significant economy-driven effect of spatial process and regional response, this paper puts forward the research mode of "Microeconomy - Macroeconomy - Regional Economy." Based on this mode, the process of the micro unlimited pursuit of fictitious-economy-based enterprises for profit--the macro separation between fictitious economy and real economy and the macro insufficient monitoring of government--the regional occurrence of IFC in specific places is analyzed, the process of the micro adjustment of the enterprises' industrial organization in developed countries--the macro formation of international division of labour founded on industrial chains--the regional (spatial) expansion of IFC is explored, and the micro marginal utility change of consumer and the existence of catastrophe point--the macro dependence of fictitious economy and real economy on natural resources and human capital and the macro recoverable power of each kind of economy--the regional response of IFC is discussed. Accordingly, this paper addressed the four-stage spatial expansion process of IFC, and put forward the judgment of the existence of the phenomenon that "1 yuan RMB ≠ 1 yuan RMB" in different regions. Moreover, based on the analysis of regional response of IFC, this paper obtained a primary conclusion that the regions with their people in great poverty and with economic growth depending on natural resources and environment suffer more damages from IFC. The spatial expansion of IFC has not only verified several important classical theories of economic geography, but also offered a new assumption for further study, namely it may be possible in spatial structure organization for modern service industry to make a stronghold breaking through in some places. Finally, the long-term strategies to entreat the risk of globalization, such as improving the contribution of human capital to industrial development, and promoting the pulling function of domestic demand to economic growth were discussed.
This paper is devoted to developing the theory and methods of spatial autocorrelation analysis based on the Moran statistics. Firstly, the mathematical process of the Moran’s index is reconstructed with the theory of linear algebra. Two kinds of generalized spatial weighting matrix (GSWM) are defined as follows: one is the ideal spatial weighting matrix (ISWM), and the other is the real spatial weighting matrix (RSWM). The Moran’s I can be redefined by both ISWM and RSWM. Secondly, the theoretical essence of Moran’s I is brought to light by using the ideas from symmetry and invariance of mathematical transform. The Moran’s I is in fact the eigenvalue of ISWM and RSWM, and the corresponding eigenvector is just the vector consisting of the standardized data for spatial autocorrelation analysis. Thirdly, the Moran scatterplot is revised. Based on ISWM and RSWM, the Moran scatterplot for local analysis of spatial association is improved and the result is more satisfying than the original form. In the improved scatterplot, ISWM presents a straight line, and RSWM shows itself as a random distribution of data points. Three approaches to estimating the Moran’s I are advanced as follows: (1) The method of formula. Three-step computation process is summed up by means of matrix theory. (2) The method of matrix. The scaling relation is employed to estimate the Moran’s I by calculating the eigenvalue of ISWM or RSWM. (3) The method of regression analysis. This approach is based on the correlation between the standardized vector and ISWM or RSWM. The key step of making analysis of spatial autocorrelation is to construct the contiguity matrix. The spatial weighting matrix (SWM) is divided into four types: (1) locality correlation, (2) quasi-locality correlation, (3) quasi-long-distance correlation, and (4) long distance correlation associated with action at a distance. Different types of SWM are suitable for different cases of geographical analysis. The improved theory and method of spatial autocorrelation based on the Moran’s I is applied to the systems of towns in Hebi Prefecture of Henan Province, China. Based on the measure of total population of towns, a symmetrical pattern of spatial autocorrelation, which looks like a butterfly, is revealed and illustrated. This example shows how to make use of spatial autocorrelation theory in human geographical analysis easily and simply.
Since the traffic flow reflects the socio-economic relationship of cities and also has the spatial attributes of flow fields, its study can reveal the urban interaction to some extent. Based on the review of flow fields, this paper introduces the basic concept and theoretical points, and then designs a spatial recognition model, i.e. factor analysis including R-mode and Q-mode. In this paper, we also introduce the model's study process, parameters and the software (SPSS). Finally, using inter-urban railway passenger flows in 1990 (197 cities) and in 2006 (249 cities), this paper studies the spatial field of traffic flows, i.e. the centralization field and decentralization field, especially focusing on the number, structure, hub nodes, catchment areas and the evolution from 1990 to 2006. Then, we design some indices to analyze the hierarchical structure of the flow field and find that the traffic flows in China exhibit four levels of centralization and decentralization fields. According to the spatial distribution of traffic flows, centralization and decentralization fields have distinct communicating circles around provincial capitals and stop in the boundaries of provinces. Also, the two types of spatial flow fields are overlapped spatially and developed stably. The traffic flow fields centered in Shanghai and Guangzhou are playing more and more important roles. According to the study of spatial fields through railway passenger flows, this paper discovers the interaction of China's urban system and offers some suggestions for railway planning and urban planning.
Based on the theory of relative prices, this paper evaluates the degree of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei regional market integration from the perspective of commodity markets. All of the data applied in the models in this study are obtained in the period of 1985~2007, coming from three areas, which are Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei Province. These panel data cover nine categories of the most important commodities. The study found that, in the period of 23 years, the level of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei regional market integration experiences a course of "Smooth - Fluctuating - Smooth". Specifically, from 1985 to 1988, the regional variance of relative price changes in a small range. This implied that the regional markets of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei are in the state of integration. From 1989 to 1997, the relative price variance is in the trend of fluctuations, indicating that in this period, the problems of regional market segmentation are more serious. The study based on time series data also revealed that since the end of the 20th century, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei market integration has developed rapidly and stably. Overall, the level of this regional market integration improves year by year. The analysis of market integration between any two areas showed that internal imbalances exist in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei metropolitan region. The leading rank of regional market integration is Beijing-Tianjin, followed by Beijing-Hebei, and Tianjin-Hebei. It is worth noting that the regional market of Beijing-Tianjin is a key factor to the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei regional market integration. The conclusions of the research enriches the current theoretical studies on the market integration of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei. Further efforts will be made to strengthen the stage of regional integration and policy analysis of how to accelerate the pace of regional market integration.
The study on employment location of farm household is the basis of understanding flow law of farm employees. Through the case study on three sampting villages in Henan province, we find that the personal characteristic, family characteristic and the community characteristic have significant influence on the employment location choice. On personal characteristic, the sex has significant influence on employment space and also age on employment distance. On family characteristic, family type has significant influence on employment distance, as well as family generation number and learner number on employment distance and employment space. On community characteristic, economic development level and terrain in village have significant influence on employment space. The relation network of farm household plays a key role in the employment location choice. Based on gaining some earnings, the choice for employment location of farm household is the result of considering all the factors, such as personal characteristics, family characteristics and community characteristics. The farm household is in logos. The geographic factor has important influence on employment location. Like the migrants in migration, the non-permanence farm employees are also selective, but the causation is decreasing the family management cost and avoiding the migration risk. Therefore, to regulate the rule of labor mobility market, reduce the risk of migration, construct rural social service system and eliminate the worries of the employment workers have critical significance to rational flow of rural surplus labor. Their policy implications are that the guidance of early employees and nurturing network of relations are of great significance for development of labor economy to the villages that have fewer emigrants. When migrant workers develop into a relatively large size, potential employees are likely to be real employees relying on its own network. Therefore, the government should focus on nurturing the seed employees. Furthermore, the formation of that relation network has played a key part in the employment location choice in validating applicability of the "migration network theory" in temporary migration.
As an important sector in service industry, producer services have become a significant force to promote the economic growth and reflect the main economic function in China's metropolitan regions since the 1990s. In recent decades, the growth and spatial agglomeration of producer services become one of the most important economic phenomena in regions of different scales and the most international metropolises. Based on the review of industrial agglomeration and service industrial location, this paper summarizes the research contents and research methods & techniques on producer services agglomeration. On the whole, around regions and metropolitans, many scholars at home and abroad have studied this topic and made much progress. However, there are still some shortcomings in some aspects. Firstly, this study has paid much attention to the spatial patterns, while little can be found in the published literature about evolution process. Secondly, there have been relatively studies on the impact mechanism of the spatial agglomeration on producer services, thus a law theoretic system has not formed. Thirdly, most of the research methods transform the model that measures manufacturing agglomeration to the producer services. Besides, its applicability and relevance still need to be further explored. The main study trends and orientations in the future can be summarized as follows: Aiming at the research framework "measurement and identification, patterns and process, factors and mechanisms"; and using integrated approach of qualitative-quantitative and spatial analysis to deepen and improve the geographic research of the spatial agglomeration on producer services.
In the 1978~2007 period, the urbanization level in China rose from 17.92% to 44.99, and the urbanization construction has made great progress. With more and more problems related to urbanization emerging, the importance of urbanization quality has been emphasized and many papers have been published in this field. According to the connotation of urbanization quality, the paper constructs the appraisal index system of urbanization quality, including economic development, infrastructure, employment, citizen life, social development, environment, land use quality, innovation quality, and urban-rural gap. With the method of entropy, the urbanization quality of 286 cities at prefecture level and above is analyzed. The results show there are great gaps of urbanization quality between cities, and the urbanization quality is not high as a whole. There is no corresponding relation between urbanization quality and city size, and "The bigger, the better" is not a correct expression concerned with urbanization quality. It is considered that population urbanization level cannot reflect urbanization quality, and that population urbanization is not the ultimate goal. Those cities of higher urbanization quality still have many deficiencies, which needs to be remedied. The spatial differences of urbanization quality are significant, with the urbanization quality decreasing from the eastern coastal regions to central and western regions. The cities of higher urbanization quality are distributed in the form of agglomeration, which fits well the urban agglomerations in China.
With the development of suburbanization, urban residents now have more choices in jobs and housing locations. Nowadays, scholars increasingly pay attention to the studies on citizens' commuting mode. The analysis of commuting space characteristics belongs to the study of geography. Based on questionnaire survey, this paper first makes a descriptive analysis of people's commuting variables, distances, and directions. Then it discusses the commuters of Beijing by decision tree analysis and data mining. Conclusions are obtained as follows: First, under the fixed pruning severity, people's commuting distance is related to their traveling vehicles, resident locations, jobs, youngest child's education conditions, living space, family incomes, usage of cars, and employment rate on local areas. Factors such as gender, educational level, marital status, housing property are not involved in the mode. Second, our study of the relations between the eight variables and commuting distance is different from some foreign studies. Some of these variables are decisive to long-distance commuters while others are decisive to short-distance commuters. Since the housing property has various types such as commercial housing, affordable housing, leasing of public housing and so on, the housing space does not have obvious effect on long-distance or short-distance commuters. Among all the reasons, migrating is not the main cause of shortening the commuting distance. Those who do not migrate have longer commuting distance because they work in suburban areas. The family life cycle with children in kindergartens or primary schools is not a key factor in shortening the commuting distance as the situation in western countries, because there are boarding nursery kindergartens, welfare on giving birth and nursing, which is different from China. Also, wage earners and specialists are not the key factors effecting commuting distance, because of the passive suburbanization in Beijing.
By using SD (semantic differential) method which is invented in the psychological field, this article studies the relationship between city perception and objective index of nine cities in Taizhou, Zhejiang in order to offer some reference for humanized urban environment. The reason for choosing those cities is that they are suitable for studying by SD method and with the help of the local government, the data are quite easy to obtain. Through face to face interviews, the research provided questionnaire, as far as possible, to those who had opportunities for feeling all of the nine cities. According to final perceptual data, the overall characteristics of Taizhou are quite moderate, but the characteristics differ between different cities. They can be divided into three basic groups. The research indicated that there is a close relation between space perception and objective index of cities. Perceptions which were anticipated to relate with the specific objective index are not completely consistent with the real situation. Relatively speaking, the influence of economic index on perceptions is the biggest; the influence of the city size and location are the second biggest; and the influence of city construction level is the weakest. General economic output has a bigger influence on perception than per capita economic output. Generally speaking, objective index exerts influences on the following perceptions in descending order of degree: modernization perception, perception of city size and prosperity, perception of city ordering, psychological distance and city dimension. By further regression analysis, the research obtains objective index data under specific perceptions. Finally, this case study suggests two enlightenments: first, in order to affect perception effectively, we could strengthen the construction referred to the objective dada which affect perception most. Second, objective index data under specific perceptions could make up for the lack of consideration for people's feeling in some construction standards.
The establishment of the university's new campus exerts important influence on the neighboring village by fueling economic growth, improving villagers' occupation structure, enhancing the economic strength of collectives, and impacting villagers' ideas and behaviors, etc. This paper tries to apply the remote sensing method to the study of commercial business in rural areas. With the help of remote sensing, the phases of economic activities can be obviously observed in near-college villages-the initial changes in system disturbance, rapid growth of commercial activities and the stage of gradual development. The spatial variation of the commercial activities in villages that occurred in different periods is shown on the remote sensing images through the GIS method: (1) The commercial activities extend axially to the inner district of village from the gate of campus living quarter, exhibiting the regularity of distance-decay effect and spatiality. (2) The commercial function of village-level system splits apart gradually, including the high-level variation of commercial operation, division of campus and social space, agglomeration of the commercial space with the same operation. (3) The economic activities assemble on the traffic nodes, spreading statutorily. (4) Commercial operation structure changes regularly with to the development of economy. (5) Shopping trip space for rural residents has the ringed structure of different hierarchies. It is the establishment of Henan University (a comprehensive university) that prompts the population aggregation all of a sudden, turning the western part of Kaifeng into a secondary business centre, which is the primary impetus of the village-level system's economic development. Based on the population growth theory in A-S model and the diversity of consumers' preference in Krugman model, the present paper illustrates the motive of commercial size development, the phenomenon of lasting selection caused by the fact that the agglomeration of population generates the business agglomeration, and the commercial spatial structure development from an unstable disorder to a new stable and orderly condition on a basic regularity as to increasing returns to scale.
Folk religion in Foshan was a prominent phenomenon in this historical period and influenced Foshan's development of urban space. The paper establishes a GIS database for the history of Foshan by extracting basic spatial data in this historical period and information about cultural landscape like temples from ancient maps and relevant literature. Based on the database, the paper analyzes the temporal and spatial changes in cultural landscape of folk religions in Foshan and the socio-cultural spatial meanings connoted by them. Results of the analysis indicate that: (1) During this period, temples as a landscape reached its peak both in number and complexity, featured by Guang-fu clans in the Pearl River Delta, and represented features of a highly developed commercial economy; (2) From the Ming Dynasty to early stage of the Republic of China, the landscape of temples was centered around Zu-miao Pu, Ming-xin Pu and their surrounding areas, displaying a south-to-north expanding tendency in spatial distribution, which showed its correspondence in Foshan's development of urban social space; (3) Cultural landscapes for folk belief in Beidi, with its core in Zu-miao Temple of Foshan (Ling-ying Temple), occupied a significant position. The interpretation of the space of Beidi's tour path uncovers the constitution of the fields of folk religions in Foshan, which, bridged by folk belief in Beidi and centering on Zu-miao Temple, finalized a center-to-four-corners spatial form and integrated the urban socio-cultural space in Foshan.
Tourist flow is a basic question of tourism geography. Accordingly, spatial concentration of tourist flow draws great attention. But present studies have not distinguished its basic types concerning inherent mechanisms. This paper brings in the delimitation technique of Jansen-Verbeke's paper on the basis of domestic tourist flows of Chinese rural residents in 2003~2005. Accordingly, spatial concentration of tourist flow is classified into two basic types, that is, intra-provincial concentration and special-provincial concentration. The results can be obtained as follows: (1) Intra-provincial concentration is constrained by multi-dimensional elements, including provincial size, spatial accessibility, hierarchy of city, socio-economic factors, potential distribution of population, and motivation of travelling. As to the period 2003~2005, about 70% of tourist flows are concentrated intra-provincially. Practically, this examination is helpful to the formation of development strategy called "intra-provincial tourism". Although man-made delimitation contradicts the limitless behavior of travelling, it accords with the true fundamental characteristics. (2) Dissymmetrical flowing of inter-provincial tourist flow induces the formation of special-provincial concentration, characterized by the special pointing which reflects the inter-provincial spatial interaction. Inter-provincial tourist flows mostly inclined to move to neighbouring provinces, to economically-developed regions, to large regional centres in economic, historical and cultural perspectives, to coastal areas. "Polycentric and asymmetrical tourism system" has elementarily formed and takes on a stable spatial pattern. Its "centre-periphery" characters have different meanings for centre (i.e. eastern coastal areas) and periphery (i.e. central and western China). Central areas bear great weight of the large-scale inbound tourist flow while peripheral areas seek development due to regional economic disparities caused by development of tourism. (3) To analyze the evolving tendency from dialectic angle, this paper anticipates that intra-provincial concentration will slow down as special-provincial concentration with the increase of people's emissiveness, continual experiments of people's leisure plan, and the increasingly perfect full paid vacation system. Inter-provincial flowing of tourist flow will be much more frequent in the future.
Tourism industry has been developing rapidly in China in recent years, which poses a big challenge to the balance of protecting the environment and meeting the growing demand of tourists. Therefore, it is very important to cultivate more ecotourists to promote the sustainable development of ecotourism industry in China. In this paper, three indexes which constitute the most important characteristic vectors for the identification and segmentation of ecotourists are discussed firstly. They are EI (Ecotourism Interest, that is, to what degree the tourists are interested in the ecotourism product), NEP (New Ecological Paradigm), and VIS (the amount of time for per visitor visiting relative rural natural regions). In addition, we analyze the interaction among EI, NEP and VIS according to related foreign and domestic case studies. On the basis of the previous research the model is built to illustrate how to cultivate and attract ecotourists. The model can also be summarized as "4-3-2-2". "4" represents four kinds of resistance pressures (including time, income, physical ability and environmental attitude) which prevent general tourists from developing into hard ecotourists. "3" represents three ecotourist classification indexes, which are NEP, VIS and improved EI. The former two indexes are two important breakthroughs for impacting visitor behaviors and the latter one is the final goal of ectourists cultivation. The first "2" represents two phases which will go from general tourists to hard ecotourists. One phase is from general tourists to general ecotourists; the other phase is from general ecotourists to hard ecotourists. The second "2" represents two routes that we can choose to cultivate hard ecotourists. One route is from frequent ecotourists to hard ecotourists; the other route is from occasional ecotourists to hard ecotourists. To overcome the four resistances we should take some concrete measures, such as enhancing the tourism ethnic education and leisure education to tourists, and strengthening the environmental interpretation system in tourism destinations. In addition, tourism operators and scenic spots should also develop more and more new ecotourism products which are more suitable for potential ecotourists.
The annual and seasonal mean wind speeds of upper atmosphere in the period 1980~2006 over China are analyzed for 13 heights (850 hPa, 700 hPa, 500 hPa, 400 hPa, 300 hPa, 250 hPa, 200 hPa, 150 hPa, 100 hPa, 70 hPa, 50 hPa, 30 hPa, 20 hPa) and surface using the radio sounding data from 119 stations. The data are well distributed across the country, and they are standardized before the analysis. The result of our study presents a clear temporal and spatial pattern of mean wind speeds. The country-averaged annual and seasonal mean wind speeds usually increase with height up to 200 hPa, where they reach the maximum. Wind speeds then drop with height between 200~30 hPa, and they again increase above 30 hPa. Mean wind speeds of spring and autumn months bear more similar vertical change with annual mean wind speeds, while winter and summer see a marked contrast, with the winter mean wind speeds at various heights especially above 500 hPa being significantly larger than those of summertime. Generally speaking, mean wind speeds and the yearly range obviously increase from the surface to 200 hPa where subtropical westerly jet stream core is located. The horizontal distribution features of mean wind speeds are also generalized. The surface annual wind speeds are usually larger in western and eastern coastal regions, and smaller in central parts of China; Higher annual mean wind speeds at 500 hPa are observed in eastern China, with the maximum wind speeds spot over the Liaodong Peninsula of Northeast China, and lower wind speeds at this height go over the Tibetan Plateau; Annual mean maximum wind speeds at 200 hPa are between the Yangtze and Huaihe rivers. At the surface, seasonal mean wind speeds have a similar horizontal distribution with annual ones. At 500 hPa, however, the maximum wind speeds for different seasons are obviously distributed in different regions. The belt of maximum wind speeds in wintertime are observed in southern China, while it moves to the north and extends to the west in summertime. Maximum seasonal mean wind speeds at 200 hPa are seen in an east-west belt. The belt is located between the Yangtze and Huaihe rivers in spring months, in southern Xinjiang and western Inner Mongolia in summertime, between the Yellow and Huaihe rivers in autumn, and in southern China in wintertime, which corresponds well to the seasonal movements of subtropical westerly jet stream at the upper troposphere.
Based on daily temperature and precipitation data of 603 meteorological stations from 1971 to 2000, the spatio-temporal patterns of climatic change in China were analyzed using ArcGIS and Self-organizing Feature Map (SOFM) neural network model. The results show that the overall trend of climatic change in China from 1971 to 2000 was warming, and characterized by warmer and wetter in most areas except for the Sichuan basin, a small part of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau and the northeast of the Tibetan Plateau. Similar to the annual trends, seasonal patterns of climatic change also exhibited warmer and wetter variation except for autumn. In autumn, the climatic change could be warmer and drier. Besides, it was hard to identify the areas that turned colder in autumn. No area was found to turn colder and drier in winter. The climatic change in China in recent 30 years showed there were significant interdecadal differences. The general trend of climatic change was dominated by temperature decrease from 1971 to 1980, while from 1981 to 2000, it reversed. The area that turned wetter during the period of 1981~1990 tended to be drier in the following 10 years. To compare with the results using Kriging Interpolation, we divided the meteorological stations into four types using SOFM. Based on the One-Way ANOVA test and statistical analysis of the properties, the clustering result of climatic change using SOFM was identified in four types: small warming rate with negative precipitation rate, dramatic warming rate with stable precipitation, small warming and precipitation rate, as well as dramatic warming and precipitation rate. There were two distribution areas of the first type. One included the North China Plain, the Loess Plateau and the Sichuan Basin, and the other concentrated in southern China. The second type consisted of Jilin and Liaoning provinces, the central part of Inner Mongolia, the Loess Plateau, the northeast of the Tibetan Plateau, some parts of Xinjiang and most parts of southern China. The third type was distributed in the northern part of Northeast China, the southeast of the Tibetan Plateau, most parts of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau and the north of Xinjiang. The fourth type was the most concentrated one and it had the least stations as well. It was located in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River plain and Central China.
By using observed phenological and meteorological data from 1978 to 2007 at Guiyang station, the variation of 71 woody plants' five primary phenophases and their responses to climate change were analyzed, especially focused on the link between phenophases changes and climate changes before the phenophase onset, including leaf bud sprouting, first leaf unfolding, first flowering, leaf fully coloring and leaf fully defoliation. Conclusions are obtained as follows. 1) Since 1978, the mean annual temperature has dropped in oscillations totally, and decreased sharply after 2000, of which summer (June to August) temperature declined markedly, but spring (February to April) temperature had no clear variation except a slight increase of February temperature. 2) Three spring phenophases showed advancement generally, with advancement of 17 days for leaf bud sprouting, advancement of 15.5 days for first leaf unfolding and advancement of 16.7 days for first flowering during the past 30 years. But in the meantime, autumn phenophase delayed, with 19 days deleyed in leaf fully coloring and 14.3 days postponed of leaf fully defoliation. 3) Statistically significant correlation was found between the changes of spring phenophases and the mean temperature of one or several months before the phenophase onset, and the mean monthly temperature of February was the key indicator to the three spring phenophases. With 1℃ increase of monthly temperature of February, leaf bud sprouting, first leaf unfolding and first flowering advanced 3.4 days, 3.3 days and 3.1days, respectively. In addition, the sunshine duration change in February or March also played an important role in advancement of spring phenophase. 4) The variation of phenophases in autumn and winter had no clear relationship with the monthly temperature, precipitation and sunshine duration respectively, due to the complexity of the autumn phenological variations and wide influence on them.
Under the condition of dependence of karst ecosystems on vegetation, different types of human activities can induce rocky desertification peak cluster-depressions landscape pattern due to the fact that these activities are constrained by the spatial structure of the soil distribution. The soil distribution of peak cluster-depression is affected by natural conditions such as lithological character, geologic structure, slope, soil loss and so on, thus the special phenomenon of soil dual structure forms: discontinuous and inadequate surface soil, adequate soil stack underground. Because there is insufficient soil at the surface, water conservation mainly depends on vegetation and forest withered leaves at surface in the karst ecosystem, and the plant itself also becomes an important factor for soil forming, so, the biology effect is remarkable during karst process, and the ecosystem strongly relies on vegetation. In peak cluster-depression areas, the primary activity is traditional agriculture which supplies the basic food and energy: cultivating land for farming, felling trees for building materials and energy, cleaning up brush and wasteland for grazing and so on. So farming, grazing and deforesting are the most important human activities that affect the peak cluster vegetation. Human activities can result in mild rocky desertification landscape on gentle-slope cultivated land, moderate rocky desertification landscape along with the soil erosion on slopes, and evolved higher level rocky desertification on steep slopes. Grazing and deforesting on steep slopes of peak cluster can directly cause a large area of moderate-high strength rock desertification landscape on the upper part of the peak cluster, furthermore the rocky desertification landscape differentiation emerges on steep slopes and peak cluster, and presents different land use patterns.
Silt-trap dam is a type of projects used for intercepting and depositing sediment in channels with serious soil erosion. Its construction is of great significance to controling soil erosion, improving ecological environment quality, realizing regional sustainable development, and insuring ecological safety in the Loess Plateau. Although much progress has been made in silt-trap dam construction since the founding of P. R. China, until now, there are still many important theoretical problems that need further study. The systematic research of the effects of geographical factors on dam system construction is insufficient and needs special attention. This paper first selected the main geographic factors that may influence silt-trap dam construction and reviewed the related previous studies, employed a methodology that combined qualitative analysis and quantitative accumulation, macroscopic research and microscopic case analysis, analyzed the influences of soil erosion modulus, channel density and rural population density on silt-trap dams construction in small watersheds. Finally, this paper selected the case study area in the arenaceous and coarse sand region, mid-stream of the Yellow River, studied the main factors that resulted in the spatial variation and restriction of silt-trap dams construction using GIS technology. The main conclusions of this study are: (1) The density of silt-trap dam is not significantly related with physical geographic factors, although the physical geographic factors represented by soil erosion modulus and channel density are important factors that need to be considered during silt-trap dam plan and construction. (2) Human geographic factors represented by rural population density have significant influence on silt-trap dam construction.
Mountains in the Upper Yangtze River are characterized by marked variations in climate, landforms, biodiversity, and they occupy a prominent position in the study of global mountains. Diversiform mountain altitudinal belts (MABs) in this region are especially significant in the Eurasia and even in the world. To validate and refine the Quadratic Model for MABs, on the basis of digital mountain altitudinal belts (MABs) classification system, this paper collected and analyzed 50 typical altitudinal belt spectra in the Upper Yangtze River. MABs show quite different characteristics from the head-water source region, to the Hengduan Range, Qinling-Daba mountains and to the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau. The structures of MABs in the head-water source region are very simple and normally they have 3 to 4 MABs, and there are no forest belts in this region. However, the structures in the Hengduan Range are very complex and the number of the belts ranges from 4~5 to 7~8. Forest belts especially coniferous belts are dominant in this region. Another characteristic of MABs in this region is that arid valley shrub belts below the base belt are very common; the structures of MABs in the Qinling-Daba mountains and the Guizhou Plateau are relatively simple and forest belts are also dominant. The height of the snowline is closely related to longitude and latitude and it drops firstly and then rises along longitude when moving eastwards in this region. Similarly, the snowline rises along latitude when moving northwards. The height of forest line drops along longitude or latitude when moving eastwards or northwards respectively. Spatial analysis of snowline, forest line, coniferous forest and broad-leaved forest also shows that the linear model or quadratic model could quantitatively describe the relation between the height and latitude or longitude of MABs; at the meantime, the models have scale effects, that is to say, on the middle or small scale, the influence of landform is marked and needs to be studied in the future.
In this paper, MODWT multi-scale decomposition methods are used to decompose the monthly average tidal records of eight tidal gauge stations in northwest Pacific Ocean marginal seas during 1965~2005. Furthermore, multi-scale fluctuation and spatial differentiation characteristics in these areas are discussed. The results indicate that all the stations are identified with annual fluctuating periods, and their change scopes in south of Zhapo, China coast and north of Kanmen are 50 mm, 70~90 mm and 65 mm, respectively. The change scopes of semiannual periods in three China coast tide gauges vary from 50 to 60 mm, which is larger than those of other gauges. When the change scopes of the inter-annual oscillations decrease from low latitude to high latitude, the scopes in Cube, Legaspi and Inchon are about 65 mm, while it decreases to about 45 mm in other stations. Mode mixing, which is mainly manifested as series configuration and phase difference at different time spans, is predominantly combined with ENSO signal and quasi-periodic oscillations of 1~2 years. The mode mixing signals can be clearly extracted by using ICA method, and the ENSO signal extracted by ICA filtering can be compared well with MEI index. The responses of sea level to ENSO in different stations decrease from low to high latitude, which are manifested by the amplitude of ENSO signal. Wavelet semblance analysis is introduced to analyze the correlation between ENSO signal and MEI index. The results show that sea levels of low latitude zone are mainly negatively correlated with ENSO at each scale, while sea levels of high latitude zone are mainly positively correlated. In mid-high latitude zone, the responses of sea level to ENSO are significantly different before 1980 and hereafter, which might be related to the frequency change of ENSO. The responses of sea level to ENSO show remarkable particularity at about 80-month scale during 1982~1983 and 1997~1998, which are identified as the two strongest ENSO events during the 20th century. The comprehensive analysis of this relative long-time scale may be helpful to the further understanding of the mechanism and process of these two strongest ENSO events.
Land use/land cover change (LUCC) has a significant impact on the eco-environment. This article studied LUCC of the Chaohu Lake Basin based on multi-year TM image data, and the theory of ecosystem services values. The economic values of ecosystem services of the Chaohu Lake Basin in 1979, 1988, 1995, 2000, 2005 and 2008 were estimated, and changes caused by LUCC in the past 30 years were analyzed. According to the spatial distribution of ecosystems and land types of the heterogeneity of the natural and economic characteristics, the ecosystem services values of different regions have great difference. Based on the geographical classification of grassland of Xie Gaodi and others, and combined with the local actual status, the article amended the ecosystem service value of unit area. As the Chaohu Lake Basin is mainly composed of paddy fields, the ecological services value is relatively high. Considering that paddy fields are featured by two crops a year in the region, the ecological services value of farmland is twice as much as the value of the national average. The ecosystem services value of grassland and forests is equal to 1.45 times of the national average value. The results showed that the ecosystem services value in the study area has decreased by 831.68 × 106 Yuan in the past 30 years, or 27.7 × 106 Yuan every year. The changing speed is increasing with the time. In addition, the loss of the ecosystem services value is also very uneven in space, for example, the loss of the ecosystem services value of unit area in Hefei is 5 times more than the average in the Chaohu Basin each year. This shows that the expansion of large cities in the Chaohu Lake Basin has a significant influence on the gains and losses of ecosystem service value.
Wetlands are one of the most important ecosystems on Earth and the major feature of the landscape in almost all parts of the world, which is very important to the sustainable development of anthropogenic society at a regional or global scale. Taking Dongting Lake as a study region, this paper firstly established evaluation indicators of wetland health concerning hydrology, ecology and environment according to the feature of wetlands and principle of PSR (Pressure-State-Response) model. Secondly, multi-temporal remote sensing data were acquired by TM (Thematic Mapper) sensor onboard of American Landsat satellite system, geographical data, land use/cover data, field detection data and social statistic data. Thirdly, special information of each evaluation indicator was extracted from different data sources and analyzed. Finally, a PSR model supported by GIS was used to evaluate and analyze wetland ecosystem health. The results show that the areas with better, generic and worse health conditions account for 19%, 75% and 6% of the total area respectively, and that there are no areas with best and worst health conditions. The wetland ecosystem health condition is better in Xiangyin County, Yuanjiang County and Yueyang County. The health condition of Yiyang County is worse. The other counties belong to the average grade of health.
The net CO2exchange between the atmosphere and alpine meadow ecosystem (NEE) and standard meteorological parameters were measured by Eddy covariance technique in Damxung County, Tibet from 2004 to 2006. Based on the data, net CO2exchange response characteristic of alpine meadow ecosystem on Tibet Plateau to diffuse radiation was analyzed. The ground conditions can be separated into three types: cloud-gap sky condition, clear-sky condition and overcast-sky condition by the clearness index as a criterion. Although in cloud-gap and overcast situations the diffuse radiation can be enhanced, the ground surface under a cloud-gap sky receives the same amount of direct beam radiation as under a clear sky, while under overcast sky, the direct beam radiation is reduced. We compared the enhanced NEE from three sky conditions for 5° interval of solar elevation angles and 5℃ interval of soil temperature. The results show that the scatterplots between the net ecosystem CO2 exchange and clear index present a different pattern in three ground conditions. It is shown that, no matter whether the site is under a clear sky, a cloud-gap sky or an overcast sky, the carbon uptake does not tend to be enhanced. That is to say, the trend of change on the net ecosystem CO2 exchange with the clear index was not affected by diffuse radiation, but affected by coupling effect of the solar radiation intensity and the soil temperature. During the daytime, photosynthetically active radiation dominated the carbon absorption, and soil temperature dominated the carbon emission. Generally speaking, the maximal NEE occurs under three skies with the soil temperature at 15℃, and the clearness index between 0.7 and 0.8.
In this study, pot experiments using the Beijing alluvial soils were conducted to examine the effects of hexavalent chromium (Cr), concentrations ranging from 0 to 50 mg·kg-1, on the biomass and Cr concentrations of pakchoi (Brassica chinensis L.), soil microbial biomass carbon, soil microbial biomass nitrogen and soil microbial respiration. The results showed that in the high Cr concentration treatments (with addition ≥25 mg·kg-1), the Cr concentrations in pakchoi leaves increased significantly compared with the control treatment (P<0.01). The total Cr concentrations in pakchoi roots were much greater than those in leaves. Compared with the control treatment, the biomass of pakchoi leaf increased significantly in the 1 mg·kg-1 Cr treatment, while its biomass decreased significantly in the high Cr concentration treatments (≥10 mg·kg-1) (P<0.01) and the highest decreasing extent was up to 78.2%. In the 50 mg·kg-1 Cr treatment, the soil microbial biomass carbon, microbial biomass nitrogen and respiration rate were significantly lower than these indicators of control treatments. The biomass and total Cr concentration of pakchoi leaves, soil microbial biomass carbon, soil microbial biomass nitrogen and soil microbial respiration rate could all be sensitively served as biological indicators to reflect the pollution extent of soil Cr. By using these indicators and the corresponding total Cr concentrations of soil, we could obtain the fitting equations. Based on the conceptions of crop yield reduction, food safety and ecological dose, we could calculate the Cr mild pollution critical concentration of Beijing alluvial soil ED10 (70.8 mg·kg-1) and the Cr moderate pollution critical concentration of Beijing alluvial soil ED50 (111.6 mg·kg-1). The results would be helpful to the revision and rebuilding of soil environmental criteria.
Waste is not only an important influencing factor on the tourism eco-environment, but also the focus of tourism environment research. This paper reviews the related literatures on the research of tourism wastes published in recent years. It is found that the issue of tourist wastes has aroused wide concern in the world. The relative studies covered a wide range regarding their contents and study areas, including tourism development, tourist activity, and composition of the tourism industries as well as all spaces that may be involved. But in China, the studies on the tourist wastes are still on the initial stage and mainly descriptive. Most of the studies about the methods and measurements on the management of tourism wastes focus on theoretical discussion and have no practical value. The suitable management system for handling the tourism wastes in the scenic spots and areas has not been established in China. This paper put forward some suggestions as follows. (1) Great importance should be attached to the studies on the management of the tourism wastes, which is the foundation of the sustainable development of the tourism industry of China; (2) The research methods should be improved; (3) The waste disposal technology should be upgraded; (4) Waste management should be strengthened. In addition, the study on the harmless processing of the wastes from the increasing wilderness regions recreation is still in the primary stage. Further studies on the tourist wastes are still needed.
The acquisition grassland snow information has important significance for the determination of grassland snow disaster influence scope and disaster grade. On the basis of the advantages and disadvantages of optical remote sensing and microwave remote sensing applied to monitor grass snow, this paper presents the business process monitoring real-time grassland snow in China based on effective cooperation between optical MODIS data and passive microwave AMSR-E data, which describes the correlated algorithms and implementation steps. Then, according to the Ministry of Agriculture requirement, we carried out an all-weather real-time monitoring of the snowstorm situation of grassland in Inner Mongolia, one of the worst snowstorm-stricken regions in China, from December 1, 2007 to January 2008, and finally, we obtained the actual result, based on 51 days of continuous monitoring data, from which we can learn the space-time state during the monitoring period of the grassland in Inner Mongolia. This paper presents that the multi-source remote sensing data for the fusion application algorithm and technical route in monitoring grassland snow, and implements all-weather real-time monitoring for grassland snow. This can be applied in vocational operation of grassland snow monitoring to promote the snow disaster and disaster reduction emergency response associatecl with advanced remote sensing application level and monitoring accuracy. This can satisfy the emergency needs of the national snowstorm disaster reduction.
This paper takes three main wetland distributing counties of Dongtai, Dafeng and Sheyang of Yancheng as study areas. With the processing of four-period (every six years from 1988 to 2006) remote sensing (RS) images, a dynamic change analysis of the Yancheng wetland types was illuminated at first. Then, according to the results of the RS images interpretation, the change prediction of the wetland types was analyzed by using cellular automata (CA) model based on extension matter-element model and Markov model. The results are shown as follows: (1) It is a feasible method in wetland types prediction according to the comparability (70%) after the comparison between the results calculated by CA model based on extension matter-element model and the remote sensing classification. (2) The results of CA model based on extension matter-element model is greatly consistent with the results of the results of Markov model, that is, the aquaculture farm is the main wetland type covering areas of 750.06 km2 and 740.20 km2 in 2006, respectively. Generally, the area of cropland, residential land, aquaculture farm, Spartina patens and seepweed has an increasing tendency, while the area of mudflat, reed and brine pan tends to decrease sharply. Spartina patens will become the dominant species gradually due to its evolution trend. The most important reason for these changes is the current policy of large-scale coastal exploitation.
Poyang Lake wetland, as an important wetland in the world, is known for its periodic variation of water level in a year affected by the Yangtze River and its tributaries of Ganjiang, Fujiang, Xinjiang, Raojiang and Xiushui rivers. It is very significant to understand the variation of water level for rational exploitation and conservancy of the wetland. This paper, taking Poyang Lake Nature Reserve as a study area, developed a model to simulate the water level and the status of submersion or emersion of wetland using DEM, multi-temporal images and multi-year water level data. First, a new water index FDWI was created to identify the water pixels based on spectrum feature difference between bands 2 and 7 of Landsat TM. The accuracy of classification for water and non-water reaches about 98%. Spatial overlay analysis was performed to obtain the elevations of both water and non-water pixels. Two normal distribution curves were then presented according to elevation statistics. The elevation in the crossed point of two curves was set as the value of water level. With the water level correlation analysis between wetland and Poyang Lake, the regression equations in different lake buffer areas were developed. Furthermore, the model for water level and status of submersion or emersion of wetland was constructed, concerning the topography, buffer areas and water level of Poyang Lake. Finally, the model was validated in estimating the temporal changes of water level of wetland for flood, normal and dry years respectively, as well as in simulating the spatial distribution of both water and non-water pixels of wetland on October 9, 2000. The result shows that the model has satisfactory simulated effect with accuracy above 85%.
