Identification of regional pattern of climate change risk in China under different global warming targets

Climate change will bring huge risks to human society and the economy. Regional climate change risk assessment is an important basic analysis for addressing climate change, which can be expressed as a regional system of comprehensive climate change risk. This study establishes regional systems of climate change risks under the proposed global warming targets. Results of this work are spatial patterns of climate change risks in China, indicated by the degree of climate change and the status of th...     

Spatiotemporal patterns of the daily relative risk of COVID-19 in China

The coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19) pandemic continues to threaten lives and the economy around the world. Estimating the risk of COVID-19 can help in predicting spreading trends, identifying risk areas, and making public health decisions. In this study, we proposed a comparative risk assessment method to estimate comprehensive and dynamic COVID-19 risks by considering the pandemic severity and the healthcare system pressure and then employing the z-order curve and fractal theory. We took the COVID-19 cases from January 19–March 10, 2020 in China as our research object. The results and analysis revealed that(1) the proposed method demonstrated its feasibility to assess and illustrate pandemic risk;(2) the temporal patterns of the daily relative risk indices of 31 provinces were clustered into four groups(high-value, fluctuating-increase, inverted U-shaped, and low-stable);(3) the spatial distribution of the relative pandemic risk indicated a significant circular pattern centered on Hubei Province; and(4) healthcare system capacity is the key to reducing relative pandemic risk, and cases imported from abroad should be given more attention. The methods and results of this study will provide a methodological basis and practical guidance for regional pandemic risk assessment and public health decision-making.     

祁连山冰川变化及其脆弱性

Glaciers are a reliable freshwater resource in arid regions of West China and the vulnerability of its changes is closely related to regional ecosystem services and economic sustainable development. Here, we took the Qilian Mountains as an example and analyzed the spatiotemporal characteristics of glacier changes from 1998 to 2018, based on remote sensing images and the Second Chinese Glacier Inventory. We estimated the basic organizational framework and evaluation index system of glacier change vulnerability from exposure, sensitivity and adaptability, which covered the factors of physical geography, population status and socio-economic level. We analyzed the spatial and temporal evolutions of glacier change vulnerability by using the vulnerability evaluation model. Our results suggested that:(1) Glacier area and volume decreased by 71.12±98.98 km² and 5.59±4.41 km³, respectively, over the recent two decades, which mainly occurred at the altitude below 4800 m, with an area shrinking rate of 2.5%. In addition, glaciers in the northern aspect(northwest, north and northeast) had the largest area reduction. Different counties exhibited remarkable discrepancies in glacier area reduction, Tianjuan and Minle presented the maximum and minimum decrease, respectively.(2) Glacier change vulnerability level showed a decreasing trend in space from the central to the northwestern and southeastern regions with remarkable differences. Vulnerability level had increased significantly over time and was mainly concentrated in moderate, high and extreme levels with typical characteristics of phases and regional complexity. Our study can not only help to understand and master the impacts of recent glacier changes on natural and social aspects but also be conducive to evaluate the influences of glacier retreat on socio-economic developments in the future, thus providing references for formulating relevant countermeasures to achieve regional sustainable development.     

资源环境承载力综合评价方法在西藏产业结构调整中的应用

With the degradation of natural resources and environment caused by industrial development in some developing countries,the requirement of implementing a“social ecological”approach to development is imminent.Resource and environment carrying capacity provides a means of assessing regional development potential by measuring regional sustainable development in terms of economy,population and resources&environment.This study develops a conceptual framework for resource and environment carrying capacity estimation to support the co-development planning of industries,population and resources&environment.First,the framework constructs an index system for evaluating importance of industry or influence based on the role of industry played in the local socio-economic system.Then,the framework computes the quantitative relations through the importance of local industry,population size and resource utilization and environment effects,and subsequently estimates the resource and environment carrying capacity of the study area.With a particular attention to its land resources,water resources and environment,the Tibet case study shows that:the non-ferrous metal mining,tourism,liquor and refined tea industries play a pillar role in the Tibet’s socio-economic system;under each industrial structure,land resource carrying capacity is the weakest,and water resources carrying capacity is the strongest;to focus on tourism will improve local resource and environment carrying capacity.The research results provide a solid guide for Tibet government’s co-actions in industrial restructuring,ecological protection,and the pursuit of economic development.This study will contribute to bridge the gap between theoretical research and practical applications of resource and environment carrying capacity,and help local governments plan the regional“socio-ecological”sustainable development.     

城市暴雨内涝情景模拟与灾害风险评估

Scenario modelling and the risk assessment of natural disasters is one of the hot-spots in disaster research.However,up until now,urban natural disaster risk assessments lack common procedures and programmes.This paper selects rainstorm waterlogging as a disaster to research,which is one of the most frequently occurring hazards for most cities in China.As an example,we used a small-scale integrated methodology to assess risks relating to rainstorm waterlogging hazards in the Jing’an District of Shanghai.Based on the basic concept of disaster risk,this paper applies scenario modelling to express the risk of small-scale urban rainstorm waterlogging disasters in different return periods.Through this analysis of vulnerability and exposure,we simulate different disaster scenarios and propose a comprehensive analysis method and procedure for small-scale urban storm waterlogging disaster risk assessments.A grid-based Geographical Information System (GIS) approach,including an urban terrain model,an urban rainfall model and an urban drainage model,was applied to simulate inundation area and depth.Stage-damage curves for residential buildings and contents were then generated by the loss data of waterlogging from field surveys,which were further applied to analyse vulnerability,exposure and loss assessment.Finally,the ex-ceedance probability curve for disaster damage was constructed using the damage of each simulated event and the respective exceedance probabilities.A framework was also devel-oped for coupling the waterlogging risk with the risk planning and management through the exceedance probability curve and annual average waterlogging loss.This is a new explora-tion for small-scale urban natural disaster scenario simulation and risk assessment.     

A study on sustainable development capacity of China''s coastal areas using indices dimension reduction method

1 IntroductionThe construction of sustainable development capacity (SDC) is a key element in "China's Agenda 21". In recent years, there are different comprehensions about the concept of SDC. The current paper takes the broad sense of the concept and applies it in regional study of the coastal areas of China. The so-called regional SDC means the overall strength and power of a regional socioeconomic and natural system in its way to sustainable development. The coastal areas of China cons…     

Farmers＇ vulnerability to flood risk： A case study in the Poyang Lake Region

This paper quantitatively explores farmers＇ vulnerability to flood in the Poyang Lake Region （PLR） with the supports of GIS spatial functions. The analysis consists of three major steps, which is based on the spatial unit of township. Firstly, the spatial extent and characteristics of flood risk areas were determined using a digital elevation model （DEM） derived from the 1：50,000 topographic map. Secondly, for each of the township, six indices indicating the economic activities of local farmers were calculated. These indices are： rural population proportion, cultivated land proportion, GDP per unit area, employment proportion of primary industry, net rural income per capita and agricultural income proportion. These six indices were then normalized and used for later vulnerability assessment. Thirdly, the normalized indices （as GIS data layers） were overlaid with the flood risk areas to produce the risk coefficient for each township and to calculate the overall vulnerability for each township. The analysis results show that in the PLR there are high flood risk areas where the farmers＇ livings are seriously influenced or threatened. About 55.56% of the total 180 townships in the flood risk areas have a high degree of flood vulnerability. The townships under flood risk are mainly distributed in the areas around the Poyang Lake and the areas along the ＂five rivers＂.     

鄱阳湖区洪灾风险与农户脆弱性分析

This paper quantitatively explores farmers' vulnerability to flood in the Poyang Lake Region (PLR) with the supports of GIS spatial functions. The analysis consists of three major steps,which is based on the spatial unit of township. Firstly,the spatial extent and charac-teristics of flood risk areas were determined using a digital elevation model (DEM) derived from the 1:50,000 topographic map. Secondly,for each of the township,six indices indicating the economic activities of local farmers were calculated. These indices are: rural population proportion,cultivated land proportion,GDP per unit area,employment proportion of primary industry,net rural income per capita and agricultural income proportion. These six indices were then normalized and used for later vulnerability assessment. Thirdly,the normalized indices (as GIS data layers) were overlaid with the flood risk areas to produce the risk coeffi-cient for each township and to calculate the overall vulnerability for each township. The analysis results show that in the PLR there are high flood risk areas where the farmers' livings are seriously influenced or threatened. About 55.56% of the total 180 townships in the flood risk areas have a high degree of flood vulnerability. The townships under flood risk are mainly distributed in the areas around the Poyang Lake and the areas along the "five rivers".     

Soil erosion risk evaluation using GIS in the Yuanmou County, a dry-hot valley of Yunnan, China

Soil erosion is a major threat to sustainable agriculture. Evaluating regional erosion risk is increasingly needed by national and in-ternational environmental agencies. This study elaborates a model (using spatial principal component analysis [SPCA]) method for the evaluation of soil erosion risk in a representative area of dry-hot valley (Yuanmou County) at a scale of 1:100,000 using a spatial database and GIS. The model contains seven factors: elevation, slope, annual precipitation, land use, vegetation, soil, and population density. The evaluation results show that five grades of soil erosion risk: very low, low, medium, high, and very high. These are divided in the study area, and a soil erosion risk evaluation map is created. The model may be applicable to other areas of China because it utilizes spatial data that are generally available.     

Adaptive evolution of the rural human–environment system in farming and pastoral areas of northern China from 1952–2017

The theory on the cyclic adaptation between society and ecosystems sheds new light on the evolution and internal structure of human–environment systems. This paper introduces the risk index(RI) and adaptation capacity index(ACI) to evaluate the rural human–environment system. An evaluation index system for the adaptability of rural human–environment systems is configured in the context of climate change and policy implementation. On this basis, the stages, features, dominant control factors, and evolution mechanism were examined vis-à-vis the adaptability of the rural human–environment system in Darhan Muminggan Joint Banner from 1952 to 2017. The main results are as follows:(1) The evolution of the rural human–environment system can be divided into three stages, namely, the reorganization and rapid development stage(1952–2002) with population, cultivated land, livestock and degraded grassland increasing by 260%, 13%, 134% and 16.33%, respectively. The rapid to stable development stage(2003–2010) with population increasing by 2.8%; cultivated land, livestock and degraded grassland decreasing by 2.3%, 13.6% and 10.7%, respectively. The stable to release stage(2011–2017) with population, cultivated land, livestock and degraded grassland decreasing by 2.6%, 0.2%, 10.6% and 3.8%, respectively.(2) With the passage of time, the ACI of the rural human–environment system first increased slightly(–0.016–0.031), followed by a slight decline(0.031–0.003), and culminating in a rapid increase(0.003–0.088). In terms of spatial patterns, adaptability is high in the middle, moderate in the north, and low in the south.(3) The evolution of adaptability in the rural human–environment system was mainly controlled by the per capita effective irrigation area(22.31%) and the per capita number of livestock(23.47%) from 1990 to 2000, the desertified area(25.06%) and the land use intensity(21.27%) from 2000 to 2005, and the per capita income of farmers and herdsmen(20.08%) and the per capita number of livestock(18.52%) from 2010 to 2007.(4) Under the effects of climate change and policy interventions, the cyclic adaptation of the rural human–environment system was propelled by the interactions between two kinds of subjects: farmers and herdsmen on the one hand and rural communities on the other hand. The interaction affects the adaptive behavior of the two kinds of subjects, which in turn drives the cyclic evolution of the system. As a result, the system structure and functions developed alternatively between coordinated and uncoordinated states. Small-scale adaptive behaviors of farmers and herdsmen have a profound impact on the evolution of the rural human–environment system.     

Evolution of rural multifunction and its natural and socioeconomic factors in coastal China

Rural decline has become a global problem. To address this issue, the division of rural functions and identification of driving factors are important means of rural revitalization.Taking the town area as a unit, this study conducts a division and evolution analysis of rural regional functions in Jiangsu province in coastal China by constructing an evaluation system using the spatial econometric model to diagnose endogenous and exogenous driving factors of rural multifunction formation. The resul...     

新疆克拉玛依市生态敏感性研究(英文)

Karamay City is a typical mining city, relying on oilfield exploration and development. After 60 years of construction and development, Karamay has become the first large oilfield and an important base of the national petroleum and petrochemical industry in China. Based on spatial analysis, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) grid computing and overlay techniques, whilst considering the effect of oilfield development and aimed at the ecological problems of Karamay City in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China, we conducted research on the spatial characteristics of the comprehensive ecological sensitivity of Karamay. The ecological problems of natural environment evolution include soil erosion, land deserti-fication, soil salinization, and biodiversity reduction. The most significant disturbance factor from the activities of humans in this area is oilfield exploitation. This study carries out an analysis of single factor ecological problem sensitivity and integrated ecological sensitivity. The results of the research are as follows: (1) Soil erosion is relatively sensitive, especially in Karamay district, Dushanzi district, north of Urho district and west of Baijiantan district, which is mainly a result of the vertical dropping slopes, serious rainfall erosion and the distribution of scattered woodland. (2) The main types of land desertification are represented by high and moderate grade sensitivities, and high and extremely high sensitive areas are distributed in the intersection of Karamay and Baijiantan districts. This is due to evaporation exceeding rainfall in these areas, and the soil mainly consists of sand and is seldom covered by vegetation. (3) The soil salinizatiion sensitivity grades are mainly moderate, high and extremely high. The highly sensitive areas are mainly distributed in southeast of Baijiantan district, north and east of Karamay district and east of Urho district. The primary causes are evaporation exceeding rainfall and extreme human activities. (4) The main types of biodiversity sensitivity are light and moderate grade. Highly sensitive areas are located in the east and south of Karamay district, north of the Baiyang River basin and parts of the wetland areas. (5) Oil fields development areas are highly ecologically sensitive, which are located in the northern oilfields of Urho district, western oilfields of Baijiantan district, northwestern oilfields of Karamay district and central oilfields of Dushanzi district. (6) The main types of integrated ecological sen-sitivity are high and moderate. The high and extremely highly sensitive areas are located in the central and northern parts of Karamay district, and southwest of Baijiantan district. The evaluation results will provide guidance for the future planning and development, the protection of the ecological environment and the realization of harmonious social, economic, and ecological development in Karamay City.     

长株潭城市群地区乡村功能的动态演变及驱动机制（英文）

As the Rural Revitalization Strategy is gradually implemented, China's rural areas are set to have more diverse function requirements. This paper selects the Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan region(Chang-Zhu-Tan) consisting of 23 county-level units) as a case study and looks at its economic development, agricultural product supply, social security and ecological service functions during 1996–2016. It then constructs an index system to evaluate the temporal evolution of the region's rural functions. SPSS 19.0 and DPS 7.05 software, as well as Pearson's correlation coefficient analysis, system clustering, optimal segmentation of ordered samples and other methods, are used to study the evolution traits, regional differentiation characteristics and driving forces of rural functions in the region. The results show, first of all, that the overall evolution trend is increasing in functions with periodic characteristics, the key nodes being 2000 and 2008. Second, there is clear geographical differentiation in the evolution of rural functions. The economic development function shows rapid growth in the urban agglomeration's center and relatively weak growth at the periphery; the agricultural product supply function and ecological service function are concentrated in county-level units with abundant cultivated and forest land; and the social security function displays similar geographical differentiation to the economic development function. Overall, there is an obvious discrepancy in the degree of development of rural functions among county-level units of the Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan urban agglomeration; the rural functions of the agglomeration and peripheral county-level units have different development traits; and county-level units display functional differentiation. Third, rural functions have evolved as a result of interactions between various factors, such as natural resources, socio-economic conditions and local transport conditions. The new driving forces caused by urbanization are ultimately leading the evolution of rural functions toward multi-functional comprehensive development.     

中国能源生态效率的空间格局与空间效应（英文）

Energy eco-efficiency is a concept integrating ecological and economic benefits arising from energy utilization and serves as a measure of efficiency in the energy–environment–economy system. Using the slacks-based measure(SBM) model considering undesirable output, this study first measures the energy eco-efficiency of provinces in China from 1997 to 2012. It then analyzes the spatial distribution and evolution of energy eco-efficiency from three aspects: scale, intensity, and grain of spatial patterns. Finally, it examines the spatial spillover effects and influencing factors of energy eco-efficiency in different provinces by means of a spatial econometric model. The following conclusions are drawn:(1) The overall energy eco-efficiency is relatively low in China, with energy-inefficient regions accounting for about 40%. Guangdong, Hainan and Fujian provinces enjoy the highest energy eco-efficiency, while Ningxia, Gansu, Qinghai, and Xinjiang are representative regions with low efficiency. Thus, the pattern of evolution of China's overall energy eco-efficiency is U-shaped. Among local regions, four main patterns of evolution are found: increasing, fluctuating, mutating, and leveling.(2) At the provincial level, China's energy eco-efficiency features significant spatial agglomeration both globally and locally. High–high agglomeration occurs mainly in the eastern and southern coastal regions and low–low agglomeration in the northwestern region and the middle reaches of the Yellow River. Changes in spatial patterns have occurred mainly in areas with high–low and low–high agglomeration, with the most remarkable change taking place in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region.(3) There exist significant spatial effects of energy eco-efficiency among provinces in China. For the energy eco-efficiency of a given region, spatial spillovers from adjacent regions outweigh the influence of errors in adjacent regions. Industrial structure has the greatest influence on energy eco-efficiency.     

中国天气发生器的降水模拟

A stochastic model for daily precipitation simulation in China was developed based on the framework of a ‘Richardson-type‘ weather generator that is an important tool in studying impacts of weather/climate on a variety of systems including ecosystem and risk assessment. The purpose of this work is to develop a weather generator for applications in China. The focus is on precipitation simulation since determination of other weather variables such as temperature is dependent on precipitation simulation. A framework of first order Markov Chain with Gamma Distribution for daily precipitation is adopted in this work. Based on this framework, four parameters of precipitation simulation for each month at 672 stations all over China were determined using daily precipitation data from 1961 to 2000. Compared with previous works, our estimation for the parameters was made for more stations and longer observations, which makes the weather generator more applicable and reliable. Spatial distributions of the four parameters are analyzed in a regional climate context. The seasonal variations of these parameters at five stations representing regional differences are discussed.Based on the estimated monthly parameters at 672 stations, daily precipitations for any period can be simulated. A 30-year simulation was made and compared with observations during 1971-2000 in terms of annual and monthly statistics. The results are satisfactory, which demonstrates the usefulness of the weather generator.     

榆林地区景观变化探测模型

Landscape is a dynamic phenomenon that almost continuously changes. The overall change of a landscape is the result of complex and interacting natural and spontaneous processes and planned actions by man. However, numerous activities by a large number of individuals are not concerted and contribute to the autonomous evolution of the landscape in a similar way as natural processes do. There is a well-established need to detect land use and ecological change so that appropriate policies for the ;egional sustainable development can be developed. Landscape change detection is considered to be effectively repeated surveillance and needs especially strict protocols to identify landscape change. This paper developed a series of technical frameworks on landscape detection based on Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) Data. Through human-machine interactive interpretation, the interpretation precision was 92.00% in 1986 and 89.73% in 2000. Based on the interpretation results of TM images and taking Yulin prefecture as a case study area, the area of main landscape types was summarized respectively in 1986 and 2000. The landscape pattern changes in Yulin could be divided into ten types.     

Spatiotemporal evolution and driving factors of urban-rural integration in China北大核心CSCD

Urban-rural integration (URI) is a new idea to guide the urban-rural transformation in China, and exploring the spatio-temporal characteristics and driving mechanism of URI in China is an urgent need to overcome the dilemmas of insufficient rural development and unbalanced urban and rural development. Based on the process framework of "foundation-motivation-result" of URI, an evaluation indicator system was constructed. The improved entropy evaluation model and the kernel density estimation method were used to quantitatively measure the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics of URI level of 31 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities in China's mainland from 2000 to 2020. This study further used the Geodetector to explore the heterogeneous evolution of driving factors for URI level in different regions of China. The main conclusions are as follows: 1) From 2000 to 2020, the URI level in China decreased first and then increased, showing a √-shaped trend, and its spatial differences narrowed. 2) The URI level in China presented a spatial pattern of high in the east and low in the west, divided by the Hu Huanyong Line. The high-value centers showed prominent polarization characteristics and presented a zonal aggregation trend. The medium-value areas were clustered but weakened,and showed a spreading trend from the eastern to the central and western parts. 3) At the national scale, the core influencing factors of URI level were population mobility, economic development level, urban-rural income gap, and educational supports, potential factors were the optimization of industrial structure and the opening-up level, and threshold effect existed in investment benefit and government intervention. At the regional scale, the core driving forces of URI level in China showed obvious spatial heterogeneity, and in 2020 they were economic development level, investment benefit, and government intervention in the eastern region, investment benefit, opening-up level, and urban-rural income gap in the central region, are educational supports, government intervention, and the optimization of industrial structure in the western region. The interaction of driving factors had far more influence on URI level in China than individual factors, and the interaction between traffic accessibility and other socioeconomic factors had been significantly enhanced. Research on the spatio-temporal evolution and mechanism of URI in China can provide theoretical basis for rural revitalization and high-quality urban and rural development. © 2023, Editorial office of PROGRESS IN GEOGRAPHY. All rights reserved.     

Assessment on the sustainability of water resources utilization in Central Asia based on water resources carrying capacity

Situated in the hinterland of Eurasia, Central Asia is characterized by an arid climate and sparse rainfall. The uneven spatial distribution of water and land resources across the region has pressured economic and social development. An accurate understanding of Central Asia’s water resources carrying capacity(WRCC) is vital for enhancing the sustainability of water resources utilization and guiding regional economic and social activities. This study aims to facilitate the sustainability of wate...     

Attribution analysis for water yield service based on the geographical detector method: A case study of the Hengduan Mountain region

Ecosystem services, which include water yield services, have been incorporated into decision processes of regional land use planning and sustainable development. Spatial pattern characteristics and identification of factors that influence water yield are the basis for decision making. However, there are limited studies on the driving mechanisms that affect the spatial heterogeneity of ecosystem services. In this study, we used the Hengduan Mountain region in southwest China, with obvious spatial heterogeneity, as the research site. The water yield module in the In VEST software was used to simulate the spatial distribution of water yield. Also, quantitative attribution analysis was conducted for various geomorphological and climatic zones in the Hengduan Mountain region by using the geographical detector method. Influencing factors, such as climate, topography, soil, vegetation type, and land use type and pattern, were taken into consideration for this analysis. Four key findings were obtained. First, water yield spatial heterogeneity is influenced most by climate-related factors, where precipitation and evapotranspiration are the dominant factors. Second, the relative importance of each impact factor to the water yield heterogeneity differs significantly by geomorphological and climatic zones. In flat areas, the influence of evapotranspiration is higher than that of precipitation. As relief increases, the importance of precipitation increases and eventually, it becomes the most influential factor. Evapotranspiration is the most influential factor in a plateau climate zone, while in the mid-subtropical zone, precipitation is the main controlling factor. Third, land use type is also an important driving force in flat areas. Thus, more attention should be paid to urbanization and land use planning, which involves land use changes, to mitigate the impact on water yield spatial pattern. The fourth finding was that a risk detector showed that Primarosol and Anthropogenic soil areas, shrub areas, and areas with slope 5° and 25°–35° should be recognized as water yield important zones, while the corresponding elevation values are different among different geomorphological and climatic zones. Therefore, the spatial heterogeneity and influencing factors in different zones should be fully con-sidered while planning the maintenance and protection of water yield services in the Hengduan Mountain region.