理解地理“耦合”实现地理“集成”

“耦合”作为物理学的经典概念,为许多学科提供了一套阐述多主体相互作用的思路和方法。“集成”不是来自特定学科,但因其高度的概括能力被广泛应用于自然和人文科学领域。地球科学是应用这两个概念最多的学科之一。地理学作为自然与人文交叉学科,具有区域性、综合性和复杂性特征。在使用耦合概念时,不同地理分支具有不同的理解,为此,地理学者有必要明确界定不同学科、不同情景下耦合概念的内涵,从而更准确地探索陆地表层格局、过程和机制。首先,从地理要素耦合、地理空间耦合、地理界面耦合、地理空间尺度耦合、地理关系耦合、地理耦合解译六个方面,对地理耦合的内涵进行全面解析和界定,并给出了相应的研究实践案例。其次,从地理学的视角认识理解集成,并以“黑河流域生态—水文集成研究”重大研究计划的地理实践为例,介绍实现地理集成的基本路径。最后,提出理解地理“耦合”与实现地理“集成”之间的联系。

Understanding geographic coupling and achieving geographic integration

Coupling, as a classic physical concept, provides a suite of ideas and methods for describing interactions of multi-agents across disciplines. In contrast, the concept of integration is not from a certain discipline, but it is widely used in many natural and socioeconomic sciences fields due to its great generalization capacity. Both concepts are frequently mentioned in Earth science. Geography, as a multi-disciplinary research area between natural and socioeconomic sciences, owns regional, comprehensive, and complex characteristics. The understanding of coupling varies across geographic sciences. This paper presents an advanced understanding from six geographic perspectives based on different disciplines and scenarios, which is helpful to accurately explore patterns, processes, and mechanisms of land surface system. Firstly, this paper clarifies six perspectives on geographic coupling, and presents corresponding research cases, which include geographic spatial coupling, geographic features coupling, geographic interfaces coupling, geospatial scale coupling, geographic relationship coupling and geographic coupling interpretation. Secondly, the paper interprets the concept of integration from a geographic perspective, and introduces a pathway to achieving an integration in Heihe River Basin's research practice. Finally, the paper proposes intrinsic connections between geographic coupling and geographic integration.