Approach to delimiting metropolitan regions’ boundary and grading urban hierarchy within a metropolitan region—A case study of Shanghai metropolitan region

In metropolitan regions, the change in the strength of＂flows＂ between a core city and surrounding cities reflects the range of the core city＇s influence, while the gravity between core city and other cities reflects the strength of potential relation between them. This article firstly attempts to delimit the boundary of metropolitan regions with the two dimensions measure combining ＂flows＂ and gravitation. The former is measured through the flow of people between the core city and surrounding cities, and the latter is measured through both population and gross domestic products （GDP） of the core city and surrounding cities. The hierarchy of the cities within a metropolitan region is classified in order to emphasize the roles of the cities belonging to the metropolitan regions, different from the general way through population scale and administrative level, and is typical in China. This paper uses the Shanghai metropolitan region as a research case, determining boundary of this metropolitan region clearly and classifying hierarchy of the cities within the region. The final results are significantly different to previous work, even overthrowing the traditional system of urban hierarchy partly. It is helpful to highlight the function of cities in organizing the regional economy, the level structure of metropolitan regions, and each city＇s relative importance in a metropolitan region, which can be taken as scientific basis for planning integrated regions or urban systems.     

Economic vulnerability of mining city —A case study of Fuxin City, Liaoning Province, China

The economic system of mining city is of typical vulnerability characteristics that can be manifested by its high economic sensitivity and lack of response capacity to the gradual depletion of regional mineral resources. Taking Fuxin City of Liaoning Province as a case, this paper established an economic vulnerability assessment method integrating BP neural network with vulnerability index, then carried out an economic vulnerability assessment of Fuxin during 1989–2006. The results indicate that: 1) Affected by the gradual depletion of regional mineral resources, the economic development of Fuxin had kept high economic sensitivity from 1995 to 2001, and the response capacity to cope with and adapt to the impacts of the perturbation of mineral resources was weak and relatively lag. The evolution of economic vulnerability can be divided into three stages: in 1989–1994, the economic vulnerability of Fuxin City decreased slowly; in 1995–2001, the beginning stage of economic transformation, the economic vulnerability of Fuxin City went up rapidly; in 2002–2006, the economic vulnerability of Fuxin City descended and showed a trend to be stable. 2) The influence of economic sensitivity on Fuxin’s economic vulnerability is more evident than that of response capacity. 3) The decreasing supply of mineral resources and the simple industrial structure are main factors leading to the economic sensitivity of Fuxin. 4) The improvement of economic response capacity of Fuxin has typical characteristics of input-driven growth, and external assistance is of great importance to the rapid improvement of economic response capacity of Fuxin. And 5) the change from the simple industrial structure to diversified one of Fuxin is still unaccomplished, and the contribution of non-coal-based industry to local economic development is relatively limited. Foundation item: Under the auspices of Key Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 40635030), Knowledge Innovation Programs of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. KZCX2-YW-342, No. KZCX2-YW-321)     

Spatio-temporal distribution of vegetation index and its influencing factors——a case study of the Jiaozhou Bay,China

The coastal zone is an area characterized by intense interaction between land and sea, high sensitivity to regional environmental changes, and concentrated human activities. Little research has investigated vegetation cover changes in coastal zones resulting from climate change and land-use change, with a lack of knowledge about the driving mechanism. Normalized diff erence vegetation index(NDVI) can be used as an indicator for change of the coastal environment. In this study, we analyzed the interannual changes and spatial distribution of NDVI in the coastal zone around Jiaozhou Bay in Qingdao, a coastal city undergoing rapid urbanization in northeast China. The underlying causes of NDVI variations were discussed in the context of climate change and land-use change. Results showed that the spatio-temporal distribution of NDVI displayed high spatial variability in the study area and showed a typical trend of gradually increasing from coastal to inland regions. The significant increase area of NDVI was mainly found in newly added construction land, extending along the coastline towards the inland. Land vegetation cover demonstrated a certain response relationship to sea-land climate change and land-based activities. The impact of land-based human activities was slightly greater than that of sea-land climate change for land vegetation cover. The results indicate that promoting ecological policies can build an ecological security framework of vegetation suitable for the resource characteristics of coastal cities. The framework will buf fer the negative ef fects of sea-land climate change and land-based human activities on vegetation cover and thereby achieve the balance of regional development and ecological benefits in the coastal zone.     

Cassini growth of population between two metropolitan cities—A case study of Beijing-Tianjin region, China

The existing models of population distribution often focus on the region with a single city or even multiple centers, and lack the detailed explorations of the common and special type of urbanization areas with two centers. Taking Beijing-Tianjin region of China, which is a distinct dual-nuclei metropolitan area in the world, as an example and choosing Landsat-5 TM image in 2005, population, etc. as the data, this paper devotes to comprehending and illustrating a model of Cassini growth of population between the two metropolitan cities through the research of spatial population distribution pattern, aided with RS and GIS techniques. Main technical processes include Kriging interpolation of the population data and character simulation of the Cassini ovals. According to the calculation of a/b, a key characteristic index of Cassini growth model, the spatial structures of population distribution were given. When a/b<1, it is a curve with two separated loops with a population density more than 3000 persons/km². When a/b=1, it is a lemniscate curve with a population density about 3000 persons/km². When 1<a/b√2, it is a dog-bone shaped concave curve with a population density between 500–3000 persons/km². When a/b=√2, it is an oblate curve with a population density about 500 persons/km². When a/b>√2, there is an oval-shaped convex curve with a population density less than 500 persons/km². The results show that owing to the combined action and influence of the regional dual-nuclei, the population distribution of Beijing-Tianjin region is in accord with Cassini model significantly. There-fore, there is Cassini growth of population between the two metropolitan cities in Beijing-Tianjin region. In addition, the process of Cassini growth has extraordinarily instructive significance for judging the development stages of the dual-nuclei metropolitan areas. Foundation item: Under the auspices of National High-Tech Research and Development Program of China (863 Program) (No. 2007AA12Z235), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 40471058)     

Early landslide mapping with slope units division and multi-scale objectbased image analysis——A case study in the Xianshui River basin of Sichuan,China

Previous studies on optical remote sensing mapping of landslides mainly focused on new landslides that have occurred, but little attention was paid to the early landslide due to its high concealment. In SAR technology, a prevalent method to detect early landslides, only can be used to identify the potential hazards of slow deformation. Therefore, it is necessary to explore new method of early landslides mapping by integrating all types of direct and indirect early features, such as cracks on slo...     

Community tourism as practiced in the mountainous Qiang region of Sichuan Province, China — a case study in Zhenghe Village

In China, community tourism is still a relatively new phenomenon, but the villagers of a small Qiang village in the Qiang Autonomous County of Beichuan in Southwestern Sichuan have initiated tourism in a way which conforms to the basic theory of community tourism development. This demonstrates that community tourism possesses a strength and vitality that can promote the development of tourism in the rural and mountainous areas. In the district of Zhenghe Village, the tourism industry, based on the community tourism model, is the mainstay of its economy. The practice of community tourism in the village not only promotes the economic development of the village community, but also leads to the protection of the mountainous natural environment and of the culture of the Qiang people. This paper investigates the development process of community tourism in Zhenghe and shows how the local residents participate in this process. It also looks at how profits have been distributed within the community. It demonstrates that community tourism is a correct choice by the Zhenghe people as they have dearly been moving from poverty to prosperity, while the local ecology and environment have been simultaneously protected. The authors hope that other minority villages with similar local conditions and natural resources will be able to use this example to develop their own community tourism.     

Regional structure and spatial morphology characteristics of oasis urban agglomeration in arid area —A case of urban agglomeration in northern slope of Tianshan Mountains, Northwest China

It is great important to the health development of urban agglomeration to correctly understand the formation and development law of regional structure of urban agglomeration. Employing the analysis methods like fractal theory and quantitative statistics, coupling with the use of remote sensing images and other spatial data, this article discusses the urban agglomeration of oasis on the northern slope of the Tianshan Mountains in an arid area, and conducts the researches on its city scale, spatial distribution and individual form from 1990 to 2005. The result shows that it has loose hierarchical scale structure and polarization trend of population distribution while its hierarchical scale structure tends to mature. Under the influence of natural conditions, the spatial layout of urban agglomeration of oasis has macro characteristics that suggest cities distributed along oasis edges (dense or sparse), spatially expand along rivers, and cluster around traffic branches. The connectivity among the cities is high and shows an internal organization form of a banding distribution. The whole spatial shape of the internal structure of cities presents a “dumbbell” form, with mononuclear phenomenon receding and multi-nuclear appearing gradually. Individual cities spatially expand along rivers, portraying a long strip appearance. It indicates that the urban agglomeration of oasis shows regular and close structure but with a tendency to be complicated form and the loose structure. In the development of urban agglomeration, the authors recommend that the development of the city with good economic development conditions should be strengthened, and more attention be put into regional planning.     

Assessment of Human Impacts on Vegetation in Built-up Areas in China Based on AVHRR,MODIS and DMSP_OLS Nighttime Light Data,1992–2010

Since the reform and opening-up program started in 1978,the level of urbanization has increased rapidly in China.Rapid urban expansion and restructuring have had significant impacts on the ecological environment especially within built-up areas.In this study,ArcGIS 10,ENVI 4.5,and Visual FoxPro 6.0 were used to analyze the human impacts on vegetation in the built-up areas of 656Chinese cities from 1992 to 2010.Firstly,an existing algorithm was refined to extract the boundaries of the built-up areas based on the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program Operational Linescan System(DMSP_OLS)nighttime light data.This improved algorithm has the advantages of high accuracy and speed.Secondly,a mathematical model(Human impacts(HI))was constructed to measure the impacts of human factors on vegetation during rapid urbanization based on Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer(AVHRR)Normalized Difference Vegetation Index(NDVI)and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer(MODIS)NDVI.HI values greater than zero indicate relatively beneficial effects while values less than zero indicate proportionally adverse effects.The results were analyzed from four aspects:the size of cities(metropolises,large cities,medium-sized cities,and small cities),large regions(the eastern,central,western,and northeastern China),administrative divisions of China(provinces,autonomous regions,and municipalities)and vegetation zones(humid and semi-humid forest zone,semi-arid steppe zone,and arid desert zone).Finally,we discussed how human factors impacted on vegetation changes in the built-up areas.We found that urban planning policies and developmental stages impacted on vegetation changes in the built-up areas.The negative human impacts followed an inverted′U′shape,first rising and then falling with increase of urban scales.China′s national policies,social and economic development affected vegetation changes in the built-up areas.The findings can provide a scientific basis for municipal planning departments,a decision-making reference for government,and scientific guidance for sustainable development in China.