Driving factors and spatiotemporal effects of environmental stress in urban agglomeration: Evidence from the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region of China

Environmental stress is used as an indicator of the overall pressure on regional environmental systems caused by the output of various pollutants as a result of human activities. Based on the pollutant emissions and socioeconomic databases of the counties in Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region, this paper comprehensively calculates the environmental stress index(ESI) for the urban agglomeration using the entropy weight method(EWM) at the county scale and analyzes the spatiotemporal patterns and the differences among the four types of major functional zones(MFZ) for the period 2012–2016. In addition, the socioeconomic driving forces of environmental stress are quantitatively estimated using the geographically weighted regression(GWR) method based on the STIRPAT model framework. The results show that:(1) The level of environmental stress in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region was significantly alleviated during that time period, with a decrease in ESI of 54.68% by 2016. This decrease was most significant in Beijing, Tangshan, Tianjin, Shijiazhuang, and other central urban areas, as well as the Binhai New Area. The level of environmental stress in counties decreased gradually from the central urban areas to the suburban areas, and the high-level stress counties were eliminated by 2016.(2) The spatial spillover effect of environmental stress increased further at the county scale from 2012 to 2016, and spatial locking and path dependence emerged in the cities of Tangshan and Tianjin.(3) Urbanized zones(development-optimized and development-prioritized zones) were the major areas bearing environmental pollution in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region in that time period. The ESI accounted for 65.98% of the whole region, where there was a need to focus on the prevention and control of environmental pollution.(4) The driving factors of environmental stress at the county scale included population size and the level of economic development. In addition, the technical capacity of environmental waste disposal, the intensity of agricultural production input, the intensity of territorial development, and the level of urbanization also had a certain degree of influence.(5) There was spatial heterogeneity in the effects of the various driving factors on the level of environmental stress. Thus, it was necessary to adopt differentiated environmental governance and reduction countermeasures in respect of emission sources, according to the intensity and spatiotemporal differences in the driving forces in order to improve the accuracy and adaptability of environmental collaborative control in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region.     

海南岛热带林区生态系统评估与保护成效（英文）

Ecosystem services have become one of the core elements of ecosystem management and evaluation. As a key area of ecosystem services and for maintaining national ecological security, ecosystem changes and implementation effect evaluation are important in national key ecological function zones, for promoting the main function zone strategy and for improving the construction of an ecological civilization. This article studies the ecological zone of a tropical rainforest region in the central mountain area of Hainan Island, China. Multi-source satellite data and ground observation statistics are analyzed with geo-statistics method and ecological assessment model. The core analysis of this paper includes ecosystem patterns, quality and services. By means of spatial and temporal scale expansion and multidimensional space-time correlation analysis, the trends and stability characteristics of ecosystem changes are analyzed, and implementation effect evaluation is discussed. The analysis shows a variety of results. The proportion of forest area inside the ecological zone was significantly higher than the average level in Hainan Island. During 1990–2013, settlement gradually increased inside the ecological zone. After implementation of the zone in 2010, human activity intensity increased, with the main land use being urban construction and land reclamation. Water conservation in the ecological function zone was higher than that outside the zone. In general, it increased slightly, but had obvious fluctuations. Soil conservation inside the zone was also better than that outside. However, it demonstrated dramatic fluctuations and relatively poor stability during 1990–2013. The human disturbance index inside the zone was significantly lower than that outside, and had a lower biodiversity threat level. Especially in 2010–2013, the increased range of the human disturbance index inside the zone was significantly less than that outside.     

1978–2010年中国与美国都市区城市内部土地覆盖时空特征(英文)

Urban land cover has major impacts on a city’s ecosystem services and the inherent quality of its urban residential environment. The spatio-temporal distribution of impervious surface area and green areas in Chinese cities has exhibited a significantly marked difference in comparison with USA cities. This study focused on monitoring and comparing the spatio-temporal dynamics, land cover patterns and characteristics of functional regions in six Chinese(n=3) and USA(n=3) cities. The study data were collated from Landsat TM/MSS imagery during the period 1978–2010. Results indicate that Chinese cities have developed compactly over the past three decades, while development has been notably dispersed among USA cities. Mean vegetation coverage in USA cities is approximately 2.2 times that found amongst Chinese urban agglomerations. Land use types within Chinese cities are significantly more complex, with a higher density of impervious surface area. Conversely, the central business district(CBD) and residential areas within USA cities were comprised of a lower proportion of impervious surface area and a higher proportion of green land. Results may be used to contribute to future urban planning and administration efforts in both China and the USA.     

河北雄安新区建设的区域地表本底特征与生态管控（英文）

Development of Xiong'an New District(XND) is integral to the implementation of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei(BTH) Integration Initiative. It is intended to ease the non-capital functions of Beijing, optimize regional spatial patterns, and enhance ecosystem services and living environment in this urban agglomeration. Applying multi-stage remote sensing(RS) images, land use/cover change(LUCC) data, ecosystem services assessment data, and high-precision urban land-cover information, we reveal the regional land-cover characteristics of this new district as well as across the planned area of the entire BTH urban agglomeration. Corresponding ecological protection and management strategies are also proposed. Results indicated that built-up areas were rapidly expanding, leading to a continuous impervious surface at high density. Urban and impervious surface areas(ISAs) grew at rates 1.27 and 1.43 times higher than that in the 2000 s, respectively, seriously affecting about 15% area of the sub-basins. Construction of XND mainly encompasses Xiongxian, Rongcheng, and Anxin counties, areas which predominantly comprise farmland, townships and rural settlements, water, and wetland ecosystems. The development and construction of XND should ease the non-capital functions of Beijing, as well as moderately control population and industrial growth. Thus, this development should be included within the national ‘sponge city' construction pilot area in early planning stages, and reference should be made to international low-impact development modes in order to strengthen urban green infrastructural construction. Early stage planning based on the existing characteristics of the underlying surface should consider the construction of green ecological patches and ecological corridors between XND and the cities of Baoding, Beijing, and Tianjin. The proportion of impervious surfaces should not exceed 60%, while that of the core area should not exceed 70%. The development of XND needs to initiate the concept of ‘planning a city according to water resource amount' and incorporate rainwater collection and recycling.     

Characterization of landscape pattern based on land economic niche change: A case study in Ganzhou,Gansu Province,China

Land use change has a profound impact on biodiversity and ecological processes, and is closely related to changes in landscape patterns. This paper introduces the theory and method of land economic niche into landscape ecology, which provides a new method for spatial characterization of urban and rural spatial landscape patterns. Based on this theory, this paper analyzes the landscape pattern of Ganzhou District by using Landsat images as data source in 1995, 2000, 2005,2010 and 2015. We calculated the land economic niche by applying the niche potential theory. Combined with the theory of landscape ecology, we explored the effects of the land economic niche change on the landscape pattern at a county scale.The results show that economic niche of construction land, watershed and farmland increased during 1995–2015, and grassland declined significantly. The economic niche of farmland, construction land, watershed and grassland show a negative correlation with the number of patches(NP), fragmentation index(FN) and the fractal dimension index(FD), and had a positive correlation with the aggregation index(AI). There was no significant correlation between the forest land economic niche and landscape metrics. The change of land economic niche has a driving effect on the landscape pattern of the county, which can represent the economic development direction of Ganzhou District. The land economic niche is closely related to the landscape type which can directly obtain an economic benefit.     

Effect of human settlements on urban thermal environment and factor analysis based on multi-source data: A case study of Changsha city

In view of the lack of comprehensive evaluation and analysis from the combination of natural and human multi-dimensional factors, the urban surface temperature patterns of Changsha in 2000, 2009 and 2016 are retrieved based on multi-source spatial data(Landsat 5 and Landsat 8 satellite image data, POI spatial big data, digital elevation model, etc.), and 12 natural and human factors closely related to urban thermal environment are quickly obtained. The standard deviation ellipse and spatial principal component analysis(PCA) methods are used to analyze the effect of urban human residential thermal environment and its influencing factors. The results showed that the heat island area increased by 547 km~2 and the maximum surface temperature difference reached 10.1℃ during the period 2000–2016. The spatial distribution of urban heat island was mainly concentrated in urban built-up areas, such as industrial and commercial agglomerations and densely populated urban centers. The spatial distribution pattern of heat island is gradually decreasing from the urban center to the suburbs. There were multiple high-temperature centers, such as Wuyi square business circle, Xingsha economic and technological development zone in Changsha County, Wangcheng industrial zone, Yuelu industrial agglomeration, and Tianxin industrial zone. From 2000 to 2016, the main axis of spatial development of heat island remained in the northeast-southwest direction. The center of gravity of heat island shifted 2.7 km to the southwest with the deflection angle of 54.9° in 2000–2009. The center of gravity of heat island shifted to the northeast by 4.8 km with the deflection angle of 60.9° in 2009–2016. On the whole, the change of spatial pattern of thermal environment in Changsha was related to the change of urban construction intensity. Through the PCA method, it was concluded that landscape pattern, urban construction intensity and topographic landforms were the main factors affecting the spatial pattern of urban thermal environment of Changsha. The promotion effect of human factors on the formation of heat island effect was obviously greater than that of natural factors.The temperature would rise by 0.293℃ under the synthetic effect of human and natural factors. Due to the complexity of factors influencing the urban thermal environment of human settlements, the utilization of multi-source data could help to reveal the spatial pattern and evolution law of urban thermal environment, deepen the understanding of the causes of urban heat island effect, and clarify the correlation between human and natural factors, so as to provide scientific supports for the improvement of the quality of urban human settlements.     

城市土地利用——交通集成模型的构建与应用（英文）

China is now experiencing rapid urbanization. Powerful tools are required to assess its urban spatial policies before implemented toward a more competitive and sustainable development paradigm. This study develops a Land Use Transport Interaction(LUTI) model to evaluate the impacts of urban land-use policies on urban spatial development. The model consists of four sub-models, i.e., transport, residential location, employment location and real estate rent sub-models. It is then applied to Beijing metropolitan area to forecast the urban activity evolution trend based on the land-use policies between 2009 and 2013. The modeling results show that more and more residents and enterprises in the city choose to agglomerate on outskirts, and new centers gradually emerge to share the services originally delivered by central Beijing. The general trend verifies the objectives of the government plan to develop more sub-centers around Beijing. The proposed activity-based model provides a distinct tool for the urban spatial policy makers in China. Further research is also discussed at the end.     

1984-2008年北京湿地景观格局驱动机制(英文)

The landscape pattern of Beijing wetlands has undergone a significant change as a result of natural and artificial elements.Supported by remote sensing and GIS technology,using multi-temporal TM images from 1984 to 2008 in Beijing,this paper analyzed the dynamic characteristics of wetlands landscape pattern through selected typical indices including patch area,patch average area,fractal dimension index,diversity,dominance,contagion indices and the spatial centroids of each wetlands type were calculated.Finally,the paper explored the evolution mode and driving factors of wetland landscape pattern.The results were obtained as follows:the total wetland area increased during the period 1984-1996,then decline from 1996 to 2004.The wetland area in 1994 accounted for only 47.37% of that in 2004.The proportion of artificial wetland area was larger than that of natural wetland.The proportion of reservoir wetland was 33.50% to 53.73% and had the maximum average area.pond and paddy field wetland type with the least average area accounted for 16.46% to 45.09% of the total wetland area.The driving forces of the natural river wetland were mainly natural elements;its fractal dimension index was greater than the others.The Shannon diversity index of wetland landscape increased from 1.11 in 1992 to 1.34 in 2004,indicating that the difference between proportions of each wetland type decreased and areas of each wetland type were evenly distributed.The contagion index went down from 65.59 to 58.41,indicating that the connectivity degraded.Miyun Reservoir had the largest area and its area change had a great impact on the location of the centroid.Wetland resources degenerated gradually from the joint effects of natural and artificial factors.During the period 2006-2008,the precipitation increased and the drought condition was relieved.The government implemented series of positive policies to save water resources,and the wetland area increased.     

1990-2009年珠三角县域城市潜力的时空关联分析(英文)

According to the highway data and some socioeconomic data of 1990, 1994, 2000, 2005 and 2009 of county units in the Pearl River Delta, this paper measured urban integrated power of different counties in different years by factor analysis, and estimated each county’s potential in each year by means of expanded potential model. Based on that, the spatio-temporal association patterns and evolution of county potential were analyzed using spatio-temporal autocorrelation methods, and the validity of spatio-temporal association patterns was verified by comparing with spatial association patterns and cross-correlation function. The main results are shown as follows:(1) The global spatio-temporal association of county potential showed a positive effect during the study period. But this positive effect was not strong, and it had been slowly strengthened during 1994–2005 and decayed during 2005–2009. The local spatio-temporal association characteristics of most counties’ potential kept relatively stable and focused on a positive autocorrelation, however, there were obvious transformations in some counties among four types of local spatio-temporal association(i.e., HH, LL, HL and LH).(2) The distribution difference and its change of local spatio-temporal association types of county potential were obvious. Spatio-temporal HH type units were located in the central zone and Shenzhen-Dongguan region of the eastern zone, but the central spatio-temporal HH area shrunk to the Guangzhou-Foshan core metropolitan region only after 2000; the spatio-temporal LL area in the western zone kept relatively stable with a surface-shaped continuous distribution pattern, new LL type units emerged in the south-central zone since 2005, the eastern LL area expanded during 1994–2000, but then gradually shrunk and scattered at the eastern edge in 2009; the spatio-temporal HL and LH areas varied significantly.(3) The local spatio-temporal association patterns of county potential among the three zones presented significant disparity, and obvious difference between the eastern and central zones tended to decrease, whereas that between the western zone and the central and eastern zones further expanded.(4) Spatio-temporal autocorrelation methods can efficiently mine the spatio-temporal association patterns of county potential, and can better reveal the complicated spatio-temporal interaction between counties than ESDA methods.     

中国国家自然保护区土地覆被变化(英文)

For preventing ecosystem degradation,protecting natural habitats and conserving biodiversity within the habitats,2588 nature reserves have been established in China at the end of 2010.The total area is up to 149.44 million ha and covers over 15% of Chinese terrestrial surface.Land-cover change,as the primary driver of biodiversity change,directly impacts ecosystem structures and functions.In this paper,180 National Nature Reserves(NNRs) are selected and their total area is 44.71 million ha,accounting for 29.9% of all NNRs in China.In terms of the ecosystem characteristics and their major protected object,all selected NNRs are classified into 7 types.A Positive and Negative Change Index of Land-cover(PNCIL) was developed to analyze the land-cover change of each NNRs type from the late 1980s to 2005.The results show that the land-cover of all selected NNRs types have degradated to a certain degree except the forest ecosystem reserves with a decreasing rate,but the rate of degradation alleviated gradually.The mean positive and negative change rates of land-cover in all core zones decreased by 0.69% and 0.16% respectively.The landscape pattern of land-cover in the core zones was more stable than that in the buffer zones and the experimental zones.Furthermore,the ecological diversity and patch connectivity of land-cover in selected NNRs increased generally.In short,the land-cover of 180 selected NNRs in China had a beneficial change trend after NNRs established,especially between 1995 and 2005.     

1989-2003年中国北方土地覆被变化

The 13 provinces （autonomous regions and municipalities） in northern China are located in latitude 31°-54°N and longitude 73°-136°E including Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanxi, Inner Mongolia, Jilin, Liaoning, Heilongjiang, Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai, and Xinjiang, where environments are fragile. In recent years, the eco-environmental problems such as vegetation destruction, desertification and soil erosion etc. become serious because of climate change and unreasonable human activities. In this paper, landscape pattern and its evolution in northern China from 1989 to 2003 was investigated by the combined use of RS and GIS based on the basic theory and method of landscape ecology. Land use/cover maps of the study area in 1989, 1999 and 2003 were produced by using 1 km monthly NOAA Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer （AVHRR） and SPOTNGT Normalized Difference Vegetation Index （NDVI） dataset from national climate bureau of China which were geo-registered to Lambert azimuthal equal-area map projection and were used in the paper. Landscape evolution in the area over the study period was investigated by two methods： （a） the changes of various landscape metrics were analyzed using the landscape structure analysis program FRAGSTATS; （b） the transition matrix of landscape patch types was calculated with the help of the RS and GIS software. The results showed that from 1989 to 2003, the landscape within the study area had undertaken a complicated evolution in landscape structure and composition. The diversity index and evenness index increased during the period, which means that the landscape pattern tended to be diversified and even. The fragmentation index of grassland, forestland and water areas also increased significantly. This showed that the distribution and structure of forestland, grassland and water areas had been changed greatly during the period, especially grassland which became more and more fragmentized, and its fragmentation index increased from 19.23% to 88.72%. The transi     

Spatial pattern of knowledge innovation function among Chinese cities and its influencing factors

Knowledge innovation is a key component of urban innovation function and an important basis for modern urban development. Combining the multidisciplinary research of knowledge innovation, this paper constructs a measurement framework of urban knowledge innovation function from the perspective of urban geography and analyzes its spatial pattern and influencing factors. The conclusions are as follows:(1) The function of urban knowledge innovation refers to the tasks and roles it undertakes in the ...     

北京公共交通系统对本地与外来人口空间分布的差异影响研究（英文）

The floating population has become the main driver of urban population excessive growth in China’s mega cities.Urban transit system(UTS)is a significant factor in population spatial distributions within urban areas,especially rapid and high-capacity transit systems.This paper analyzes the causal effects of the extension of expressways and subways between 2000 and 2010 in the Beijing Metropolitan Area(BMA),focusing on the group differences between the local residents and the floating population.Due to the endogeneity of transportation improvements and population growth,Instrumental Variable(IV)regression model is applied to avoid this problem.The results show the local residents increased in the inner suburbs but decreased in the city center,while the floating population increased in the majority areas.IV regression results show that the extension of urban transit systems had statistically significant impacts on population growth across the BMA.The results also show that the extension of urban subway system had more effects on the floating population than the local residents across the BMA.It is mainly caused by the rather low fare of urban subway system.This implies that the excessive subsidy on urban subway system could result in excessive floating population growth and residential differentiation,even residential segregation.Hence,it is necessary to plan and design reasonable and scientific urban transit systems in order to advance reasonable population size and promote residential integration.Moreover,the regional analysis shows that the effects of urban transportation improvements on the local residents are not statistically significant in the inner suburbs.It implies that urban transportation improvements had limited effects on inducing people to move to suburban areas and controlling center city’s population in Beijing.Therefore,it should be stressed the differentiated effects of urban transportation improvements on population distribution in the process of urban planning and population control.     

Surplus or deficit? Quantifying the total ecological compensation of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region

The calculation of ecological compensation and boundary identification of stakeholders represent the key challenges for Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region in its implementation of the trans-regional ecological compensation mechanism. Breaking administrative boundaries and spatially coordinating ecological resources helps to restructure an ecological compensation mechanism of the region based on the coordinated development of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei. According to the estimated ecological assets in the counties of the region in 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015, a quantitative model for total ecological compensation was built based on ecological assets and county-level economic development. Then, the spatiotemporal distribution characteristics of the total ecological compensation in the region were defined, and the boundaries of ecological surplus and deficit areas were identified. Results indicate:(1) The region's annual average ecological assets amounted to $1379.47 billion; in terms of annual total ecological assets, Hebei ranked first($1123.80 billion), followed by Beijing($157.46 billion) and Tianjin($98.21 billion); and in terms of ecological assets per unit area, Beijing ranked first, Tianjin second and Hebei last.(2) Among ecosystem services, hydrological regulation and climate regulation had the highest annual average value and contributed most to the increase in ecological assets. In 2015, the contribution of water and soil conservation to the total ecological assets decreased to –15.66%, showing the degradation of the function played by different ecosystems.(3) The ecological surplus of the region in four periods of 2000, 2005, 2010 and 2015 were $398.98 billion, $870.37 billion, $1254.93 billion and $2693.94 billion respectively, basically offsetting the ecological deficit of each corresponding period, but the urgency for ecological compensation was increased.(4) The ecological surplus and deficit areas showed a great fluctuation in different time periods. Larger time span means more noticeable convergence of deficit areas towards central and eastern areas. Public resources such as education, transportation and medical care in central urban areas should be decentralized to encourage population dispersal, weaken the agglomeration effect of deficit areas and finally achieve the ecological synergy of the region.     

城市地表热通量遥感反演及与土地类型的关系(英文)

Using ASTER(Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiome-ter) infrared remote sensing data we inversed the parameters of urban surface heat fluxes applying the PCACA model and theoretical position algorithm,and then we analyzed the in-fluence of different land use types on the surface heat fluxes and energy balance.In this study,Kumagaya,a city in Saitama Prefecture,Japan,was selected as the experimental area.The result shows that the PCACA model is feasible for the surface heat fluxes estimation in urban areas because this model requires less parameters in the procedure of heat fluxes estimation in urban areas with complicated surface structure and can decrease the uncertainty.And we found that different land-use types have indicated the height heterogeneity on the surface heat fluxes significantly.The magnitudes of Bowen ratio in descending order are industrial,residential,transportation,institutional,dry farmland,green space,and water body.Under the same meteorological condition,there are distinct characteristics and regional differences in Bowen ratios among different surface covers,indicating higher sensible heat flux and lower latent heat flux in the urban construction land,while lower sensible heat flux and higher latent heat flux in the vegetation-covered area,the outskirt of the urban area.The increase of urban impervious surface area caused by the urban sprawl can enlarge the sensible heat flux and the Bowen ratio,so that it causes the increasing of urban surface temperature and air tem-perature,which is the mechanism of the so-called heat island effect.     

Variations of albedo and spectral reflectance on Qiyi Glacier in Qilian Mountains during the ablation season

Based on the data observed at two sites (site H1, 4,473 m a.s.l., and site H2, 4,696 m a.s.l.) on Qiyi Glacier in Qilian Mountains, China, by automatic weather station and spectral pyranometer during the period of June 9 through September 27, 2006, we investigated the temporal and spatial variations in surface albedo and spectral reflectance on the glacier. At site H1, the daily mean surface albedos fluctuated between 0.233 and 0.866, which were significantly affected by the air temperature on the glacier. It was found that the albedos clearly showed a diurnal cycle with the lowest value at noon at the two observation sites over the study period, and the difference of albedos between the upper site H2 and the lower site H1 also showed diurnal cycle but with the highest value at noon. The reflectance on the glacier was higher in the ultraviolet (0.28-0.4 μm) and visible (0.4-0.76 μm) wavelengths, lower in the near infrared wavelength (0.76-3 μm), which is quite contrary to the spectral reflectance on other ground surfaces. At the two observation sites, the spectral reflectance declined in all wavelengths with the ablation of snow generally. However, it declined drastically in ultraviolet (0.28-0.4 μm) and 0.6-0.7 μm wavelength, and declined less in 0.4-0.5 μm wavelength. On fresh snow surface, the spectral reflectance had the high values of 0.983 and 0.815 in the ultraviolet and visible (0.4-0.76 μm) wavelengths, respectively; but it had a relatively lower value of 0.671 in near infrared (0.76-3 μm) wavelengths. However, on dirty and melting ice surfaces, the reflectance had the very low values of 0.305 and 0.256 in the ultraviolet and visible wavelengths, with the lowest value of 0.082 in near infrared wavelengths. The spectral reflectance also showed a diurnal cycle like that of albedo. The diurnal variations of spectral reflectance on snow surface in ultraviolet and visible wavelength changed to a greater degree than that on ice surface. The diurnal variation curves were asymmetrical before and after t     

ECOLOGICALLY STRATEGIC POINTS IN LANDSCAPE AND SURFACE MODEL

Various processes occur across a landscape, including ecological processes such as the movement of species, the flow of nutrients, the spread of fire and other disturbances, and the diffusion of pollutants, economic processes such as land conversion for agricultural production, marketing of new product, transportation and immigration; political and diplomatic processes such as the construction of political influence sphere at local, national and global scale. At the fact of limited space and resources on the surface of the earth, a generic issue regarding these processes across the landscapes is: how to control (promote or retard) the processes efficiently, namely using less energy and space for a bigger influence sphere. The overall assumption for this issue is that, there are some positions and portion in a landscape that may have critical influence on a certain process across the landscape. These critical positions in a landscape are called strategic points. Occupancy of these strategic points may give a process the momentum of controlling and covering the landscape more effectively, due to their quality of; Initiative, occupancy of these points may give the process the advantage of leading the game; Co-ordlnation, occupancy of these points may give the process the advantage of forming an overall influence sphere; Efficiency, occupancy of these points may give the process the advantage of having a bigger coverage of the landscape while costing less energy. By identifying and using these critical positions and portions in the landscape, therefore, may unproportionately increase the efficiency of controlling this process. It is further assumed that, in order to take control of the landscape, the process has to overcome a certain resistance. A resistance surface can therefore visualize the dynamics of the process itself. The resistance surface resembles a topographic surface, indicating where the process (flow) diverges or converges. It is, therefore, possible to identify strategically important positions or portions in a landscape that may have important influence on the dynamics of the process. Assuming species movement across a landscape is a competitive gaming process of control and coverage against some resistance, this paper discusses a methodology of identifying strategic points according to the properties of resistance surfaces which resembles a gaming board as well as a topographic surface. Three types of resistance surfaces are discussed: The archipelago type: where lower resistance islands are surrounded by higher resistance matrix, representing such landscapes as agricultural fields dotted with native forest patches. The network type: where the lower resistance portions form a linear network surrounded by higher resistance matrix. The plateau type: where, areas with higher resistance are surrounded by lower resistance matrix. Accordingly, five types of strategic points are identified in terms of their locations. They are strategic points at saddle points , at intersections, at the center, at an edge and at a corner. Strategic points for biodivershy conservation are minimax points in a given resistance surface associated with the dispersibility of a certain species. A case study is used to illustrate the methodology. The rules leading to the strategic points are largely hypothetical, though supported by a limited number of observations. This approach may provide a framework and a new model of thinking for field observations of landscape ecology as well as landscape change.     

中国主体功能区空间结构的多尺度解析

The spatial structures of China’s Major Function Zoning are important constraining indicators in all types of spatial planning and key parameters for accurately downscaling major functions.Taking the proportion of urbanization zones,agricultural development zones and ecological security zones as the basic parameter,this paper explores the spatial structures of major function zoning at different scales using spatial statistics,spatial modeling and landscape metrics methods.The results show:First,major function zones have spatial gradient structures,which are prominently represented by latitudinal and longitudinal gradients,a coastal distance gradient,and an eastern-central-western gradient.Second,the pole-axis system structure and core-periphery structure exist at provincial scales.The general principle of the pole-axis structure is that as one moves along the distance axis,the proportion of urbanization zones decreases and the proportion of ecological security zones increases.This also means that the proportion of different function zones has a ring-shaped spatial differentiation principle with distance from the core.Third,there is a spatial mosaic structure at the city and county scale.This spatial mosaic structure has features of both spatial heterogeneity,such as agglomeration and dispersion,as well as of mutual,adjacent topological correlation and spatial proximity.The results of this study contribute to scientific knowledge on major function zones and the principles of spatial organization,and it acts as an important reference for China’s integrated geographical zoning.     

城市土地利用变化中邻域相互作用的特征——日本三大都市圈的比较研究

Local spatial interaction between neighborhood land-use categories (i.e. neighborhood interaction) is an important factor which affects urban land-use change patterns. Therefore,it is a key component in cellular automata (CA)-based urban geosimulation models towards the simulation and forecast of urban land-use changes. Purpose of this paper is to interpret the similarities and differences of the characteristics of neighborhood interaction in urban land-use changes of different metropolitan areas in Japan for providing empirical materials to understand the mechanism of urban land-use changes and construct urban geosimulation models. Characteristics of neighborhood interaction in urban land-use changes of three metropolitan areas in Japan,i.e. Tokyo,Osaka,and Nagoya,were compared using such aids as the neighborhood interaction model and similarity measure function. As a result,urban land-use in the three metropolitan areas was found to have had similar structure and patterns during the study period. Characteristics of neighborhood interaction in urban land-use changes are quite different from land-use categories,meaning that the mechanism of urban land-use changes comparatively differs among land-use categories. Characteristics of neighborhood interaction reveal the effect of spatial autocorrelation in the spatial process of urban land-use changes in the three metropolitan areas,which correspond with the characteristics of agglomeration of urban land-use allocation in Japan. Neighborhood interaction amidst urban land-use changes between the three metropolitan areas generally showed similar characteristics. The regressed neighborhood interaction coefficients in the models may represent the general characteristics of neighborhood effect on urban land-use changes in the cities of Japan. The results provide very significant materials for exploring the mechanism of urban land-use changes and the construction of universal urban geosimulation models which may be applied to any city in Japan.     

Landscape pattern dynamics of water body in Kaifeng city in the 20th century

Landscape spatial pattern mainly refers to the distribution of patches, which are different in size and shape in space owing to the interaction of various ecological activities. In landscape ecology study, landscape pattern has been one of the key study areas. Water body landscape plays an important role in the development history of a city, but at present city water body landscape in many cities has been destroyed, hence protecting water body in the city is becoming more and more important. In order to protect city water body landscape reasonably, the precondition is to probe the dynamics of water body landscape. Based on historical data and remote sensing data, six indexes including patch number, patch area, landscape dominance index, fractal dimension, patch density and connectivity index etc. were used to analyze landscape pattern dynamics of water body in Kaifeng city since the end of the Qing Dynasty (in the 20th century). The results showed: (1) Since the end of the Qing Dynasty, landscape area of water body in Kaifeng city increased first and then decreased from 1898 to 2002AD; the landscape dominant degree had the same changing tendency with the area. (2) Patch number of water body landscape in Kaifeng city had an increase from 1898 to 2002, but maximum area of patch, minimum area of patch and average area of patch decreased, which resulted in an increase in landscape fragment degree. (3) Connectivity index decreased and fractal dimension increased from 1898 to 2002. The reasons for these changes were the repeated overflows and flooding of the Yellow River and the influence of human activities.