Development Geography for exploring solutions to promote regional development

Development Geography is a branch of geography which studies the socioeconomic development of different countries and regions worldwide.Its related research provides informative ideas for promoting regionally co-ordinated development.This study introduces the basic connotation and theory of Development Geography re-search,and clarifies its primary indicators and core approaches to provide solutions for regional development.Finally,the application in regional development research under globalization is proposed.It is considered that the systematically integrated geography paradigm highlights the advantages of Development Geography in re-gional development research.As a result of its“differentiation characteristics-diffusion state-convergence mode”,an important theoretical basis and methodological paradigm are provided to explore the features of regional de-velopment.Since the development gaps among regions exist long throughout the world,Development Geography research ought to focus on new characteristics and challenges of regional development,to provide a theoretical basis for synergy management of sustainable development goals and international cooperation.This contributes to high-quality regional development.

The road map for green development of Western China

China has made some remarkable achievements in sustainable development,but the constant deterioration of the overall trend of the environment has not yet been effectively curbed.To achieve the goal of sustainable development,we must first ensure coordination and coherence of national development goals in different areas and adhere to green development road.To achieve the objectives related to green development,and to clarify the direction of green development in the next 20years,a road map is needed to guide and coordinate the process.This paper describes the concept of the green development road map,introduces a green development road map for the western region,and further elaborates it The road map clarifies the objectives and guiding principles of green development in the western region,points the areas that deserve more concern and institutional innovation,and builds a green development monitoring and evaluation(M&E)framework.Finally,the paper provides corresponding policy recommendations based on the established road map.

Dynamic evaluation of land productivity in China

For making rational and scientific land-use planning,an inventory indicator of land productivity subject to biophysical limitations and human disturbance is required.This study introduces agricultural land productivity(ALP)as the dynamic indicator to measure land productivity,involving factors that affect agricultural production,such as characteristics of climate,soil,and terrain.As a case study of this dynamic indicator,ALP was estimated at county level and aggregated into provincial level in the whole of China.The result shows that ALP increased during 2000-2010 in China,and the ratios of ALP to the actual grain yield were 65.40%and 66.38%in the years 2000 and 2005,respectively.The ALP is an effective dynamic indicator to estimate the land productivity and to represent the basic conditions about the supply of water,energy,nutrients,and the physical basis for plant growth,as well as the local input.ALP estimation could provide supporting information for policy-making about land production planning and land-use management.

Opportunities and challenges for development of urbanization in Western China

Urban and rural dual structure in Western China is obvious.The economic development of the central cities is relatively quick while that of the rural areas is lagging behind.The speeding up of urbanization contributes to the intensively uncoordinated development of urban and rural areas.Besides,the eco-fragile environment,shortage of available water resources,adverse geographic location,and relatively backward social economy restrict the development of urbanization in Western China.However,Western China also has the advantages of backwardness.This paper analyzes the present situation and development trend of urbanization in Western China.The results show that Western China has basically formed a development pattern with"industry promotes agriculture and urban leads to village".Therefore,combined with the present situation of Western China,this paper describes and analyzes the opportunities and challenges that may appear in the process of urbanization in Western China,puts forward the development pattern in which urban and rural areas can gain mutual support and co-development,and provides related recommendations.

The impacts of climate change and human activities on grassland productivity in Qinghai Province, China

Qinghai Province, which is the source of three major rivers （i.e., Yangtze River, Yellow River and Lancang River） in East Asia, has experienced severe grassland degradation in past decades. The aim of this work was to analyze the impacts of climate change and human activities on grassland ecosystem at different spatial and temporal scales. For this purpose, the regression and residual analysis were used based on the data from remote sensing data and meteorological stations. The results show that the effect of climate change was much greater in the areas exhibiting vigorous vegetation growth. The grassland degradation was strongly correlated with the climate factors in the study area except Haixi Prefecture. Temporal and spatial heterogeneity in the quality of grassland were also detected, which was probably mainly because of the effects of human activities. In the 1980s, human activities and grassland vegetation growth were in equilibrium, which means the influence of human activities was in balance with that of climate change. However, in the 1990s, significant grassland degradation linked to human activities was observed, primarily in the Three-River Headwaters Region. Since the 21st century, this adverse trend continued in the Qinghai Lake area and near the northern provincial boundaries, opposite to what were observed in the eastern part of study. These results are consistent with the currently status of grassland degradation in Qinghai Piovince, which could serve as a basis for the local grassland management and restoration programs.

Comparison of multinomial logistic regression and logistic regression： which is more efficient in allocating land use？

Spatially explicit simulation of land use change is the basis for estimating the effects of land use and cover change on energy fluxes, ecology and the environment. At the pixel level, logistic regression is one of the most common approaches used in spatially explicit land use allocation models to determine the relationship between land use and its causal factors in driving land use change, and thereby to evaluate land use suitability. However, these models have a drawback in that they do not determine/ allocate land use based on the direct relationship between land use change and its driving factors. Consequently, a multinomial logistic regression method was introduced to address this flaw, and thereby, judge the suitability of a type of land use in any given pixel in a case study area of the Jiangxi Province, China. A comparison of the two regression methods indicated that the proportion of correctly allocated pixels using multinomial logistic regression was 92.98%, which was 8.47% higher than that obtained using logistic regression. Paired t-test results also showed that pixels were more clearly distinguished by multinomial logistic regression than by logistic regression. In conclusion, multinomial logistic regression is a more efficient and accurate method for the spatial allocation of land use changes. The application of this method in future land use change studies may improve the accuracy of predicting the effects of land use and cover change on energy fluxes, ecology, and environment.

Intercomparison of two trapezoid-based soil moisture downscaling methods using three scaling factors

This paper compared two soil moisture downscaling methods using three scaling factors.Level 3 soil moisture product of advanced microwave scanning radiometer for EOS(AMSR-E)is downscaled from 25 to 1 km.The downscaled results are compared with the soil moisture observations from polarimetric scanning radiometer(PSR)microwave radiometer and field sampling.The results show that(1)the scaling factor of normalized soil thermal inertia(NSTIs)and vegetation temperature condition index(VTCI)are better than soil evaporative efficiency in reflecting soil moisture;(2)for method 1,NSTIS is the best in the downscaling of soil moisture.For method 2,VTCI is the best;(3)no significant differences of the correlation coefficients(R2)and the biases were found between the two methods for the same scaling factors.However,method 2 shows a better potential than method 1 in the time-series applications of the downscaling of soil moisture;(4)compared with the relationship between the area-averaged soil moisture of AMSR-E and that of PSR,R2 of the 6 sets of the downscaled soil moisture almost do not decrease,which suggests the validity of the downscaling of soil moisture with the two downscaling methods using the three scaling factors.

Economic Effects of Drought on Agriculture in North China

In the past three decades, global agriculture losses have continuously grown due to increasingly severe droughts. Compared with direct economic effects, there are great difficulties in evaluating the indirect economic effects of drought, which has severely lagged behind the urgent information needs for decision making. This study tries to solve the perplexity in the evaluation of the effects of drought on the price fluctuation of agricultural products by building a partial equilibrium model that describes the balancing process of supply and demand quantitatively. Using this model, a scenario analysis is applied to evaluate the price fluctuation of agricultural products caused by drought in North China. The results indicate that there is no major impact of drought on the market prices of eight major agricultural products. Even with the occurrence of a severe drought in North China, market prices of agricultural products will rise no more than 3.59 percent, which is less than the normal market price fluctuations of China’s agricultural products. This study provides a tool for evaluating indirect economic effects of drought. The results of our case study could support decision making for China’s food market regulation.

Urgent need for a data sharing platform to promote ecological research in China

China has fallen behind in data sharing.A scientific data sharing platform is needed in China to create a big data pool for large-scale comprehensive ecological research by providing undisrupted flow and sharing of data resources.To meet the increasing demand for more data-intensive ecological research,the data sharing platform should improve the quality of both data and services and handle data heteroge-neity across disciplines at a higher level.As data transparency and insecurity have been major barriers to data sharing and exchange,data confidentiality and security have to be taken into consideration by gov-ernmental organizations for building a comprehensive data sharing platform.In addition,it is necessary to enhance the efficiency of data sharing among the field or laboratory ecologists in China and beyond.