Impact of coupling coordination development of port and city environments on urban economic competitiveness:Evidence from the coastal port cities in eastern China

Promoting the coupling coordination development of port and its hinterland city environments is an important way to improve urban economic competitiveness.Based on relevant data of 13 coastal port cities in eastern China from 2000 to 2018,this study explores the coupling coordination development of port and city environments and its impact on urban economic competitiveness by constructing the coupling coordination degree model and the panel threshold model.The research results show that:(1)In terms of the coupling coordination development of port and city environments,most coastal ports and their hinterland cities are in a state of moderate or serious disorder.Overall,the degree of coupling coordination of port and city environments needs to be further improved;(2)The coupling coordination degree of port and city environments has a significant impact on urban economic competitiveness,and this effect gradually increases with the development of the ports and the urban economy.Among the variables that impact the urban economic competitiveness,fixed assets investment and foreign trade are significant factors that can enhance urban economic competitiveness.(3)At present,there is a“U-shaped”relationship between the coupling coordination degree of port-city environments and the urban economic competitiveness.This relationship lies on the right side of the inflection point of the“U-shaped”curve.Therefore,following the concept of assigning priority to ecological development,expanding fixed assets investment and actively developing foreign trade can further enhance the urban economic competitiveness.

Construction of Urban Overall Water Environment in Xi'an City

[Objective] The aim was to study on construction of overall water environment in Xi＇an. [Method] The study discussed necessity and basic principles of over-all restoration and construction of ＂Chang＇an Eight Water＂ from urban planning, and explored related methods from long term planning and concrete construction approaches. [Result] The study proposed that urban landscape substrates of ＂Chang＇ an Eight Water＂ should be restored based on overall planning about urban water environment, change of linear metabolism, and construction of drainage circulation system. Furthermore, self-circulation and purification of rainfall and sewage could be made use of there in view of present urban water environment. In addition, urban ＂metabolism＂ should be restored progressively to improve urban environment with consideration of water catchment, storage, and diversion. [Conclusion] We should take the initiative to catch the special opportunity to build Xi＇an into an international metropolis with overall planning, designing and implementation, which will be conducive to reconstruction of water system and pleasant surroundings, and to presentation of urban ecosystem and context in ＂Chang＇an Eight Water＂, providing many opportunities for urban development.

Computational Intelligence Driven Secure Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Image Classification in Smart City Environment

Computational intelligence(CI)is a group of nature-simulated computationalmodels and processes for addressing difficult real-life problems.The CI is useful in the UAV domain as it produces efficient,precise,and rapid solutions.Besides,unmanned aerial vehicles(UAV)developed a hot research topic in the smart city environment.Despite the benefits of UAVs,security remains a major challenging issue.In addition,deep learning(DL)enabled image classification is useful for several applications such as land cover classification,smart buildings,etc.This paper proposes novel meta-heuristics with a deep learning-driven secure UAV image classification(MDLS-UAVIC)model in a smart city environment.Themajor purpose of the MDLS-UAVIC algorithm is to securely encrypt the images and classify them into distinct class labels.The proposedMDLS-UAVIC model follows a two-stage process:encryption and image classification.The encryption technique for image encryption effectively encrypts the UAV images.Next,the image classification process involves anXception-based deep convolutional neural network for the feature extraction process.Finally,shuffled shepherd optimization(SSO)with a recurrent neural network(RNN)model is applied for UAV image classification,showing the novelty of the work.The experimental validation of the MDLS-UAVIC approach is tested utilizing a benchmark dataset,and the outcomes are examined in various measures.It achieved a high accuracy of 98%.

Production of Railwayscape in urban environment:Analysing railway heritage tourism potential in Siliguri City,India

For a long time,it has been argued that the theories and practices devoted to urban planning and management should conform to the fundamental role of planning policies in the production of urban space,but not merely the spatial distribution of the produced services.Towards this wider connotation,this study introduces the notion of Railwayscape,grounded on the theory of‘The Production of Space’,to examine the role of railway station districts as catalysts of urban development through the social production of urban space.The present research sets out to establish the notion of Railwayscape and apply it in a railway heritage,i.e.,the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway(DHR)and its point of inception,Siliguri City,India.Accordingly,a criteria-based evaluation of four railway station districts(New Jalpaiguri,Siliguri Town,Siliguri Junction,and Sukna)in Siliguri and its surroundings was performed.The information regarding the selected four railway station districts is obtained through field observation and key informant consultation,supplemented by published literature and remote sensing data.This evaluation is succeeded by the strengths,weaknesses,opportunities and threats(SWOT)analysis accentuating the potential strengths,weaknesses,opportunities and threats associated with the selected four railway station districts and their prospects to become the potential Railwayscape.The results of this research show that there is no railway station district in Siliguri that can fully meet the demands of the locals and tourists,therefore,relfecting a lack of awareness of the historical values of these districts.The results also indicate that there are significant differences in the relative potentials of railway station districts to become the Railwayscape in urban environment.The outcomes of this research,therefore,are expected to encourage policy-making insitutions and practitioners to realise the‘place value’of some railway station districts and their potentials to yield better economic,social and structural virtue for a wide range of actors.

Impact of Environmental Factors on Respiratory Diseases in Fuxin City and Its Prediction

Based on the daily data of visits for respiratory diseases in two grade A hospitals as well as meteorological factors and air pollution in Fuxin City from December 1, 2020 to November 31, 2021, PCA and RBF neural network were used to study the effects of meteorological factors and air pollution on respiratory diseases and predict them. The results showed that the number of daily visits was the largest in winter(accounting for 62.5%), followed by spring(15.2%), and it was the smallest in autumn(only 6.9%). The correlation between the number of daily visits and meteorological factors was higher than that of air pollution factors, and the correlation with temperature and ozone was the highest. The response coefficient of daily visits to each factor increased first and then decreased within 9 d, and the peak was 4-5 d behind. RBF and PCA-RBF neural network models were established to predict the number of daily visits, and the accuracy was 86.3% and 95.2%, respectively.

ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY AND SCENARIOS OF URBANIZATION IN ARID AREA——A Case Study in Wuwei City of Gansu Province

Based on data of questionnaire and field survey and two developing models of Business As Usual (BAU) and the Intensive Urbanization (IU), this article, taking Wuwei City, a medium size city and typical oasis arid area in Gansu Province with very vulnerable and sensitive natural environment but long history of oasis economy, as an example, evaluated the sustainability of its environment and analyzed the scenarios of Wuwei’s household energy consumption, waste discharge in transportation industry, primary industry, secondary industry, tertiary industry, by the integration of the systematical dynamics model Stella and Polestar language to simulate the future development of the research area. The results showed that, first, the developing model of IU was propitious to Wuwei City named for oasis economy and vulnerable natural environment. The strategy of "Intensive Urbanization" can change the structure of energy utilization, and improve the efficiency of energy utilization. Second, the proportion of domestic energy consumption will decrease with industrialization and economic development, while that of tertiary industry, secondary industry and transportation will gradually grow up according to strategy of "Intensive Urbanization". Third, the Wuwei City is facing a severe eco-environmental crisis under the conventional patterns of development and a better future under a sustainable urbanization scenario, in the next 10 to 20 years. The different developing trends were clarified and the relative countermeasures were put forward for the policy makers according to the driving forces.

A climatic environmental performance assessment method for ecological city construction:Application to Beijing Yanqi Lake

In contrast to the input perspective for evaluating planning metrics, this research takes the climatic environmental output effects as the starting point for assessing ecological city construction. Based on approaches such as observation data analysis, meteorological model simulation, and remote sensing, a set of climatic environmental performance assessment methods is developed and established. These methods mainly focus on surface ventilation assessment and urban thermal environment assessment. With the Yanqi Lake ecological development demonstration area located in Huairou district, Beijing as an example, the assessment of the local climatic environment before and after the construction are conducted, and relevant policy suggestions for urban planning and construction are presented. The results show that after development, the ventilation capacity will decrease overall and the ventilation potential index will decrease from 0.53 to 0.44. While this is not a large reduction, and is still at a favorable level, the ventilation potential in some local areas will markedly decrease. Furthermore, the thermal environment will become poorer to some extent; the urban heat island(UHI) area and intensity will increase compared with the current situation;continuous heat islands may occur in local areas; the UHI potential index of the core area will rise from 0.0878 to 0.1217(still a favorable level).Therefore, urban surfaces should be carefully developed and arranged during planning. It is suggested that the negative impacts of large areas of urban construction on the local climatic environment in the Yanqi Lake could be mitigated by 1) strengthening the airflow by introducing fresh,cold, northwesterly air via constructed ventilation corridors, 2) increasing the number of ecological cold sources, particularly for water bodies and green belts to prevent the UHI in the southern region of Yanqi Lake from becoming linked with each other, and 3) considering a pre-program before sub-domain and building planning to obtain optimum building locations. Different construction standards should be developed for different ventilation potential and UHI intensity levels. For strong heat island areas, land areas should be reserved to serve as cold sources.

Relationship Between Economic Growth and Water Environmental Quality of Anshan City in Northeast China

Based on the decomposition model of environmental quality and univariate regression model,the relationships of industrial wastewater drainage with economic scale,economic structure,and technological level in Anshan,a mining city in Northeast China,were studied. The results showed that,due to scale effect,the drainage of three important industrial wastewater pollutants(COD,NH3-N and petroleum) increased 8505t,671t and 384t,respectively,and due to structure effect,those pollutants drainage increased 3996t,174t and 120t from 2001 to 2006. While due to technological effect,the drainage of COD,NH3-N and petroleum reduced 4452t,458t and 331t,and due to cross effect,those pollutants drainage reduced 7270t,575t and 476t simultaneously. Meantime,the relationships between household consumption structure and domestic sewage discharge were analyzed,and domestic sewage discharges in different income levels were also compared. The results showed that,the domestic sewage discharges would increase 376t with 1000 yuan(RMB) increased in the traffic and communication consumption,and they would be 344t,219t,428t,1873t,respectively,in housing consumption,food consumption,medical consumption,miscellaneous commodity consumption. The proportion of domestic sewage discharge increased for high income residents significantly,but reduced for lower income residents. The industrial wastewater pollutants drainage tends to be reduced by technical progress,while domestic sewage discharge will be a more important factor for urban water environment quality.

Water Environment Carrying Capacity of New Zhengdong District in Zhengzhou City

Taking sections of the Dongfeng Canal, the Xionger River and the Wei River in New Zhengdong District for example, this paper applied water environment capacity to analyze the carrying capacity of surface water environment in the east development zone of the city. The analysis shows that carrying capacity of surface water environment in the study area is not good, carrying capacity of 3 studied waters for TP, BOD_5 and COD is approaching to the limit. New Zhengdong District, in terms of industrial structure, should promote the projects with less water consumption, less or no discharge of wastewater, and also should enhance the sewage treatment, improve recycling rate of the reclaimed water, and reduce the negative impact of sewage and pollutant discharge on environment.

Countermeasures for Solving the Environmental Problems and Accelerating the Model City Construction of Xi'an

Through careful study, it found that the key and difficult points of affecting and restricting Xi＇an to reach the model city construction standards in provincial and national levels were ＂urban air environment quality standards＂ and ＂water qualification rate of urban water environment function area＂. In order to tackle with the weak links, highlight the important points and focus on the difficult points to strengthen scientific and technological innovation, we actively explored new ideas and ways to resolve the dilemma in meeting the two standards of model city construction, and we managed to put forward the countermeasures to resolve the dilemma through innovating system and mechanism. ＂Place master system＂ should be carded out quickly to meet the ＂urban air environment quality standards＂, while ＂river master system＂ should be implemented as soon as possible to reach the ＂water qualification rate of urban water environment function area＂. The aim of this study was to enhance the qualification rates of the indicators for model city construction to make Xi＇an successfully pass the provincial and national assessment of model city construction through dealing with the weak links to accelerate the realization of becoming model environmental protection city.

Research on the Development of Modern Environment Art Pattern under the Perspectives of Green City and Environmental Protection

In this paper, we conduct research on the development of modem environment art pattern under the perspectives of green city and environmental protection. Environmental art and practical function refers to the practical use of it, fitness for a particular purpose or use value, is also the most concern of the basic user. Practical function is the most basic level in the environmental art design, environmental art and practical function and the traditional social system, history, ethnic customs, science, culture, economic development level, and there is a close relationship between geographical environment and so on. Environmental art including landscape and soft landscape two kinds big. Soft landscape plant configuration and plant layout as the main content, hard landscape sketch facilities including floor, ground shop, and environment and therefore, environmental art and practical function mainly reflects in the hard landscape design, the environment landscape facilities to provide practical purpose or use value. Our research proposes the related new idea that is meaningful.

Residential environmental evaluation of local cities considering regional characteristic and personal residential preference—a case study of Saga City,Japan

Questionnaire surveys and subjective evaluations on residential environment were performed in order to grasp the main factors of residential environment of small local cities. The suitable evaluation index system was established, and the regional residential environment characteristics and personal residential preference types were analyzed, so that their influence on residential environment evaluation could be grasped. The results can be applied to the residential environment planning, construction and monitoring of local cities.

Application of Environment Psychology in City Square Design

Concept of city square was introduced and believed as an important component of urban landscape and also a major space for urban residents' activities. Beauty of city square lies in the interaction between environment and social behaviors. By introducing the two-way interaction between city square and users, behavior psychology was proposed as the foundation of environment design of plaza. As more and more attention is given to humancentered design of outdoor spaces, environment psychology has gradually been more applied in the design of various urban landscape spaces. In view of problems in the present square design, relevant theories of environment psychology were introduced to analyze psychological needs and behavior characteristics of people in outdoor spaces, and techniques for human- centered designs of city square explored to build public spaces for city dwellers.

Pattern Dynamics of Thermal-environment Effect During Urbanization:A Case Study in Shenzhen City,China

The thermal-environment effect exists in the field of rapid urbanization. It has adverse effects on the urban atmosphere, re- gional climate, energy consumption, and public health. Shenzhen, a representative of rapidly urbanizing cities in China, was selected as a case for pattern dynamics analysis of the thermal environment. The surface temperature was acquired from the thermal infrared data of Landsat TM and ETM＋ images in 1986, 1995, and 2005 by Jim6nez-Mufioz and Sobrino＇s generalized single-channel method, which was used in assessing the distribution and spatial patterns of the thermal environment. The relative thermal environment curve （RTC） was combined with Moran＇s I analysis to assess the pattern dynamics of the thermal environment in different urbanization periods. Moran＇s I index and the RTC represent a process of aggregation-fragmentation-aggregation, which shows the aggregation pattern of a decrease during the rapid urbanization period and then an increase during the steady urbanization period. High-temperature areas gradually ex- panded to a uniform and scattered distribution in the rapid urbanization period; while the high thermal-environment effect was gradually transformed into a steady spatial pattern in the stable urbanization period. To characterize the increasing development in this multiple- center city, we chose profiles along an urban-development axis. The results suggest that heat islands have expanded from internal urban to external urban areas. Four profiles were obtained showing differences in shape due to spatial differences in the process of development.

Developing a Subjective Evaluation Scale for Assessing the Built Environments of China’s Hygienic City Initiative

Objective To develop a preliminary subjective evaluation scale for assessing the built environments of China’s Hygienic City Initiative and to evaluate its reliability and validity.Methods The initial items of the scale were determined based on a review of policy documents and consultations with experts. The final items of the scale were confirmed through individual interviews with residents combined with the discretetrend method, critical ratio method, correlation coefficient method, and factor analysis method. Then, the dimensions of the scale were determined using exploratory factor analysis(EFA). The Cronbach’s α coefficient, split-half reliability coefficient, and confirmatory factor analysis(CFA) were used to assess the reliability and validity of the scale.Results A scale containing five dimensions with 22 items was established, including urban lifestyle,governance, basic functions, environmental sanitation, and amenities. The Cronbach’s α coefficient of the scale was 0.876, and the split-half reliability coefficient was 0.796. The CFA results indicate that each inspection level was within the standard limit.Conclusion The preliminarily subjective evaluation scale for assessing the built environments of China’s Hygienic City Initiative demonstrates a high level of reliability and validity. Additional empirical studies should be carried out to further verify the value of the scale in terms of practical application.

Behavior Response of Recreationists to Environment Characteristics of City Parks for Forest Recreation—A Case Study of City Parks of Jingzhou City in China

By taking city parks of Jingzhou City as an example,city parks,as primary places for citizens' daily forest recreation,should present a certain recreational environment feature under the comprehensive effect of nature,humanity,facilities,location and historical evolution.Through the empirical analysis of recreationists' behaviors in city parks with different environmental characters,it has obtained the differences of recreationists in composition,staying time and contents of recreational activities in different city parks,and that recreationists appear to adapt to the environmental characters.Recreational attractions and demands have manifested their perception towards the environmental characters of city parks.The distribution of recreational satisfaction has demonstrated that experience value of recreationists and environmental characters of city parks are consistent.

Geological Environment Problems Caused by Controlling Groundwater Exploitation in Jiangyin City

Geological environment effects caused by the control of groundwater exploitation in Jiangyin city are discussed thoroughly, including the dynamic variation of groundwater levels and quality and the development of land sub-sidence and ground fissures. According to the dynamic characteristics of groundwater levels, some advice about groundwater exploitation is offered. Our research will provide a basis for using groundwater resources and the preven- tion of geological disasters in Jiangyin city and the Suzhou-Wuxi-Changzhou area. The following results are deduced from our research. First, groundwater levels vary with the exploitation of groundwater in Jiangyin city and are affected by hydrogeological conditions. The groundwater levels remained rather stable before and after the implementation of control of groundwater exploitation in the northwest of Jiangyin city along the Yangtze River. A suitable level of exploitation should be allowed. In the southeast, the speed of recovery of the groundwater level has been rather rapid after the control of exploitation. We conclude that groundwater might be exploited locally after the groundwater level has recovered. In the southwest, the speed of recovery of the groundwater level is rather slow and exploitation of ground-water should be prohibited. Second, groundwater quality is stable in Jiangyin city and the contents of the main chemical indices of groundwater varied only slightly before and after the control of exploitation. Third, after controlling the exploitation, the speed of land subsidence has clearly slowed down and the development of ground fissures has been controlled effectively.

Dynamic Analysis of Coupling Relationship between Economic Development and Ecological Environment Based on Entropy Method——A Case Study of Xi'an City

[Objective] The aim was to study the coupling relationship between economic development and ecological environment. [Method] Firstly, the evaluation index system for the coupling system of economic development and ecological environment in Xi’an City was established, then the dynamic variation of coupling relationship between economic development and ecological environment in Xi’an City from 2001 to 2010 was analyzed by using entropy method, finally some corresponding suggestions were put forward according to the problems in the current development model. [Result] The economic development and ecological environment of Xi’an have made a significant upgrading and improvement from 2001 to 2010, namely showing a stable upward trend on the whole, and were in a well-coordinated development state in 2010. However, the development level of ecological environment obviously lagged behind economic development level. In addition, there were obvious differences in the development rate of sub-systems, that is, economic efficiency and economic level developed rapidly, while the carrying capacity of ecological environment and economic vitality grew slowly and unstably. [Conclusion] The research could provide theoretical bases for the establishment of strategies for the coordinated development economy and environment in Xi’an City.

Eco-geological environment quality assessment based on multi-source data of the mining city in red soil hilly region, China

High-intensity and large-scale resource development seriously threatens the fragile ecological environment in the red soil hilly region in southern China. This paper analyzes the eco-geological environmental problems and factors affecting Ganzhou, a mining city in the red soil hilly region,based on field survey and literature. The ecogeological environment quality(EGEQ) assessment system, which covered 11 indicators in physical geography, mining development, geological hazards,as well as water and soil pollution, was established through multi-source data utilization such as remote sensing images, DEM(Digital Elevation Model), field survey and on-site monitoring data. The comprehensive weight of each indicator was calculated through the Analytic Hierarchy Process(AHP) and entropy method. The eco-geological environment assessment map was developed by calculating the EGEQ value through the linear weighted method. The assessment results show that the EGEQ was classified into I-V grades from excellent to worse, among which, EGEQ of I-II accounted for 29.88%, EGEQ of III accounted for 32.35% and EGEQ of IV-V accounted for 37.77%;the overall EGEQ of Ganzhou was moderate. The assessment system utilized in this research provides scientific and accurate results, which in turn enable the proposal of some tangible protection suggestions.

Statistical landslide susceptibility assessment in a dynamic environment:A case study for Lanzhou City,Gansu Province,NW China

This study presents a statistical landslide susceptibility assessment(LSA) in a dynamic environment. The study area is located in the eastern part of Lanzhou, NW China. The Lanzhou area has exhibited rapid urbanization rates over the past decade associated with greening, continuous land use change, and geomorphic reshaping activities. To consider the dynamics of the environment in the LSA, multitemporal data for landslide inventories and the corresponding causal factors were collected. The weights of evidence(Wof E) method was used to perform the LSA. Three time stamps, i.e., 2000, 2012, and 2016, were selected to assess the state of landslide susceptibility over time. The results show a clear evolution of the landslide susceptibility patterns that was mainly governed by anthropogenic activities directed toward generating safer building grounds for civil infrastructure. The low and very low susceptibility areas increased by approximately 10% between 2000 and 2016. At the same time, areas of medium, high and very high susceptibility zones decreased proportionally. Based on the results, an approach to design the statistical LSA under dynamic conditions is proposed, the issues and limitations of this approach are also discussed. The study shows that under dynamic conditions, the requirements for data quantity and quality increase significantly. A dynamic environment requires greater effort to estimate the causal relations between the landslides and controlling factors as well as for model validation.