Spatial Structure,Hierarchy and Formation Mechanisms of Scientific Collaboration Networks:Evidence of the Belt and Road Regions

Scientific collaboration has become an important part of the people-to-people exchanges in the Belt and Road initiative,and remarkable progress has been made since 2013.Taking the 65 countries along the Belt and Road(BRI countries)as the research areas and using collaborated Web of Science(WOS)core collection papers to construct an international scientific collaboration matrix,the paper explores the spatial structure,hierarchy and formation mechanisms of scientific collaboration networks of 65 countries along the Belt and Road.The results show that:1)Beyond the Belt and Road regions(BRI regions),Central&Eastern Europe,China and West Asia&North Africa have formed a situation in which they all have the most external links with other countries beyond BRI regions.China has the dominant role over other BRI countries in generating scientific links.The overall spatial structure has changed to a skeleton structure consisting of many dense regions,such as Europe,North America,East Asia and Oceania.2)Within the Belt and Road regions,Central&Eastern Europe has become the largest collaboration partner with other sub-regions in BRI countries.The spatial structure of scientific collaboration networks has transformed from the‘dual core’composed of China and the Central&Eastern Europe region,to the‘multi-polarization’composed of‘one zone and multi-points’.3)The hierarchical structure of scientific collaboration networks presents a typical‘core-periphery’structure,and changes from‘single core’to‘double cores’.4)Among the formation mechanisms of scientific collaboration networks,scientific research strength and social proximity play the most important roles,while geographical distance gradually weakens the hindrance to scientific collaboration.

Labuan——A Rising Star of the Belt and Road Region

There is a small island in the north of the Brunei Bay and south of South China Sea,with an area of only92sq.m.It is described as one of the most mystical places of Asia,surrounded by coral reef with beautiful sands beaches and elegant maritime scenery.This island is called as the“garden island”of Borneo.There are also four sunken ships at the bottom of the sea area,bringing challenges and excitement to the adventurous divers.

Dancing Ping-Pong Promotes Global Collaboration——At the Sports Economy and International Regional Cooperation Forum for the Belt and Road Initiative in 2018

Sichuan is the strongest province in western China, and Chengdu is the first stop of the Silk Road and the Yangtze River Economic Zone. Qingbaijiang,the inception point of the Chengdu-Europe express railway, is an important source of artifacts from the ancient Sichuan civilization, and Sichuan province, the land of abundance, is the cradle and base of ping-pong. Chengdu has been connected to

Disaster assessment for the“Belt and Road”region based on SDG landmarks

In this study,based on the EM-DAT(The Emergency Events Database)database,disaster assessment for the“Belt and Road”region was carried out in relation to the SDG_(13.1.1)indicator of the Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs)agenda launched in 2015.A new method for diagnosing trends in the SDG_(13.1.1)indicators based on the Theil-Sen median method is proposed.In addition,using the data available in the EM-DAT,an overview of disaster records is used to quantify disasters for a total of 73 countries.The disaster trends for the period 2015‒2019 were found to demon-strate the following.(1)As a result of geological and climate con-ditions,Asia and Africa are high-risk disaster areas and disasters have caused considerable economic losses and affected the popu-lations in developing and underdeveloped countries in these regions.(2)The clear positive value ofΔs_(13.1.1)found for China reflects the country’s encouraging achievements in disaster preven-tion and mitigation.(3)The value of SDG_(13.1.1)was observed to be increasing in South Asia,northwest Africa and South Africa,with the increase in India and Mauritania being the most serious.The new method proposed in this paper allows the real trend in the SDG_(13.1.1)indicator in various countries to be derived and provides critical intelligence support for international disaster risk reduction plans and sustainable development goals.

共享社会经济路径下“一带一路” 区域人口、城市化和经济发展情景

The countries throughout the Belt and Road region account for more than 60%of the world’s population and half of the global economy.Future changes in this area will have significant influences on the global economic growth,industrial structure and resource allocation.In this study,the proportion of the urban population to the total population and the gross domestic product were used to represent the levels of urbanization and economic development,respectively.The population,urbanization and economic levels of the Belt and Road countries for 2020-2050 were projected under the framework of the IPCC's shared socioeconomic pathways(SSPs),and the following conclusions are drawn.(1)The population,urbanization and economic levels in the Belt and Road region will likely increase under all five pathways.The population will increase by 2%-8%/10a during 2020-2050 and reach 5.0-6.0 billion in 2050.Meanwhile,the urbanization rate will increase by 1.4%-7.5%/10a and reach 49%-75%.The GDP will increase by 17%-34%/10a and reach 134-243 trillion USD.(2)Large differences will appear under different scenarios.The SSP1 and SSP5 pathways demonstrate relatively high urbanization and economic levels,but the population size is comparatively smaller;SSP3 shows the opposite trend.Meanwhile,the economy develops slowly under SSP4,but it has a relatively high urbanization level,while SSP2 exhibits an intermediate trend.(3)In 2050,the population will increase relative to 2016 in most countries,and population size in the fastest growing country in Central Asia and the Middle East countries will be more than double.Urbanization will develop rapidly in South Asia,West Asia and Central Asia,and will increase by more than 150%in the fastest growing countries.The economy will grow fastest in South Asia,Southeast Asia and West Asia,and increase by more than 10 times in some counties with rapid economic development.

全球升温1.5度和2度情景下“一带一路” 区域干燥指数时空演变

Aridity index reflects the exchanges of energy and water between the land surface and the atmosphere,and its variation can be used to forecast drought and flood patterns,which makes it of great significance for agricultural production.The ratio of potential evapotranspiration and precipitation is applied to analyse the spatial and temporal distributions of the aridity index in the Belt and Road region under the 1.5℃and 2.0℃global warming scenarios on the basis of outputs from four downscaled global climate models.The results show that:(1)Under the 1.5℃warming scenario,the area-averaged aridity index will be similar to that in 1986-2005(around 1.58),but the changes vary spatially.The aridity index will increase by more than 5%in Central-Eastern Europe,north of West Asia,the monsoon region of East Asia and northwest of Southeast Asia,while it is projected to decrease obviously in the southeast of West Asia.Regarding the seasonal scale,spring and winter will be more arid in South Asia,and the monsoon region of East Asia will be slightly drier in summer compared with the reference period.While,West Asia will be wetter in all seasons,except winter.(2)Relative to 1986-2005,both areal averaged annual potential evapotranspiration and precipitation are projected to increase,and the spatial variation of aridity index will become more obvious as well at the 2.0℃warming level.Although the aridity index over the entire region will be maintained at approximately 1.57 as that in 1.5℃,the index in Central-Eastern Europe,north of West Asia and Central Asia will grow rapidly at a rate of more than 20%,while that in West Siberia,northwest of China,the southern part of South Asia and West Asia will show a declining trend.At the seasonal scale,the increase of the aridity index in Central-Eastern Europe,Central Asia,West Asia,South Asia and the northern part of Siberia in winter will be obvious,and the monsoon region in East Asia will be drier in both summer and autumn.(3)Under the scenario of an additional 0.5℃increase in global temperature from 1.5℃to 2.0℃,the aridity index will increase significantly in Central Asia and north of West Asia but decrease in Southeast Asia and Central Siberia.Seasonally,the aridity index in the Belt and Road region will slightly increase in all other seasons except spring.Central Asia will become drier annually at a rate of more than 20%.The aridity index in South Asia will increase in spring and winter,and that in East Asia will increase in autumn and winter.(4)To changes of the aridity index,the attribution of precipitation and potential evapotranspiration will vary regionally.Precipitation will be the major influencing factor over southern West Asia,southern South Asia,Central-Eastern Siberia,the non-monsoon region of East Asia and the border between West Asia and Central Asia,while potential evapotranspiration will exert greater effects over Central-Eastern Europe,West Siberia,Central Asia and the monsoon region of East Asia.