An integrated geospatial information service system for disaster management in China

The Chinese Government and citizens face enormous challenges of disaster management as widespread devastation,economic damages,and loss of human lives caused by increasing natural disasters.Disaster management requires a complicated iterative process that includes disaster monitoring,early detection,forecasting,loss assessment,and efficient analysis of disaster reduction.Each task typically involves the use of technologists and multiple geospatial information resources,including sensors,data sources,models,geo-tools,software packages,and computing resources.However,most existing disaster management systems operate in a typical passive data-centric mode,where resources cannot be fully utilized.This impediment is partially being addressed by the increasingly complex application requirements and the growing availability of diverse resources.In this paper,we summarize and analyze the practical problems experienced by the National Disaster Reduction Application System of China.To address the issues of data-centric,centralized,isolated solutions,we propose a novel Focusing Service Mechanism,which is capable of scheduling and allocating for optimum utilization of multiple resources,to dynamically generate collaborative and on-demand disaster information services.We also demonstrate the design and implementation of the Integrated Disaster Information Service System(IDISS).Through the service strategies of Virtualizing,Wrapping,and Integrating,disasterrelated resources are constructed into services in the IDISS.These services are dynamically aggregated into focusing service chains,for diverse disaster management tasks.Actual applications illustrate that the proposed service system can significantly improve the capability of disaster management in China.

Farmers'Exit from Land Operation in Rural China:Does the Price of Agricultural Mechanization Services Matter?

This study uses data covering 3,914 farm households,collected from Henan province in China,to investigate the links between the price of agricultural mechanization services and farmers'exit from land operation.The results indicate that the increasing price of agricultural mechanization services leads tofarmers leaving land operation,especially when the high sunk costs and the long-term breakeven period of self-owned machinery are considered.This effect is intensified by the rapid rural-urban migration in China.Further analysis reveals that the surge in service prices reduced land renting-in and encouraged non-grain production.Our analysis suggests that the agricultural mechanization service market in China tends to work against the survival of smallholder farmers.However,the price of agricultural mechanization services is conducive to eliminating less-productive farmers and cultivating new agricultural operators.