Understandings of Urban Sustainability in China:a Bibliometric Analysis Using Chinese Literatures

Cities hold a critical responsibility for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs)due to their high population density,extensive resource consumption,and significant economic contributions.To examine the present state of understandings regarding urban sustainability(SDG 11:Sustainable Cities and Communities)within Chinese research communities,this study collected 15950 papers from 1994 to 2022 on the 12 indicators of SDG 11,from the China National Knowledge Infrastructure(CNKI),a hub of Chinese academic papers,that directly relate to policymaking.Significant research topics on SDG 11 were identified for each indicator using bibliometrics analysis approaches.The high-frequency keywords and clusters of keywords over the last three decades reveal that existing studies primarily concentrated on the physical aspects,such as transportation and environment,while there is a lack of consideration of societal aspects.This indicates a limited and biased understanding of the urban sustainability within the Chinese academic community.Hence,it is crucial to prioritize the societal aspects in order to develop a research agenda that further advances urban sustainability.

Digital mapping of pesticides bioconcentration by integrating remote sensing techniques and plant uptake model

Although pesticides have been widely used worldwide to enhance crop yield and product quality,most pesticides are harmful to the environment and human health.Plants absorb pesticides mainly from air and soil.Therefore,the soil-plant pathway is essential for pesticide absorption.Bioconcentration factor(BCF)has extensively been applied to evaluate potential plant contamination by pesticides from soil.Hence,this study developed a simplified plant transpiration-based plant uptake model(PT-model)to estimate plant pesticides’BCF from soil based on plant transpiration.Remote sensing techniques were employed to generate spatiotemporal continuous plant transpiration via evapotranspiration.Pesticide BCF mapping was achieved by integrating PT-model with Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer(MODIS)remotely sensed data.The results were compared with a verified model driven by relative humidity and air temperature(RA-model),which has been confirmed byfindings from previous studies.The estimated BCF was within the boundaries of the RA-model,indicating the simulation’s overall acceptability.In this study,the BCF temporal trend estimated by the proposed method agreed with the RA-model assimilating meteorology datasets,while the spatial distribution was partially inconsistent.Overall,the proposed method generates the spatiotemporal patterns of pesticide BCF with relatively consistent results supported by previous records andfindings.

DAPR-tree: a distributed spatial data indexing scheme with data access patterns to support Digital Earth initiatives

This paper proposes a novel data indexing scheme,the distributed access pattern R-tree(DAPR-tree),for spatial data retrieval in a distributed computing environment.As compared to traditional distributed indexing schemes,the DAPR-tree introduces the data access patterns during the indexing utilization stage so that a more balanced indexing structure can be provided for spatial applications(e.g.Digital Earth data warehouse).In this new indexing scheme,(a)an indexing penalty matrix is proposed by considering the balance of data number,topology and access load between different indexing nodes;(b)an‘access possibility’element is integrated to a classic‘Master-Client’structure for a distributed indexing environment;and(c)indexing algorithm for the DAPR-tree is provided for index implementations.By using a duplication of official GEOSS Clearinghouse system as a case study,the DAPR-tree was evaluated in a number of scenarios.The results show that our indexing schemes generally outperform(around 9%)traditional distributed indices with the utilization of data access patterns.Finally,we discuss the applicability of the DARP-tree and document DARP-tree shortcomings to encourage researchers pursuing related topics in Big Data indexing for Digital Earth and other geospatial initiatives.