The report of the 20th CPC National Congress clearly puts forward that high-quality development is the primary task of building a socialist modernized country in an all-round way, adheres to the theme of high-quality development, and pushes the economy to achieve effective qualitative upgrading and reasonable quantitative growth. High-quality development has become the guiding ideology of China's socio-economic development and the topic of academia, and urban agglomerations, as the strategic highland of regional development, are facing the key task of “improving quality and increasing efficiency”. The article integrates the requirements of the 20th Party Congress on high-quality development and the five new development concepts of “innovation, coordination, greenness, openness and sharing”, constructs an evaluation index system of urbanization quality, reveals the spatial and temporal characteristics of urbanization quality in the Yangtze River Delta city cluster, and explores the urbanization quality of the Yangtze River Delta city cluster with the help of geographic probes. The study reveals the spatial and temporal characteristics of urbanization quality in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration and explores its driving mechanism with the help of geographic probes. The results of the study show that: (1) the quality of urbanization shows a three-stage temporal evolution of “fluctuating improvement-steady improvement-significant improvement”, and the six dimensions of urbanization are: orderly coordination, green development, sharing and prosperity, economic support, openness, and innovation drive; The continuous and steady improvement of the quality of urbanization is mainly due to the orderly improvement of its coordinated development, the continuous optimization of the infrastructure level, the obvious improvement of the quality of public services, and the strong practice of the concept of green development, and in the future, efforts should be made to implement the innovation-driven strategy, and to expand the open economy in order to inject innovative vitality and new dynamic energy into the improvement of the quality of urbanization. (2) The quality of urbanization is characterized by the spatial pattern of “core-periphery” gradient with Shanghai, Nanjing and other central cities as the core; high-quality zones are core cities such as Shanghai, Nanjing and provincial capitals, while higher-quality zones are concentrated in the peripheral areas, and lower-quality and low-quality zones are distributed in the northwestern and remote inland areas of the Yangtze River Delta. The lower and lower quality districts are distributed in the remote areas in the interior of the Yangtze River Delta. (3) The quality of urbanization shows significant positive spatial correlation and the spatial agglomeration tends to increase; the local spatial autocorrelation is dominated by the high-high agglomeration type and the low-low agglomeration type. (4) The quality of urbanization is driven by multiple core factors, with the number of core factors increasing, the q value of the explanatory ability increasing year by year, and the interaction between the factors explaining the spatial and temporal characteristics of the spatial and temporal variations to a higher degree; the driving mechanism is a six-dimensional interaction with economic support as a lasting driving force, coordinated and orderly casting of a stable driving force, scientific and technological innovation and sharing prosperity as a subsequent driving force, and green development and openness as a potential driving force. Evolution. Based on this, relevant policy insights are drawn in order to provide a scientific basis and important reference for improving the quality of urbanization in the Yangtze River Delta city cluster and promoting the healthy, orderly and smooth development of urbanization.

As the key factors to promote the high-quality development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB), scientific and technological innovation and population agglomeration have an important impact on the Chinese-style modernization. Therefore, using the panel data of 110 cities at or above the prefecture level in the YREB from 2010 to 2021, this paper empirically analyzed the spatial correlation network between scientific and technological innovation and population agglomeration and the mechanism of population agglomeration on scientific and technological innovation. The results showed that: (1) Most cities in the YREB were in the central position, but their rankings in the two correlation networks were quite different; The spillover effect of provincial capital city in the spatial correlation network of science and technology innovation was significant. (2) Population agglomeration in the YREB was not conducive to improving the level of scientific and technological innovation. The development of R&D personnel and service industry was conducive to improving the level of scientific and technological innovation, while economic development also inhibited scientific and technological innovation. (3) From the perspective of the diverging segment, the upstream population agglomeration significantly promoted the scientific and technological innovation, but inhibited the scientific and technological innovation in the surrounding cities; The population agglomeration in the middle reaches was not conducive to scientific and technological innovationand the surrounding cities. The downstream population agglomeration had a potential supporting effect on the regional science and technology innovation, and the positive spillover effect on the surrounding cities was significant. The development of R&D personnel and service industries in the upper, middle and lower reaches was conducive to scientific and technological innovation. To this end, all localities should implement local policies, optimize the talent incentive mechanism, and guide the population to gather rationally in order to achieve high-quality coordinated and balanced development of scientific and technological innovation in the YREB.

Green finance has the feature of dual attributes of financial resource allocation and environmental regulation. Exploring the spatiotemporal characteristics and the influencing factors of the coupling coordination degree between ecological environment and green finance is of great significance for promoting green transformation in economic and achieving the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals. This paper took the Yangtze River Economic Belt as the research object to reveal the spatiotemporal characteristics of the coupling coordination degree. The coupling coordination evaluation index system was constructed, using the methods of kernel density estimation and standard deviation ellipse. The influencing factors were identified using bidirectional fixed-effect model. The results showed that：（1）There was an overall increase in the coupling coordination degree between the ecological environment and green finance in Yangtze River Economic Belt，accompanied by a phenomenon of multipolar differentiation. The coupling coordination degree in downstream areas increased faster than that in upstream and midstream areas. （2）The spatial differences in coupling coordination degree between the two systems were obvious. A spatial pattern of multi-core development presented, with Shanghai as the core and Nanjing，Hangzhou，Chengdu，and Chongqing cities as the sub-cores. （3）The effects in the order of green innovation，government support，openness，economic foundation，human capital，industrial structure，and energy intensity on the coupling coordination degree of the two systems gradually weakened. The effects of each factor demonstrated a spatiotemporal heterogeneity for different periods and regions.

Based on the panel data of 110 prefecture-level cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) from 2011 to 2021, an index system for measuring the level of digital economy and common prosperity was constructed in this study. The econometrics and spatial statistics methods were used to analyze the impact of digital economy on common prosperity and the temporal and spatial characteristics. The results showed that: (1) The development of digital economy and common prosperity in the YREB showed an overall upward trend, but the development gap was gradually widening. The level of digital economy in the three regions was downstream > upstream > Middle stream, and the level of richness and common degree was downstream > middle stream > upstream; (2) The digital economy could significantly promote the level of affluence and commonality through increasing the entrepreneurial activity, but the promotion effect had obvious regional heterogeneity. The digital economy in the downstream region had the most significant improvement in the level of affluence, and the digital economy in the upstream region had the most significant improvement in the level of commonality. The release effect of digital dividend on the level of common degree was in a need to reach a certain level of affluence; (3) The effect of digital economy on affluence and commonality was the strongest in the downstream region. The clustering patterns of the influence coefficients of various cities varied. The spatial scalability showed a northeast-southwest trend.

Currently, the international and domestic environments are becoming complex and volatile. The development zone, as an open, dynamic, and complex system, may face a variety of uncertainty risks during the evolution process. There is an urgent need to seek new perspectives to carry out a comprehensive study. This study took the provincial-level and above development zones in Chang-Zhu-Tan urban agglomeration (CZTUA) as the research object. Coupled theories of the adaptive cycle and regional economic resilience was applied to construct a three-dimensional comprehensive measurement framework of " potential-connectivity-resilience". Using the entropy method and the evolutionary dynamics model, we inscribed the trajectory of the resilience evolution of the 17 provincial-level and above development zones in the CZTUA from 2005 to 2021. The resilience formation mechanism from the multi-scale of the cities, development zones, and enterprises was explored. The results showed that: (1) the resilience level of the development zone of the CZTUA presented a fluctuating upward trend. The ability to cope with external disturbances was increasing. (2) The evolution of development zones in the CZTUA was consistent with the intrinsic law of adaptive cycling, which continued to evolve through four different stages: exploitation, conservation, release, and reorganization. The majority of development zones was currently in the updating stage and was evolving towards a new stage of exploitation. (3) The resilience of development zone evolved in a complex dynamic environment, with different driving factors at different stages. At the exploitation and conservation stages, the main driving force came from external sources, and the city's level of financial self-sufficiency and market scale showed the most significant effects; At the release stage, the main driving force came from the development zone's level of industrial specialization and governance capacity; At the reorganization stage, the innovation capacity showed the most significant effects. The study aimed to provide new ideas and directions for development zones to adapt to environmental changes from the perspective of dynamic development. The research outcomes were expected to further enrich the content of resilience research, and to provide theoretical guidance and case support for promoting the development of development zones themselves as well as the high-quality development of the regional economy.

Enhancing the sustainable development momentum of Anhui Province is of great significance to promote the higher-quality development of the Yangtze River Delta in the new development stage of the country. This paper constructed a sustainable development level assessment framework and an indicator system, based on the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The sustainable development level of Anhui Province and its 16 prefecture-level cities from 2011 to 2021 was measured. Coupling coordination degree of sustainable development in the social, economic, and environmental domains was determined for cities, and the spatial-temporal evolution features of sustainable development level for Anhui province were examined. Dagum Gini coefficient was employed to investigate the causes of regional variations in the sustainable development level of Anhui Province. Additionally, the grey correlation analysis method was utilized to uncover the primary factors influencing the sustainable development level of the cities in Anhui Province. The findings indicated a tendency of continual improvement in the Anhui Province’s sustainable development index and the coupling coordination degree of the three subsystems; However, there was a clear regional disparity in terms of the sustainable development level. The spatial differences of sustainable development level in Anhui Province mainly came from the differences between regions, and the inter-regional differences of Central Anhui-North Anhui and Central Anhui-South Anhui were obviously higher than that of South Anhui-North Anhui. The impacts of different indicators in different dimensions on the comprehensive level of sustainable development of each city were significantly different. For Hefei city, the provincial capital, the proportion of R&D expenditure, the proportion of public service expenditure, and the harmless disposal rate of domestic waste were the primary factors affecting the comprehensive level of sustainable development of economic, social and environmental subsystems. The results of this study provided scientific support for accelerating the realization of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals and promoting high-quality development in Anhui Province.

The Yangtze River Economic Zone (YREZ) is one of the main grain producing areas in China. The study of the ecological efficiency and spatial pattern of cultivated land utilization in the YREZ is of great practical significance for securing national food security. This paper used the super-efficiency SBM model, Malmquist index model and spatial autocorrelation analysis to evaluate the ecological efficiency of cultivated land use in the YREZ and in each prefecture-level city. Results revealed that: （1） The average ecological efficiency value of the YREZ was 0.73, which was at a medium level in terms of input and output. This value had not yet reached the most efficient state, with considerable room for improvement. Meanwhile, the ecological efficiency level of cultivated land use in each prefecture-level city generally showed a distribution pattern of "low in the east and high in the west", with certain regional differences. （2）The ecological efficiency of cultivated land use in the YREZ had weak positive spatial autocorrelation, and there was an agglomeration effect. Areas with high-efficiency had effects in radiating an increase in ecological efficiency of cultivated land use in surrounding areas. Through strengthening exchanges and cooperation with neighbouring areas, the ecological efficiency of cultivated land use in the YREZ could be effectively improved, via upgrading the level of agricultural production and management, and reducing the pollution of agricultural production.

Water, energy and food are the basic materials to ensure human production and living. Revealing the coupling and coordination degree and evolution trend of the ‘water energy food’ (WEF) system in Hubei Province can provide a scientific basis for its resource allocation and sustainable development. By constructing an evaluation index system for the coupling and coordinated development of the WEF system in Hubei Province, the coupling and coordinated development status of the WEF system from 2002 to 2022 was quantitatively evaluated. The ARIMA model was used to predict the WEF system coupling and coordinated scheduling from 2025 to 2040. The results indicate that the comprehensive development evaluation index of Hubei WEF system showed an overall upward trend from 2002 to 2022, with the development index of water resources had the greatest impact on it; The WEF system is in a high-level coupling stage; The coupling and coordination relationship of WEF system shows a gradual upward trend; The prediction results of ARIMA model show that the coupling coordination degree of Hubei WEF system from 2025 to 2040 is in a highly coupled stage. The comprehensive development evaluation index of resources shows that the comprehensive development level of water resources in Hubei Province is still unstable, and affects the rate of coordinated development of the WEF system. Therefore, strengthening the protection of water resources and optimizing the structure of water use are the key points to realize the coordinated and sustainable development of the WEF system in Hubei Province.

Cross-regional horizontal ecological compensation is a crucial approach to implement the strategy of ecological civilization and establish a positive interactive relationship between ecological protectors and beneficiaries. Ecosystem service flow clearly reflects who, when, and where benefits from ecological services, which is a new focal point for research on cross-regional horizontal ecological compensation. Based on the quantitative assessment of ecosystem service quality and value in the Wuhan metropolitan area for the year of 2000, 2010, and 2020, this study unveiled the spatial flow characteristics of ecosystem services. Furthermore, this paper constructed a cross-regional horizontal ecological compensation model by adjusting the value transfer amount and incorporating the socio-economic development level coefficient. The results showed that: (1) The spatial dislocation of ecosystem service supply and demand in Wuhan urban agglomeration was obvious. (2) Ecosystem service flows were primarily directed towards the northeast and southwest regions with an overall increasing trend in flow radius, intensity, and value transfer. (3) The total amount of ecological compensation increased continuously from 1.452 billion yuan to 2.452 billion yuan in 2000, 2010 and 2020. Thee amount of compensation for each compensation area increased from 0-823 million yuan to 0-1 065 million yuan, and the amount of compensation for each compensation area increased from 0-948 million yuan to 0-1 147 million yuan.

Exploring the spatial and temporal patterns and the drivers of multiple ecosystem services at the watershed scale is essential for implementing integrated watershed ecosystem management. This study focused on the spatial and temporal dynamics of water yield, carbon storage services, soil conservation services, and habitat quality, along with the drivers in the Fuhuan River Basin. Initially, the spatio-temporal heterogeneity of ecosystem services at the grid and sub-watershed scales was characterized using quantitative methods to identify multiple clusters of ecosystem services at the sub-watershed level. Subsequently, the geo-detector technique was applied to assess the impacts of various factors on ecosystem services. Finally, a spatio-temporal Geographically Weighted Regression (GTWR) model was developed to investigate the spatial heterogeneity of each influential factor. The findings revealed that: (i) the distribution of the four ecosystem services in the Fuhuan River Basin between 2000 and 2020 exhibited significant spatio-temporal heterogeneity, while maintaining a relatively stable spatial pattern. The overall trend of ecosystem services within the study area showed an upward trajectory, with similar spatial distributions observed at both grid and sub-basin scales; (ii) the geo-detector analysis indicated varying degrees of influence from different factors. The factors of Digital Elevation Model (DEM), mean annual precipitation, average land GDP, and population density were identified as dominant factors affecting multiple ecosystem services, with q-values of 0.64, 0.52, 0.47, and 0.44, respectively. Moreover, individual natural-social factors displayed heterogeneous contributions to each ecosystem service type over the same time period, exhibiting distinct variations across different years; (iii) results from the GTWR model demonstrated a positive correlation between elevation, precipitation, and multiple ecosystem services, with the effect intensity diminishing from east to west. Per capita GDP and population density were negatively correlated with overall ecosystem services, yet exhibited positive correlations in certain downstream areas.

Exploring the distribution, uptake, enrichment and influencing factors of selenium (Se) in the rice-soil system is of great significance for the regional development of specialty Se-enriched products.In this study, 542 sets of paddy soil-rice samples were collected and measured.Combined with ordinary Kriging interpolation, cold hot pots analysis, correlation analysis and random forest model methods, the distribution and enrichment characteristics and patterns of Se in paddy soil-rice systems in Linli County were investigated.The relationships were analyzed between parent material, soil physicochemical properties (SOM, CEC and pH), essential micronutrients (Cu and Zn), climatic factors (temperature, precipitation and humidity) and soil Se content, rice Se content and BCF.The results showed that: （1）The mean value of Se content in paddy soil in Linli County (0.76 mg/kg) was 2.6 times higher than the background soil level in China (0.29 mg/kg) and 1.9 times higher than the global average background soil level (0.40 mg/kg).The mean value of rice Se content (0.15 mg/kg) was 3.75 times higher than the minimum allowable level of Se content in selenium-enriched rice (0.04 mg/kg).（2）The Moran's I indexes of soil Se, rice Se and BCF were 0.32, 0.28 and 0.13, respectively, with a moderate degree of spatial autocorrelation, which was influenced by both spatial structure factors and random factors.（3）There was a significant difference in the Se content of paddy soils developed from different parent material (p<0.05), while there was no significant difference between rice Se content and BCF.The results of the random forest model indicated that precipitation, humidity and SOM were the main influencing factors on the Se content of paddy soil, while humidity, precipitation, rice Cu and temperature were the main predictors of rice Se content; CEC, precipitation, humidity and SOM were the main predictors of BCF (p<0.05).The high soil Se content in paddy fields in Linli County was conducive to the development of Se-rich agricultural products.The Se enrichment ability of rice could be regulated based on factors such as parent material, SOM and CEC, which may improve the economic benefits of Se-rich agricultural products.

Promoting the synergistic development of cutting carbon dioxide emissions, reducing pollution, expanding green development and pursuing economic growth is an inherent requirement for realizing high-quality economic and social development in the new phase of progress.Using CRITIC-entropy method, Dagum Gini coefficient, variance decomposition, kernel density analysis and spatial convergence model, this paper analyzed the development trend, regional differences and structural roots, dynamic evolution and astringency of cutting carbon dioxide emissions, reducing pollution, expanding green development and pursuing economic growth level in China and eight comprehensive economic zones from 2004 to 2021.The results indicated that: (1) the level of cutting carbon dioxide emissions, reducing pollution, expanding green development and pursuing economic growth in both entire country and the economic zones had been consistently improving.However, there still existed an imbalance in regional development, with coastal areas demonstrating higher distribution characteristics compared to the national average and inland areas.(2) The inter-regional differences were the main source of the differences in the overall growth level of cutting carbon dioxide emissions, reducing pollution, expanding green development and pursuing economic growth.Specifically, differences in growth quality were mainly concentrated in the entire country and coastal areas and discrepancies in green expansion benefits were primarily concentrated in the middle reaches of the Yellow River, the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, Northeast region and Southwest region.The significance of differences in carbon reduction levels was increasingly pronounced in the Great Northwest region.(3) Significant spatial spillover effects were observed in the economic zones, while only conditional β convergence could be found in the middle Yellow River region.Moreover, both absolute β convergence and conditional β convergence presented cross the entire country and other economic zones.

As a new way to solve urban problems, Green Infrastructure (GI) can provide multifunctional ecosystem services to cities and their inhabitants.Taking the Hanjiang Ecological Economic Zone as the study area, the paper adopts the methods of morphological spatial pattern analysis(MSPA), landscape index method and minimum cumulative resistance model (MCR) to construct the GI network from 2010 to 2020 to reveal its temporal and spatial evolution.The following conclusions can be made.(1) In the past ten years, the total area of GI landscapes in the research zone accounted for about 58% of the total area of the research zone with annual average growth rate of 2.6‰ and it will continue to increase.Among them, the core area occupied about 86.08% of the total area of GI landscape.(2) The GI landscape around the city was severely affected by urban expansion.Its area was continually shrinking and the structure tended to be simplified.Thereby, we meet great challenges to protect and restore it.(3) The comprehensive resistance value decreased from northwest to southeast, while the high-resistance area showed a continuous trend of expansion.The potential corridor constructed on resistance was densely distributed in the middle and upper reaches of Hanjiang, whose number has increased from 8.70% of negative growth to 63.64% of positive growth.Moreover, the number of ecological nodes have continuously increased to 1,916, which reflected the fragmentation phenomenon in the upper reach was not effectively stopped.(4) The network structure presented a pattern of “local connectivity and overall looseness”, which greatly limited the scope of species dispersion and energy flow.The number and area of GI sources were the key to network structure optimization.

This article applied relevant theories such as institutional change, intergovernmental cooperation, and collective action, to explore whether the cross regional ecological compensation model could become an effective way to promote regional sustainable development. The "Xin'an River" ecological compensation model was taken as a study example. This study found that: （1）Under the leadership of the central government and the service of local governments to meet the requirements of modern development, the cross regional ecological compensation model should construct a horizontal and an overall compensation in a manner of sharing linkage system. This should become a long-term mechanism to promote the transition of watershed jurisdiction from "one water co protection" to "one region co prosperity". （2）The sustainable development of the cross regional ecological compensation model originated from the endogenous environmental needs of institutional arrangements. Relying solely on vertical external support would be difficult to achieve balanced governance across the entire basin.（3）The effectiveness of cross-border ecological compensation models should have basic elements such as flexible institutional supply, solid ecological governance momentum, and innovative cross regional governance patterns. The renewal and iteration of the "Xin'an River" ecological compensation model provided an effective path choice for exploring the Chinese path to modernization ecological compensation system arrangement.

High-quality development of the Yellow River Basin depends on the support of scientific and technological innovation.A good environment for scientific and technological innovation play the key role in supporting high-quality development.The scientific and technological innovation environment of provinces in the Yellow River Basin was comprehensively evaluated by using factor analysis and entropy methods.The results showed that the scientific and technological innovation environment in the study area was generally poor.The level of innovation environment demonstrated a differentiated space pattern.Except for a few individual provinces that possessed a relatively strong human resource of scientificand technological innovation, the Yellow River Basin generally encountered problems of insufficient investment in innovation, poor awareness of scientific and technological innovation protection, and low conversion rate of scientific and technological achievements.In order to optimize the innovation environment to support a high-quality development, a number of suggestions were put forward.These included building an incentive mechanism for green scientific and technological innovation, strengthening the transformation mechanism for scientific and technological achievements, building a sharing system for resources of instruments and equipment, and improving the collaborative innovation mechanism in multiple fields.

Adaptation of green production technology is an important way to promote the green transformation of agricultural production.However, farmers are facing with many information difficulties in the process of technology adoption.With the development of digital rural development strategy, it is of great practical significance to explore the influence of farmers' digital information ability on their adoption of green production technology.Based on the survey data of 1 441 rice farmers in Jiangxi Province, this paper constructed a theoretical analysis framework of "digital information capacity-technology ecological cognition-technology adoption intensity".The Ordered Probit model and mediating effect model were used to explore the influence of digital information capacity on green production technology adoption and the mediating effect of technology ecological cognition.The results showed that digital information ability could significantly promote the adoption of green production technology by farmers.From all dimensions, digital information acquisition ability, judgment ability, sharing ability and application ability had a significant positive impact on the adoption of green production technology.The degree of impact was in the order of digital information acquisition ability>judgment ability>sharing ability>application ability.The results of mechanism analysis indicated that technological ecological cognition acted as an intermediary in the process of digital information ability affecting the adoption of green production technology.Specifically, digital information ability would positively affect green technology adoption behavior by improving farmers' technological ecological cognition.The results of heterogeneity analysis indicated that digital information ability had a significant positive impact on farmers' adoption of soil testing and fertilizer application technology, green pest prevention and control technology and organic fertilizer technology.However, it had no significant effects on the recovery of agricultural film pesticide packaging and straw crushing and returning to the field.In terms of operating scale, digital information ability had a greater effect on the adoption of green production technologies by large-scale households than by small farmers.Based on these, the paper proposed policy implications, including enhancing the cultivation of farmers' digital information ability and improving their ecological cognition level of green production technology.

Fungal communities are important drivers of soil physicochemical processes, and some fungal genera have the ability to inhibit Cd pollution, to ensure the quality and safety of food.An important grain production area, County A in China was selected in this study.50 paddy fields were randomly selected for sampling to obtain soil Cd pollution data.The basic physical and chemical properties and heavy metal content of the soil were examined in laboratory.Soil fungal communities were detected using high-throughput sequencing technology.By using the Geological Accumulation Index (GI) and Nerome Comprehensive Index (NI), the pollution level of Cd in soil was evaluated.It was showed that there were two pollution levels in this study area, i.e.severe pollution (IV, NI>3) and moderate pollution (III, 2<NI ≤ 3).The research results indicated that: (1) The fungal community richness index Sobs, Chao and Diversity index Shannon, Invsimpson were significantly higher for Cd severe pollution, than those with a moderate pollution level.(2) The relative abundance of four fungal phyla, including Ascomycota, was significantly positively correlated with Cr, Hg, Pb, As, and Hg contents in soil samples with a severe Cd pollution level.Meanwhile, five fungal genera including Penicillium were significantly positively correlated with Cu, Pb, Hg, and Ni contents.(3) The functional abundance of fungal communities in soil environments heavily polluted by Cd, including pathological symbiotic, saprophytic symbiotic, and pathological saprophytic symbiotic transition, was significantly higher than those in the moderately polluted areas at a p<0.05 level.These results indicated that there were still certain heavy metal tolerant bacterial strains that could play a role in soil energy cycling and effectively degraded heavy metal toxicity in Cd polluted soil environments.