Increasing researches have focused on the Yangtze Economic Belt because this economic belt is recognized as the key point for regional development. Studying urban external service capability is an important subject on the Yangtze Economic Belt. The urban external capability is the embodiment of a city's agglomeration and radiation function. It refers to the city's ability to provide goods and services for the surrounding areas and can reflect the central position of the city in the region. In this article we quantitatively measured urban external service capability based on the urban flow intensity model, then comprehensively used the modified Theil index, Markov chains and exploratory spatial data analysis to analyze the spatio-temporal evolution of external service capabilities of 126 prefecture-level cities of 11 provinces and municipalities in the Yangtze Economic Belt since 2000. Results showed that:(1) Urban flow intensity value had an obvious increase during the study period, but different cities had different growing characteristics. The incremental and the increasing speed of eastern cities were the greatest which overtook both the central and the western region. The urban flow intensity of the urban agglomerations in the Yangtze Delta accounted for nearly half of the all. (2) The modified Theil Index showed that external service capabilities of the Yangtze Economic Belt presented spatial differentiation within province, which had a contribution of 41-48% to the total variation. The contributions at different spatial scales had different evolution trends. The contribution of differences within province increased, the contribution of differences between provinces first increased then decreased, and the contribution of differences between regions decreased. (3) There existed an obvious phenomenon of‘Club Convergence’in urban external service capability in the Yangtze Economic Belt, combining with ESDA analysis; the spatial and temporal patterns were significant. Urban external service capability of cities decrease progressively from east to west, Shanghai-Nanjing-Hangzhou, Wuhan-Changsha, Chengdu-Chongqing are the core area of the eastern region, the central region and the western region in the cities of the Yangtze Economic Belt. (4) It was pointed that multicenter balanced development and looking for a new growth point should become the direction of the construction of urban external service capability in the Yangtze Economic Belt. Full play should be given to the leading role of the eastern region, and the function of the outgoing hot spots should be grasped. The overall development may come true.

Based on the road network data of the Yangtze Economic Zone in 1988, 2001 and 2012, we mainly probed into the cities in the zone as well as the accessibilities between them, and analyzed about the pattern evolution features of those cities' accessibilities. Using the ArcGIS software, we studied 110 prefecture-level cities (the basic research unit in the Economic Zone), and took the average accessibility as the measurement index. The results are briefly shown as follows. Firstly, the accessibilities in the Yangtze Economic Zone had a significant improvement, while with huge regional disparity, the accessibilities in the eastern part were still far higher than the west part. Secondly, the time required to the nearest city was gradually reduced, the spatial pattern "one-hour circle" was progressively transformed from a "dot" to a "net" structure. Thirdly, the regional difference of accessibility improvement was significant, and the improvement of the western region was much higher than that in the central region. The greater the accessibility value, the greater the degree of improvement is. Fourthly, the inter-city accessibility was enhanced greatly. The dominant frequency of the accessibility changed from 12-36 hours in 1988 to 3-12 hours in 2012 step by step, and the accessibility structure of cities changed significantly.

Based on the model of the intensity of urban flow and the association intensity among cities, we measured and analyzed the radiation and inherent economic relations of 27 prefecture-level cities in the middle reaches of the Yangtze urban agglomeration. The results showed:(1) The total concentration and radiation in the middle reaches of the Yangtze urban agglomeration was weak, and cities whose intensity at middle and low level accounted for the majority in the region; (2) The difference was big on the radiation between secondary industry and tertiary industry, the radiation of secondary industry in cities was strong while the radiation of tertiary industry was weak, whose spatial distribution was scattered; (3) the core role in driving regional center city was not strong enough, which needs to be further strengthened; (4) The economic links among cities in the middle reaches of the Yangtze urban agglomeration was not quite close, The difference is big on the spatial distribution of the relation degree and the contact among cities of province was poor, closely linked radiation network among cities has not formed in the middle reaches of the Yangtze urban agglomeration.

Since China's livestock and poultry breeding industry is in a transition stage, choice and improvement of management mode for livestock waste governance is more prominent than technical problems. Effectiveness analysis, economic evaluation and applicability analysis were integrated to construct an evaluation framework for livestock waste management modes. Four typical cases presenting different livestock waste resource utilization management modes in Taihu Basin are employed to test the evaluation framework and methods. It is found that traditional livestock farm oriented management mode is faced with low economic efficiency and poor sustainability when applied to livestock waste resource utilization of small and decentralized livestock farms. Participation of disposal center for rural wastes, planting farms and organic fertilizer enterprises would improve the economic efficiency of resource utilization of waste from small and decentralized livestock farms. Planting farm oriented mode and organic fertilizer enterprise oriented mode have a wider range of applications in the case of considering effectiveness, efficiency and sustainability of management. Different management modes should have a more flexible combination and application according to planting-raising situation, pollution governance needs, regional economic level and government financial capacity.

The national park system is recognized by the international community as an effective mode of natural ecological protection, and it has important value in ecological civilization, environmental protection and other issues. The establishment of the national park system, the implementation of the main functional areas of the system has also been valued at the national level, national park has gradually become a research hot spot. In this paper, CVM was used to assess stakeholders' willingness to pay (WTP values) about the protection and tickets of Yangtze River National Park from the perspective of stakeholders. The aim is to measure the stakeholders' emphasis on Yangtze River National Park from the point of view of money payment. Using Logistic regression we analyzed the factors that affect the willingness of stakeholders to pay for the protection of the Yangtze River National Park. On the basis of this study, the community participation, ticket management, organization setting and operation management of the Yangtze River National Park have been discussed. The results have reference significance for the development of national parks and other national parks in the future.

Based on previous studies and field data from long-term, continuous and broad-scale sampling of riverbed sediments, in the paper we analyzed the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of bed load in South Channel and North Passage, Yangtze Estuary. Discussion from the perspective of riverbed source on the deposition material in the Yangtze Estuary deep water channel was carried out as well. Results showed that the temporal and spatial distribution of the bedload materials in the Yangtze Estuary was uneven as well; Riverbed changed with flooding season, wind blowing sand, bedload sand transit and so on; The seasonal variation of riverbed in South Channel was greater than that in the North Passage. The Yangtze estuary deep water channel deposition material partial was much thicker than suspend load and much closer to surrounding riverbed material, the channel deposition should pay attention to the exchange between beach and deep water channel trough high sediment flow at the bottom.

Land use changes are among the main factors that induce carbon emissions. One of the goals of land use is to pursue the benefits. It's important to optimize land use structure for achieving both carbon reduction and increasing efficiency. Based on the perspective of the interaction between system structure and function, in this paper we explored the feedbacks among the variables in the subsystems of carbon reduction, efficiency increasing of land use. Using the system dynamic to build a simulation model for the system, we put the constraint condition into the multi-objective programming model (MOP), combined the model of MOP and SD into one model, and acquired optimized land-use structure of Hubei Province in 2020 through system simulation. The result showed that the SD-MOP model can be used to optimize the land use structure under the conditions of carbon emission reduction and efficiency increase. Compared with the data of 2008, cultivated land, woodland, grassland and construction land increase by 3.3 thousand ha, 301.7 thousand ha, 0.8 thousand ha and 163.7 thousand ha, respectively. On the other hand, other agricultural lands and unutilized lands decreased by 72.3 thousands ha and 331.5 thousands ha, respectively. In contrast to SD model without constraints, land use carbon emission reduced by 580 thousand tons, the annual growth rate of economic efficiency was maintained at 3.58%, showing that the scheme is feasible. Optimization of land use structure based on the SD-MOP model can meet the requirements of regional sustainable development and take into account the dual goals of land use carbon emission reduction and economic benefit growth, which can provide reference for the optimal allocation of regional land resources.

Evaluation index system of water ecological civilization is the foundation and precondition to measure water ecological civilization, and also is the guideline and basis of urban water ecological civilization construction. Based on related domestic literatures, in this paper we built an evaluation index system of water ecological civilization city construction, including 18 indices chosen from several fields, such as water ecology, water engineering, water economy, water management and water culture. Furthermore, we used principal component analysis (PCA) to estimate the water ecological civilization level of 11 provincial capitals in the Yangtze Economic Belt. Results showed that the composite scores of Changsha, Hangzhou and Chengdu were higher, while Shanghai and Nanjing were comparatively low, and the disparities with other cites was obvious. In order to reflect the differences of different urban water ecological civilization level, 11 provincial capitals were divided into 5 levels. Additionally, the Yangtze Economic Belt was divided into the eastern area, the middle area and the western area from a spatial view, and their water ecological civilization degree was analyzed.

The spatiotemporal evolution of urban expansion has provided mechanistic information for the regulation of land use and policy formulation of space development, with the changes of land utilization as the carrier. We conducted an empirical analysis on Wuhan downtown area using the Landsat remote sensing images in 1989, 1999, 2008 and 2015. We applied spatial information technology and quantitative analysis of land expansion to study the transformational relationship of urban land use, and measured the expansion intensity, elasticity and direction of construction land, aiming at disclosing the spatiotemporal evolution of urban patterns. The results showed that during 1989-2015, the changes of land use in downtown Wuhan were mainly represented as expansion of construction land, reduction of unutilized land and cultivated land, and high correlation between economic growth and construction land expansion. Since 1999, the expansion rate of construction land in the downtown area has been accelerated apparently, with the gradually strengthened overall expansion intensity. The expansion of construction land was in the status of spatiotemporal instability, concentrating on suburban areas represented by Hanyang and Qingshan, and the transformed area of inner city represented by Qiaokou and Wuchang. The overall urban expansion followed the northwest direction in 1989-2008 and the southeast direction in 2008-2015, demonstrating the different regional development phases of downtown area and the change of spatial development policies.

Rural residential land is at the core of human-land relationships. Analysis on spatial characteristics of rural residential land use at urban fringes in hilly and mountainous regions helps to understand the rural human-land relationships in rapidly urbanizing areas, but also help to promote the linkage of urban renewal, new area development and rural development. Taking LiangJiang New Area as an example, in this paper we analyzed characteristics of rural residential land use through 4 aspects, including characteristics of rural residential land use quantity, spatial differentiation characteristics of rural residential land, fractal geometry of rural residential land the spatial pattern of rural residential land. The results showed that the characteristics of rural residential land use quantity existed obvious differences in general. Under the influences of elevation, slope, geological disasters, rivers, urban and traffic factor, rural residential land use quantity also existed certain differences in different locations, and there is a considerable part of rural residential land that needs to be consolidated to improve its natural and regional conditions. The fractal dimension value of rural residential land in LiangJiang New Area changed between 1.12 and 1.53, and it increased gradually from southwest to northeast. Based on the spatial distribution of those fractal dimension values we can find a pattern of "sectorial cycle structure". In particular, the farther distance from the city, the greater of the fractal dimension values were, implying that the structure of rural residential land plaque was more and more complicated with increasing distance from the city. On the contrary, under the influence of urbanization, the rural residential land near the city become more and more clear and neat. As we can see from the spatial distribution of the rural residential land in LiangJiang New Area, at a township scale, the spatial pattern of rural settlements presented three kinds of patterns, such as uniformity, randomness, and cluster. At the patch scale, the spatial distribution of rural residential land in LiangJiang New Area also present characteristic of spatial agglomeration. With the influence of geography, the rural residential land distribution in LiangJiang New Area show a zonal distribution. Based on this, the rural residential land have formed a number of agglomerate areas around the city under the influence of polarization effect and trickling down effect of the city. Finally, the results can provide a basis for rural residential land consolidation, land use planning, and urban-rural development.

At present, the effects of road construction on ecological processes and hazards of the region have aroused the interest of researchers, but little is known about the effects on landscape pattern in small-scale regions such as watersheds. In this paper, based on the aerial photograph in 1973, Landsat TM image in 1995 and QuickBird remote sensing image, we used Remote Sensing (RS), Global Positioning System (GPS) and Geographical Information System (GIS) technologies to carry out landscape classification and mapping along the roads constructed in the Jiangjiagou watershed, Dongchun District, Kunming City, Yunnan Province. Subsequently, we analyzed landscape pattern change before and after road construction at the landscape and patch levels using Fragstats 3.3 software. The results showed that:1) the area of slope farmlands decreased and that of terraced fields increased along the roads constructed in different periods, which were similar to the percentage change of slope farmlands and terraced fields along all roads and different distance gradients. In addition, the area of coniferous forests and shrubs decreased and that of grasslands increased within different distance gradients. 2) at the patch level, patch types along the road constructed before 1973 were mainly affected by human activities with complicated shapes and high fragmentation, but those along the road constructed after 1973 were affected by human and hazard activities with more vegetation patches and obvious fragmental trend. Moreover, at the landscape level, landscape diversity increased and landscape connectivity decreased with high fragmentation. In addition, the spatial connectivity increased along the road constructed before 1973, but it decreased along the road constructed after 1973. Landscape pattern along all roads was mostly affected by roads within a 150 m range.

The content of phosphorus in soil is important to soil fertility and tea quality. Exploring the spatial distribution characteristics of soil phosphorus and its influencing factors can provide theoretical guidance for tea garden management and tea quality improvement. Taking the typical tea gardens in Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces as the study areas, in this paper we studied comparatively the characteristics of spatial heterogeneity of soil available phosphorus using GIS techniques with geostatistics methods, remote sensing and DEM data. The results showed that:(1) According to the soil fertility grade standard, the overall levels of available phosphorus in Dongshan and Xi Long were both high and conducive to the growth of tea. (2) The coefficients of variation of soil available phosphorus in Dongshan and Xilong were 0.46 and 0.52, both of which belonged to moderate intensity variation. (3) The spatial interpolation results showed that the spatial distribution of soil available phosphorus in Dongshan and Xilong had such characteristic, those places where the content of soil available phosphorus were the same can be connected together. (4) The coefficients of nugget of available phosphorus in Dongshan and XiLong were 0.343 and 0.142, which proved that compared with Dongshan, the spatial distribution of soil available phosphorus in Xilong was influenced less by random factors, such as tea garden road and management, while was influenced larger by the natural factors such as the soil properties, landform and topography.

Regional transportation and land use integrated planning requires analysis of land use change process. Based on transition matrix and land use indicators, in this study we explored the changing rules along the roads in the Wuhan urban agglomeration. Results showed that in term of amounts, farmlands converted to built-up land is the dominant type, especially along the national roads; in term of systematic change direction, farmlands systematically changed to built-up lands. In addition, water bodies changed to built-up lands along the highways, forests changed to farmlands along the national roads, as well as both farmlands and forests were unused, which also need monitoring and early-warning.

It is of great significance to acquire accurate and efficient land use information for rational use and development of land resources. In areas undergoing rapid urbanization, land use activity is frequent and intensive, and the land use pattern changes very sharply, which increases the uncertainty of the precise classification of urban land use. At the same time, the impact of environment and weather conditions increases the difficulty of obtaining effective optical images. In order to improve the precision of the urban land classification, in this paper we selected the city center area of Wuhan as a case and took Sentinel-1A and Landsat 8 OLI images as the data source, using the Gram-Schmidt transformation method for image fusion. We selected four classification methods to classify the fusion image, including maximum likelihood, support vector machine, CART decision tree and BP neural network to extract the information of land use in the study area. Further, by comparing with the results of the classification of the optical image, we explored whether the Sentinel-1 A and Landsat8 OLI fusion image had the advantage in terms of land use information extraction. The research results showed that:(1) compared with the other 3 methods, the CART decision tree classification method had the highest classification accuracy for the fused image, the overall classification accuracy and Kappa coefficient reached 88.55% and 0.8414; (2) compared with the optical image, Sentinel-1A and Landsat 8 OLI fusion image can obtain high precision urban land use information more effectively; (3) the CART decision tree classification method based on multi source remote sensing image fusion was an effective technique to obtain the high precision land use information in the research area. The results can provide reference for land use classification in the rapid urbanization region.

In recent decades temperature elevation has been the focus of many studies on climate change, but few studies have examined the effects on gastropod communities. We performed a mesocosm experiment to simulate temperature elevation in shallow lakes of the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River in 2100 with two treatments, i.e., control and heating, to explore the effects of temperature elevation on morphology of Bellamya aeruginosa. Snail shell dimensions (area, perimeter, height and width) were easily quantifiable morphological traits by geometric morphometric methods, and were correlated with weight. Then analysis of covariance was applied to contrast the difference of regression equations between the two treatments and we recognized that the perimeter was statistically significant different when the temperature elevated. Meanwhile, higher temperature increased the individuals of recruitment in spring. The effects of temperature elevation on morphology of Bellamya aeruginosa were reflected in the following three aspects. The density of Bellamya aeruginosa was significantly increased in heating tanks, and induced small juvenile shell size after maturation as a result of more intense intraspecific competition. Elevated temperature led to different food quality in the diet of Bellamya aeruginosa, morphological variation was indirectly affected in the process of growth due to different qualities of food. When the water temperature got warm, the change of pH value generated limited calcium availability and constrained calcification within the shell simultaneously which influenced the shell formation and induced shell plasticity consequently.

A three-year (12 seasons) field experiment was conducted on a purple vegetable soil under a lettuce-cabbage rotation to investigate the effects of site-specific fertilization on forms and supply capacity of soil potassium. Field experiment and chemical analyses were used to determinate the change of soil potassium form and its relation with vegetable yields. The results showed that the main forms of potassium in the purple vegetable soil was structural potassium which accounted for 95.11%~97.33% of the total potassium, slow-release potassium and available potassium accounted for 2.22%~3.38% and 0.44%~1.52% of the total potassium, respectively. Long-term application of potash significantly improved the contents of soil available potassium and slow-release potassium, the addition of potassium fertilizers achieved the highest increasing rate. Located fertilization significantly improved the contents of water soluble potassium, non-specifically absorbed potassium and specifically absorbed potassium, and the increasing rate in organic fertilizers treatments was better than in only inorganic fertilizer treatments. Water soluble K and non-exchangeable K had positive significant correlations with available P. Available K and slowly available K also had the positive significant correlations with lettuce and cabbage yields. Site-specific fertilization coordinated potassium forms of purple vegetable soil improved the supply capacity of soil potassium and the best was in combined application of organic and inorganic fertilizers.

The Version 6 and Version 7 TRMM Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA) products including near-real-time products (3B42RTV6 and 3B42RTV7) and post-real-time research products (3B42V6 and 3B42V7) were analyzed from January 2006 to December 2010 over the Ganjiang River Basin. The streamflow has been simulated by the VIC hydrological model to assess the ability of TRMM products applied in hydrological processes. The results showed that:(1) the product of 3B42V7 has the highest rainfall estimation accuracy, while the 3B42RTV6 product significantly underestimates the precipitation. However, 3B42RTV7 has been improved more significantly than 3B42RTV6; (2) both the 3B42V6 and 3B42V7 products have better ability in hydrological simulation for the monthly streamflow and better results can be found in April and March than in July and August. However, the product of 3B42RTV6 has a poor capability in the daily and monthly streamflow simulation, while the product of 3B42RTV7 shows a better performance than that of 3B42 RTV6 in hydrological simulation which might be suited to the real-time hydrological forecasting.

Greater spatial variation occurred in vegetation phenology, which may be due to the spatial distribution of rainfall and temperature as a function of elevation. In this study, taking the Danjiangkou reservoir as study area, we assessed the spatial variation in key vegetation phenology parameters in relation to elevation. This work will has important practical significance on further vegetation phenological analysis, and thus is helpful for land cover change detection in the reservoir. We employed the Savitzky-Golay filter to rebuild the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Enhanced Vegetation Index time-series dataset, and then a dynamic threshold method was used to investigate the spatial distribution of terrestrial vegetation phenology in Danjiangkou reservoir during 2001-2012. The results showed that the vegetation growing season spans from early April to early October, and the average length of growth season ranges from 100 days to 200 days. The spatial patterns of the vegetation phenology indicated that the relatively longer length of season (LOS) in the south resulted from an early start of season (SOS) and later end of season (EOS). Regression models and correlation analysis indicated that elevation is moderately related to vegetation phenology. However, the relation between vegetation phenology and elevation displayed different variation trends above or below 474 m. In the land area where elevation below 474 m, there was generally an advanced SOS, and delayed EOS of vegetation growing season, due to warmer temperatures at higher elevation. However, the elevation-phenology relationship was reversed where the elevation was above 474 m, which coincides with colder temperatures at higher elevations.