How many people can the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau hold, and how large cities can be built in recent hundred years?

The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) serves as a vital barrier for both national security and ecological preservation. Overpopulation and urban sprawl pose threats to its ecological security, while underpopulation and small urban cities also undermine national security. Hence, optimizing population distribution and urban development on the QTP is crucial for bolstering the national security perimeter and ensuring basic modernisation across China. Nonetheless, understanding the population carrying capacity (CC) of the QTP and how large cities can safeguard both national security and ecological stability remains limited. To address this research gap, we utilised various model algorithms and methodologies to assess the population CC and urban scale of the QTP from seven different perspectives. The results indicate that the permanent population CC of the QTP in 2050 will be 26.2 million people, with an urbanisation level of 57.25 %, thereby allowing 15 million people to enter cities. Thus, the QTP can add 13.07 million people to its permanent population in the future, with a newly added urban population of 8.75 million, increasing the urbanisation level by 9.67 %. The future permanent population will mainly be distributed in the Xining, Lhasa, and Qaidam metropolitan areas. Combined, the permanent and urban populations will account for 38.54 % and 49.84 % of the QTP, respectively. Moreover, these populations will be moderately dispersed in 11 important node cities and more widely dispersed in key border towns. These findings provide a scientific basis for the sustainable development and high-quality urbanisation of the QTP, which have important implications for achieving sustainable development goals, offering crucial references for governments to formulate resource management policies and achieve sustainable resource utilisation.

The impact of housing prices and land financing on economic growth: Evidence from Chinese 277 cities at the prefecture level and above.

With the rapid progress of urbanization in China, the real estate industry, characterized by a long industrial chain, has become a pillar industry for economic development. Therefore, we inspect the nexus between land finance, housing prices, and economic growth. For this purpose, we use the panel data of 277 cities at the prefecture level or above in China from 2011 to 2019, and empirically examine it by using the Panel Vector Auto Regression (PVAR) model. The results show that there is a causal relationship between housing prices and economic growth. Housing prices promote economic growth in the short term and inhibit it in the long term. Both economic growth and housing prices have a significant impact on land finance. The economic growth show a significantly positive impact, while housing prices promote land finance in the short term with a long-term trend from positive to negative. This is the first study that tries to probe the relationship between urban housing prices, land finance, and economic growth by considering 277 prefecture-level and above cities in China. To promote the stable development of the regional economy, local governments need to overcome their dependence on the housing market and land finance and promote the healthy development of the housing market.

Making cities mental health friendly for adolescents and young adults.

Urban life shapes the mental health of city dwellers, and although cities provide access to health, education and economic gain, urban environments are often detrimental to mental health1,2. Increasing urbanization over the next three decades will be accompanied by a growing population of children and adolescents living in cities3. Shaping the aspects of urban life that influence youth mental health could have an enormous impact on adolescent well-being and adult trajectories4. We invited a multidisciplinary, global group of researchers, practitioners, advocates and young people to complete sequential surveys to identify and prioritize the characteristics of a mental health-friendly city for young people. Here we show a set of ranked characteristic statements, grouped by personal, interpersonal, community, organizational, policy and environmental domains of intervention. Life skills for personal development, valuing and accepting young people's ideas and choices, providing safe public space for social connection, employment and job security, centring youth input in urban planning and design, and addressing adverse social determinants were priorities by domain. We report the adversities that COVID-19 generated and link relevant actions to these data. Our findings highlight the need for intersectoral, multilevel intervention and for inclusive, equitable, participatory design of cities that support youth mental health.

Global evidence of rapid urban growth in flood zones since 1985.

Disaster losses are increasing and evidence is mounting that climate change is driving up the probability of extreme natural shocks1-3. Yet it has also proved politically expedient to invoke climate change as an exogenous force that supposedly places disasters beyond the influence of local and national authorities4,5. However, locally determined patterns of urbanization and spatial development are key factors to the exposure and vulnerability of people to climatic shocks6. Using high-resolution annual data, this study shows that, since 1985, human settlements around the world-from villages to megacities-have expanded continuously and rapidly into present-day flood zones. In many regions, growth in the most hazardous flood zones is outpacing growth in non-exposed zones by a large margin, particularly in East Asia, where high-hazard settlements have expanded 60% faster than flood-safe settlements. These results provide systematic evidence of a divergence in the exposure of countries to flood hazards. Instead of adapting their exposure, many countries continue to actively amplify their exposure to increasingly frequent climatic shocks.

Selection and Optimization of Regional Economic Industrial Structure Based on Fuzzy k-Means Clustering Algorithm.

Learning about the regional business model is essential for the sustainable development of the regional economy. From the perspective of urban renewable energy, city A is the product of energy development. This paper analyzes the current situation and existing problems of the industrial model of city A through fuzzy k-means clustering algorithm. The results show that although the optimization of industrial structure in city A has achieved some results, the more intuitive problems mainly include low labor productivity of the primary industry, strong resource dependence, insufficient extension of industrial chain, and slow development of technology intensive industries. This paper uses fuzzy k-means clustering algorithm to select the leading industries from the perspective of the current situation of leading industries, urban development pattern, and regional policies in city A. The results show that, as a renewable resource-based city, the leading industries suitable for the current development of city A include manufacturing, power, alkali gas and water production and supply, transportation, warehousing and postal industry, leasing, and business services. The results of fuzzy k-means clustering algorithm are quite excellent, and the accuracy rate is 93.3%. This paper uses the grey dynamic linear programming model to predict the future development of the Urban A business model and combines the selection of key functions to obtain the best business model: deep and efficient technical equipment as a good goal, achieved through regional logistics, transportation, new services, etc., to enhance the output value of the tertiary industry in city A and optimize the internal structure of the secondary industry in city A.

Land use/land cover changing aspect implications: Lesser Zab River Basin, northeastern Iraq.

Research shows that regularly performed land use/land cover (LU/LC) variation detection is recommended to support different prospect organizations and management activities to resolve a variety of environmental problems. The current research aims to investigate the LU/LC pattern and measure the corresponding alteration in the arid and semi-arid climatic conditions by considering the Lesser Zab catchment, northeastern Iraq, as a typical basin area. Data from Landsat imageries for the years 1989, 1999, 2009, 2019, and 2021 were utilized. Generally, seven general classes have been noted within the study area through applying a supervised image classification process. Urban lands in 1989 covered 0.46%; however, in 2021, the urban lands increased to 5.59% compared to 1989. Agricultural lands were reduced by 11.1% between 1989 and 2021. It was identified that there has been a quick transformation from agricultural lands to urban lands. The studied basin witnessed a reduction trend in barren and agricultural lands, although urban lands experienced expansion. Whereas, a fluctuation in the occupied area by the water bodies and forest lands has been recorded during the studied period. Analyzing the spatiotemporal pattern of LU/LC would support strategy makers' detection to cope with the undesired impact of such an event. The unwanted impact of difficult ecological dynamics in the basin would be mitigated by giving particular attention to recovering the affected area to protect the basin's natural resources.

Analysis of the spatio-temporal network of air pollution in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration, China.

The complex correlation between regions caused by the externality of air pollution increases the difficulty of its governance. Therefore, analysis of the spatio-temporal network of air pollution (STN-AP) holds great significance for the cross-regional coordinated governance of air pollution. Although the spatio-temporal distribution of air pollution has been analyzed, the structural characteristics of the STN-AP still need to be clarified. The STN-AP in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration (YRDUA) is constructed based on the improved gravity model and is visualized by UCINET with data from 2012 to 2019. Then, its overall-individual-clustering characteristics are analyzed through social network analysis (SNA) method. The results show that the STN-AP in the YRDUA was overall stable, and the correlation level gradually improved. The centrality of every individual city is different in the STN-AP, which reveals the different state of their interactive mechanism. The STN-AP could be subdivided into the receptive block, overflow block, bidirectional block and intermediary block. Shanghai, Suzhou, Hangzhou and Wuxi could be key cities with an all above degree centrality, betweenness centrality and closeness centrality and located in the overflow block of the STN-AP. This showed that these cities had a greater impact on the STN-AP and caused a more pronounced air pollution spillovers. The influencing factors of the spatial correlation of air pollution are further determined through the quadratic assignment procedure (QAP) method. Among all factors, geographical proximity has the strongest impact and deserves to be paid attention in order to prevent the cross-regional overflow of air pollution. Furthermore, several suggestions are proposed to promote coordinated governance of air pollution in the YRDUA.

Scaling behavior of public procurement activity.

Public procurement refers to the purchase by public sector entities-such as government departments or local authorities-of Services, Goods, or Works. It accounts for a significant share of OECD countries' expenditures. However, while governments are expected to execute them as efficiently as possible, there is a lack of methodologies for an adequate comparison of procurement activity between institutions at different scales, which represents a challenge for policymakers and academics. Here, we propose using methods borrowed from urban scaling laws literature to study public procurement activity among 278 Portuguese municipalities between 2011 and 2018. We find that public procurement expenditure scales sublinearly with population size, indicating an economy of scale for public spending as cities increase their population size. Moreover, when looking at the municipal Scale-Adjusted Indicators (the deviations from the scaling law) by contract categories-Works, Goods, and Services-we are able to identify a richer local characterisation of municipalities based on the similarity of procurement activity. These results make up a framework for quantitatively studying local public expenditure by enabling policymakers a more appropriate foundation for comparative analysis.

Urbanization favors the proliferation of Aedes aegypti and Culex quinquefasciatus in urban areas of Miami-Dade County, Florida.

Urbanization processes are increasing globally. Anthropogenic alterations in the environment have profound effects on biodiversity. Decreased biodiversity due to biotic homogenization processes as a consequence of urbanization often result in increased levels of mosquito vector species and vector-borne pathogen transmission. Understanding how anthropogenic alterations in the environment will affect the abundance, richness, and composition of vector mosquito species is crucial for the implementation of effective and targeted mosquito control strategies. We hypothesized that anthropogenic alterations in the environment are responsible for increasing the abundance of mosquito species that are adapted to urban environments such as Aedes aegypti and Culex quinquefasciatus. Therefore, our objective was to survey mosquito relative abundance, richness, and community composition in Miami-Dade County, Florida, in areas with different levels of urbanization. We selected 24 areas, 16 remote areas comprised of natural and rural areas, and 8 urban areas comprised of residential and touristic areas in Miami-Dade County, Florida. Mosquitoes were collected weekly in each area for 24 h for 5 consecutive weeks from August to October 2020 using BG-Sentinel traps baited with dry ice. A total of 36,645 mosquitoes were collected, from which 34,048 were collected in the remote areas and 2,597 in the urban areas. Our results show a clear and well-defined pattern of abundance, richness, and community composition according to anthropogenic modifications in land use and land cover. The more urbanized a given area the fewer species were found and those were primary vectors of arboviruses, Ae. aegypti and Cx. quinquefasciatus.

Reconciling biome-wide conservation of an apex carnivore with land-use economics in the increasingly threatened Pantanal wetlands.

Conservation of carnivores involves finding solutions to minimize habitat loss and human-wildlife conflict. Understanding the nature of land-use economics can allow us to mitigate both threats. In the Pantanal, the two main economic activities are cattle ranching and ecotourism, each of which directly and indirectly affect the persistence of jaguars (Panthera onca). To understand how the geography of these economic activities is related to jaguar populations, we developed a jaguar distribution model (JDM), livestock density model, and ecotourism lodge density model for the Pantanal. Due to the recent wildfires within the Pantanal, we also assess the impact of burnt areas that are suitable for jaguars, cattle ranching, and tourism. Our JDM indicate that 64% of the Pantanal holds suitable habitat for jaguars. However, jaguar habitat suitability was positively correlated with ecotourism, but negatively correlated with areas most suitable for intensive cattle-ranching. This demonstrates a biome-wide scenario compatible with jaguar conservation. Of particular concern, recent wildfires overlap most suitable areas for jaguars. If wildfires become increasingly frequent, this would represent a serious threat to jaguars and many other wildlife populations. We emphasize the global importance of the Pantanal wetland ecoregion as a key stronghold for long-term jaguar conservation.

Urban development trend analysis and spatial simulation based on time series remote sensing data: A case study of Jinan, China.

Uncontrolled urban growth detracts from healthy urban development. Understanding urban development trends and predicting future urban spatial states is of great practical significance. In order to comprehensively analyze urbanization and its effect on vegetation cover, we extracted urban development trends from time series DMSP/OLS NTL and NDVI data from 2000 to 2015, using a linear model fitting method. Six urban development trend types were identified by clustering the linear model parameters. The identified trend types were found to accurately reflect the on-ground conditions and changes in the Jinan area. For example, a high-density, stable urban type was found in the city center while a stable dense vegetation type was found in the mountains to the south. The SLEUTH model was used for urban growth simulation under three scenarios built on the urban development analysis results. The simulation results project a gentle urban growth trend from 2015 to 2030, demonstrating the prospects for urban growth from the perspective of environmental protection and conservative urban development.

Relationship of insect biomass and richness with land use along a climate gradient.

Recently reported insect declines have raised both political and social concern. Although the declines have been attributed to land use and climate change, supporting evidence suffers from low taxonomic resolution, short time series, a focus on local scales, and the collinearity of the identified drivers. In this study, we conducted a systematic assessment of insect populations in southern Germany, which showed that differences in insect biomass and richness are highly context dependent. We found the largest difference in biomass between semi-natural and urban environments (-42%), whereas differences in total richness (-29%) and the richness of threatened species (-56%) were largest from semi-natural to agricultural environments. These results point to urbanization and agriculture as major drivers of decline. We also found that richness and biomass increase monotonously with increasing temperature, independent of habitat. The contrasting patterns of insect biomass and richness question the use of these indicators as mutual surrogates. Our study provides support for the implementation of more comprehensive measures aimed at habitat restoration in order to halt insect declines.

The role of urbanisation in the spread of Aedes mosquitoes and the diseases they transmit-A systematic review.

BACKGROUND: This systematic review aims to assess how different urbanisation patterns related to rapid urban growth, unplanned expansion, and human population density affect the establishment and distribution of Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus and create favourable conditions for the spread of dengue, chikungunya, and Zika viruses. METHODS AND FINDINGS: Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, a systematic review was conducted using the PubMed, Virtual Health Library, Cochrane, WHO Library Database (WHOLIS), Google Scholar, and and the Institutional Repository for Information Sharing (IRIS) databases. From a total of 523 identified studies, 86 were selected for further analysis, and 29 were finally analysed after applying all inclusion and exclusion criteria. The main explanatory variables used to associate urbanisation with epidemiological/entomological outcomes were the following: human population density, urban growth, artificial geographical space, urban construction, and urban density. Associated with the lack of a global definition of urbanisation, several studies provided their own definitions, which represents one of the study's limitations. Results were based on 8 ecological studies/models, 8 entomological surveillance studies, 7 epidemiological surveillance studies, and 6 studies consisting of spatial and predictive models. According to their focus, studies were categorised into 2 main subgroups, namely "Aedes ecology" and "transmission dynamics." There was a consistent association between urbanisation and the distribution and density of Aedes mosquitoes in 14 of the studies and a strong relationship between vector abundance and disease transmission in 18 studies. Human population density of more than 1,000 inhabitants per square kilometer was associated with increased levels of arboviral diseases in 15 of the studies. CONCLUSIONS: The use of different methods in the included studies highlights the interplay of multiple factors linking urbanisation with ecological, entomological, and epidemiological parameters and the need to consider a variety of these factors for designing effective public health approaches.

Evaluation and analysis on suitability of human settlement environment in Qingdao.

Human settlement environment is space places closely related to human production and life, and also surface spaces inseparable from human activities. As a coastal city in the east of China, Qingdao has a relatively high level of urbanization. However, it also along with many urban problems at the same time, among which the problem of human settlement environment has attracted more and more general attention from people. According to the characteristics of human settlement environment in Qingdao, the research constructs an index system with 10 index factors from natural factors and humanity factors, and proposes a comprehensive evaluation model. Evaluate and grade suitability of human settlement environment in Qingdao, explore the spatial aggregation and differentiation of the quality of human settlement environment, and reveal the internal connection of spatial evolution. The results indicate that the overall livability of Qingdao is relatively good, showing a multi-center and radial driving development. The distribution of livability is uneven, showing a decreasing spatial distribution law from the coast to the inland, and the quality of human settlement environment in Jiaozhou Bay and the coastal areas is relatively high. Qingdao is mainly based on natural livability, supplemented by humanity livability, compared with natural suitability, the spatio-temporal evolution characteristics of humanity livability have experienced three stages: rising-contradictory rising-harmonious rising. The quality of human settlement environment has obvious spatial correlation and is positively correlated with the degree of agglomeration, and the agglomeration of blocks with a higher quality of human settlement environment is higher than that of blocks with a lower level. The rule of human settlement environment changing over time is that areas with high quality of human settlement environment begin to shift from the city center to the north and the south, transforming into multi-point development, and overall environmental suitability has been improved. According to the results of the comprehensive evaluation, combined with its local development status and policies, the research puts forward developmental suggestions for the construction of human settlement environment in Qingdao, and provides decision-making basis for relevant departments to solve the problem of deterioration of human settlement environment.

Inter-metropolitan land price characteristics and pattern in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration, China.

Land prices are the key problem of urban land management, with prices of residential land being the most sensitive and the strongest social reflection among the different land types. Exploring spatial and temporal variation of residential land prices and the effect of land market factors on residential land prices can help the government formulate targeted regulations and policies. This study analyzes the spatial and temporal evolution of residential land prices and the factors influencing the land market in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region based on land transaction data from 2014-2017 using exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) and a geographically weighted regression (GWR) model. The results show the following: ① Residential land prices in Beijing and Tianjin are significantly higher than those in other regions, while Zhangjiakou, Chengde, and western mountainous areas have the lowest residential land prices. Over time, a development trend of residential land price polycentricity gradually emerged, and the locational correlation has gradually increased. ② Under the influence of the land finance model of local governments in China, three factors, namely, the land stock utilization rate, revenue from residential land transfers, and the growth of residential land transaction areas, have significantly contributed to the increase in residential land prices. ③ Under the land market supply and demand mechanism and government management, four indicators, namely, the land supply rate, the per capita residential land supply area, the degree of marketization of the residential land supply, and the frequency of residential land transactions, have suppressed the rise in residential land prices. ④ The overall effect of land market factors on residential land prices in the central and northern regions of Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei is stronger than that in the southern regions, which may be related to the more active land market and stricter macromanagement policies in Beijing, Tianjin and surrounding areas.

Relationships between urbanization and CO2 emissions in China: An empirical analysis of population migration.

China's announcement of its goal of carbon neutrality has increased the practical significance of research on carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions that result from urbanization. With a comprehensive consideration of population migration in China, this study examines the impact of urbanization on CO2 emissions based on provincial panel data from 2000 to 2012. Two indicators (resident population and household registration population) are used to measure urbanization rate. The results reveal that the impact of urbanization on CO2 emissions in China is closely correlated with the structure of urban resident population and interregional population migration. The estimation results are still robust by using generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator and two-stage least squares (2SLS) estimator. The proportion of temporary residents is introduced as a proxy variable for population migration. The panel threshold model regression results show that the proportion of temporary residents has a marginal effect on the relationship between urbanization and CO2 emissions. In regions with a higher proportion of temporary residents, the positive effects of resident population urbanization on CO2 emissions tend to be weaker. These findings are consistent with the theories of ecological modernization and urban environmental transition. This paper makes suggestions on China's urbanization development model and countermeasures are proposed to minimize the CO2 emissions caused by urbanization.

Spatiotemporal pattern and coordination relationship between urban residential land price and land use intensity in 31 provinces and cities in China.

The trend towards efficient and intensive use of land resources is an inevitable outcome of current social development. The rational matching of urban land prices and land use intensity has become an important factor under accelerating urbanization, and promotes the healthy development of the social economy. Using data on residential land price and on land use intensity for 31 provinces and cities in China, we employ the E-G cointegration test and quadrant map classification to determine the coordination relationship between land price and land use intensity. We then employ HR coordination to calculate the coordination degree of land price and land use intensity, and classify the coordination type accordingly. Our results are as follows. (1) The spatio-temporal distribution of urban land price shows high variability with multiple maxima, and follows a decreasing trend from the southeast coastal area to the northwest inland area and the northeast. (2) The overall land use intensity is at or above the middle level, and shows large spatial differences between provinces, but the agglomeration between provinces is increasing. (3) From the perspective of the relationship between urban land price and land use intensity at the inter-provincial scale, we find that the land price and land use intensity are well coordinated, and the number of provinces has been dynamically changing during different development periods. There is an east-west difference in the spatial distribution of land price and land use intensity coordination level. Different provinces and cities with the same coordination stage show differences in their land price and land use intensity level.

Spatiotemporal characteristics and impact mechanism of high-quality development of cultural tourism in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration.

The Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration is the leading and demonstration area for the high-quality development of culture tourism (HDCT) in China. It is of great significance to study the spatiotemporal characteristics and impact mechanism of the HDCT for revealing the internal law of HDCT and promoting the collaborative innovation of culture tourism among cities. Based on the scientific construction of the evaluation system of HDCT, this paper made a quantitative analysis of 26 cities' HDCT by using coupling coordination degree model, Lisa spatiotemporal transition and spatial Durbin model (SDM). The results show that: The overall level of 26 cities' HDCT shows a fluctuating upward trend, and presents a "Z" pattern in space. More than 80% of the cities are at the medium and high level. Shanghai has obvious advantages in the primacy degree. There is a significant positive spatial autocorrelation among cities with high-quality of culture tourism development. The spatial clustering and proximity of the same kind are increasing, and the radiation effect is gradually obvious. The local spatial association patterns are mainly HH and LL agglomeration, and the characteristics of polarization are gradually prominent. The local spatial correlation structure of HDCT has strong stability, the transfer inertia between types is prominent, and the overall spatial evolution is lack of integration with obvious path dependence and lock-in effect. The spatiotemporal evolution of the HDCT is a complex process under the interaction of multiple factors, and there is a significant spatial spillover effect (0.256). The level of economic development, technological innovation, professional talent allocation are the three main factors. According to the dominant factor, it can be divided into economy stabilizing type, industry optimizing type, innovation driving type and traffic impacting type. These findings have implications for local governments and tourism management departments to achieve high-quality innovative development of cultural tourism.