The cetoniine genera Elaphinis Burmeister, 1842 and Parelaphinis Marais & Holm, 1989 are reviewed in the light of substantial new material that has become available recently. A new species, E. ...matatiele sp. nov., in the previously monotypic subgenus Elaphinis s. str. and closely related to E. (E.) cinereonebulosa (De Geer, 1778), is described from the southern Drakensberg area near Matatiele (Eastern Cape, South Africa). Within Parelaphinis, two new species, P. umtamvuna sp. nov. and P. drakensbergica sp. nov. are described and compared with P. moesta (Gory & Percheron, 1833) – hitherto the only member of the genus. The former is a mid- to lowland dweller, currently known only from the KwaZulu-Natal side of the Umtamvuna River valley (South Africa). The latter is a montane species apparently distributed across the eastern portion of the Drakensberg Escarpment, from the north-eastern Free State (South Africa) to eSwatini (formerly Swaziland). A review of the enigmatic species E. (Micrelaphinis) pumila Boheman, 1857, also presumably originating from the same broader region, reveals that only five specimens, three of which belong to the type series, are currently still traceable to accessible collections, while no further specimens have been found since the 19th century. It is here established that the type series collected by Wahlberg during the period 1838–1845 most likely originated from the Orange River valley, either in the Eastern Cape, Free State or Lesotho. As this area has been extensively transformed by agricultural and mining activities, as well as human settlements, it is hypothesized that the species may already be extinct. All the species analysed in detail are illustrated, and dichotomic keys to all species of both genera are provided to facilitate their identification.
A suitable living environment is the common aspiration of city residents and the inherent requirement of sustainable development. This paper takes 114 resource-based cities in China as the research ...objects, constructs a pseudo human settlement environment (PSH) system based on network data, and constructs a real human settlement environment (RSH) system based on traditional data, measures the coupling coordination degree of the pseudo and real human settlement environment, and uses Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to analyze its improvement path. The conclusions are as follows: (1) The evaluation index of real human settlements in China’s resource-based cities continues to grow, and the evaluation index of pseudo human settlements increases first and then decreases. (2) The coupling coordination degree between the resource-based pseudo city and the real human settlement environment presents an inverted U-shaped change trend, and the overall distribution presents a three-level ladder-like distribution of east-central-west. (3) A single condition has a weak ability to explain the coupling coordination degree of human settlements; the coupling coordination degree of resource-based cities has formed three improvement paths: opening + finance driven model, opening + education + finance driven model, and education + finance driven model.
Traditional settlements are vital carriers of Chinese history and culture, reflecting the direct and original needs of generations. However, the modernization of settlements will inevitably disrupt ...the spontaneous growth patterns inherent in traditional settlements. The degree of disorder of the settlement is not only the embodiment of its form, but also the concrete manifestation of its construction intention. We use the degree of disorder in settlements to assess the construction intentions of the settlements, the results allow us to assess whether new planning aligns with the original construction logic, thereby assessing the extent of interference by modernization in traditional villages. This can provide guidance and assistance for settlement conservation and future planning. By using the Delaunay triangulation network, street polar histogram and direction entropy, and comprehensibility of settlements, this paper quantitatively analyzes the degree of disorder in the three levels of architecture, street and local environment of the settlement. Liangjia Village, the example in this research, is divided into three areas—two new and one old. degree of disorders in architecture, streets, and local environment are calculated and compared with the overall settlement. The study finds that the construction logic for buildings and streets remains stable throughout development. However, notable differences exist in environmental construction principles between new and old sections. The analysis suggests that traditional settlements, guided by inherent principles, maintain stability under external influences, serving as a benchmark for future planning and modernization decisions.
► Settlement abandonment is a possible result of population decline but is not inevitable. ► Abandonments are preceded by rising vulnerability and
in situ adaptation. ► Dynamic interactions between ...multiple drivers create the risk of abandonment. ► Organized abandonments are expensive and place great pressure on institutions. ► Future abandonment risks grow with failure to mitigate global environmental change.
This article reports findings from a study of settlement abandonment and the interactions between environmental and non-environmental factors that may give rise to it. Through a modified systematic review of scholarly literature, an inventory of 246 ancient and modern examples of settlement abandonment was generated. Common spatial and temporal parameters were identified and a typology created to summarize environmental and non-environmental drivers common across cases. Dynamic interactions of drivers that lead to a progression from vulnerability to population decline and abandonment were examined in the cases of Plymouth, Montserrat, abandoned due to volcanism in the 1990s; recent rural depopulation in northeastern Iraq and the southern marshes; outmigration from the southern Aral Sea region; and, neighbourhood abandonment and a proposal to convert abandoned lands in Detroit to commercial farming. The study finds that with growing vulnerability to environmental change across many regions, there is greater potential for increased numbers of abandonments. However, abandonment should be seen as only one possible outcome of environment and population interactions that create vulnerability and stimulate environmental migration. The study concludes with a series of observations relevant to anticipating and planning for potential population decline and settlement abandonment in the face of future global environmental change.
This paper focuses on the relationship between remotely-sensed urban site characteristics (USCs) and land surface temperature (LST). Particular emphasis is put on an extensive comparison of ...two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) USCs as potential indicators of the surface urban heat island (UHI) effect and as potential predictors for thermal sharpening applications. Both widely-used as well as more recently proposed metrics of the urban remote sensing literature are investigated within a single experiment. While some of these USCs have already been used earlier, others have never been analyzed before in the context of urban temperature studies. In addition to the comparison of 2D and 3D USCs, the spatio-temporal dependencies of their relation to LST are examined. To this end, the experimental setup of this work includes two study areas, 26 USCs, and 16 LST scenes covering four seasons. Use is made of a comprehensive database compiled for the cities of Berlin and Cologne, Germany. After data preparation, very high resolution (VHR) multi-spectral and height data are employed to map fine-scale urban land cover (LC). The resulting LC maps are then used in conjunction with the height information to compute 2D and 3D USCs. Subsequently, multi-temporal LST images are retrieved from Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) scenes. The spatio-temporal investigation of the USC–LST connection constitutes the final stage of the workflow and is achieved in the framework of a dedicated correlation analysis. The results of this study highlight that the linkage between USCs and LST sensed at small scan angles is not stronger when 3D parameters are considered. Even though they may offer more holistic representations of the urban landscape, 3D USCs are consistently outperformed by some of the most widely-used 2D metrics. The analysis of spatial dependencies reveals that the USC–LST interplay does not only differ between, but also within the two test sites. This is due to their distinct geographies, with urban form and compactness, green spaces and street trees, and the structural composition of LC elements being some of the determining factors. The examination of temporal dependencies yielded that the association between USCs and LST is fairly stable over time but can be subject to larger inter- and intra-season variations for different reasons, including the season of acquisition, vegetation phenology, and meteorological conditions. Since previous research was based on the analysis of a single study area, a limited number of (mainly 2D) USCs, and/or only a few LST scenes acquired in specific seasons, it is concluded that the findings of this study provide researchers and practitioners with a more complete picture of the USC–LST relationship.
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•Spatio-temporal analysis of the statistical relationship between 2D/3D USCs and LST•Detailed inspection of 2 study areas, 26 USCs, and 16 LST scenes covering 4 seasons•3D USCs are consistently outperformed by some of the most widely-used 2D indicators.•Correlations are spatially dependent due to the distinct geographies of the cities.•Larger inter-/intra-season variations are mainly driven by environmental conditions.
The book analyses how social processes impact on knowledge production and dissemination; investigates how differences between actors impact on knowledge dissemination and appropriation; explores how ...existing knowledge frameworks affect knowledge analysis and acceptance and how people bridge the gap between 'outside' and 'local' forms of knowledge.
•We discerned the detailed evolution of rural settlements over a long period.•Variations in scale, pattern, and density of rural settlements are revealed.•Spatial expansion of rural settlements is ...predicted by land transformation model.•Rural settlement areas in Tongzhou increased by 146.64 % from 1961 to 2015.•Four spatial evolution modes emerged for the rural settlements in the past 50 years.
Rural settlement is an important land use type in China due to the country’s large rural population. In recent years, China's social economy has undergone dramatic transformation, and the land use pattern of rural settlements has also significantly changed. Against this background, it is important to reveal the evolution rules of rural settlements to provide references for rural settlement rearrangement. Based on interpreting high-precision military satellite remote sensing images, we selected Tongzhou District of Beijing as a case to discuss the evolution process of rural settlements during 1961–2015. Tongzhou has a history of rural settlement construction for more than 2000 years and will face rapid changes in rural settlement patterns due to the new urbanization policies. The land transformation model (LTM) was employed to simulate the spatial expansion of rural settlements in 2030. The results showed that the number of rural settlement sites in Tongzhou continuously decreased during the past 50 years, with a total decrease by 43.30 %, whereas the total area continuously increased during 1961–2015 (146.64 %). The spatial pattern of the rural settlements was regularized continuously, but the spatial distribution of density varied in different stages. In total, spatial density first presented a decreasing trend, followed by an increase. For over 50 years, there were mainly four evolution modes for the spatial distribution of rural settlements in Tongzhou, namely the extinction, the diffusion, the infilling, and the merging mode. The simulation results obtained by the LTM showed that the rural settlements of Tongzhou all expanded, albeit to varying degrees, and that their expansion mostly followed the diffusion mode, based on the existing rural settlement sites.
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