Since 1980s, the weakening of the transportation function of the Grand Canal and rapid urbanisation has generated significant changes in the spatial pattern of rural settlements along the Grand Canal. Analysing the changing characteristics of this spatial pattern, and exploring the natural, social, and economic factors influencing these changes are key to understanding the regional spatial structure and development law, and grasping the degree of influence of these factors.This study selected approximately 13,000 rural settlements in 27 county-level units in the Shandong section of the Grand Canal, from 1980 to 2018, as the research object. The Grand Canal's distance buffer zone is divided into canal-side, near-canal, far-canal, and further-canal settlements. The correlation model with the canal is constructed through the controlled experiment. The distribution, scale and form of the settlement are analysed quantitatively by applying the change of gravity centre model (CGC), average nearest neighbour analysis (ANN), landscape metrics (LM), and other methods. The quantitative analysis of geographic detectors in spatial pattern differentiation factors shows the relative importance and interaction within them. This study indicates that the spatial distribution shows 'large dispersion and small concentration' and 'small-scale agglomeration' characteristics. The larger the scale of the Page 9 of 35 http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rra River Research and Applicationssettlement expands, the more the number of settlements decreases. The closer the settlement nears the river, the more complex the shape clusters. The total output value of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, fisheries, the total power of agricultural machinery, and the effective irrigation area are the main influencing factors. The grain area and the per capita disposable income of rural residents are the main auxiliary influencing factors.

ABSTRACT:Historic districts are a special type of cultural heritage, as living cultural heritage, the utilization and development of historical districts is an inevitable issue. How to accurately position the protection and utilization of districts and achieve its healthy and sustainable development is the key work in the protection of districts. In this paper, the Internet data including Tencent's location big data are employed to study some Chinese historic and cultural streets, establish protection and development index system for historic and cultural streets, carry out in-depth study of ten core indicators, and sum up the positioning and development direction for the protection and use of districts.Historic district, as a special type of cultural heritage, is the birthplace and supporting zone of urban context, and also the place for the daily life of the general public. It boasts profound historic and humanistic background and the characteristics of a living form. As the living cultural heritage, its use and development are necessary, and attention shall also be paid to static protection and dynamic comprehensive management. But judging from the current practice, protection and use of historic districts face a host of challenges. Some districts are devoid of popularity and vitality and become cold galleries. Some districts suffer excessive development for tourism and commercialism, and lose its "original" cultural characteristics. In addition, throngs of tourists exert a negative impact on the life of the local people and the protection of immovable cultural relics. Disorderly business format and increasingly similar landscape go against the presentation of local characteristics.We should regard historic district as a dynamic urban heritage, and achieve dynamic development and protection in accordance with its inherent development laws and the principle of "step by step" through the "organic update" mode, with emphasis on the continuous comprehensive management of material space environment and cultural society.Therefore, how to make accurate positioning of the protection and utilization of districts and achieve its healthy and sustainable development is the key work in the protection of districts.

ABSTRACT:The preservation of traditional settlements plays an indispensable part in the field of heritage preservation. The traditional settlements, definitely with cumulative developmental layers, vary in elements and involving numerous stakeholders; therefore, preservation objects and methods are quite complicated. The traditional heritage investigating and recording tools, such as manual mapping, photographing and field reconnaissance, which have exposed many limitations and deficiencies in the actual work, have defects to meet the requirements of settlement heritage preservation projects. This paper describes the process of applying of modern digital heritage recording and investigation technology (mobile GIS and 3D laser scanning technology) in the preservation of Wenming historical and cultural blocks in Kunming and argues that Mobile GIS and 3D laser scanning technology are capable of producing a complete and efficient workflow, as well as providing fundamental technical support for heritage preservation work. Through the research, this paper draws a conclusion that the advantages of the workflow including: (1) accurate and convenient recording, (2) efficient comprehensive spatial analysing, and (3) better integrating protection planning with the later dynamic monitoring and management. Additionally, the author forecasts the prospects of the application of this workflow in the preservation and utilization of settlement heritage.

ABSTRACT:The essay introduces the methodology and reflection upon the acquirement and interpretation of public documentation supporting the post-disaster reconstruction of the Shangri-La historic town after struck by fire in 2014. The proposed acquirement platform is developed on the basis of WeChat, a popular mobile communication App on smart phones in China. Historic photos and related documents of the burnt historic area are then accumulated to be analytically interpreted to inform post-disaster reconstruction planning.

ABSTRACT:In China historical and cultural heritage resources include historically and culturally famous cities, towns, villages, blocks, immovable cultural relics and the scenic spots with cultural connotation. The spatial distribution laws of these resources are always directly connected to the regional physical geography, historical development and historical traffic geography and have high research values. Meanwhile, the exhibition and use of these resources are greatly influenced by traffic and tourism and other plans at the provincial level, and it is of great realistic significance to offer proposals on traffic and so on that are beneficial to the exhibition of heritage resources based on the research of province distribution laws. This paper takes the spatial analysis of Geographic Information System (GIS) as the basic technological means and all historical and cultural resources in China's Zhejiang Province as research objects, and finds out in the space the accumulation areas and accumulation belts of Zhejiang Province's historic cities and cultural resources through overlay analysis and density analysis, etc. It then discusses the reasons of the formation of these accumulation areas and accumulation belts by combining with the analysis of physical geography and historical geography and so on, and in the end, linking the tourism planning and traffic planning at the provincial level, it provides suggestions on the exhibition and use of accumulation areas and accumulation belts of historic cities and cultural resources.