Advancing urban–rural integration (URI) is pivotal to addressing the current urban–rural development imbalance in China. The urban agglomeration, as a crucial engine propelling China’s modernization, holds significant importance in accelerating this integration process. Comprehensive quantitative analysis of URI development within the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei (BTH) urban agglomeration is often lacking in existing research. This study constructs an indicator system for evaluating the level of integration using data from 14 cities in the region from 2010 to 2022, focusing on economic, social, and ecological perspectives. Utilizing the Coupling Coordination Model and the Obstacle Degree Model, this study analyzes the level and evolutionary trends of URI development within the BTH urban agglomeration. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) The level of URI in the BTH urban agglomeration exhibits an overall upward trend, increasing from 0.377 in 2010 to 0.543 in 2022. The economic, social, and ecological subsystems all demonstrate positive integration trends. (2) The spatial evolution of the integration level reveals a distinct core–periphery structure. Beijing and Tianjin, as the core areas, continuously foster the collaborative development of surrounding cities through radiation and spillover effects. The core of URI has shifted gradually from the central–east to the central–north, indicating an upward movement of the core area, as revealed by trend surface analysis. Although Shijiazhuang, a central city in the South BTH urban agglomeration, has seen rapid improvement in integration levels, its role in driving development is less significant than that of Beijing and Tianjin. (3) The URI subsystems in the 14 cities of the BTH urban agglomeration show improved coordination. The coordination development between Beijing and Tianjin has yielded significant results, emerging as a key driver in promoting the coordinated development of urban agglomerations. Most regions in the urban agglomeration exhibit mild imbalance or coordination, with the central and northern areas scoring higher in coordination. (4) The obstacles analysis indicates that the economic integration and social integration systems are the primary obstacles to enhancing the ecological integration of urban agglomerations. Urban–rural transportation, investment levels, and economic development are key obstacles for the BTH urban agglomeration integrated development. This study offers key insights for strategic planning in the BTH urban agglomeration region.

The “counter-trend” of oasification in China’s arid and semi-arid regions has attracted widespread attention against the backdrop of the rising global desertification risk, which endangers ecological safety and food security. This paper selects the pertinent literature from the CNKI and the WoS core collection databases and then uses bibliometric methods to comb the current status, key contents, and cutting-edge trends of oasification research. The following conclusions are drawn: (1) Compared to desertification research, research on oasification has not been sufficient and the understanding of oasification has not been raised to the same level of importance as desertification; (2) From the perspective of the literature, the oasification research hotspots have gone through four stages: “spatial and temporal evolution, ecological effects, driving mechanisms and sustainable development paths”; (3) Current research on oasification is mainly focused on the evolution of landscape dynamics, sustainable development, and ecological conservation. Research outlooks are as follows: (1) From the perspective of system theory, we construct a theoretical framework of “man and nature” harmonious community, and systematically study the alternating evolution process of “desert–oasis” in arid and semi-arid regions, and its effects; (2) The synergistic factors, development mechanism and preferred path of oasification sustainable development should be some of the key contents of future research; (3) Oasification management in arid and semi-arid regions is not the opposite of desertification management, and research on the oasification governance system, governance content and governance mechanism is necessary.

The strategy of “carbon peaking and carbon neutrality” and the COVID-19 pandemic have become dual challenges for the high-quality development of livestock husbandry. This paper takes the carbon emissions in China’s livestock husbandry as the research object and uses the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Tier 2 coefficient to measure the total carbon emissions and carbon intensity of the industry in 2008–2019. Taking the above two elements as explained variables respectively and using the two-way fixed effects model (FE-TW) that controls time and space effects, this paper specifically examines the effects of various factors in the supply side of livestock husbandry on the explained variables, and further examines the role of technology structure and scale structure. According to our measurement, total carbon emissions showed an inverted U-shaped change and carbon intensity declines in an M-shaped curve during the study period. Both total carbon emissions and carbon intensity are composed mainly of CH₄ that is primarily generated by grass-fed livestock industries with spatial distribution patterns of “hill” and “cliff”, respectively, while the spatial expression of these two factors is related to the distribution of grain areas. As the test on supply side factors shows, the carbon emissions of livestock husbandry are apparently affected by its land structure, breeding structure, technical level and scale level, but the impact of the level of human capital and mechanization is not as significant as that of technological structure and scale structure. Combining the empirical results and the special background of the COVID-19 pandemic, this paper aims to provide more targeted suggestions for livestock husbandry development and carbon reduction during the COVID-19 pandemic period. It also aims to offer a reference for the promotion of green and high-quality development of livestock husbandry and the completion of the task of “carbon peaking and carbon neutrality”. This study will help policy makers to clarify the goal of reducing carbon emissions in animal husbandry and optimize and improve the corresponding industrial and technological policies.

Oasification and desertification are two essential processes of land use and cover (LULC) change in arid regions. Compared to desertification, which is widely regarded as the most severe global ecological issue, the importance of oasification has not received universal recognition. However, neglecting oasification can lead to detrimental outcomes to the effectiveness of ecological governance by affecting the comprehensiveness of environmental policies proposed only based on desertification. Therefore, this study incorporates oasification into the examination of desertification by analyzing land use data for five representative periods spanning from 1980 to 2020, as well as socioeconomic and environmental data from 2000 to 2010. The aim is to evaluate the spatial and temporal dynamics of oasification and desertification in the Manas River Basin and identify the underlying factors driving these processes. The findings indicated that (1) the general trend of oasification and desertification exhibited the expansion of oases and the retreat of deserts. Specifically, the oasification area showed a “decrease-increase-decrease” pattern over time, while the desertification area consistently decreased. (2) In terms of spatial distribution, oasification and desertification displayed a transition from scattered and disordered patterns to an overall more organized pattern, with the hotspot area of desertification shifting from Shawan County to Manas County over time. (3) Population density, average land GDP, soil type and annual precipitation significantly influenced the degree of oasification, with driving force q-values above 0.4, which were the key factors driving oasification. Population density and average land GDP significantly affected the degree of desertification, with driving force q-values above 0.35, which were the key factors driving desertification. The driving force of all factors increased significantly after the interaction, and socioeconomic factors influenced oasification and desertification more than other factors. The study’s findings aim to provide a scientific basis for land resource use, ecological governance and sustainable development in the Manas River basin.

Open innovation (OI) has great significance in innovation management. OI builds a bridge between firms and other organizations, which can help firms to quickly integrate into value chain innovation and discover the value stored in external resources, and thus can improve the performance of firms. The Chinese economy is accelerating its high-quality development. In this process, the importance of social capital is emphasized. However, less evidence is provided to discuss whether and how social capital from the resource perspective affects OI and firm performance. Therefore, we constructed a moderating model to deeply examine the mechanisms of the two models of the effects of inbound OI and outbound OI on firm performance and the impact of multidimensional social capital within it from the resource perspective. Our sample comprises 6899 observations of 1850 A-share listed manufacturing firms in China from 2016 to 2020. Considering the lag of resources into firm profitability, we decided to lag the firm performance by one year behind other indicators, so the sample data cover the period of 2016–2021. Then, we used Excel 2019 to complete the calculations of indicators and used multiple regression analysis of STATA17 to test the hypotheses. It is found that inbound and outbound OI have an inverted U-shaped relationship with firm performance. Institutional and technological social capital positively moderates the relationship between inbound and outbound OI and firm performance. Compared with the other two types of social capital, market social capital is the most widely owned among the sample firms, but its moderating effect is insignificant. The findings enrich and expand theoretical research on OI and firm performance and guide firms to implement OI, promoting their sustainable development.

The rational allocation of land use space is crucial to carbon emissions reductions and economic development. However, previous studies have either examined inter-objective trade-offs or intra-objective trade-offs within a single objective and lacked multilevel and comprehensive studies. Therefore, this paper integrates inter- and intra-objective carbon mitigation and economic efficiency trade-offs to comprehensively study the interaction between land pattern demand and space due to policies. The research methods were mainly multi-objective planning, a gray model, and patch-generating land use simulation model, and the study area was the less-developed urban agglomeration—the Tianshan north slope urban agglomeration. The results of the study show that the total change area of the study area from 2000 to 2020 was 5767.94 km², the grassland area was transferred out the most, 3582.59 km², accounting for 62.11%, and the cultivated land area was transferred in the most, 3741.01 km². Compared with 2020, the simulated land use pattern obtained for 2030 has significantly changed. In addition, the total economic benefits and total carbon emissions under the economic and low-carbon objectives changed in the opposite direction. The four landscape patterns under the three scenarios of economic and low-carbon objectives changed in the same direction, and the degree of landscape fragmentation, agglomeration, and regularity under the low-carbon objective was better than that under the economic objective. The study results are essential references for future land resource management, carbon mitigation, and sustainable development of urban agglomerations.