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| DISCUSSION ON THE GENE INFORMATION ATLAS OF TRADITIONAL SETTLEMENT LANDSCAPES IN SOUTHERN CHINA BASED ON GIS |
| HU Zui1, LIU Pei-lin1,2 |
1. Department of Geography & Tourism Management, Hengyang Normal University, Hengyang 421008, China;
2. College of Urban & Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China |
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Abstract The vast territory and complex and various geographic environment lead to a diversity of the ecological environment. China has a large number of landscapes of settlements with rich and unique regional cultures, among of which Southern China has a variety of the ecological environment and a long history, and so all kinds of culture were formed over there. As a result, there are so many settlement landscapes with very unique characteristics. Some researches have shown that about more than 80% of China's existing landscapes of settlements are all located in this regional territory. Today, with rapid socio-economic development, it is very urgent for Southern China to develop the landscapes of settlements, so as to promote its tourism. At the same time, the protection of resources is needed, too.
It is sensible to study the landscape gene of above-mentioned settlements for their protection and development while promoting its economy. By using "the landscape gene method" to study the internal character and the external expression of the traditional settlement landscape, and based on the theory of "cultural landscape", the authors of this paper analyze the researches of status quo on Landscape Gene and hold that the research on Landscape Gene is a new theory and way to study the landscapes of settlements. In addition, the authors also discuss the conception of Landscape Gene and the principles of its distinguishment. In order to build a gene-info-atlas, the authors extend the conception and the principles, and believe that the conception of Landscape Gene can not only describe the essence of settlement, but also be understood by computers. So, the authors put forward some suggestions as follow: the additional settlement is affected by geographical environment and culture when it came into being. Through this cause, the uniqueness of each landscape of settlement can be seen. With the cartography by computer, some special atlas symbols can be used to present landscapes of cultural settlements according to some special rules. Generally, the characters of cultural settlements can be presented by some mathematical ways.
Based on the research, the authors bring forward the conception of the basic info-units for a unique landscape of settlements and how to draw it from landscapes when a system of landscape settlement geneinfo-atlas is constructed with GIS technology. Furthermore, the authors also discuss the technical notion of landscape of settlement gene-info-atlas system and design a trial flat procedure for this intention. At last, the authors explore the prospect and value of landscape settlement gene-info-atlas in the paper.
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Received: 05 September 2008
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2008, Vol. 23 
