In the era of globalization, key production factors such as population, industry, energy, and trade are flowing rapidly across regions. The relationship between human and environment has changed from a static to a dynamic status, from isolation to networking, and the geographical scale has been fully enlarged, indicating the transformation of human-land relationship from regional to global scale. As the frontiers of China’s opening up, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has undergone profound changes in its man-land relationship in the past 40 years of reform and openning-up. It is of great theoretical and practical significance to re-recognize, study and adjust the global and local modes of the man-land relationship in the study area, so as to provide information on how the bay area can rationally allocate the core elements on global and regional scales and develop into a world-class bay area. This paper reviews the global transformation of man-land relationship in the new era, and prospects the study of man-land relationship in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. It aims to: (1) examine the general man-land relationship patterns and laws of the world-class bay area from regional to global in theory; (2) analyze the global allocation process and changing influencing factors of man-land relationship in the Greater Bay Area since the reform and opening-up in the late 1970s; (3) reveal the local response and regional system mechanism within the bay area based on the global model; (4) explore the path of reconstruction of the “innovation-industry-environment” key system; (5) propose the optimization and regulation pathways of the man-land relationship in the region in the new era.

Developing the region into an international innovation and technology hub is the most common, the most advantageous, and the most challenging strategic direction for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area in the new era. There is an urgent need for the theoretical research and developing studies of the international innovation and technology hubs. Classical theories of the innovation systems focus more on the interior of innovation systems, paying attention to innovation elements and organization of innovation activities in a single space, but neglect the inextricable link between global and local elements and organizations, lacking comprehensive observations combining macro and micro perspectives. Therefore, on the basis of summarizing the classic innovation system theories, this paper constructs a theoretical model with global vision for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area constituting international innovation and technology hubs: "Science and technology" and "talent" are the cores, and "science and technology-industry-global production network" and "talent-environment-world city network" are two chains. Focusing on science and technology and the pooling of talents, it is needed to gather elements of innovative resources, enhance regional innovation capabilities, drive industrial transformation and upgrading, and improve urban functions and environments, so as to reshape the role in the global production network and the world city network. It is considered that the international innovation and technology hubs are the core nodes of the triple networks: global innovation network, global production network and world city network. To develop into an international science and technology innovation center, it is necessary to upgrade its strength and position in the three networks at the same time. Compared with the existing innovation system theories, the new model attaches importance to the internal and external relations with both global and local visions, in which the chain structure avoids the simple listing of elements, but emphasizes the mechanisms of the innovation system. Under this theoretical framework, the double-cores (talent & science and technology) and double-chains (science and technology-industry-global production network & talent-environment-world city network) of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area are analyzed, and the paths for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area developing into an international technological innovation center are proposed. This paper provides an explanatory tool for the organizing similarities and differences between international innovation and technology hubs under the background of globalization, which is a supplement to the theories of innovation systems.

The combination of technological innovation and financial ecology is an important foundation and prerequisite for high-quality social and economic development. As one of the national development strategic highlands and one of the regions with high economic vitality, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has made achievements in promoting scientific-technological innovation, financial development and industrial integration. Based on the panel data of scientific-technological innovation and financial development of cities in the Greater Bay Area from 2009 to 2018, we constructed the evaluation system of scientific and technological innovation and financial development, and measured the coupling degree of sci-tech finance in the area, and analyzed its influencing factors by adopting the panel model regression with the consideration of government investment in science and technology, financial efficiency and scale of high-tech enterprises and so on, and used the Moran's I index of coupling coordination degree of technology and finance to estimate the space spillover effects in the study area. The results indicate that the public technology finance and market technology finance in the Greater Bay Area have shown a rapid development trend. The investment in public technology finance continues to increase, and market technology finance forms are constantly innovating, and the institutional system is becoming perfect. The sci-tech finance coupling degree of cities in the area shows a trend of optimization with the leap of “severe disorder-moderate disorder-almost disorder” year by year, while there are some significant spatial differences among regions, especially for the cities of Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Hong Kong with the highest degree of coupling coordination and the cities of Zhuhai, Huizhou, Jiangmen with moderate disorder. The sci-tech finance coupling degree is positively affected by factors such as government investment in science and technology, financial efficiency, and high-tech development. However, the spatial spillover effect of the coupling degree of sci-tech finance in Guangdong province and Hong Kong is not obvious. Finally, we put forward some policy recommendations from the perspectives of government agencies, financial institutions, scientific and technological enterprises, and technology-finance service departments, in order to build the Greater Bay Area into a global international scientific and technological innovation center.

China's economy has achieved rapid development since the reform and opening up in 1978, but large amounts of resource consumption and pollutant emissions have significantly affected the ecological environment of some regions, therefore attention has been paid to the concept of green development and innovative development. Technological progress and innovation investment is an important way to improve the level of green development. The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is a good case study area for examining the contribution of innovation investment to improving green development level in different periods, as this area, one of the regions with the highest degree of openness and the strongest economic vitality in China, has experienced a rapid developing process driven by labor-intensive industries and high-energy consumption industries, and has started the transformation to green development. Taking the cities in the Greater Bay Area as examples, this paper measures the intensity of innovation input and the efficiency of green economy in each city from 2000 to 2017, and discusses the changes in the ways and sizes of the impact of urban innovation input on improving the efficiency of green economy in different periods. This paper mainly comes to the following conclusions. (1) Most cities in the Greater Bay Area have achieved significant improvement in innovation input intensity from 2000 to 2017. During this period, Shenzhen was in the leading position in innovation input intensity, while Guangzhou and Hong Kong had slow growth in innovation input. (2) From 2000 to 2017, there was a big difference in the change of the efficiency of green economy among cities in the Greater Bay Area. The efficiency of green economy in cities in the stage of stable development usually increased steadily, while that in cities in the stage of rapid growth often fluctuated. (3) From 2000 to 2017, the main influencing factors of urban green economy efficiency in the Greater Bay Area gradually transitioned from scale effect to innovation effect, and the contribution of innovation input intensity to the improvement of urban green economy efficiency increased significantly. (4) With the maturity of urban development and the increase of industrial scale, the innovation effect will play a more important role in improving the efficiency of urban green economy.

In the era of knowledge economy, talents concentration plays a key role in the development of a world-class urban agglomeration of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GHM). Based on the population census of Guangdong Province in 2010, the 1% population sampling survey in 2005 and 2015, and employment statistics in Hong Kong and Macao, this study measures the level of talents concentration from two perspectives of educational attainment and occupation on the county scale, and analyzes the evolution pattern and motivations of talents concentration in the GHM. The results show that: (1) GHM is one of the highly developed economic areas in China, and there is the absolute advantage of talents concentration in Hong Kong and Macao, while the level of talents concentration in the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration is lower than that in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and Yangtze River Delta urban agglomerations. (2) From 2005 to 2015, the spatial distribution of highly-educated talents in the GHM tends to be balanced, and there is also the advantage of the concentration of highly-skilled talents in Hong Kong and Macao. The increasing human capital defined by educational attainment in the mainland, which is caused by the expansion of college enrollment in China, has not been fully and effectively transformed into the advantage of human capital defined by occupation. (3) The level of talents concentration in Hong Kong plays an absolute leading role, followed by Macao, Guangzhou, Zhuhai and Shenzhen, while the counties and cities on the periphery of GHM have a low level of talents concentration. In particular, although Foshan and Dongguan have some developed manufacturing industries, their talents concentration level is relatively low. (4) The panel model shows that the service industry has a greater promoting impact on the concentration of highly-skilled workers than that of highly-educated labors, and manufacturing industry does not influence the talents concentration. Higher education plays a less important role in promoting the agglomeration of highly-skilled workers than that of highly-educated labors. High salary helps promote the concentration of highly-educated workers, while it does not boost the concentration of highly-skilled labors. In the new era, it is urgent to promote the cohesion of management systems in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, the industrial transformation and upgrading, and the establishment of high-quality higher education, ultimately, building GHM into an international innovation center.

The development of urban agglomerations are generally accompanied by the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure, population transfer and quality improvement, and the improvement and deepening of innovation capabilities. The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has attracted worldwide attention as the new engine of China's economy and an important growth pole that promotes global economic development. Based on the three key elements of industry, population, and innovation, this paper takes the Greater Bay Area as the research area, relying on the theory of the function upgrade of the key elements of urban agglomeration development, selects representative index of the level of industrial clusters, population mobility, and technological innovation support, uses quantitative measurement, statistical description, and qualitative analysis methods to analyze the current functional status and existing problems of key elements in the study area. At the industrial level, the service-oriented economy has a characteristic of agglomeration, but the degree of advanced industrial clusters is not enough. The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has not yet formed a number of high-end industrial clusters with distinctive regional characteristics and outstanding international competitiveness, including high-end producer services, high-tech manufacturing, and strategic emerging industries. At the demographic level, the Greater Bay Area has strong attractiveness, but the degree of talent concentration, high-end and internationalization is low and far below international standards. At the innovation level, the Greater Bay Area has a certain foundation and vitality for science and technology innovation, but the original innovation capabilities are insufficient. Especially, the relative lack of cutting-edge talents is also a constraint to the original highland creation in this region. In response to the existing problems, we propose a path to upgrade the functions of key elements such as the cultivation of high-end manufacturing and producer services, the enhancement of talent gathering functions, the improvement of talent flow guarantee mechanism, and the enhancement of original innovation capabilities. The suggestions in the paper should promote the further optimized development of the Greater Bay Area and provide certain decision-making reference for enhancing the influence and competitiveness of the bay areas in global economy.

The contemporary research of measuring regional economic resilience tends to focus on GDP index, while lacks of considering the other dimensions. Meanwhile, it overlooks the impacts from extra-regional linkage. Therefore, this study takes the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) as an example to measure the economic resilience based on five selected economic indicators, namely, GDP, gross export value, industrial added value, total retail sales of consumer goods, and number of the unemployed. Drawing upon the Resis index proposed by Martin and Gardiner in 2019, this paper calculated the relative resilience of cities in GBA. The result showed that Shenzhen has the best resilience, Guangzhou and Foshan ranked second, followed by Dongguan and Zhuhai. In contrast, Hong Kong and Macao have the worst resilience. This paper then explains the causes of regional divergence through the perspective of relational economic geography. It is argued that strategic coupling plays an important role in shaping the intra-regional divergence of resilience in the GBA. The main conclusions are as follows: First, single dimension shows limitations in depicting regional economic resilience, while multi-dimensional indicators reveals a distinctive divergence among different types of regional economic resilience. Second, intra-regional divergence of economic resilience in the GBA has been developed, which is not relevant to location and the GDP scale, but is more related to industrial economic structure and modes of embeddedness in global production networks. Third, strategic coupling can explain the intra-regional divergence. Shenzhen has been benefited from absorptive coupling with the best resilience, while Guangzhou and Foshan cities are in the medium, and Hong Kong and Macao have the worst resilience due to captive coupling with global financial and hotel networks. This paper contributes the literature with a fresh empirical case of regional resilience in the GBA and also provides an alternative theoretical framework that involves extra-regional linkages into analysis. This paper calls for more attentions of qualitative research on regional economic resilience in future, in terms of the variety of resilience from economic to social dimensions and causal mechanism of how resilience is fostered and exerts power in resistance of the shock, particularly in relation to extra-regional linkage in the contemporary global economy.

Trade has been an important force which shapes the industrial spatial pattern of Guangdong province. It is of great importance to conduct research on the relationship between export trade and firm agglomeration in Guangdong. From the perspective of multidimensional proximity between export destinations and local markets, this paper puts forward a new insight for the firm agglomeration in Guangdong, which has certain theoretical and practical significance. This paper argues that, the lower the proximity of a firm’s export destination to the local market is, the more difficult it is for the firm to directly gain comprehensive knowledge about the export destination at a distance. In this case, firms tend to agglomerate, in order to absorb the spillovers of relevant knowledge locally and achieve market expansion. Based on the data of China Customs Trade Statistics from 2002 to 2016, this paper describes the pattern of export markets and agglomeration of firms in Guangdong, and empirically measures the relationship between firms’ agglomeration level and the geographical, economic, political, institutional and cultural proximity between export destination and local market. In particular, the DO method is used to quantitatively measure the agglomeration level, which restores the original and micro form of firm agglomeration, making up for the shortcomings of the existing methods used to measure agglomeration level to a certain extent. Descriptive analysis shows that, on the one hand, the export markets of Guangdong’s firms are diversified, while the expansion of markets follows the principle of “proximity” to a certain extent. On the other hand, the distribution of firms presents an obvious “core-periphery” pattern. The empirical results show that when exporting to markets with low economic, political and institutional proximity to the local market, firms are more agglomerated. The geographical and cultural proximity has no significance effect on the agglomeration level of firms. At the same time, this effect is heterogenous in the sample of firms whose export markets are developed and developing regions.

Trade cooperation plays an important role in promoting regional economic cooperation and regional integration. In order to promote the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GHMB) and enhance its position in the global trade network, it is urgent to clarify the trade relationship in GHMB and promote the coordinated development of trade among the three component tariff zones. Under this background, based on the data from International Trade Centre (ITC) and regional statistical yearbooks, this paper analyzes the evolution of trade competition and cooperation in GHMB, and tries to find a way to foster regional integration of GHMB. The results show that: (1) In the last decades, GHMB has expanded its overall trade scale and raised its status in the global trade network, which provide itself the potential to develop into a world-class bay area. However, its financial market still remains to be optimized thoroughly. (2) With the continuous strengthening of Guangdong's trade links with the world, Guangdong has gradually overtaken Hong Kong in trade volume. Thus, strong potential competition between Guangdong and Hong Kong’s re-export-led trade has arisen in terms of trade space and trade commodity structure. Besides, potential competition also exists between Hong Kong and Macao in re-export trade. (3) The three component tariff regions in GHMB have varied advantages in different parts of trade competition. Specifically, Guangdong shows a competitive advantage in trade at the level of agglomeration, Hong Kong has a significant advantage in the level of investment liberalization, and Macao has a relatively limited scale in most trade competitive indicators. (4) The trade links between Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao have been continuously strengthened. Trade cooperation pattern in GHMB still retains some characteristics of its earlier stages, as the stores in the front and factories at the back cooperation model. However, the proportion of processing trade in total trade volume has been declining. (5) To promote internal trade cooperation in GHMB, it is necessary to make full use of each other’s trading advantages, foster the cooperation and coordinated development of commodity trade, expand the trade spaces of the three component tariff zones, and promote closer cooperation in service trade.

"Livability" is at the core of building a high-quality living circle in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GHMGBA), and the excessive housing burden costs have become an important obstacle to livability. The differentiation of the rental market is an indispensable and important part of the housing market in the GHMGBA and is inseparable from the creation of a livable life circle. Based on the average housing rent of 58 counties in the GHMGBA, this study summarizes the patterns and characteristics of the spatial differences in housing rents through the construction of a “grading pyramid of housing rents”, and displays the spatial pattern of housing rents through spatial autocorrelation analysis, cross-border rent gap comparison, and price-to-rent ratio analysis. From the theoretical perspective of leasing demand and urban fundamentals, this study constructs a model of factors influencing rent differences, consisting of population growth, per capita housing area, income level, economic level, industrial structure, and education structure. Through model comparison, a spatial lag model was used to measure the main factors influencing the housing rents in the GHMGBA. Based on the geographical detector, the study further analyzed the differences in the intensity of the factors' influence. The results showed that the housing rents in the GHMGBA generally presented a two-level difference pattern. The pattern was dominated by domestic and foreign differences between Hong Kong, Macao, and nine cities in the Pearl River Delta, as well as the differences between the core areas of Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and other regions. The cross-border rent difference was the highest. Higher price-to-rent ratios were observed in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Zhuhai. Income level, economic level, per capita housing area, and industrial structure had a significant impact on housing rent differences in the GHMGBA. Among them, income level had the highest impact intensity. This study responds to cross-border regional differences within the country from the perspective of housing rent. Cross-border differences are not only reflected in the population′s economic, income, and institutional levels, but also in the housing rent. The key issue for the regional linkage development of the housing market in the GHMGBA and the construction of a livable and quality living area is the coordinated development across borders.

The Pearl River Delta (PRD) is the global city-region in China’s southeast coastal areas and aims to create a comprehensive cross-border region across divergent institutional systems. The city-region in China has been long deemed as the engine of the regional growth in the past four decades. This article draws upon the theory of “new state space” to investigate the two regional projects in PRD, that is Shenzhen-Shanwei Special Cooperation Zone and Sui-Guan-Shen (Guangzhou-Dongguan-Shenzhen) intercity railway projects. By examining the theory of “new state space” from the lens of rescaling, we build up a conceptual framework capable to understand the rescaling of city-regional governance in post-reformed China. Based upon crises of capital accumulation and administrative governance, this article is committed to tracking the upscaling and downscaling of powers in regional governance and the overall rescaling processes of relations between provincial and local governments. In general, this article develops a China-contextualized conceptual framework and two empirical cases to problematize the rescaling of regional governance, both of which are central to shed lights on the rationale of China’s political economy. Three major findings are reported as follows. First, in the industrial collaboration project, in order to overcome the crises of weak institutional framework for intercity cooperation, provincial government is devoted to injecting resources, devolving administrative powers, deregulation, and empowering great autonomies to localities. These actions constitute to the downscaling of regional governance. Second, in the large-scale infrastructure project, in order to overcome the lack of the financial authority, provincial government is committed to building strong bargainer through horizontal power reconfiguration, recentralizing the developmental power from localities compulsorily, and delivering actual incentives for power recentralization. These actions constitute to the upscaling of regional governance. Third, considering the above-mentioned findings, this article argues that rescaling of regional governance in PRD is a flexible and polydirectional rescaling process, which is differentiated by concrete regional projects, rather than a unidirectional and mechanical rescaling process as suggested by conventional literature.

The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GGBA) is a cross-border global city region with Chinese characteristics. However, due to data acquisition limitations, most of the research has focused on the analysis of the spatial pattern evolution of the 9 cities in the Pearl River Delta of the Chinese mainland or mainly on Hong Kong, Macao and inland cities alone. As for cross-border economic relations, port research mostly focuses on the spatio-temporal distribution pattern and mechanism of the port itself, while it rarely involves the spatial linkages and impact analysis of the port on the entire cross-border region. This paper attempts to understand the spatial linkages of China′s cross-border global city regions from the perspective of port linkages. Taking 11 cities of the GGBA as an example, this study applies analytical methods including port linkage strength, network density and Python programming. Moreover, this research views the sea, land and air cross-border ports as nodes and takes the port traffic linkages as links to analyze the impact of ports on the spatial linkages of the Bay Area. The results show that: (1) ports are an important channel for the internal spatial connections of the cross-border global city region of ??the GGBA. Relying on each port, the Bay Area has formed a macro-linkage pattern with Hong Kong as the core and Macao, Shenzhen and Guangzhou as important nodes. (2) The sea port connection is manifested as a linkage pattern led by Hong Kong as the core with interactions between Hong Kong and Macao, while the sea ports connection between Hong Kong, Macao and other cities in the Bay Area shows hierarchical differences. (3) The land port connection indicates that the Bay Area has formed a radial linkage pattern with the Hong Kong and Macao land ports as the origin, and the Pearl River is the boundary demonstrating a significant imbalance. (4) The air port connection presents a linear and radial outreach pattern with Hong Kong and Macao as the core and facing the GGBA. This paper reveals the impact of port linkages on the spatial linkages of global city regions as well as the flow of factors in the cross-border areas, and thus provides a new perspective for the study of cross-border regional linkages.

The strategic cycle of "two fifteen years" of China's modernization in the new era is exactly the period of rapid population aging, and the imbalance between the rapid aging of the population age structure and the development of the economy and society will become increasingly serious. This paper uses the data of the fourth, fifth and sixth censuses of Guangdong Province, the sample survey data of 1% population in Guangdong Province in 2015, the data of Hong Kong Statistical Yearbook and Macao Statistical Yearbook. Spatial autocorrelation analysis, Cobb Douglas production function and spatial regression methods were used in this study, the spatio-temporal characteristics and economic effects of population aging in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area from 2000 to 2015 were studied. The results of our study show that: (1) The aging process of population in the Greater Bay Area is slower than that of Guangdong and even slower than that of the whole country, but it transformed into the senile type I in 2015. (2) The aging coefficient of the study area shows a dynamic evolution feature. The spatial pattern of "C" type started from Hong Kong and Jiangmen of Guangdong and spread northward through the northwest. High income cities spread northward from Macao and Hong Kong, and finally formed a center-periphery distribution pattern. (3) The aging population in the Greater Bay Area has a negative impact on economic growth. The aging population increased by 1%, and the per capita GDP decreased by 3%. Per capita fixed capital investment and per capita human capital investment had positive effect on economic growth, and the positive effect of per capita human capital investment was greater than that of per capita fixed capital investment. In view of this, Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao should establish a collaborative governance model and build a cross-border pension cooperation mechanism. It is essential to promote industrial restructuring and encourage technological innovation, assess the impact of population aging on economic growth at different stages, and handle the relationship between population aging and economy.

As an open place for residents to relax and get close to nature, ecological recreation space (ERS) plays an important role in improving residents’ life quality and wellbeing. With the integrated development of urban agglomerations and the increasingly high requirements of urban residents for the quality of their habitat and leisure environment, the regional organization of recreational use of ecological space within urban agglomerations has become a new hot topic. Based on the definition and spatial interpretation of ERS, this paper analyzed the spatial agglomeration and differentiation characteristics of ERSs in the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration (PRDUA) by using GIS spatial analysis methods. The spatial relationship between ERS and other humanities and natural ecological elements were also analyzed to reveal the problems and causes of the distribution of ERS. The results show that: (1) The spatial differentiation of recreational utilization rate of ecological space in each city is obvious, which reflects the lack of effective regional co-ordination of recreational utilization of ecological space. (2) The distribution of ERS’s number, scale, grade, and recreational utilization rate of ecological space is characterized by spatial agglomeration, but with different agglomeration orientations. (3) The distribution of ERS is spatially dependent on topography and traffic, but its link with the distribution of water systems, tourism elements, and cultural resources is not evident. (4) The area distribution of ERS is opposite to that of population density, suggesting the contradiction between the supply and demand of recreation services of ecological spaces. Compared with previous studies, this study attempted to reveal more factors that affect the spatial distribution of ERS in regional scale through the empirical study in PRDUA. It can be concluded that the factors affecting the spatial differentiation of ERS include three natural factors, i.e. topography, water system, and ecological space distribution, and three human factors, i.e. population density, transportation and regional policy and management. Interestingly, ERS distribution is not significantly correlated with the tourism elements and cultural resources, which suggests that the coordination between ERS layout and tourism and cultural system needs to be improved in the future in PRDUA.

Through statistical analysis of reports from news media in Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao on ecological environment cooperation in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, as well as comparative text analysis of ecological environment regulation of Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao, this paper reviewed the process of collaborative ecological environment governance in the Greater Bay Area, and discovered its characteristics, deficiencies and restrictive factors. Then it established a framework to explore the approaches of further collaborative governance in the study area. It is found that the collaborative ecological environment governance in the Greater Bay Area had been increasing during 2000-2019. The collaborative governance between Guangdong and Hong Kong, or among cites in the Pearl River Delta contributed a lot, but there was less regional collaborative governance covering Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao. Holding conferences and signing related documents were the major means of collaborative governance in the area, but there were few practical actions due to the lack of operability. Most of the collaborative governance focused on the protection and renovation of water and atmosphere environment, but the diversity of cooperation fields was insufficient. At the same time, the patterns of environmental governance of Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao are quite different. In the process of environmental governance, the three areas are not identical in terms of subject of liability and enforcement, object of regulation, approaches and intensity of governance, contents and standards of regulation, as well as scope of supervision, which have become constraints on collaborative ecological environment governance in the region. Based on the above findings, the paper suggested that the collaborative ecological environment governance in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area should be promoted to more comprehensive scales, more effective forms and more diverse fields. Firstly, the collaborative ecological environment governance in the region should be stimulated from a more comprehensive scale, to promote the interconnection of the whole region. Moreover, it is necessary to combine multiple forms of governance to improve the operability of collaborative governance. Finally, besides water and atmosphere protection and renovation, the fields of collaborative ecological environment governance should be expanded to promote broder cooperation.

Ecological restoration of land space is an important measure to promote stability, pattern optimization, and function enhancement of the land space system. Its essence is to reconcile the relationship between people and nature and promote the harmonious coexistence of both sides. Under the background of the implementation of major projects of ecological restoration of land and space, constructing a scientific and reasonable planning strategy oriented to regional development and public needs is a research hotspot in the fields of geography and ecology. Man-land system coupling is the theoretical basis of land space ecological restoration planning. Therefore, this article studies and reviews the difference from traditional ecological restoration planning (TERP) to land space ecological restoration planning (LSERP) under the framework of man-land system coupling. In terms of planning, the TERP is guided by the restoration of ecological system problems, focusing on single-element discrete restoration; the LSERP is based on the "mountain, forest, field, lake and grassland" life community, highlighting the organic integration of ecological processes and space. TERP and LSERP have also undergone significant changes in planning goals, nature, objects, technological paths, scales and policy mechanisms. Taking the typical area with prominent man-land contradiction--the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area as a case, this article analyzes the prominent problems and situations faced by the Greater Bay Area from the perspective of man-land system theory. During the development of the Greater Bay Area, we are faced with problems and challenges, such as the separation of ecological protection elements from the urban development space, the opposition between protection and utilization, the numerous ecological needs, and the difficulty of implementation and control. Ecological problems are the outstanding shortcomings that restrict the high-quality development of the Greater Bay Area. In response to the above problems and needs, this article takes the promotion of human-land harmony in the study area as the general goal, from developing a harmonious ecological restoration strategy, protecting the ecological space as a whole, giving full play to the comprehensive functions of ecological elements, and strengthening mechanisms in terms of guarantees, we have constructed a land space ecological restoration planning strategy and ideas based on problem identification -strategic guidance - overall layout and zoning policy implementation, to enrich man-land system theory, planning theories and methods, as well as to develop land space ecology for other regions as a reference.

With the global climate change, urban natural disasters are becoming more frequent, and the comprehensive disaster-bearing capacity of cities has attracted more and more attention. Based on the characteristics of urban population, society, economy, environment, transportation and other disaster-bearing bodies, a comprehensive evaluation index system of disaster-bearing capacity for urban natural disasters in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area was established. Then, based on objective weighted information entropy model, a quantitative evaluation model of urban comprehensive disaster-bearing capacity was put forward. Finally, the comprehensive disaster-bearing capacity value of cities in the Greater Bay Area was calculated, and the comprehensive disaster-bearing capacity level and the influencing factors were analyzed. The evaluation result indicates that Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Guangzhou rank the top three in disaster prevention ability index, and Shenzhen has the highest disaster resistance ability index, followed by Dongguan and Zhuhai. Guangzhou, Dongguan and Shenzhen are the top three in the disaster relief ability index and Zhaoqing has the lowest index. Guangzhou has the highest recovery ability index, followed by Shenzhen, Dongguan and Zhuhai. The disaster prevention, resilience, relief and recovery capabilities of cities in the study area vary greatly. The study result also shows that the comprehensive disaster-bearing capacity value in the Greater Bay Area ranges from 0.1886 to 0.6615. The comprehensive disaster-bearing capacity evaluation values from high to low are Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dongguan, Zhuhai, Foshan, Zhongshan, Jiangmen, Huizhou and Zhaoqing. Taking the geological disaster data of various cities in the Greater Bay Area as an example, we discussed the evaluation result of this paper. The evaluation results of this paper are well consistent with the actual conditions of cities except Shenzhen. The comprehensive disaster-bearing capacity and the influencing factors of cities are quite diffident, resulting in the short-board effect of the overall disaster-bearing capacity in the Greater Bay Area. It is recommended to strengthen unified planning and management of the comprehensive disaster-bearing capacity in the Greater Bay Area, so as to improve the overall disaster-bearing capacity of the city and ensure the smooth implementation of major national strategy in the Greater Bay Area.