Geographies

This study evaluated the planning relevance of biophysical land suitability for rubber plantation in a hilly landscape of Central Vietnam. A GIS-based square-root parametric method calculated a land suitability index (LSI) using elevation, slope, annual rainfall, soil depth, soil texture, and soil type. LSI values ranged from 0 to 77.67. Highly and moderately suitable land covered 38.79 ha (0.31%) and 3986.01 ha (31.83%), respectively, with soil depth and texture as important constraints. Overlay with the 2023 land-use map showed that biophysical suitability did not directly indicate practical land availability. Planted forest occupied 38.16 ha, or 98.38%, of the highly suitable class, and no existing rubber plantations occurred in this class. In contrast, 49.27% of existing rubber plantations occurred in the moderately suitable class. After excluding planted forest, paddy rice land, and existing rubber plantations from the 4024.80 ha classified as highly or moderately suitable, only 251.46 ha remained in unused land and annual cropland for further assessment. Data from 45 PB260 plantations showed a positive association between LSI and fresh latex yield after adjustment for the other variables in the multiple regression model, with an adjusted partial regression coefficient of 2.09 kg ha⁻¹ year⁻¹ per LSI unit (p = 0.016). Thus, suitability maps should not be used as expansion maps without considering current land use, practical land availability, and plantation performance.

Japan’s Location Optimization Plans designate Residential and Urban Function Guidance Zones, but their outcomes for non-commuting, non-school access to daily services are rarely screened against the spatial reorganization they require. This study pairs the Urban Spatial Reorganization Distance (USRD), an exact optimal-transport, latent-demand-weighted measure of minimum reorganization, with the Urban Mobility Efficiency Index (UMEI), a demand-based measure of mobility energy normalized by the 2020 Census municipal population. Across 305 municipalities, median exact USRD was 2.45 km; 205 (67.2%) improved under full realization with a fixed transit network, whereas 100 (32.8%) did not. Total USRD was not monotonically associated with UMEI improvement (Spearman $\rho =-0.056$, $p=0.331$), but non-improvement was concentrated in designated and core cities and accompanied by lengthened modeled trips. Compactness can therefore worsen service-access efficiency when residential and destination zones are spatially misaligned. The USRD–$\Delta$UMEI matrix is a screening framework, not an estimate of financial implementation cost.

The present study investigates whether the major countries contributing to sheep and goat research internationally differ in patterns of scientific output, collaborations and thematic orientation, how international research partnerships and thematic profiles have changed over time, and which country-level characteristics may be associated with citation impact. The specific objectives of the present study were the characterization of the geographical organization of sheep and goat research and the identification of country-level patterns and associations underlying its international scientific output. The Web of Science was used, and 165,052 papers related to sheep and 67,637 papers related to goats, published until 2024, were obtained. Then, papers originating from countries with at least 1% of total published papers from each species were considered. Small Ruminant Research was the journal with the most published papers; ‘Veterinary Sciences’ was the dominant Web of Science journal category. ‘Ruminant nutrition’ and ‘Livestock reproduction’ were the most widely represented topics in published papers from most countries, although between-country differences and changes in topic specialization over time were also seen. Two variables were positively associated with the average number of citations per paper: average number of references cited per paper and number of countries with which collaborative papers were published, both for sheep- and goat-related papers. Specifically for goat-related papers, thematic concentration was also associated with the average number of citations per paper. Overall, the study has highlighted the dynamic spatial structure of scientific output from sheep and goat research and its evolution over time.