Geostatistical and Spatial Correlation Analysis Using GIS for Chinese Geological Heritage

Abstract

Abstract Taking Chinese geoparks as the research object, this study adopts mathematical, statistical, and ArcGIS spatial analyses, to investigate Chinese geological heritage in 2010 and 2022. The results are as following. (1)In 2010 and 2022, the spatial distribution pattern of tourism income and number in Chinese national geoparks all show ‘low in the West and high in the East’. Provinces with high values have the most obvious changes, and tend to expand overall, and both the number and proportion are more than 15 and 51% in 2022. The spatial structure evolved from a few isolated ‘patches’ in 2010 to a continuous distribution ‘plane block’ in 2022. The provinces with middle values were relatively stable on the whole. The provinces with low values have obvious changes, and have tended to shrink overall, their evolution characteristics and trends are exactly the opposite of those of provinces with high value, which basically show a relationship of ‘loss and growth’. (2)In both periods, GMI showed a very significant negative spatial correlation. The degree of agglomeration of geological heritage showed a trend of evolving from weak to ‘strong dispersion’, indicating that the agglomeration trend is gradually weakening. (3)During the two periods, Chinese geological heritage showed only a positive spatial correlation (HH and LL) between the 31 provinces, and the change trends in these two types of provinces were completely different. (4) In terms of tourism income indicators, the number and proportion of national geoparks in high-value clusters are decreasing and concentrated in east China, while those belonging to low-value clusters are generally on the rise, mainly distributed in southwest, central, north, and northeast China.