Mass rural-urban migration and population aging are occurring simultaneously at a rapid speed in contemporary China. Tens of millions of rural young laborers have been migrating to urban areas to meet the demand for cheap labor, whereas large numbers of elderly parents (the Chinese baby boomers) are left behind in the impoverished villages. Consequently, adult children are becoming more and more unavailable to fulfill their elder care responsibilities. This study took a systematic look at how the increasing rural-urban migration shaped the elder care practices in rural Chinese families and how rural elders respond and adapt to this social transformation. Using data from a rural household survey conducted by Renming University in 2004 in three in-land migrant-exporting provinces, this study explored three aspects of elder-care dynamics in China: 1. The patterns of financial care for rural elders whose adult children had migrated to urban areas. 2. Rural elders’ perceptions of filial piety at this time of social change. 3. Rural elders’ self-evaluation of life satisfaction at this historical period of time. The theoretical model of Political Economy of Aging (PEA) and criticism of classic modernization theory were used to guide the generation of hypotheses and analyses of statistical data. Findings from this study revealed that financial care by migrated children was mainly based on an exchange-based model; rural elders who took care of grandchildren received more financial support. With the continued provision of financial care and emotional care, rural elders continued to hold relatively positive evaluation of their migrated children’s filial piety, even though physical care was absent. Thus, the author argued that within the context of rural-urban migration, filial piety was not undergoing decline or erosion; rather, its meanings and significance have been broadened by their elderly parents to adapt to dramatic social changes currently underway in China. Finally this study found that the exchange-based pattern of financial care and the continuation of filial piety had a positive impact on rural elders’ life satisfaction. This study contributes to the knowledge body of elder care in China and provides insightful policy suggestions for the Chinese government.

This study explored the relationship between increased proportions of imperviousness in a watershed on surface water quality and examined the effectiveness of using remote sensing to systematically and accurately determine impervious surfaces. A supervised maximum likelihood algorithm was used to classify the 2008 high resolution National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) imagery into six classifications. A stratified random sampling scheme was conducted to complete an accuracy assessment of the classification. The overall accuracy was 85%, and the kappa coefficient was 0.80. Additionally, field sampling and chemical analysis techniques were used to examine the relationship between impervious surfaces and water quality in a rainfall simulation parking lot study. Results indicated that day since last rain event had the most significant effect on surface water quality. Furthermore, concrete produced higher dissolved organic carbon (DOC), dissolved organic nitrogen (DON), potassium and calcium in runoff concentrations than did asphalt. Finally, a pollutant loading application model was used to estimate pollutant loadings for three watersheds using two scenarios. Results indicated that national data may overestimate annual pollutant loads by approximately 700%. This study employed original techniques and methodology to combine the extraction of impervious surfaces, utilization of local rainfall runoff data and hydrological modeling to increase planners' and scientists' awareness of using local data and remote sensing data to employ predictive hydrological modeling.

This dissertation proposes a new, synthesized perspective for explaining the “Nonmetropolitan Turnaround” in the 1970s and 1990s. By studying the definition of urbanization carefully, using the human ecological perspective, many processes happening during the “Nonmetropolitan Turnaround” in the 1970s and 1990s, such as suburbanization, deconcentration, and counterurbanization, can be understood as different forms of the urbanization processes. When the majority of the population was rural, the dominant pattern of urbanization was rural-urban migration. When the majority of the population became urban, the dominant urbanization pattern reversed to urbanrural migration because urban centers had reached beyond their optimal density and processes operated to reduce their density. This paper hypothesizes that the two “turnarounds” were simply the result of different aspects of urbanization complicated by metropolitan status reclassifications. The perspectives of suburbanization, counterurbanization and deconcentration are integrated into the urbanization perspective. Using migration flow data compiled by the Census Bureau from 1975 to 1980 and from 1995 to 2000, the summary analyses confirmed that the net migration due to the three forms of urbanization largely accounted for all of the net migrant flows. This dissertation further tested the validity of optimal density theory with net migration data and confirmed the utility of this perspective in predicting the direction of net migration.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 186-211).

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Canterbury, 2009. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 118-133).

This thesis analyzed the process of rural urbanization in Mainland China about the driven forces behind it, powerful player within it and impacts from it and seeks to conclude the emergent issues of environment, society and economy regarding the enormously growth of rural urbanization. Based on the research, the thesis concluded that the rural urbanization pattern is leading to a chaotic urbanized future of condensed urban fabric and urban villages and suggests that by creating a new approach of rural urbanization combining ecological concern and economic reformation, the negative impact of rural urbanization can be reduced and terminated. Then the thesis selected case studies in the North China Plain in Beijing Municipality to further examine the impacts of rural urbanization on local communities and ecology and to test the new approach proposed based on the site situations on rural urbanization that is controlled and regulated by landscape facility. The landscape facility is the core idea of new rural urbanization pattern that combines economic reformation and ecological compensation together as well as brings opportunities for different powerful players in the process of rural urbanization to negotiation through spatial design. / published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Landscape Architecture

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Typescript. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1990. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 126-135) / Microfiche. / x, 135 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

Thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 2003.