This paper selects four kinds of index, which include social economic output, social economic input, people’s living standard, and ecological environment, to evaluate the performance of western development strategy, by analyzing the spatial difference and temporal developing evolvement of regional social economic development pattern since the implementation of western development strategy, and using gravity method. The research shows that, the social economic development of western region obtained remarkable effect, and the unbalanced pattern of regional social economic development was improved, under the fiscal preferential policies and other preferential policies, since the implementation of western development strategy. However, compared with eastern region, the people’s living standard of western region was not improved significantly, and the gap between eastern and western region became wider. Furthermore, when the western region developed economy especially industry, the environmental pollution was not controlled effectively, especially when accepting industry transfer, eastern region transferred the industry which was high energy consumption and high pollution to western region, so the industry transfer became pollution transfer. Therefore, the government should be devoted to improving people’s living standard and controlling the environmental pollution at the next stage.
From the perspective of the farmers’ crop choice behavior, and taking the need of Maslow Hierarchy Theory as a base, this paper built a framework to analysze the effect of the farmers’crop choice behavior concerning changes of social, economic and policy factors, in accordance with the survey data of the 238 farmers in Sujiatun district and the statistical analysis and logistic regression analysis. The results show that: the industrialization and urbanization accelerate the outskirts of large cities for non-agricultural employment opportunities and increase the demand for agricultural products; the farmers’ crop choice behavior is a clear "non-food" and "non-agricultural sectors" trends in different regions, there is the "anti-ring" style map of the planting pattern in space, as growing food crops in the suburb → the food crops and cash crops in the outer suburb → the cash crops in the rural area. Based on the study, by the external environment, including urban expansion, economic structure, changes in market prices, policy institutional arrangements and internal environment, including personal characteristics, family characteristics, resource endowments, it explores the influencing factors on the mechanism of the farmers’crop choice behavior. The results show that the direction, degree and significance of impact factors in different regions differ. According to the above findings, the government should proceed from encouraging farmers to develop leisure agriculture in suburbs, reasonably leading the peasants to take advantage of the market, and training new farmers in order to guide the land use behavior of farmers in the region, to optimize the agricultural structure, promote the rational utilization of rural land and improve the efficiency of land use, and realize the sustainable use of the land resource.
Climate change caused by excessive fossil energy consumption has drawn attention of the researchers around the world to focus on economic development pattern. Econometric method is used to study relationship between carbon emissions from fossil energy consumption and economic growth in China in the paper. First, we estimate carbon emissions from fossil energy consumption in 1953-2010 in China. Second, we establish an econometric model of relationship between carbon emissions and Gross Domestic Product(GDP). Finally, we analyze relationships between two variables through cointegration test, ECM model, impulse response function based on VAR model and Granger causality test. The results show that there is cointegration relation of long-term equilibrium and short-term dynamic adjustment mechanism between carbon emissions from fossil energy and GDP during 1953-2010 in China. Long-term equilibrium will automatically be achieved through short-term dynamic adjustment mechanism. Current GDP has a significant effect on carbon emissions. Every 1% increase of GDP leads to 0.719% increase of carbon emissions. Wide adjustment range of previous error to current carbon emissions attains -0.102. Impulse response function waveform chart between carbon emissions and economic growth depict influence and response in 20 stages, revealing complex dynamic short-term relationship. Unidirectional Granger causalities from carbon emissions to GDP are as follows. Carbon emissions are the Granger cause for economic growth but economic growth is not the Granger cause for carbon emissions. High carbon emissions have promoted economic growth while economic growth hasn’t resulted in significant carbon emissions increase in the past 58 years. The results will provide basis and support for policy making on energy saving and emission reduction and carbon emissions reduction in China.
According to the characteristics of the development of flood risk management system, it is necessary to consider both the short-term economic loss caused by certain flood events and long-term flood impacts on the complex socio-economic-environmental system. Based on the two conceptual indicators of ‘Flood Insurance Related Flood Risk (FIRFR )’ and ‘Potential Flood Impacts On Sustainability (PFIOS)’, the statistical characteristics of counties and cities for FIRFR and PFIOS were specifically discussed at the national scale and regional scale. The results indicated that counties and cities distribution characteristics varied greatly for FIRFR and PFIOS whether at the national scale or the regional scale. FIRFR presents "leptokurtic" and "heavy-tailed" frequency distribution patterns and PFIOS frequency distribution presents symmetric pattern. Integrated flood prevention and mitigation countermeasures were put forward in combination with the grade variations of FIRFR and PFIOS in different zones. This can help to improve and supply the current flood risk management system in the context of sustainable development. Also, the study can provide scientific references for the decision making on integrated flood prevention and mitigation that targetted to the regional sustainable development.
How to promulgate the stakeholders’real willingness to eco-compensate is not only a difficult problem of ecosystem service payment research, but also a key to the question of policy formulation by the government and administrative departments on ecological compensation. However, the disparity of WTP and WTA was a hot spot in this research area. The objects of this research were the seven cities in the middle Liaohe Drainage Basin such as Benxi, Shenyang, Anshan, Fushun, Chaoyang and Chifeng. The method used in this paper is known as contingent valuation method. We estimated a resident’s WTP was 59.39 yuan per capita per year and WTA was 248.56 yuan per capita per year for protecting basin ecological environment and water resources by simultaneously measuring the same respondent’s WTP and WTA, which can examine his or her real compensation wish. Using regression method, we analyzed that the main cause for the disparity of WTP and WTA was the income levels of the respondents, on this basis we gave out appropriate policy recommendations.
Agricultural activities influence the stability of oasis by changing its aquatic ecosystem that oasis depends on. The agricultural water footprint of Wuwei Oasis in 2007 is about 8 times of that in 1950, while the efficiency of agricultural water footprint grows slowly only by 1.75 times. There is significant negative correlation between the efficiency and the proportion of the food crops water footprint. The proportion of the food crops water footprint in Wuwei Oasis presents a declining trend before 2002 and upgrades after 2002. The lowest proportion is 58.63% in 2002. The rapid population growth and livelihood demand are the main driving factors for the increase of the land development intensity and the agricultural water footprint. Therefore, appropriate decrease of agricultural scale, agricultural structural adjustment, increasing the government’s inputs to agricultural water-saving irrigation, extending agricultural water-saving technology as well as improving water management systems are all effective measures to control the excessive growth of water footprints, to achieve efficient utilization of agricultural water resources and further to maintain the stability of oasis ecosystem in Wuwei.
Urban food security is becoming a global important issue as more and more world population are gathering in cities with more diversified needs for food. In order to explore the relationship between city growth and food supply, this paper applies the concept of food footprint and formulates a measuring modeling for it. Then taking Beijing as an example, it calculates its food footprint over times from the perspective of supply and demand. The results show that the food footprint in Beijing has continuously experienced a fast increase, from 11800 km2 in 1993 to 29400 km2 in 2010, nearly 1.8 times that of Beijing’s territory area, although the per capita food footprint has relatively remained stable at 0.127 hm2. As the increase of population and the decrease of arable land continue, Beijing will be inevitable to enlarge its food footprints to the far outer regions. Therefore, if Beijing wants to enhance its food supply and reduce its food footprint, it needs to take different development strategies from the current one and strengthen its local food supply capacity by promoting urban and peri-urban agricultural development.
The ecosystem transitional zones (ETZs), expected to be among the most sensitive areas to climate changes and human activities, have higher landscape level species richness than in the adjacent ecosystems. The ecological position of land-cover in the transitional zones is prior to the adjacent ecosystems. Therefore, how to quantitatively identify and classify different ETZs and highly explicit their land-cover changes is important for improving the adaptation strategies to mitigate or even benefit from the projected impact of climate change on land use. In this paper, the Holdridge life zone (HLZ) model is improved to classify the ETZ type on the Loess Plateau of China. A positive and negative transformation index of land-cover (PNTIL) is developed to quantitatively evaluate the land-cover changes in every ETZ type. The results show that there are 14 ETZ types, accounting for 25.21% of the total land-cover area on the Loess Plateau. During the two decades from 1985 to 1995 and 1995 to 2005, cultivated land decreases 0.93% per decade, and wetland and water area, woodland and grassland increase 3.47%, 0.24% and 0.06% per decade, respectively, on an average. The total land-cover transformation rate of the whole ETZs decreases from 28.53% to 21.91%. The total, positive and negative transformed areas of land cover in ETZs have a decreasing trend during the two decades, in general. In both the transitional zones and adjacent biomes on the Loess Plateau, the area of cultivated land showed a decreasing trend, while the area of woodland showed an increasing trend during the two decades. Moreover, the transformation of land-cover types in the transitional zones is generally faster than the adjacent ecosystems. Our results provide a solid preliminary assessment of land-cover changes, indicating that the transitional zones are more affected by climate change and human activities on the Loess Plateau. The ecological diversity and patch connectivity of land-cover in all transitional zones generally showed an increasing trend during the period 1985 to 2005, with the same changing trend in all adjacent biomes. What’s more, the ecological diversity and patch connectivity of land-cover in all transition zones is higher than that of the adjacent biomes, which indicates that the transitional zones have higher ecological diversity and patch connectivity than the adjacent biomes.
As the intersection area and transitional zone of agriculture and animal husbandry, farming-pastoral zone of northern China is the important ecological barrier for east and central China. In recent years, so many land and water resources have been developed and used that the ecological environment was deteriorated. Land desertification, salinization and other ecological and environmental problems become increasingly severe. For investigating the matching degree of regional land and water resources and promoting sustainable utilization of them, this paper performed a study on land use and water balance over the farming-pastoral zone of northern China during the period from 1995 to 2005. By applying the methods of quantitative statistic, geographic spatial analysis, model building, remote sensing interpretation and GIS technology, this paper took the Xiliaohe watershed which is located in the east of farming-pastoral zone of northern China as a case study area to interpret the Landsat TM images in 1995 and 2005, and to quantitatively analyze the spatio-temporal variation trends and characteristics of land use change during the recent 10 years; building water balance models to calculate the amount of water balance at different periods of time and further to reveal the spatio-temporal distribution of water balance with different land use types at different stages in the farming-pastoral zone of northern China; finally we established the index of water deficit model to comprehensively assess the effects of land use change on water balance. The results showed that: 1) from 1995 to 2005, the whole characteristics of land use did not change, generally, the situation of land use was farmland area increased and grassland area reduced. 2) The main feature of land use and water balance was moderately water deficit. The extremely water deficit areas relatively concentrated in the central Xiliaohe alluvial plain. 3) The land use and cover change made the water deficit situation further intensified in the Xiliaohe watershed from 1995 to 2005. The seriously water deficit area increased by 25%.
The relation between the increasing land demand and the security of cultivated land resources is inconsonant. And the inconsonance is always the core problem to be solved in the land use planning. It is valuable to logically predict the quantity of cultivated land resources which could be transformed into land for non-agricultural purpose of a region. Taking grain productivity as a point of penetration, this paper built the model for measuring cultivated land that could be transformed into land for non-agricultural usage (MMCLNT) based on production capacity. Taking Lulong County as an example, the applicability of this model is verified. The study results indicated that: 1)The transferring quantity lies between a data interval, the value depends upon the quality of cultivated land that could be transformed for non-agricultural purpose. 2)Taking Lulong County as an example, the quantity of cultivated land that could be non-agriculturally transformed is 851.87-1547.86 hm2 from now on to the year 2020. Taking grain productivity as a point of penetration, the quantitative analysis about the cultivated land that could be non-agriculturally transformed provides a new method to harmonize the relationship between the land use planning and economic and social development.
The land consolidation in rural residential areas is a core issue of land regulation planning. The purpose of this study is to scientifically calculate realistic potential and formulate suitable strategy of land consolidation in rural residential areas for 18 towns in Suixian County based on public policy, households’willingness and establishment of a natural-economic-social-ecological-planning comprehensive correction index system. Methods of questionnaire investigations and multi-factor assessment method were employed. The results indicate: 1) The comprehensive modification coefficients lie between 5.15%-9.84%, which show that the possibility of theoretical potential translated into realistic has great regional difference. 2) The realistic potential of land consolidation in rural residential areas is 2035.23 hm2 in Suixian County from 2011 to 2020, which accounts for 17.80% of the theoretical potential and occupies 10.01% of rural residential area. The calculation results are in line with the actual situation of Suixian County and the requirement of land use planning. 3) According to the realistic potential coefficient, the 18 towns can be divided into 4 levels. The potential coefficient of level I area is above 11%, which have larger per capita land use, superior location, developed socio-economy, high enthusiasm of government and farmers. The demonstration area can be priority established in towns with great potential, which also should be done on the basis of social and economic infrastructure and development strategies of each town. And the land consolidation mode should be innovated and land consolidation in rural residential areas should be orderly improved. It is concluded that the calculation method and consolidation strategy are of scientificness and practicality to a certain degree, and can provide a more effective basis and reference for a new round of land consolidation in rural residential areas.
The urban spatial morphology has always been the core field research focus of urban geography. Large city morphology evolution is the result of long-term social and economic development. The dramatic changes of China’s urban spatial form have brought many problems in economic, social, urban construction and urban environment. To understand the progress and mechanism of urban spatial morphology changes, building appropriate quantitative assessment model for urban spatial morphology is significant for promoting China’s sustainable urban development. Since the 1990s, there are new economic and social backgrounds in China. Due to the new mechanism and dynamic characteristics of urban morphology evolution, it is very important to get some new conclusion for the amendment of city theories. This paper summarizes the current research gaps on the basis of narrating the research progress about the evolution of urban form at home and abroad. Then, it chooses 35 Chinese provincial capital cities or above, analyzed the spatial-temporal characteristics of cities’spatial morphologic evolution in recent 20 years not only with the help of multi-temporal Landsat TM/ETM+ remote sensing satellite imagery,urban land use planning map, socio-economic statistical data and other relevant information, but also with ArcGIS 9.3 software platform and Erdas 9.2 software and some different research methods, such as statistical analysis, Boyce-Clark shape indices, compactness indices,trend analysis. The results show that, during the period from 1990 to 2010, the expansion speed of the eastern cities is higher than that of the western and central cities. Among them,the expansion rate of the four municipalities is generally higher than other cities. Relatively slow expansion cities are mainly located in heavy industrial or valley-pattern cities of North and Northwest China. The shapes of the 35 cities are mostly in-between the square and the rectangle in the period from 1990 to 2010, only a few cities in the shape of the diamond, star, H-shaped or X-shaped. Out of 35 cities, 15 cities showed a decreased trend in compactness indices and 20 cities showed an increased trend from 1990 to 2010. The range of shape indices for Chinese cities varies from 6.82 to 69.32 in 1990 and from 7.56 to 65.81 in 2010. Generally, the averages of the shape indices in the two years are 24.9 and 32.09 respectively, which indicated urban morphology tends to be more complicated. The major way of urban morphology evolution of provincial capital cities or above in China is the intension-type development instead of extension transit during the period of 1990-2010. The urban morphology evolution is the result of both inner and outer driving forces, indicating the complexity of urban morphology evolution. This research is highly valued for planning administration and planning practicality, especially at such a high speed of urban expansion and well-developed city planning in China.
Study on the water consumption of crops is vital to the improvement of the utilization efficiency of agricultural water, and alleviation of water shortage in North China. In this paper, the Dongcun farm in Yuncheng, Shanxi Province is taken as an example to estimate the depth of root water uptake in growing stages and the water flux in SPAC system after irrigation for the summer corn. Precipitation, irrigation water, soil water, groundwater and stem water were sampled for stable isotopes analyses supported by hydrological observations. Both direct inference of hydrogen and oxygen isotopes between stem water and soil water profile and multiple-source mass balance assessment were applied to estimate the main depths of root water uptake of crops in different growing seasons. The results show that summer corn mainly uses the soil water from 0-20 cm layer (96%-99%) in jointing stage, 20-50 cm layer (58%-85%) in flowering stage, and 0-20 cm layer (69%-76%) in full ripe stage, which means the main depth of root water uptake goes downwards at first, then upwards in the whole growing stages. By the method of soil water balance and isotope mass balance, the water flux in SPAC system after irrigation for the summer corn is calculated: After the irrigation on August 11th, 2008 for summer corn (flowering stage, 90 mm, flood irrigation), the deep infiltration takes up as much as 43.3%, and transpiration of corn accounts for 71.3% of the total evapotranspiration, so the irrigation water use efficiency is only 40.4%. The existing irrigation efficiency is low in the study area, and measures should be taken to reduce the deep percolation after irrigation. Our experiments are carried out under certain conditions, and the results will not be common, but they can give more insight into water consumption of the summer corn in the study area and help improve the existing irrigation system in North China.
Taking Changshan Islands in Dalian City as an example, the paper conducts studies by drawing on the experience of the international related theoretical research and practical results. Based on the comprehensive consideration of the regional ecological, economic, and social factors, the author used the GIS spatial analysis technology, and comprehensively analyzed the site location, park range and function zoning of National Marine Park from various aspects such as impact factor, space structure, suitability and so on. The optimal site for the construction of Changshan Islands National Marine Park is Caituozi on Wumang Island. The area is about 1689.25 km2. The park can be divided into five functional zones: core zone, buffer zone, experimental zone, recreational zone and zone for general use. The author put forward the corresponding functional partition purpose and functions.
Green gross domestic product (green GDP) reveals the relationship between environmental degradation, resource depletion and the economic development. A key issue on the research is to price natural resource and environment. There are various defects in market pricing. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to show a calculative form of green GDP accounting by combining emergy analysis with material flow analysis based on complex ecosystem theory. Through a study of the ecological flows, and integrating the method of material flow analysis, natural and socioeconomic outputs are translated into solar emjoules (sej) units and calculated in terms of emergy dollar by transformity. However, from a policy point of view, it is essential to know how the conflicts between economic activities and resource and environment are spatially concentrated or disseminated. To demonstrate the mechanics of green GDP accounting and its spatial diversity, complex ecosystems in Henan Province at county level was taken as an example. We estimated emergy indices and green economic development level of 108 counties in 2009, focused on the comparisons of differences between green GDP and traditional GDP and analyzed spatial differentiation for emergy indices of complex ecosystems. On that basis, green economic development of counties in Henan Province was divided into five regional types. The results showed that: 1) Green GDP accounting based on EMA-MFA is an eco-centered assessment method to emphasis sustainability, which is designed to explain the important role played by natural resources and environment on socio-economic development from the perspective of ecological processes of the complex ecosystem. 2) The spatial distribution of emergy indices all expressed a high concentrative level with some differences among counties in Henan. The results of green GDP based on EMA-MFA accounting were quite different from the results of traditional GDP. And the change of spatial differentiation between green economic development level and traditional economic development level was obvious. 3) Green GDP in Henan Province at county level can be classified into five regional types. Each type of counties should develop green economy according to local current situation and regional advantage. 4) To objectively assess the potential and status of green economic growth, both green GDP and traditional GDP must be taken into account, because green GDP accounting based on the emergy and material flow analysis to some extent may weaken the effect of economic growth. In addition, regional transformity for various ecological flows is one of the biggest challenges in further studying. It is necessary to gradually explore the interactive mechanisms among various subsystems of complex ecosystems, the ecosystem services value effectively embedded emergy analysis and environmental governance cost accounting.
In terms of current land classification, urban land for the secondary and tertiary industries is so roughly classified that it lacks effective consistency with national economic industry classification, rendering it difficult to precisely keep abreast of types and sizes of various urban lands for the secondary and tertiary industries. By referring to economic census data, the paper aims to further categorize urban land for the secondary and tertiary industries, make such land laden with clear economic attribute and dovetail with national economy classification effectively. Taking Hefei as an example, through computational method for shared areas, the shared areas for various industrial lands and total areas of industrial lands can be obtained through computation of theoretical shared modulus, theoretical shared areas and practical shared areas, we can also draw distribution map of industrial lands. The results show: First, the proportion of practical use of industrial land is 94% in Hefei, and it could be more efficient. Second, the proportion of industrial land is 15.52% which is lower than the relevant standards. Third, industrial allocation is irrational as some industrial enterprises are located in the center of the city. Research results show that computational method for shared areas could provide reliable basis for the evaluation of industrial land from scale, structure and layout, it also provides good guidance for structural adjustment and layout optimization of industrial land.
According to the requirements of developing water rights trading market, the paper designs the self-supply groundwater planned water use trading market in Zhengzhou, and provides recommendations on the reform of related water resources management systems. The development of the self-supply groundwater planned water use trading market in Zhengzhou shall clarify initial water rights, conduct cap control and improve metering and monitoring systems firstly. Then related market trading systems shall be developed, including, annual water use indicator definition, carryover of water use indicator, trading product selection, trading period selection, trading pricing and on-line trade system development etc. After the development of water trading market, it is necessary to reform the current water resources management systems, including issuance of new water rights, environmental and ecological impact assessment, information disclosure, water use indicator definition and surcharge for over-planned water use etc.
