Water resources use efficiency DEA model for the measurement of China water resources use efficiency exists some deficiency. In the investment, it is simple to take the water for daily life and production indicators together with other indicators as inputs. These inputs did not reflect water resources consumption of the real socio-economic system. In the undesirable output, it is pure to consider the water pollutant of COD and nitrogen ammonia emissions as the expected output, but not considering the real loss caused by the water pollution to water environment. This neglect must have an effect on the evaluation results of the water resources use efficiency. There is no space effect hypothesis on the research of the influencing factors about China's water resources use efficiency. And implying ordinary least squares (OLS) of ignoring space effect makes the model to estimate. In practical application there often exists deviation problem in the model set, which leads to the problems that are not complete and scientific, due to lack of explanatory power on the influencing factor analyses results and inference of China water resources use efficiency. According to the shortage of the above and based on the panel data about interprovincial water footprint and grey footprint and other data, this paper measures water resources Global Environmental Technology Efficiency (GETE) of 1997-2010 China's 31 provinces by using an "unexpected" output DEA method, and studies the space effect of interprovincial water resources GETE with the help of the space measurement model. The empirical results show that the interprovincial water resources GETE is significantly correlated in space. Through the LM test and robust LM test, the China's interprovincial water resources GETE exists spatial dependence and spatial heterogeneity, then by means of spatial lag model and the spatial error model this paper further found that China's interprovincial water resources GETE has strong spatial spillover effect. Spatial autoregressive coefficient and space error coefficient respectively are 0.5280 and 0.7480 under considering the unexpected output by 1% significance level. The influencing factors and direction of Chinese interprovincial water resources GETE and TE differ from each other. The water resources GETE considering the unexpected output is a scientific and reasonable measure. On that basis, this paper puts forward relevant policy suggestions for healthy development of China's water resources use efficiency.
Yunnan is a typical mountainous province in western China. Its flatland area with a terrain gradient of less than 8° accounts for about 6% of its total land area. A reasonable division of mountainous county, semi-mountainous county and flatland county is an important basic research task, which received considerable concerns from relevant departments and scientific and technological circles of Yunnan Province, for it's the basic foundation for industrial location (especially the location of agricultural production) and cultivated land resources protection in plain area. By using the verified result of the investigation of the flatlands area ≥ 1 km2 in various counties (cities, districts) of Yunnan during the Second National Land Survey, selecting three single indicators, including proportion of farmland in flatland area, flatland area proportion, and number of the flatlands with an area ≥ 100 km2, and constructing the comprehensive index of Comprehensive Index in Flatland Area (CIFA), and then adopting the method of combining leading indicators with comprehensive analysis, we divide the 129 counties (cities, districts) of the whole province into flatland counties, semi-mountainous and semiflatland counties, and mountainous counties. The division procedure can be separated into three steps: 1) Preliminary classification based on the leading indicators of CIFA; 2) proper adjustment according to the indicators as proportion of farmland in flatland area and flatland area proportion; and 3) adjustment again in accordance with indicator of number of the flatlands with the area ≥100 km2. The result shows that there are 21 flatland counties, 37 semi-mountainous and semiflatland counties, and 71 mountainous counties in Yunnan. This study revises Yunnan's previous plan to divide the counties into flatland counties, semi-mountainous and semiflatland counties and mountainous counties by relying solely on one indicator—proportion of farmland in flatland area. It offers scientific foundation and basic support to Yunnan Province and all places throughout the province for them to make rational industrial layout (especially agricultural production layout), and protect high-quality farmland resources in flatland areas.
The studies on rural poverty in China have been focused on economic poverty and the studies on energy poverty are relatively insufficient for a long time, but the energy poverty is the major factor restricting the development of rural areas and improvement of rural househould’s livelihood assets. From the perspective of rural househould, referring the energy poverty line of developing countries such as Brazil, India, according to the rural household's survey and interview, the paper finally determines the energy poverty line in China's rural areas is annual consumption of 400 kgce; for the scientific measurement of energy poverty, a quantitative analysis from three dimensions of extent, depth and difference of energy poverty is raised and the measurement method of each dimension is constructed; taking Nujiang Prefecture of Yunnan Province as a case, using the questionnaire survey of 564 rural households, the status of energy poverty of Nujiang Prefecture is analyzed. The conclusion is that the extent of energy poverty is 0.66, the depth of energy poverty is 0.40, the difference of energy poverty is 0.17 and the comprehensive energy poverty index (Sen Index) is 0.37, which show that the status of energy poverty in Nujiang Prefecture is serious. Based on the above study, some suggestions are put forward, such as controling population size and distribution pattern, improving household registration and social security policies, speeding up the construction of energy infrastructure, adjusting industrial policies, etc.
It is now an indisputable fact that carbon dioxide gases cause global change. Although most of the carbon emissions come from the developed cities, as China's rural population accounts for more than half of the total population, effect of rural househoods' carbon emissions on the global climate change can not be ignored. This paper takes the quality of carbon dioxide as the unit of carbon footprint, meanwhile, takes farmers of Zhangye in the midstream of the Heihe River Basin, Gansu Province, as an example. Based on the household survey data, the carbon footprints of local farmers were estimated, in addition, single-factor analysis and the Gini coefficient were used to analyze the structural features of carbon footprint in different ways of living. Conclusions are as follows: 1) The total carbon footprints of the farmers in Zhangye is 1.63×109 kg CO2, and the per carbon footprints is 2.14×103 kg CO2. 2) From the types of carbon footprint consumption, farmers'carbon footprints mainly come from energy consumption, accounting for 83.70% , followed by housing construction, accounting for 13.50%, and then is the food production and processing, accounting for 1.89%, the last one is transportation, accounting for 0.91%. 3) From the view of the internal structure of the carbon footprint, there is great difference between the famers in Zhangye. Non-farmers'carbon footprint is the largest, followed by part-time farmers, the pure farmers' is the minimum. 4) Consider the fairness of carbon footprint possession, the largest deviation of carbon footprint possession is transportation, with Gini coefficient being 0.51; second one is the use of energy, with Gini coefficient of 0.41; carbon footprint possession of food production and processing is more reasonable, with Gini coefficient of 0.35; carbon footprint possession of housing construction is average with Gini coefficient being only 0.12. 5) Population, income levels and non-farm conversion are the main factors affecting the carbon footprint, with the increases of population and income levels, also the deepening of non-farm conversion, apparently, carbon footprint of farmers continues to increase.
Leaf Area Index (LAI) is a critical variable for forest management, and there are several dynamical models of forest management, based on the modeling of the interactions between the soil, the atmosphere and the vegetation. LAI is a critical input variable for these models. Currently, it is difficult to obtain accurate LAI estimations of high spatial resolution over large areas. Effective leaf area index (LAIe) of montane evergreen broad-leaved forest stands estimation was carried out in a region located in Southwest Sichuan, by means of different approaches including field inventory data, SPOT 5 imagery and spatial prediction models, LAIe was inventoried and assessed in a total of 83 sample field plots. And using remotely sensed data as auxiliary variables, LAIe spatial distribution, which is derived from Direct Radiometric Relationships (DRR), the geostatistical method Co-Kriging (CK) and Regression-Kriging (RK), respectively, were compared. Also, Inverse Distance Weighted (IDW), Global Polynomial Interpolation (GPI), Ordinary Kriging (OK), and Universal Kriging (UK) estimations were performed and tested. The results show that since forest landscape is not a continuous variable, the tested LAIe variables showed low spatial autocorrelation, which makes Kriging methods unsuitable to these purposes. But DRR, CK and RK methods produced lower statistical error values, and presented high spatial correlation existing between DRR and CK, RK methods. Despite the geostatistical method RK did not increase the accuracy of estimates developed by DRR, denser sampling schemes and different auxiliary variables should be explored, in order to test if the accuracy of predictions is improved.
As one of the important solutions of current environmental problems, the ecological compensation is increasing the interests of international researchers. However, the formulating of the regional ecological compensation standard has been considered as a critical section of the ecological compensation research and implementation. From the point of fairness, by analyzing the relationship between eco-compensation, society and physiographical location, this paper demonstrated how the location condition of Shiyang River Basin influenced the ecological compensation standards. Based on this, we set up the ecological compensation standard calculation model by using the fundamental data of the Shiyang River Basin in 2009, then analyzed and calculated the compensation standards of different plant types in each basin. This paper presents the following research results: 1) A reasonable ecological compensation standard should satisfy the above conditions of ecosystem, besides, it needs to guarantee the affordability of expiators and basic requirements of aggrieved party. In the mean time, this standard is also regarded as elementary condition of human beings and nature's harmoneous development. 2) The ecological service value and economic behaviour that are offered by ecosystem present special heterogeneity. Therefore, we should establish differential and dynamic ecological compensation standards. 3) A more scientific approach is applied to create ecological compensation standards of distribution by using regional differences conditions, substantially realize the avoidance of "one size fits all" phenomenon in the policy making of ecological compensation effectively.
Lhasa River Basin, with an area of 3.29×104 km2, is the key agriculture and agropastoral interlaced region of Tibet Autonomous Region, and cultivated land has been sustaining regional economy and eco-environment. Therefore, an in-depth understanding of the process of changing cultivated land will provide scientific basis and database for agricultural development and ecological security in the region. Based on satellite remote-sensing images of 1976, 1988, 2006 and 2011, and DEM data with a resolution of 30 m, the spatial-temporal dynamics of cultivated land in recent 35 years in the Lhasa River Basin of Tibet has been analyzed with GIS and models of dynamic index, location index and regional difference. The results show that: 1) Between 1976 and 2011 cultivated land increased from 5.63×104 hm2 to 6.56×104 hm2, and its proportion to the total area of the Lhasa River Basin increased from 1.71% to 2.00% . The process of cultivated land expansion within 35 years can be divided into three periods with slow (1976－1988), fast (1988－2006) and radical (2006－2011) increasing, and the average annual increasing rates are respectively 0.09%, 0.59%, and 0.86%. The increased cultivated land is mainly from grassland, and the decreased mostly resulted from construction land expansion. 2) From downstream to upstream in the Lhasa River Basin, there is a decreasing level of cultivated land aggregation, and the cultivated land in Lhasa city has the highest but fastest declining aggregation. The spatial dynamics in cultivated land has been on the trend of increasing in the middle reaches and decreasing in the lower reaches. Maizhokunggar County which is located in the middle reaches owns the highest relative changing rate, and thus with maximum regional difference. 3) Cultivated land expansion has been reaching to higher altitude with greater slope, of which 4000－4200 m altitude and 5°－10° slope have the greatest net increase in area of cultivated land.
Scientific management of waterfront comprehensive utilization has an important effect on sustainable development in the area along the Yangtze River. Many papers published have discussed the methods of the waterfront resources evaluation, but little attention has been given to study on the waterfront resources utilization change. In this paper, based on the comparative analysis of definitions on the types of waterfront utilization, the method of classifying waterfront resource utilization was established. Then, the database consisted of the variation information about waterfront resources utilization has been constructed. Later, the matrix which reflects the waterfront utilization change was set up, and the analysis of relationship between the type of waterfront utilization and the class of waterfront resource was carried out. In the end, the characteristics of waterfront utilization change were explored, the reasonable level of waterfront utilization was given, and the advice on enhancing waterfront utilization's benefits was put forward. Empirical analysis of the waterfront along the Yangtze River in Jiangsu Province shows that since 2002, the waterfront resources utilization has expanded rapidly, the utilization ratio exceeded 37.5%. In the north bank area, industury holds a leading position in the process of waterfront utilization expansion; on the contrary, waterfront utilization increased drived by the "two engines" of port and industry in the south bank area. As a whole, waterfront utilization expansion for industry tends to dominate. For waterfront of port, warehouse and industry, organic constitution of waterfront resources quality is more matched with the utilization demands, and the change is more reasonable. Although, a large part of the waterfront resources with high quality was used for industry, occupied more part of waterfront resources which should be used for port, and had a huge negative effect on waterfront utilization benefits. In the future, stricter rule for waterfront utilization should be made to control utilization for industry, encourage utilization for port, and maximize the waterfront utilization benefits.
The reclamation and development of tidal flat is the specific land use pattern of coastal area. The variation characteristics of land use in coastal area can provide useful data for land use planning. This paper takes Rudong County as a case to discuss the variation of land use pattern in the tidal flat reclamation zones in Jiangsu coastal area by using the index of land use pattern structure, land use degree and land use diversity. The result shows that the variation of land use types has periodic characteristics from 1949 to 2013. The S-shaped curve and the turning point represent farmland increases in the 30 years after reclamation. The growth of construction land is intermittent with a period of 20 years. The village land use type appears 10 years after reclamation. Highway land and mining land are affected by port development and economic level of reclamation zones. The unused land decreases at first and then keeps staying at a stable level 40 years after reclamation. Land use degree increases in the S-shaped curve and the turning point appears 30 years after reclamation. The change curve of land use diversity shows an inverted U-shaped pattern, and the high point refers to 30 years after reclamation. The land use pattern process is divided into three stages, and the demarcation points are 10 years and 30 years. The formation of land use pattern is because that area of tidal flat increases as a result of marine dynamics. High salinity of soil makes land use pattern simple. Land use pattern is becoming diverse under the pressure of cropland protection, economic benefit, coastal planning, environmental protection and so on. Land use planning should consider to firstly improve soil quality for a 10-year period and planning time should be more than 30 years. Now, it is important for Jiangsu provincial government to pay more attention to the natural status of tidal flat and make great effort to the reclamation and development of tidal flat, in order to improve soil quality and realize sustainable development of tidal flat.
Taking Zunyi County, Guizhou Province, as a typical sampling area, this paper adopted soil type method and general organic carbon density measurement method to analyze the characteristics of farmland SOC storage and SOCD change in nearly 30 years using the second soil census data in the 1980s and the measured profile data. Moreover, this paper also identified the potential driving factors of SOC change, using the stepwise regression analysis method. These results showed that: 1) Total content of farmland loss SOC was 2.94×104 t in the recent 30 years. On the whole, it presented a flat and slightly downward trend. 2) The changing content of farmland SOC per unit area was -132.03 kg C·hm-2 in the past 30 years, the annual average rate of farmland SOC change was -4.40 kg C·hm-2·a-1, and the area ratio of carbon sink, loss carbon and relative balance was 49.45: 32.96: 17.59. 3) The differences among different soil types were very significant, regardless of SOC storage or SOCD. The lost carbon range of mountain yellow brown soil is the biggest, accounting for 77.34%, while the sink carbon range of purple soil, and its sink carbon content was 1.1 times as that in the 1980s. 4) The spatial distributions of farmland SOC change in the sampling area overall presented the boundary by Loushan Mountain, and the area of sink carbon and relative balance mainly occurred in its southeastern part, while the area of lost carbon mostly happened in its northwestern part. 5) The major factors influencing the farmland SOC change of the sampling area involved SOCD1980s, soil mechanical composition (sand ratio, clay ratio and powder ratio), total N density and C/N ratio in the recent 30 years. Moreover, except for SOCD1980s, the relationships between other factors and annual average rate of farmland SOCD change were positively correlated. The findings of this paper favored to find out the background conditions and potential impact factors of farmland SOC change in the nearly 30 year in the sampling area. At the same time, it will provide data basis for managing farmland SOC in the future.
Based on daily rainfall dataset of 80 stations in Guangxi during the period of 1961－2012, the trends in all kinds of precipitation events in Guangxi are primarily studied in this paper. The results show that the percentage of heavy rain accounted for the largest, followed by moderate rain in spring. In summer, the percentage of rainstorm presented the largest, followed by heavy rain and moderate rain, and the minimum was the light rain. In fall, the percentage of moderate rain was the largest, followed by light rain and heavy rain, the rainstorm was the minimum. In winter, the percentage of light rain was the largest, followed by moderate rain and heavy rain, the rainstorm was the minimum. The percentage of light rain precipitation indicated downward trend in spring and summer. Moderate rain percentage showed a downtrend in spring and summer. As regard to the trend of heavy rain, it presented an increasing trend in winter while the trend was not obvious in the other three seasons. The studied results also showed that there was a significant increase in the percentage of rainstorm throughout the year, especially in summer. In general, the precipitation structure in Guangxi manifested as an increase in the extreme heavy precipitation.
Drought disaster is one of the main natural disasters in Shaanxi Province, suffering from it often "nine out of ten years". It impacts the people's daily life and social production to different extent. In this paper, the observed meteorological data of 18 meteorological stations from 1961 to 2010 in Shaanxi Province were collected and the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) was used. Based on the monthly SPEI values of each station in recent 50 years, the drought processes of each station were confirmed one by one and the occurrence frequencies, scopes and severities of the meteorological droughts were computed and the annual, seasonal and monthly drought occurrence frequency, coverage and intensity over years were analyzed, and the spatial and temporal evolution and the intensity of drought occurrence of the province were revealed. Research results show that there was an obviously growing trend in frequency of drought in recent 50 years, especially in recent 20 years since 1990; drought occurred without exception in the annual, spring, summer, autumn, winter and monthly scales. Among them, the most serious drought occurred in autumn and spring. In decadal variability, the province witnessed the worst drought in the 1990s, next since the year 2000; drought in Shaanxi was either widespread throughout the province or locally, with quite uneven distribution regionally, the overall distribution characteristics are more in the north and less in the south; the strongest drought distribution intensity presented in Guanzhong of Shaanxi, followed by southern Shaanxi and northern Shaanxi is the weakest.
Based on the daily precipitation data of 111 meteorological stations in Northwest China from 1961 to 2011, the variation of consecutive dry days in four seasons was analyzed. The result indicated that consecutive dry days decreased in the last 51 years in winter and spring with a significant rate of -1.6 d·(10 a)-1 in winter, but not obvious in summer and autumn. During 1961-2011, in most parts of Northwest China, the consecutive dry days in spring decreased significantly, and the tendencies of variation ranged from -5.0 d·(10 a)-1 to 5.0 d·(10 a)-1, which is different in summer for different areas. A distinct decrease occurred in the western part of Northwest China in autumn, but consecutive dry days increased in the eastern part of Northwest China. A marked decreasing trend in winter displayed in most parts of Northwest China, and that increased in Guanzhong Plain and Qinling-Daba Mountains, with the tendencies of climatic variation ranges from -6.0 d·(10 a)-1 to 3.0 d·(10 a)-1. The annual trends and spatial variation of consecutive dry days vary for different natural zones.
Soil line not only can reflect the optical properties of the soil to provide a basis for soil remote sensing classification but also can be used to calculate the vegetation index to weaken the soil background information and improve the precision of vegetation remote sensing monitoring. However, there are many influencing factors, in order to improve the extraction accuracy of soil line, calculating the soil line parameters under different soil influencing factors and exploring the spatial patterns of soil line are becoming more and more critical. In this paper, we chose the soil in Tancheng County of Shandong Province as the research object, and selected the two biggest factors include soil types and soil organic matter contents which can affect soil line to be involved in analysis. We analyzed the changes of soil line parameters under different soil types, the results showed that: different types of soil had different soil lines, for the five soil classes in the study area, the size of the soil line parameters varied as follows: fluvo-attic soil had the maximum soil line slope (1.4996), followed by paddy soil, brown soil, mortar black soil, the smallest was cinnamon (1.2293), the relationship of intercept was in contrast with the slope. Under the same soil types we analyzed the influences of soil organic matter on soil line parameters, the results showed that in different organic matter zones, the soil line parameters were different, with the increase of organic matter content, the slope of the soil line increased but the intercept decreased. By comprehensive analyzing the spatial patterns of soil line we could get some conclusions as follows: With the changes of soil types, the slope of the soil line in the study was that it first increased and then decreased from west to east and had a gradual increasing trend from north to the south, at the same time it had a certain zonality law; under the same soil type, the soil line slope had a gradual increasing trend from the center to the edge but the intercept had a decreasing trend with the increase of soil organic matter content.
Water resources for domestic, agricultural and industrial use is an increasingly important topic of the human on the planet, and the relationship of water and human has become the hot spot of the current study. Human-water system is an open complex giant system, which contains socio-economic subsystem, eco-environment subsystem and resource subsystem. As one important part of man-earth areal system, its ultimate goal is to achieve the human-water harmony. And the study of its self-organization evolution is of great significance in promoting human and water in harmoneous sustainable development. This study presents the mathematical concept model of human-water system after discriminating its basic connotation. The evolution characteristics of the human-water system are opening, fluctuating, nonlinearity, feedback, instability and domination, which are summarized based on self-organization theory in detail. On this basis, drawing on the experience of synergetics and dissipative structure theory, this study develops self-organization evolution simulation of human-water system applying order parameter criteria and entropy criteria, and puts it in use in Shiyang River Basin. Case analysis shows that, the synergy degree of socio-economic subsystem, eco-environment subsystem and resource subsystem rises in an "S-shaped" pattern in Shiyang River Basin in 2001-2011, and there are slightly different for each subsystem. The evolutions of synergy degree match with the change of socio-economic development and policy planning of Shiyang River Basin. The order degree of human-water system is 0.2 below the level in the years 2001-2005, which indicates the human-water system of Shiyang River Basin is in chaos within a state of entropy production, and the competition between three subsystem is greater than the cooperation. The year 2006 is the fluctuation point of human-water system, the condition changed from chaos to coordinative and orderly, and the whole system began to tend to a new steady state. This transformation is owed to the progressive governance of the local government, which inputs negentropy to the system. Results also show that the self-organization evolution simulation of human-water system is effective and feasible, and provides references for further study.
Utilization of urban recycled water is an effective approach to alleviate the crisis of water resource scarcity in China. However, the utilization rate of China's recycled water is very low, partly due to the unreasonable water price. In this paper, the defects of recycled water pricing theories are analyzed. The traditional pricing theories are mainly transplanted from pricing theories of quasi public products, based on cost accounting. They ignore the important factor of demand and can't rationalize the relationship between tap water prices and recycled water prices. Moreover, the current situation of China's urban recycled water utilization is summarized and the blindly and arbitrarily problem of urban recycled water pricing is analyzed. In this paper，the viewpoint that recycled water can be independently priced by suppliers is presented, according to the features of recycled water including alternative of tap water and dispensability of monopoly regulation. Some hypotheses are put forward including indifference of water quality, permanence of specific investment and necessary and sufficient condition of recycled water acceptance. A theoretical model of independent recycled water pricing is built, based on comprehensive consideration of cost and demand. The workable pricing method is given as well. Firstly, the formula of consumers'reserve price is deduced based on the hypothesis about the necessary and sufficient condition that recycled water will be used by consumers. Afterward, the current price of tap water was given by taking a price of recycled water and calculating the total profit of water supply. The price which can maximize the total supplying profits can be found by multiple calculations of the supplying revenue and cost under each given price of recycled water. This price is regarded as the optimal price under independent pricing. In consideration of the pricing practice of tap water, the prices of recycled water should be set according to the different categories of users. For illustrative purposes, the pricing method is illustrated with a virtual example. Finally, the practical significances and implementing conditions of recycled water pricing are summarized. The implementation of the independent pricing models and method requires some support conditions. Firstly, recycled water can be generally accepted by users. It needs to break down the psychological resistance of recycled water under the guidance of government and media. Secondly, the supplying profit of main users should be greater than zero through government subsidies. Therefore, the range of application is relatively limited. It needs to be piloted in a few cities at first and popularized afterward.
The paper analyzes the SCI-cited papers from Journal of Nature Resources (JNR) since 1986 with the result showing a total number of 785 papers were cited and accumulative frequency was 2297. Sixteen JNR papers were cited by SCI for more than 15 times. The most frequently cited paper was cited for 68 times. This paper also lists the top 20 journals citing the JNR papers in SCI. The Chinese Academy of Sciences ranks the first for producing the SCI-cited JNR papers with more than 20 times citation. Environmental Sciences and Ecology are ahead in the top 20 disciplines producing the SCI-cited JNR papers. The SCI-cited JNR papers were majorly funded by the National Nature Science Foundation of China, Chinese Academy of Sciences and National Basic Research Program of China.
