Ecological environment problems are spreading from some small areas to wide areas across administrative regions due to unreasonable economic development. In this condition, the governments of the connected ecologically regions have to cooperate mutually to alleviate the ecological environment problems. Therefore, the ecological conservation cooperation (ECC) between administrative regions will gradually become usual. However, in the process of making ECC schemes, many significant questions need to be resolved, such as what ECC is, how many parts ECC consists of and how to make a reasonable ECC scheme between cooperators. These questions are all very critical for successful cooperation in resolving ecological environment problems. So far, the term“ecological conservation cooperation (ECC)”still was not defined clearly and accurately, and there is also not a systematical example about researching ECC. Constructing a framework of researching ECC is greatly significant to applied ecology, and will help resolving practically environmental problems. In this paper, based on the review of domestic and abroad researches on ecological cooperation, we gave ECC an accurate definition that is“the joint actions taken by stakeholders according to common agreements, in order to improve and protect ecological environment in a certain spatial scope where there are same ecological environment problems”, explained its connotation, and constructed a framework of ECC, including its compositions, research procedures, main types of cooperation, supervision and evaluations on the implication of ECC. In detail, The composition of ECC consists of the basis and purposes of cooperation, the cooperators, the supervision and evaluation systems; the procedure to construct the cooperation needs ten steps which include diagnosing regionally ecological problem, determining cooperators, finding out the objects of cooperation, clearing relationship between cooperators, mapping out cooperation scheme, consulting opinions about the scheme, implementing the scheme, supervising cooperators to carry out the scheme, evaluating, improving the schemes; there are six types of cooperation, which are labor service cooperation, engineering technology cooperation, industrial development cooperation, economic compensation cooperation, cooperation on ecological environment management, education and talent cooperation. Supervision and evaluation of ecological cooperation also involves four aspects which are supervision and evaluation on scheme implication, evaluation on the rationality of the cooperation scheme, evaluation of the supervision, re-evaluation periodically and eventual evaluation on the ecological environment qualities after implementing the ECC scheme.
Take the panel data of Guangdong province from 2007 to 2012 as an example, the article used the method of panel data causality test and regression analysis to analyze the internal logic between downtick of industrial land and finance incentive. Furthermore, the article made a judgment on the economic rationality of local governments' downtick of industrial land from two dimensions of finance and value. The result shows that: 1) The behavior of downtick in industrial land has the function of attracting investment, which can be fulfilled by the exchange of land elements and capital factors. 2) Net capital inflow has positive effect on the tax of local government and transaction price of commercial and residential land, and the investment will lead to the growth of government revenues both inside and outside of the budget. 3) Local governments' downtick of industrial land generally has the financial rationality but irrational competition. 4) Local governments' downtick of industrial land is not generally rational on the value. The value loss can be considered as the cost of the exchange of land elements and capital factors. Based on the conclusions, to avoid the downtick of industrial land, the paper suggests two adjustments in policies: one is to adjust the structure of financial-administrative power between the central and local government, the other is to change the performance evaluation method which focuses on the growth of fiscal revenues.
Farmers are the direct beneficiaries of economic compensation for farmland protection policy (ECFP), so their satisfaction is directly related to the effectiveness of ECFP policy. Form farmers' perspective, the paper evaluates the performance of ECFP with the diagnosis method of obstacle indicators, aiming at providing a basis for improving the performance of ECFP. Minhang District of Shanghai and Zhangjiagang of Suzhou, where the policies of economic compensation for farmland had been innovatively explored, were selected as research areas. And Chengdu was also chosen as study area for its firstly test on farmland protection fund. The improved TOPSIS method based on entropy weight and the obstacle degree model were used to evaluate the performance of ECFP policy and reveal the obstacle indicators. The results indicated that: 1) the performance values of Chengdu, Zhangjiagang and Minhang District of Shanghai were 0.529, 0.494 and 0.461, corresponding to the good, general and poor levels of performance respectively. There was significant regional difference in farmers' satisfaction. 2) The top five obstacle indicators that affected the ECFP performance were successively farmers' satisfaction with the open degree of accounts (C8), farmers' satisfaction with government's supervision and management of the compensation fund (C10), farmers' satisfaction with the use requirements of the compensation fund (C9), farmers' satisfaction with the compensation standard (C3) and farmers' satisfaction with allocation of compensation fund (C7). 3) When establishing evaluation index system of ECFP policy, using the improved TOPSIS method and the obstacle degree model were proved to be reasonable and feasible method to evaluate the performance of ECFP policy. Moreover, through the diagnoses of barrier factors, the indicators can reveal the existing problems of ECFP policy, which helps to further improve the ECFP policy.
Rural land consolidation could improve food production and farmers' income and agricultural efficiency, which is an important measure to promote the“three rural”issues concerning agriculture, countryside and farmers. In recent years, some places carried out rural land consolidation projects in farmer leading mode, which was different from the traditional governmentleading mode. However, how did these different modes affect the land use efficiency? Based on the household survey data, this paper measures the land use efficiency before and after the rural land consolidation under the two different modes, and compared with those of the unconsolidated lands during the same period using the super efficiency DEA model. Also, this paper studies the land use efficiency differences between the government leading rural land consolidated area and unconsolidated areas, and that between the farmer leading mode and government leading mode with DID. Research result shows that average household land use efficiency improved 0.1212 in farmer leading mode rural land consolidated areas and that improved 0.0806 in government leading rural land consolidated area after the consolidation, meanwhile it improved 0.0401 in unconsolidated areas during the same period. This means that rural land consolidation led by government can promote land use efficiency and that led by farmers is even more important to promote land use efficiency. Rural land consolidation significantly affected the land use efficiency, agricultural output and irrigation capital investment. Effective participation of farmers significantly affected the land use efficiency and irrigation capital investment too. Simultaneously, householder's education, the proportion of agricultural income, percentage of cultivated land that ensures stable yields despite drought or excessive rain, and the contracted land area significantly affected land use efficiency. Accordingly, this paper puts forward the following suggestions: 1) As to the traditional rural land consolidation projects led by government, government should establish mechanisms for farmers to participate in, provide guidance and support, broaden the channels and ways for farmers' participation to increase the level of farmers' participation, so as to further improve the decision-making and supervision of the project. Meanwhile, government should actively guide and promote the rural land consolidation in farmer leading mode by providing financial and policy support. 2) Combining with the industrialization of agriculture, rural land consolidation should achieve scale operation and improve land use efficiency, thereby increase farmers ' income and develop rural economics. 3) Government should support more for rural land consolidation projects in farmer leading mode, and develop an open and transparent investment mechanism, so as to improve the effect of the project by ensuring and increasing the project investment. 4) The forth suggestion is to carry out rural skills training, improve farmers ' educational level and bring up more elites in rural communities; farmer leading mode could be actively promoted where the proportion of agricultural income is higher and the average size of contracted land area is larger. It is encourage to let the farmers to consolidate the land themselves and give them compensations, which can promote land use efficiency.
China's human-environment system is threatened by the rapid growth of economy. Now, how to estimate China's human-environment system sustainability comprehensively and efficiently is becoming an important issue in the studies of sustainability science. This paper systematically assessed the human-environment system sustainability in China from 1990 to 2010 at national, regional, and provincial scales, using the Human Sustainable Development Index (HSDI). The results showed that the sustainability of human-environment system in China was on the upper-middle level in 2010, with low values in Central China and Western China and high value in Eastern China. From 1990 to 2010, the human-environment system sustainability in China increased obviously. HSDI of China increased from 0.65 in 1990 to 0.83 in 2010, increased by 0.18 or 27.69%. The sustainability indicators changed differently in terms of region and dimension. The sustainability in Central China and Western China grew faster than that in Eastern China, and the growth rates of sustainability in Central, Western and Eastern China were 17.65%, 20.00% and 13.89%, respectively. Both the economic sustainability indicator and social sustainability indicator rose, whereas the environmental sustainability indicator decreased. From the perspectives of spatial patterns and dynamic changes, the human-environment system sustainability in China was unbalanced, so we should further promote the socio-economic development in Central and Western China, and enhance the construction of ecological civilization to improve the sustainability of society, economy and environment comprehensively.
Researching the mechanism of the soil quality change of cultivated land is the key to know the rules of the soil quality change and its effect. Combining the field sampling and laboratory data, and on the basis of statistical analysis and econometric models analysis, a case study of 238 households and the corresponding plot sampling data in Linhu Street, Wanggangpu Village and Yongle Village, Sujiatun District, Shenyang City was conducted. The results showed that the manner, degree and intensity of land use behavior have different levels of effects on the soil quality of cultivated land. In suburb, the labor input shows outstanding trend of non-farm, so the extensive and predatory use of cultivated land is relatively common, which leads to contend of available nitrogen, available phosphorus and available phosphorus in soil being decreased at the rate of 11.496 mg/kg, 44.078 mg/kg and 15.469 mg/kg. In the outer suburbs, the outstanding performance of the land use is plating economic crops. Because of the relatively high cost of employment opportunities, the income of farming is more than the expect of the household. the intensification of cultivated land, the degree of land-scale operation is higher in this area. Every unit increase of land investment intensity leads to the nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium content in soil increasing 0.007 mg/kg, 0.025 mg/kg and 0.037 mg/kg on average. In the middle of the two areas, the outstanding performance of the land use is increasing the land input and adjusting the planting structure. The land use change will lead to the increase of soil organic matter, nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium content at an average of 4.799 g/kg, 7.454 mg/kg, 100.170 mg/kg and 61.205 mg/kg. Based on the above findings, the government could regulate land use behavior by increasing comparative efficiency of agricultural production, stabilizing rural land contract relations and promoting appropriate scale operation of land to improve the soil quality of cultivated land.
According to the basic principles of statistics and geo-statistics, the paper uses 11 different methods of four categories including traditional interpolation method, geo-statistical interpolation method, multiple regression and suppositional meteorological station method, to rasterize the annual average temperature and precipitation in Shaanxi province from 2003 to 2012. The results show that: 1) Multiple regression and suppositional meteorological station methods can greatly improve the temperature estimating accuracy. Furthermore, multiple regression method is more refined in calculating temperature details, especially the“Regression+Residual IDW (Inverse Distance Weighting)”method, whose MAE, RMSE and R2 are 0.498, 0.775 and 0.9548 respectively. 2) OK (Ordinary Kriging) method is the most accurate method in estimating precipitation, whose MAE, RMSE and R2 are 46.934, 69.251 and 0.9478. 3) The rasterisation methods of temperature and precipitation are obviously regionally adapted. There is no a universal optimal rasterization method. So it's necessary to explore and analyze the original data before acquiring the most suitable rasterization method. 4) The perennial average temperature of Shaanxi from 2003 to 2012 is 10.925 ℃, with the standard deviation of 2.221 ℃. The temperature decreases with the increasing of latitude and elevation, having distinct latitudinal and vertical zonality. The average precipitation is 664.446 mm, with the standard deviation of 213.226 mm. The latitudinal zonality of precipitation is strong, showing a decreasing trend from south to north.
Lake Level variation is an important indicator of regional and global climate and environment. It can reflect the water mass balance of a basin. There is lack of continuous observations of lake level for most lakes in Tibetan Plateau. However, the satellite radars provide a new and effective method for lake level detection. In this study, lake level changes between 1992 and 2012 of Zhari Namco were monitored using multi-altimetric data, and the obtained time series of water levels are compared with those from other resources. The results show that the lake level of Zhari Namco rose by 0.786 m in total in the period of 1992-2012, but it shows the tendency of descending before 1999 by the rate of 0.132 m/a and then rose after 1999 by the rate of 0.144 m/a. The results are in agreement with time series of water level for other resources. Moreover, the amplitude of lake level variation is more intensive in spring and winner than in summer and autumn, especially after 2000.
The regional distribution characteristics of high precipitable water vapor centers (the Moist Pool) over the Tibet Plateau are analyzed with two reanalysis datasets of ERA-Interim (0.5° × 0.5° ) and NCEP/NCAR2 (2.5° × 2.5° ) and sonde observation data. Then the variation characteristics of the Moist Pool are analyzed by using ERA data, and some new facts are found. The high water vapor centers, which are the Moist Pools, exist both in summer (July) and winter (January) in the middle-upper layer of troposphere. The Moist Pool has the strongest intensity in July. In addition to the existence of continuous wet centers of precipitable water vapor over the southern highlands of the Plateau, there is a wet center over the northwestern part of the Plateau as shown by ERA data. But NCEP2 data show that wet centers only exist over the southeastern and southwestern areas of the Plateau by. In January, both data show there are wet centers only over the southeast of the Plateau. In general, the wet centers shown by the ERA data is more close to those detected by sonde observation. The intensity of the centers over the southern highlands has kept been strong since the mid-1990s (1994-1996), while the northwest center has alternately been weak-strong-weak-strong. In January, the centers have continuously been strong since the late1980s. The high water vapor centers over the southern region of the Plateau are almost a continuous area in July, and this feature is more obvious since 1996, but there are two wet zones in January.
Scientific estimate of abatement capacity is the basis of the implementation of liability-sharing of carbon reduction. This article took into account both the expected outputs and unexpected outputs in the agricultural economic accounting system. The Directional Distance Function was used, and the main objective is to estimate the agriculture marginal abatement cost of 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) of China from 2000 to 2011. Further, from the perspective of both equity and efficiency, per capita agricultural carbon emission, per capita gross agricultural production, agricultural carbon intensity and agricultural carbon shadow price are brought into the construction of the index of agricultural carbon emission abatement capacity. The results show that: 1) there are large regional differences in the agricultural marginal abatement cost. Hainan, Fujian, Shandong, Liaoning, Guangdong, Beijing, Tianjin, etc, have high shadow price of agricultural carbon emission, which means that their abatement cost is high; however, Tibet and Qinghai's agricultural carbon emission shadow prices are low. 2) Based on the differences of equity and efficiency, the 31 provinces are divided into four categories. Tibet and other two regions belong to the“high-efficiency & high-equity” type. Gansu and Ningxia belong to the“high-efficiency & low-equity”type. Ten regions including Liaoning belong to the“low-efficiency & high-equity”type. Beijing and other fifteen regions belong to the“low-efficiency & high-equity”type. 3) Tibet, Hainan, Qinghai and Inner Mongolia are the top four regions of agricultural carbon emission abatement capacity in the whole country, while Beijing, Heilongjiang and Shanxi are listed as the bottom three. 4) Different preference on equity or efficiency leads to different regional mechanism of liability-sharing of carbon reduction.
With the strengthening pressure of resource and environment, it has become a strategic choice to restructure industries and optimize the spatial distribution in the period of China's economic transition. However the pollution accompanying with the industrial spatial restructuring has become an urgent issue. Based on the data from China Industrial Statistical Yearbooks from 2003 to 2008, using 2-digital and 3-digital pollution-intensive industrial output and the start-up, this study investigate the geographical distribution of pollution-intensive industries with Tobit model and Heckman Model. This paper finds that the pollution-intensive industries are under spatial restructuring. They have started to move out from three major economic zones. Shandong and other central provinces have become the new gathering places for the transferred industries. Light pollution industries, i.e. paper, have transferred to the inland provinces. However, technology intensive industries, i.e. chemical products, mainly moved to other coastal provinces. In addition, Statistical results show that factor endowments, environmental regulation and globalization are all the significant locational determinants of Chinese pollutionintensive industries. Among factor endowments, technology and labor costs are the key factors for pollution-intensive firms to choose locations. International market is becoming more and more important for the location choice compared with the nature resource. It has an inverted Ushaped relationship between the environmental regulation and the establishment of new firms. Finally, the locational determinants also significantly depend on the natures of industries and firms. The empirical results would provide scientific supports for regional industrial and environmental policies.
According to the investigation on the pollution sources of chemical fertilizer, organic manure, Crops straw, breeding, aquiculture, dormitory sewage, dormitory wastes and soil erosion in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area (TGRA) of Chongqing, the spatial and temporal features of agricultural non-point source pollution (NPSP) were analyzed with the ArcGIS software. Spatial and temporal variations of the absolute discharge amount of NPSP in the TGRA of Chongqing were analyzed at the districts (counties) level using the spatial cluster and hot and cold spots analysis methods. There were three major findings from the study: 1) Moran' s I Index values remained high from 2005 to 2011 (although with a downward trend in 2008). 2) The results showed that the absolute discharge amounts of COD, BOD5, TN and TP from NPSP were 158.5, 73.5, 55.0 and 9.7 thousand ton per year in 2005. The absolute discharge amounts of COD, BOD5, TN and TP from NPSP were 109.3, 64.5, 56.0 and 10.4 thousand ton per year in 2008. The absolute discharge amounts of COD, BOD5, TN and TP from NPSP were 146.7, 86.8, 69.4 and 11.4 thousand ton per year in 2011. The absolute discharge amount of COD, BOD5 experienced a trend of raise after a drop, but the absolute discharge amount of TN and TP always showed upward trend from 2005 to 2011.3) Judging from the results of the hot and cold spots analysis, the inner section of the TGRA of Chongqing was the hotspots, whereas the metropolis' core district at the end of the TGRA of Chongqing was the cold spots. The primary pollution districts (counties) were Yunyang, Wanzhou and Kaixian, which all locate in the inner section of the TRGA of Chongqing. The study provided the scientific basis for the evaluation of NPSP in Chongqing.
Geothermal energy is renewable energy with the characteristics of low-carbon and recyclable. China has rich geothermal resources, mainly medium-low temperature geothermal resources. The high temperature geothermal resources, mainly constrained by the geological characteristics of China and their locations in the global geological structure, concentrate in two areas, one in southern Tibet-West Sichuan-West Yunnan, the other in Taiwan. However, the geothermal industry in China is still in the initial stage. The resource development and utilization level is quite low, mainly direct utilization, and the geothermal power generation industry is far behind. Aiming at the existing problems of development and utilization of geothermal resources in China, five suggestions are given: to establish a national platform of key technology research and development on geothermal industry; to launch the demonstration project of hot dry rock exploration and utilization as soon as possible; to formulate preferential policies to promote the rapid development of geothermal industry; to promote geothermal water recharge technology; to work out nationwide laws and regulations of geothermal resource management as soon as possible.
The conception of Tourism Eco-Efficiency was a derivative of Eco-Efficiency, which is an index describing the impacts of per unit of economics benefits on environment. In order to grasp the latest research trends in Tourism Eco-Efficiency, this paper analyzes a series of abroad academic achievements on Tourism Eco-Efficiency. Tourism Eco-efficiency has so far primarily been used in the context of industrial economics which has bidirectional effects of reducing costs and to create new market opportunities while at the same time decreasing the impact on the environment. Overseas research on Tourism Eco-Efficiency focused on following aspects: The concept and characteristic of Tourism Eco-Efficiency, the model of Tourism Eco-Efficiency, the application of Tourism Eco-Efficiency theory, the strategic planning for Tourism Eco-Efficiency, tourists' perceive and attitude to the Tourism Eco-Efficiency, the driving force and barriers of eco-efficiency planning management. Meanwhile, overseas Tourism Eco-Efficiency study presents certain characteristics: relatively broad research scope and perspective, the diversified research methods, more typical case studies, research findings having higher value of practical application. Foreign research about tourism Eco-Efficiency has very important revelation to domestic research, and is beneficial to the policy-maker and destination planners.
With the continuously strengthening complexity and systematization of its evaluation objects, life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology has gradually developed into three categories, including process based LCA (PLCA), economic input-output LCA (EIO-LCA) and hybrid LCA. The development and features of these methods were briefly stated in this study, and their strengths and weaknesses were analyzed with examples. It can be concluded that the bottom-up PLCA method, which is based on specific facility/site data, can describe elements in a supply chain precisely, but there exists cutoff error due to subjective boundary selection. The EIO-LCA method, which is based on national input-output table, is holistic but suffers from data lagging and aggregation error due to coarse graining of processes. The hybrid LCA has advantages of precision and completeness, since it combines PLCA and EIO-LCA. Then the paper emphasizes on discussing hybrid LCA. Some prospects of hybrid LCA were concluded and previewed to provide suggestions for its further improvement and development.
