Multiple Effects of Energy Issues and Countermeasures： A Case of Shandong Province

Energy is now becoming the bottleneck of urban and regional development. The paper takes Shandong Province, one of the most energy consuming provinces in China, as an example, uses quantity methods such as SPSS （Stastics Package for Social Science） cluster sampling and regression analysis, and applies quantity analysis, to analyze the situation of energy issues in Shandong province. The conflicts between the quick industrialization and increasing extensive economic development, between urban population and energy consuming per head, between the infinite energy consuming desire and the low level of managing system, and between the unstable world energy supply and the limited energy storage in China are the main factors of energy crisis in Shandong, which not only results in energy shortage, but also becomes the barrier of economic and social development. In order to ensure sufficient energy supply for Shandong province in the 21 st century, we should take countermeasures, such as changing the economic development model, pursuing a multiple and high quality energy strategy, improving the intensive urbanization strategy, and building a scientific energy system.     

Multi-formal and Information-based Emergency Resource Reserve System in China

Emergency resources are an important basis of effective emergency response. But there are many disadvantages of the Chinese traditional material reserve method in which the resources are separately reserved in different regions and sections according to the kinds of disasters. So there comes the Multi-formal and Information-based Emergency Resource Reserve System （MIERRS） in China. The reserve body and method change from the single into the multiple forms, that is, the main reserve body changes from the single government agency into the organizations combining with the military, enterprise and society, and the reserve method changes from single material reserve into the reserve combining with market reserve, talents and technology reserve, and production capacity reserve. The content of the reserve change from material to information means to develop the Emergency Resource Management Information System realizing real-time control of resource characteristics and relevant reserve information. The MIERRS leads to a reserve system with rapid response and flexible schedule. It provides a convenient platform for resource sharing, thus avoiding duplication and waste, improving the utilization of resources, reducing the reserve loss and optimizing the structure of resource reserve.     

Environment as the Stage for Economic Actors

The relative importance of economics and environment in debate may soon be reversed due to the influence of three fac- tors. Firstly, in the global economy it is hard to hide the unwanted products of economic processes. Secondly, huge advances in sci- ence will reduce the imperfect knowledge of markets, making some monitoring and analyzing tools show the design of sensible and equitable livelihood in communities, which is more important than the motivation of maximising profits for some individuals or firms. Thirdly, China, as the last major player on the planet to take on economic growth, comes from traditions fundamentally differ- ent from those economies that have experienced the Industrial Revolution previously. Its challenges with sustainability and en- vironmental conservation predate Western economics by millennia, and it is implementing policies domestically and starting to work on the world stage that acknowledges that the surroundings are the host for any economic and socio-political system.     

Expansion and Change of Rural Settlements in Traditional Agricultural Regions： Based on Village Investigation in Pingdu County

The rural settlements accounted for a great proportion of overall building land in China, but it still expanded in recent years along with urbanization and gradually decreasing rural population. To explore the reason for this phenomenon, an analysis has been made based on the investigation in a traditional agricultural region. This study found that socioeconomic factors, including the scale of families and its quantity, the improvement of rural public infrastructure, the change of population and the pressure of arable land, have effects on the expansion. The view on land tenure which has shaped in farmers minds in the long haul makes them dispose their houses cautiously, and this was the main cause of the fact that one household own more than one plot. In addition, the limitations of rural land institution are unconducive to inspiriting the transfer of farmers＇ building land and redevelopment of the idle housing land.     

Logic of Citizen Participation in Sustainable Development

Sustainable development, a concept which has been built with the sustainability of economic progression as a main thrust, has been a widely preferred model to traditional developmental models. However, the real meaning of what sustainable development is and should include has been an object of debate. On the one hand, differing from traditional economic developmental models, economic progress does not necessitate the practice of ‘sustainable development＇. On the other hand, current levels of science and technology are still unable to solve several problems that arise with economic development. Sustainable development has transferred the responsibility of environmental destruction to that of developing countries. Lastly, instead of utilizing the best technology and leadership into formulating excellent environmental-protection policies, it is more important to create widespread awareness to the public on the need to protect the environment and thereby engage their participation in decision-making to actually realize what is truly ‘sustainable development＇.     

Quantitative Appraisement on Ecological Carrying Capacity in Coastal Rapid Developing Region of Hainan Province

The ecological carrying capacity, an important indicator to evaluate the sustainable development of the ecosystem, means the potential ability of the natural ecosystem to carry socioeconomic development while the ecosystem is healthy. It is limited by the carrying capacity of natural resources and environment and the elasticity of the ecosystem. It will be greatly significant to study the ecological carrying capacity of Hainan Province, the first ecological province admitted by the State Environmental Protection Administration in China. Not only is the natural ecosystem reflected, but also the effects of human activities are emphasized by integrating the ecosystem health analysis into the ecological carrying capacity research. The research results, using the Factor Analysis tools of software SPSS, indicate that the ecological carrying capacity of Hainan Province fluctuated obviously from 1996 to 2005. The level of the ecological carrying capacity of Hainan Province was relatively high in 1996, and reached into trough from 1997 to 1999. It has steadily ascended to be above the middle level since the 21st century. The results also show that policy factors, especially the implementation of the ＇Ecological Province＇ strategy, were important driving forces to influence the ecological carrying capacity. With the population rapidly increasing, the land and water resources per capita have decreased quickly. The amount of the ecological carrying capacity was promoted remarkably by socioeconomic development especially economic growth and technology applications. All of these will provide useful suggestions to establish and enact regional development policies, especially for protecting and reconstructing the ecology and environment of Hainan Province.     

Study on Simulating Spatial Distribution and Varying Patterns of Urumqi＇s Population

In this paper, an approach to simulate the spatial distribution of urban population is proposed using urban land use and population statistical data through the geographical information systems （GIS）. Then, the spatial population distribution of Urumqi as a case is simulated by the approach mentioned above and its varying patterns are analyzed by the raster population surface. As a result, producing raster population surface is more accurate and natural than the traditional choropleth map of population density. Concerning the spatial population distribution of Urumqi, the population density declines from south to north and the population distribution mainly presents＇ ＂T-type＂, the population distribution presents multicentre agglomeration and the population distribution of the districts shows different features. The population density varies significantly with the increase in the distance from central business district （CBD）. Finally, it is found in this paper that the development history of districts, terrain and traffic road are main factors that have an influence Urumqi＇s population distribution. This paper tries to provide more accurate population data for the plan and management of urban land, traffic and public facilities in order to enrich the researches on urban population distribution.     

Economic Periodicity Analysis of Shandong Province

The paper analyses the periodical characteristics of the economic development of Shandong Province by using the minimum variation analysis model. The analysis shows that the economic development process of Shandong Province has short, medium and long cycles respectively for 6, 12, 19 years, and the fluctuation of the economic development becomes gentler with time passing by. The fluctuation of macro-control policy, investment and consumption are the main reasons of the economic fluctuation.     

Analysis of Coupling between Soil and Water Conservation and Economic-social Development

The coupling relation exists in water and soil conservation and economic-social development. The article analyses the relation of soil and water conservation and economic-social development stages as well as the coupling analytical method. Then calculates the expecting income by dispersing Markov decision and calculates the correlation coefficient and the relationship degree. The article obtains the relationship of soil and water conservation investments and all kinds of incomes. Finally, it analyzes the important meaning in socio-economic development of water and soil conservation.     

Spatial Autocorrelation Analysis on Regional Economic Disparity of Northeast Economic Region in China

Popular regional inequality indexes such as variation coefficient and Gini coefficient can only reveal overall inequality, and have limited ability in revealing spatial dependence or spatial agglomeration. Recently some methods of exploratory spatial data analysis such as spatial autocorrelation have provided effective tools to analyze spatial agglomeration and cluster, which can reveal the pattern of regional inequality. This article attempts to use spatial autocorrelation at county level to get refined spatial pattern of regional disparity in Chinese northeast economic region over 2000-2006 （2001 absent）. The result indicates that the basic trend of regional economy is an increasing concentration of growth among counties in northeast economic region, and there are two geographical clusters of poorer counties including the counties in western Liaoning Province and adjacent counties in Inner Mongolia, poorer counties of Heihe, Qiqihar and Suihua in Heilongjiang Province. This article also reveals that we can use the methods of exploratory spatial data analysis as the supplementary analysis methods in regional economic analysis.     

Background, Pattern and Policy of China for Developing Circular Economy

Circular economy has become one of China＇s important strategies to realize scientific development and build ecological civilization at present. As in China circular economy was put forward as a new economic pattern, the international community generally holds that this is an innovative move for China＇s economy to realize leap-forward development and hopes to learn more about the theory, policy and practice relating to China＇s circular economy. This article introduces and comments on the necessity to develop circular economy in China, implications and characteristics of China＇s circular economy, and China＇s main practices and policies to promote it at present.     

Overcoming Contradictions Between Growth and SustainabiUty： Institutional Innovation in the BRICS

The recent accelerated growth rates or efforts to emulate countries that have achieved a rapid pace of economic growth are widely acclaimed as means to uplift millions from poverty. In so doing, however, this rapid economic growth is most likely to coincide with unsustainable levels of consumption, place excessive pressure on life support systems and terrestrial sinks and foreshorten options for the future. Rather than pursuing the ＂Environmental Kuznets Curve＂ （EKC） hypothesis that higher income will bring with it the means to reduce the impacts of greater consumption, ecological economists assert that buying our way out of future scarcity with fast growth is indeed contradictory with sustainability. To better understand these contradictions and explore potential institutional innovations that may enable developing nations to better confront them （in effect, ＂tunneling under＂ the EKC）, this article refers to recent experience in the BRICS countries （Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa）. Beginning with a brief comparative summary of major development and environmental indicators, pressures on resources and society in each of the BRICS are discussed, followed by identification of institutional and policy frameworks each country has evolved to confront the challenges of growth and sustainability. The article closes with general conclusions for further research and information sharing among developing nations.     

On the Laws and Causes of Socio-economic Territorial Differentiation in Minority Areas in China

On the basis of applying quantitative and qualitative approaches as well as GIS technology, this paper established an index system to make a comprehensive evaluation on socioeconomic development of minority areas in China. The result showed that socio-economic development in minority area presents a series of characteristics that the north is high and the south is low, center-margin pattern is obvious and the areas with middle and lower development indices are distributed centrally and continuously. However, the causes of the socioeconomic characteristics mainly include natural conditions, economic development basic, population cultural quality, regional combination and development conditions of mineral and energy resources, informal institutional factors and distribution of major traffic lines.     

Welfare Balance of Different Interest Groups During Rural-urban Land Conversion

Rural-urban land conversion is currently a common social economic phenomenon during the process of economic development and rural urbanization in China. Rural-urban land conversion is positively effective as far as social and economic benefits are concerned （Yang, 2002）, but its negative effect is also evident, resulting in such problems as low efficiency of rural land configuration and loss of social welfare. Consequently, farmers should also have an equal chance to enjoy the social welfare enhanced by land conversion. Based on the theories of welfare economy, this paper puts forward policy suggestions by discussing the welfare changes of various interest groups, builds the model of welfare distribution, and analyzes the conditions of maximizing social welfare. The absolute and opposite value of social welfare is closely related with the speed of rural-urban land conversion, and governments should give farmers and collectives fair compensation to make up for the utility loss caused by land expropriation, which are conclusions drawn from this paper. This study aims to provide a theoretical basis for regulating targets and evaluation criteria, realizing the mechanism and implementation of public polices during rural-urban land conversion.     

Analyzing and Pondering on the Regulation of Urban Construction Land Expansion

Along with the economic development and the acceleration of urbanization, urban construction land expands rapidly in China, and has resulted in a series of socio-economic problems. This article summarized the major points of controlling the unchecked and rash expansion of construction land in the academic circle, and analyzed the problems of regulating the expansion of construction land from three aspects. First, this article analyzed the relationships between socio-economic development and urbaniza- tion from the historical viewpoints, and pointed out that the expan- sion of construction land is a historical phenomenon which will be surely appeared in the development of human race. Second, the authors utilized two-sector model to analyze the importance of urbanization in the socio-economic development from the academic angles. At last, the authors utilize four-quadrant model and bidrent curve model to analyze the influence that brought by the strict control of construction land expansion. Through analysis, this article drew some conclusions. First, the expansion of construction land is a phenomenon which will surely appear in the social development. It is impossible to accomplish the national modernization on the basis of dualistic structure between urban and rural areas. Second, under the function of rent gradient gap, strict control of construction land expansion will not only obtain the anticipated effects, but also cause a series of socio-economic problems, such as land-levying contradiction, the appearance of limited property right house, and being dependant on lease instead of expropriation. Third, unreasonable policies and governmental behaviors are the roots of the unchecked and rash expansion of urban construction land. Based on these conclusions, this article proposed that three transformations should be realized to regulate the unchecked and rash expansion of construction land： transfers from quantity regulation to quality regulation, from direct regulation to indirect regulation, and from single-measure regulation to multi-measures regulation.     

China＇s Land Carrying Capacity Based on Man-grain Relationships

With population growth and increasing pressure on land resources, land carrying capacity （LCC） and food safety have been attracting great attention worldwide. From the point of man-grain relationship and by establishing LCC and land carrying capacity index （LCCI） models, this article firstly analyzes the spatial-temporal dynamics of LCC of China from 1949 to 2005 at county, provincial and national levels. Choosing 2005 as a representative year, this article then evaluates the LCC of 264 pastoral regions （semipastoral regions）, 663 urban regions and 592 poverty stricken regions of the country. The results show that： （1） from 1949 to 2005, with the increase of grain production, the LCC of China has been improved conspicuously, but due to the rapid population growth, the production can only maintain a low level grain consumption; （2） over the past 25 years （1980-2005）, the number of population overloading provinces decreased from 23 to 15 and the mangrain relationship has been improved gradually, but there were more overloading provinces than surplus provinces in China; （3） at county level, there were 1572 overloading counties in 1980 accounting for 68.26% of the total counties of the country and where were 649 million people lived, while in 1990, 2000 and 2005, the number of overloading counties were 1066, 1133 and 1087 respectively, which shows that the man-grain relationship has been improved obviously during the past 25 years; as for spatial distribution, the surplus counties were mainly concentrated in agriculture developed regions, such as Northeast Plain, North China Plain, middle and lower Reaches of the Yangtze River Plain, and overloading counties were mainly located in regions with poor natural environment and low grain production capacity, such as Northwest China, Tibetan Plateau and Loess Plateau and economically developed urban regions, such as Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai; （4） animal husbandry improved greatly the LCC of pastoral and semi-pastoral regions, while urban regions were overloading for increasing population pressure and more than half of poverty stricken regions were overloading due to critical natural environment and poor economic conditions.     

Temporal-spatial Characteristics of the Urbanization of Rural Land in Xinjiang

Relying on remote sensor technology, GIS and Land-sat TM digital images, the authors use spatial and statistical analysis to examine the temporal-spatial characteristics of the change caused by urban Construction in Xinjiang＇s rural areas from the end of the 1980s to the end of the 1990s. The primary findings show the following： 1） The urban construction in rural areas has increased drastically. The expansion speed of urban land use has accelerated over the past decade. The sub-land use changes caused by the urbanization of rural are characterized by salient regional differentiation among the three main regions and among the 85 counties of Xinjiang. 2） The shift of land use is mostly characterized by cultivated land and grassland being used for urban and industrial projects. Moreover, this change of land use is characteristic of regional differences. 3） Factors of rural-urban construction land use changes in Xinjiang, are undoubtedly affected by natural environment, social, economic conditions, and to a larger degree by population growth, GDP development and industrial development.     

Exploration on Relativity of Modern Economic Science： Viewpoint Based on Sustainable Development

Modem economics is necessary knowledge for people a market economic theory and a to understand market economy. However, when modem economic science puts in a ＂great economic system＂, modem economic science seems to be little convincing and even deviates from the science of sustainable development. This shows that modem economic science has relativity, and must be transformed by the idea of sustainable development.     

Urbanization in China Based on International Comparison： A Discussion with Two Prevalent Views

Two prevalent views are reviewed on China＇s urbanization firstly. Then, this article highlights the characteristics and pattern of urbanization in the world based on the quadrants map, using data of 118 countries or areas. The results indicate that the process of urbanization in the world excluding the data of China has slowed down gradually. A further exploration examines China＇s urbanization process and economic development over time, which reveals that both urbanization level and the level of economic development belong to the low-grade coordination pattern. The low level of urbanization is closely connected with the low level of economic development. Actually, China＇s urbanization gap appeared during 1985-1995, but it has been eliminating this urbanization gap since 1995 as a result of rapid urbanization growing. The complicated realities revealed in this analysis challenge the existing two prevalent views.     

Population Growth, Available Resources, and Quality of Life： China＇s Post-Reform Economic Development

Two opposing intellectual traditions and their contem- porary developments regarding the relations among population, available resources, and quality of life as reflected in economic growth are reviewe...