Urbanization in Western China

China has experienced considerable urbanization in the past 60 years,especially since the implementation of the Economic Reform and Opening-up Policy in 1978.In 1949,there were only 132 cities with an urban population of 27.4 million,while in 2008 China had 652 cities with a total urban population of 606 million.Such urbanization is attributed to the boost in the number of cities and the urban population.Urban expansion enhanced geographic inequality between the three major regions in China.Compared with the eastern and central regions,western China only has 19%of the total cities and 18%of the urban population.The urbanization rate was 37.2%for the western region in 2008,while it reached 53.3%for the eastern regions and 45.3%for central China.Using a geographic information system(GIS)and statistical analyses,this study aims at explaining the structure and spatial development of urbanization,and highlighting the current issues of urban inequality in western China during the past two decades.The paper drew following conclusions:(1)Urbanization disparities between eastern and western China have become increasingly obvious,but seem to be evolving slowly since the establishment of the government’s Western Development Priority Policy in 2000.(2)Cities of various sizes were expanded in western China,and the main factors affecting the urbanization are population numbers and density,government investment and geographic conditions.(3)Current patterns of urbanization in the western region are distributed unevenly between provinces.     

Pollutant emissions,energy consumption and economic development in China:Evidence from dynamic panel data

This study investigates the relationship among pollutant emissions,energy consumption and economic development in China during the period 1982-2007 by using a one-step GMM-system model under a multivariable panel VAR framework,controlling for capital stock and labor force.Regarding the data for all 28 provinces as a whole,we find that there is a unidirectional positive relationship running from pollutant emission to economic development and a unidirectional negative relationship between pollutant emission and energy consumption.Based on traditional economic planning,the panel data of28 provinces are divided into two cross-province groups.It is discovered that in the eastern coastal region of China,there is only a unidirectional positive causal relationship leading from economic development to pollutant emission;while in the central and western regions,there are the unidirectional Granger causal relationships between pollutant emission and energy consumption,as well as between pollutant emission and economic development.There is also a unique unidirectional causal relationship running from economic development to energy consumption,which does not appear in the eastem coastal region or in China as a whole.     

西部地区产业结构优化路径分析

产业发展是区域经济发展的核心内容之一,产业结构更是直接关系到地区生产力水平、经济发展速度和质量、人民生活水平以及资源环境消耗.目前,国内外已有关于西部地区产业发展研究的文献,绝大部分都是大方向性的定性研究,定量研究还很少.在这种背景下,本文在文献回顾的基础上,首先通过测算区位熵、影响力系数及感应度系数,系统分析2000年以来西部地区产业结构动态演进过程及其存在的问题;然后,综合考虑经济增长及充分就业目标、能耗及污染物排放约束,建立产业结构优化模型,测算西部地区产业结构优化结果;最后,根据相关研究结果提出政策和建议.研究结果显示:(1)2000年实施西部大开发以来,西部地区产业发展水平明显提高,形成了以能源化工、矿产资源开发及加工、特色农产品加工为主的产业体系;但产业结构调整并没有取得实质性进展,产业结构仍然偏重,具有明显的资源依赖性.(2)西部地区产业结构优化路径可以划分为经济发展路径及绿色发展路径.绿色发展路径的测算结果显示,西部地区产业结构优化要积极发展装备制造业和轻纺工业,并优化提升现有的能源化工、矿产开发及加工业及农产品加工业,以达到《西部大开发“十二五”规划》及国家下达的节能减排指标.(3)在未来的发展中,西部地区要优化提升现有主导产业,建立低碳发展机制;积极进行技术创新,提高产品附加值,构建绿色西部;积极完善资源开发补偿机制,构建资源节约型西部;加强污染防治,提高资源利用效率,建立循环经济制度.     

Impact of Growing Income Inequality on Sustainable Development in China: A Provincial-level Analysis

Abstract

A growing body of literature has documented the rapidly increasing income disparities that accompanied China's economic growth in the 1980s and 1990s, and the driving factors behind this. Growing income inequality in its turn may have important implications for the accumulation of physical capital, human capital, and natural capital and as a consequence for sustainable economic development. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential impact of income inequality on savings, human resources and the environment in China. It starts with an overview of the different causal mechanisms through which income inequality may affect the accumulation of physical capital, human capital, and natural capital, and discusses to what extent these causal relationships may be relevant in the case of China. Next, provincial data for the year 2002 are used to explore the relationship between income inequality and different elements of sustainable development in China. It is found that income inequality does not affect aggregate savings levels. Rising inequality, however, contributes to lower health and possibly also to higher fertility levels. It also lowers the use of chemical fertilizers in agriculture and therefore is likely to reduce water pollution. Other types of environmental degradation are not affected.     

中国西部地区生态扶贫策略研究

西部地区是我国贫困面最大、贫困程度最深的地区,同时也是生态环境最脆弱的地区.改革开放以来,虽然西部地区社会经济发展水平得到了一定的提高,但与东中部地区的收入差距却在不断的扩大.同时,随着全国贫困人口绝对规模的减少,贫困人口的分布进一步向西部地区集中,生态环境在诸多致贫因素中越来越突出.文章从西部贫困地区与生态脆弱区和重要生态功能区空间分布的关联性以及地区贫困对生态环境的影响等方面深入解析了西部地区贫困和生态环境互为因果的耦合机理;分析了当前西部地区扶贫开发面临的生态环境、资金、人力资本、管理体制等方面的严峻挑战;提出了生态扶贫的概念和基本内涵,即:生态建设与扶贫开发同步进行,生态恢复与脱贫致富相互协调;设计了原地扶贫和离地扶贫两大生态扶贫模式,并提出了不同生态扶贫模式的特点、实施范围和基本内容.原地扶贫通过创造生态管护就业岗位,发展当地特色生态绿色产业体系,实现贫困人口在当地就业,增加贫困人口的收入.同时,通过拓展整村推进和本地教育工程,改善贫困地区生产、生活条件,提高贫困人口稳定脱贫能力.离地扶贫则以生态移民为主,并结合城镇化战略,引导贫困地区劳动力向城镇和东部沿海地区转移,通过异地就业、生活实现脱贫.最后,提出了实施生态扶贫战略的相关政策建议,包括以教育为核心的人力资本开发,以特色农副产品开发、特色生态旅游和绿色品牌建设为核心的特色优势产业发展,以及以生态移民制度和政府管理体制为核心的制度建设创新等.     

Towards Sustainable Urban Environmental Management in Jiangyin city,East China

Abstract

Dramatic economic and social changes have taken place in Jiangyin city due to rapid and uneven urbanization and industrialization. The environmental degradation has followed driven by these changes since the 1980's. With the pressures and effects of environmental deterioration, the city has implemented environmental management to hold back the trends of negative environmental changes. From the viewpoint of systems, DPSER is a good model for urban environmental changes to understand the causes, pressure, state, effect, existing responses and future action strategies. We took Jiangyin city, a developed city in South Jiangsu province, East China, as an example, and analyzed the characteristics of environmental changes and urban responses using DPSER model. Some operational strategies have been put forward to direct the city environmental management towards a sustainable road step by step.     

News

Western China has lagged a lot in terms of industrial structure and economic development, compared with the national average. And China announced its target of CO₂ emission reduction, i.e. by 2020, CO₂ emission per GDP will drop by 40–45% compared with 2005. The target will be incorporated into China’s long-term industrial planning. Against this background, this paper will make a comprehensive examination of the industrial development of Western China, aiming to discover a green and compatible way. First, we analyze the spatiotemporal evolution of regional industrial structure for the period 2000–2010. Second, we try to discover the industrial structure optimization path for Western China by employing the Vector Auto Regression model. Lastly, we try to provide some advice and suggestions for further industrial development in Western China. Our examination shows that further industrial development in Western China should pay full attention to resource conservation and recycling, and develop on a green and compatible path.     

Risk Assessment of Carbon Sequestration for Terrestrial Ecosystems in China

Abstract

Climate change will alter the capacity of carbon sequestration, and the risk assessment of carbon sequestration for terrestrial ecosystems will be helpful to the decision-making for climate change countermeasures and international climate negotiations. Based on the net ecosystem productivity of terrestrial ecosystems simulated by Atmosphere Vegetation Integrated Model, each grid of the risk criterion was set by time series trend analysis. Then the risks of carbon sequestration of terrestrial ecosystems were investigated. The results show that, in the IPCCSRES-B2 climate scenario, climate change will bring risks of carbon sequestration, and the high-risk level will dominate terrestrial ecosystems. The risk would expand with the increase of warming degree. By the end of the long-term of this century, about 60% of the whole country will face the risk; Northwest China, mountainous areas in Northeast China, middle and lower reaches plain of Yangtze River areas, Southwest China and Southeast China tend to be extremely vulnerable. Risk levels in most regions are likely to grow with the increase of warming degree, and this increase will mainly occur during the near-term to mid-term. Northwest China will become an area of high risks, and deciduous coniferous forests, temperate mixed forests and desert grassland tend to be extremely vulnerable.     

On the Regional Coordinated Development Between Tourism Human Resource and Tourism Industry in China

Abstract

Tourism is one of the typical labor intensive industries and tourism human resource (HR) is the main factor for regional discrepancy of tourism industry. The paper takes China as research region and evaluates the level of tourism HR and the level of tourism industry of 31 provinces respectively. First, the paper constructs evaluation index of regional tourism industry and tourism HR. Then, the paper gets the evaluation scores of every province by applying the principal components analysis and statistical package for the social sciences processing. Second, the paper builds the tourism development-tourism HR matrix and divides the matrix into four quadrants. Finally, the paper points out the problems of tourism HR that exist in the 31 provinces and puts forward development strategy.     

Analysis of the Energy Embodied in Foreign Goods Trade of China

Abstract

In recent years, scientists have been increasingly interested in the energy embodied in traded goods among countries. In this article, the direct energy intensities in various economic sectors of China were calculated with the data of energy consumption and output value of each sector, and the input–output table was used to estimate the external energy consumption. The total energy intensity of all sectors was then obtained. From the data of international trade, the energy embodied in goods trade of China was estimated for the period of 1994–2001. During this period, the average energy intensity of imported goods was always higher than that of exported ones. As a country with a surplus in international goods trade, China actually imported net embodied energy in the past few years. The net embodied energy imported was at the same magnitude of the imported energy in the form of fossil fuels.