Impacts of urbanization: diversity and the symbiotic relationships of rural,urban, and spaces in-between

This Impacts article proposes strategies for mitigating negative impacts of urbanization in rural locations in the United States. Issues addressed include impacts of population growth and development, loss of agricultural lands, and impacts of climate change on agriculture and rural communities. Conclusions are supported by stakeholder survey data, geographic information systems-based data, and desktop reviews of research journal publications. We propose a sustainable, diversified approach that supports mitigation of issues, including increasing demand on food production and decline of rural communities. A key issue that we address is where we will find suitable landscapes to reduce enough food for 9.6 billion people living in 2050.

Urban and rural development planners are grappling with solutions to escalating impacts global populations, stresses on food production, and effects of climate change. Solutions are identified, including strengthening rural and urban contexts by establishing connected and interdependent links that support diversification of rural and urban contexts as viable solutions to these issues.

Diversified rural-to-urban sustainable agriculture production is a promising approach to addressing climate change impacts. Organic agriculture principles exhibit strong diversity and are accredited by United States Department of Agriculture as the only federally certified sustainable agriculture practice in the United States. Sustainable agriculture practices are evolving into profitable diversified alternative food sources. We offer substantiated alternative solutions for remediating impacts of urbanization on rural agriculture and communities. Collectively, these solutions can strengthen symbiotic relationships between sustainable agriculture and rural communities, addressing our growing population issues and preserving our dwindling farmlands and rural communities.     

Facilitating resilient rural-to-urban sustainable agriculture and rural communities

ABSTRACT

This article contributes to efforts to validate a common set of parameters and principles of sustainable agriculture. Comparisons between alternative forms of sustainable agriculture and rural-to-urban community resilience are investigated. Conclusions are drawn between multiple sustainable/alternative agriculture systems and evaluated. A set of common baseline parameters and principles is proposed as a method of evolving a common structural framework for strengthening sustainability of agriculture and rural contexts. Concepts of rural-to-urban community sustainability are proposed, supporting sustainable agriculture contexts as rural and urban. In the twenty-first century, agriculture is becoming more diversified and less typified as a rural occupation. Urban agriculture is expanding as the need for fresh, affordable, accessible agriculture produce increases in urban areas. Evidence supports symbiotic relationships between sustainable agriculture and rural/urban communities, although some claim this relationship has not been clearly defined.

This article investigates sustainable agriculture from two perspectives. We ask ‘what are common parameters and principles of the various forms of sustainable agriculture,’ and ‘why urban-to-rural context.’ Organic agriculture parameters and principles are proposed as a conceptual framework toward establishing baseline parameters and principles for sustainable agriculture. Best management parameters of urban and rural sustainable agriculture in the United States and the United Kingdom are examined for their potential to develop a strengthening framework of parameters and principles of agriculture and rural-to-urban sustainability. These results are compared and evaluated for their effectiveness in redefining current sustainable agriculture practices, and their value in strengthening sustainable agriculture symbiosis with rural-to-urban community systems.     

广东省农业生态环境问题与对策

随着社会经济和城市化的快速发展，以及人口的剧增，广东省的农业发展正面临一系列严重的生态环境问题。这些问题包括耕地资源日益缺乏，农业环境污染日益严重，土壤肥力退化和水土流失仍未遏止，地区性的洪旱灾害频繁，森林生态系统简单而脆弱，外来物种入侵猖獗，等等。文章对这些问题进行了讨论，并提出了若干治理对策。认为要使广东省农业可持续发展，必须合理开发利用农业自然资源，严格控制非农业用地与人口增长，加强农业环境污染的防治，加强土壤肥力退化和水土流失的综合治理，发展节水农业，改善林分结构和生态服务功能。此外，认为还应加强外来物种的安全防范工作和科学研究，防止外来物种对农业生态系统的组成、结构和功能的破坏。     

生态农业系统综合效益评价研究动态与展望

总结了国内外生态农业发展和生态农业系统生态经济评价体系及评价的方法，阐述了生态农业综合效益评价的特点及国内外研究的最新动态。提出土壤健康在农业持续发展评价中的重要性。最后指出了生态-经济系统整合模型在建立生态农业最优化模式中的应用前景。     

Moving towards sustainable development: rhetoric,policy and reality of ecological agriculture in China

Past decades have witnessed the rise of sustainable agriculture movements throughout the world. In parallel with this international trend, ecological agriculture (with essential goals of food security, rural employment, poverty alleviation, natural resource management and environmental protection) has been advocated as a workable approach for the realization of sustainable agriculture in China. Two decades of ecological agricultural development have shown that it not only gained legitimacy at the senior policy level but also became a focus of scientific research in fields such as ecological economics, ecology, and agricultural and environmental sciences. However, this endeavour is hardly known in the West and little attention has been paid so far to examining the broader politico-economic and sociocultural contexts within which it has evolved. This paper attempts to provide a general review of the emerging background, development history, policy initiatives and recent tendencies of ecological agriculture. In addition, the extant problems and potential contributions of this alternative practice to China's sustainable agricultural development are discussed. The purpose of this study is to identify the gap between the policy rhetoric and practical implementation of Chinese ecological agriculture and therefore to facilitate its moving towards sustainable development.     

水肥耦合与旱地农业持续发展

水资源不足及人口增长给农业生产增加了很大压力,寻求开发旱农区相对丰富的土地资源成为满足需求增长的重要方法。文章讨论了旱地农业持续发展的限制因子、旱地水肥关系、水肥耦合效应机理以及水肥耦合对旱地农业持续发展的意义。     

微生物资源的开发利用与农业可持续发展

对微生物资源在农业可持续发展中的作用及其合理开发利用进行了阐述和总结。认为微生物作为一种宝贵的资源,它与农业可持续发展的关系十分密切,它在土壤肥力的提高与保持、营养元素的转化、环境净化与生态系统的平衡等方面起着极其重要的作用。因此,加强以微生物肥料、微生物农药、微生物食品、微生物饲料、环境激素和环境工程微生物等为核心的农业清洁生产技术的研究与开发利用将具有广阔的应用前景。微生物农业即所谓的"白色农业"将成为未来农业可持续发展的重要方向之一。     

土壤学与广东持续农业的发展

持续农业是关于建立资源、生态、地力、经济效益等各个方面均可持续发展的农业制度的一种思想．水土流失、土地退化、耕地锐减、环境污染，制约着广东农业的持续发展．土壤学应围绕持续农业开展研究工作．目前应加强土壤生态环境的保护，防治土地退化，提高土壤肥力，保证耕地生产力的持续发展．应开展土壤资源的动态变化研究，为合理开发和利用土壤资源提供科学依据．     

关于农业生态旅游的几点看法

农业生态旅游已逐渐成为普通大众的一种新的旅游消费方式,近年来国内外正在不断兴起。农业生态旅游是农业生产与旅游活动的有机结合,它已日益成为农业的一个新的经济增长点。发展农业生态旅游需要加强旅游地的“软件”(生态旅游规划、广告策划等)和“硬件”(基础配套设施等)的建设,特别是健康优美的农村生态环境的建设与保护,要本着大农业、大生态、大旅游的思想,推动农业生态旅游的产业化进程及其可持续发展。     

Comparative study of Chinese ecological agriculture and sustainable agriculture

Although sustainable development has already been promulgated as one of its fundamental strategies by the national government since 1993, sustainable development, as an exotic new paradigm characteristic of profound philosophical and ethical thinking initiated in developed countries, is still not familiar to the Chinese people. Fortunately, in parallel to the evolution of sustainable agriculture, mainly in developed countries, since the beginning of the 1980s, Chinese agricultural scientists and technicians have already innovated their own unique form of Chinese Ecological Agriculture (CEA), on the basis of traditional agriculture that has been sustained for more than 4000 years. The basic principle of CEA emphasizes the obeying of both ecological rules and economic rules, as well as the approach of systematics and ecological engineering exactly corresponding to those adopted by sustainable development. The major difference between the two is that CEA has already been executed on a very large scale and has served as an effective and popularized way to implement sustainable agriculture in most parts of China. Also, as an active way of intensifying agriculture in terms of more inputs of skills, knowledge and labour, CEA is contributing much to all-round rural development throughout China.     

Localising the global food system

Agricultural systems have become increasingly industrialized and mechanized, relying on machinery and chemical inputs, rather than people and natural processes, to increase yields of food. The trend towards an increasingly globalised food system encourages unsustainable transportation of food around the world. Agricultural intensification and the globalisation of the agrofood chain has resulted in adverse environmental, social and economic consequences impeding moves towards sustainability. Organic farming can overcome many of the environmental problems associated with agricultural intensification. However, it does not have the potential to fully address the social and economic problems caused by the globalisation of the food system. Organic farming must be combined with local and regional sourcing of food products, for instance through forms of direct marketing of organic produce. Direct marketing schemes such as farmers' markets, food box delivery schemes and community-supported agriculture are all projects which, if managed with sustainability as the prime objective, have the potential to move towards a more socially, environmentally and economically sustainable agrofood system.     

论郊区农业生态环境建设的几个问题

在对郊区环境组成、结构、生态环境特征等区域研究的基础上 ,以边缘效应的理论为出发点 ,深入分析了城乡交错带的几个生态环境建设问题。认为郊区生态建设应以 (1)城市废弃物的再生地 ,(2 )生态旅游与农业文化的消费地 ,(3)现代持续农业的先导区等为目标。最后分析了城乡交错面 (边缘界面 )对城乡复合生态系统中环境应力的聚合放大效应 ,指出效区农业生态环境的调控是防止城乡矛盾激化的根本措施     

现代生态农业与农业安全

现代生态农业是现代农业的发展方向；现代生态农业的核心是农业的可持续发展，其重要内容是农业安全。文章着重提出现代生态农业的基本概念与内涵，指出现代生态农业是以生态理论为基础，以现代生态农业技术为手段，通过农业与环境，生态与经济的平衡，达到农业可持续发展、农业安全和人类健康的最终目标。在总结国家发展现代生态农业的经验的基础上，列举了我国东南沿海经济发达地区(包括江苏省)存在的生态环境质量和农业安全问题，最后提出现代生态农业建设和解决农业安全问题的对策与建议。     

Biodiversity of urban soils for sustainable cities

The last century was marked by a high demographic revolution and the fast development of urban environments. Now, more than 50% of the world’s 7.5 billion humans live in cities. This change has often induced the degradation of environmental quality in urban areas. As a consequence, management policies are now fostering the ‘return of nature’ in cities, which, in turn, is requiring a better understanding of the ecology of urban environments. In particular, there is a need for a better knowledge on soil management because soils provide many functions in cities such as urban agriculture. Optimizing the diversity of soil-living organisms is essential to many environmental functions such as water depollution, biochemical cycles, fertility and carbon storage. However, few studies on the biological quality of urban soils have been performed so far. This article reviews actual knowledge on soil biological quality for urban management. The definition of urban soils is discussed, and we present services provided by soils. We also review modern methods and techniques to assess the biological quality of urban soils. Last, we suggest communication means to improve the consideration of soil quality in urban planning policies aimed at sustainable cities.     

深圳市滨海湿地两个观光农业系统的能值整合研究

应用能值研究方法对深圳市海上田园旅游区的芦花湖和农家小院两个观光农业系统进行了生态经济分析.从系统和子系统两个层面,进行了能值产出、环境负载、可持续发展能力的评价与比较;与珠三角另一个观光农业系统(百万葵园)、两个基塘农业系统(菜-鱼、菜-猪-鱼)和一个巴西基塘系统(谷-猪-鱼)进行了横向比较.从货币收益的角度看,农家小院系统的费用使用效率、商品生产获利能力要优于芦花湖系统.但能值整合分析却显示出不一样的结果:两系统内旅游业子系统的能值交换率较高,而二者的农牧业子系统及农家小院系统的水产业子系统的能值交换率均较低,其生产效率仍有待提高.芦花湖系统的环境负载率为7.31,能值可持续发展指标为0.255,分别是农家小院的0.25倍和2.26倍,因而更具长远发展优势.与传统农业相比,观光农业的能值交换率和环境负载率整体偏高,表明其在经济效益创造上优于传统农业,但在自然资源利用和环境压力,以及可持续发展能力等方面与传统农业尚存在差距,在今后的发展中需借鉴传统农业的经验并加以改善,防止观光农业发展中绿色产业褐色化现象的发生.     

健康风险评估方法在中国重金属污染中的应用及暴露评估模型的研究进展

经济的快速发展导致中国环境质量日趋恶化.随着健康意识的增强,人们越来越重视污染物暴露人群的健康风险评估.与其他污染物相比,重金属污染区域广,重金属暴露人群多且集中.为了研究重金属暴露条件下人群的健康风险,USEPA 模型、统计模型、地理信息系统、可给性研究的方法已被中国不同学者应用.暴露评估模型作为污染物暴露人群健康风险评估的主要环节,国外的研究已经比较成熟,但相关研究在中国还处于空白阶段.对中国近年来在城市表层土壤（灰尘）、矿区土壤、膳食、地下水和饮用水、大气颗粒物进行重金属风险评估中应用的健康风险评估方法,进行了归纳和评述,并对欧美常用暴露评估模型：环境暴露评估模型、膳食暴露评估模型进行了介绍.中国健康风险评估工作起步晚,在评估的各环节均存在很大缺陷.随着新技术的发展以及人群对环境健康风险认识的深化,健康风险评估将成为中国热门研究领域之一.污染的环境行为、剂量一效应关系、模型、风险信息等方面,将是未来中国健康风险评估研究的重点.     

Enhancing the productivity and multifunctionality of traditional farming in Latin America

SUMMARY

An assessment is made of various grassroots development initiatives in Latin America which show that agroecological technologies can bring significant environmental and economic benefits to small farmers and rural communities in the region. Examined initiatives offer new ways of enhancing the multifunctional attributes of traditional agriculture through greater per unit area productivity and environmental services obtained in complex, integrated agroecological systems that feature many crop varieties, together with animals and trees. If such experiences were to be scaled up, multiplied, extrapolated, and supported in alternative policy scenarios, the gains in food security and environmental conservation would be substantial. The challenge now is to mobilize science, institutions and the right policies to increase the productivity of smallholder farming systems, while preserving the resource base and at the same time empowering local communities.     

Review of challenges and strategies for balanced urban–rural environmental protection in China

With the rise of environmentalism in China, great efforts have been devoted to environmental protection over the past several decades. Compared with urban environmental protection, rural environmental protection has not been attached enough importance in China due to the dual-track structure of socio-economic development. As a result, rural China is shouldering disproportionally heavy environmental burdens partly because of the differences and biases between urban and rural environmental protection seen in environmental policies, environmental rights and interests, environmental protection investment, and the environmental protection awareness of people. To eliminate the gap between rural and urban environmental protection, and achieve the goal of “balanced urban–rural environmental protection” (BUREP), government should consider mapping out proper policies and strategies. In this paper we put forward an innovative strategy of BUREP against the background of China’s urban-rural environmental protection. First, we review the current status of rural environmental protection status and its challenges compared with urban environmental protection in China. Secondly, we analyzed the main driving factors and reasons deeply, and then we put forward the BUREP strategy base on the unequal status between urban and rural environment. Finally, we proposed the framework of BUREP. This study may serve as a scientific reference regarding decision-making in coordinating urban and rural environmental protection and in constructing the new countryside of China.     

专家系统及其在农业与自然资源管理中的应用

阐述了专家系统的概念及其与传统程序、其它计算机辅助决策的区别，综述了专家系统在农业与自然资源管理中的应用现状及其日益重要的作用，探讨了农业专家系统的发展趋向。     

农业开发的战略环境评价初探

阐述了在农业开发中实施战略环境评价(strategicenvironmentalassessment,SEA)的必要性。根据农业开发SEA的介入时机,将其划分为预测性SEA、监控性SEA和回顾性SEA3种类型。初步探讨了农业开发SEA的基本内容,即评价对象、评价原则、评价指标体系集和评价方法,并提出了农业开发SEA的基本工作程序。