What motivates farmers to participate in sustainable agriculture? Evidence and policy implications

Sustained growth in agricultural productivity has become an ideal model and a political goal of agricultural development in China. Local participation is essential for the implementation of sustainable agriculture strategy. We conducted a case study in Hailun County, an important grain production base in China, to find ways to motivate farmers to participate in sustainable agriculture. We obtained data from semi-structured interviews of 98 households using participatory rural appraisal methods. Logistic regression models were used to explore factors that underlie farmers' attitudes towards agricultural production and their environmental awareness. Results indicated that low agricultural economic efficiency could result in less enthusiasm for agriculture among local farmers. This is a potential risk for China's food security and sustainable agricultural development. The backward development of the rural economy limited improvement of farmers' environmental awareness. Moreover, poor rural labour quality implied a lack of local participation in sustainable agriculture. Suggestions for sustainable agricultural development include establishment of a reasonable market and agricultural subsidy mechanisms, basic and vocational education for young adults, effective agricultural instruction and environmental education agencies and two-way communication mechanisms.     

Taking CO2 emissions into a country's productivity change: The Asian growth experience

A country's macroeconomic policies have two basic objectives: to provide its citizens with a means to make a better living and a preferable environment. For the past decades, accompanying its fantastic economic growth, fast-developing Asia has become one of the major contributors to the increase of global carbon dioxide emissions. This paper analyzes productivity growth of ten Asian countries, namely, China, Japan, the NIEs and the ASEAN-4, by examining their outputs from economic performance and environmental impact standpoints. Productivity growth and its components are calculated using the Malmquist index. There appears to be a widening gap between the productivity growth trends without/with CO₂ emissions of the ten Asian economies. This implies that the factor of productivity could be over-emphasized at great cost to the environment. A cross-country comparison analysis, considering CO₂ emissions, shows that the productivity of China and ASEAN-4 deteriorated while the productivity growth of Japan and NIEs performed much better.     

中国不同城市群的经济社会与环境可持续发展协调度分析

采用定量为主和定量定性相结合的分析方法,研究了中国不同城市群的经济社会与环境协调度。通过分析发现：第一,中国城市经济社会环境整体协调度不高,绝大部分属于轻度失调类,经济发展是其主要影响因素;第二,协调度呈现出由东部沿海城市向内陆城市递减的梯度变化,而社会与经济的滞后性影响力却呈现出东高西低的现象;第三,协调度呈现＂三高两低＂的城市集聚格局,其中3个协调度高值城市集聚群分别位于珠三角、长三角、环渤海地区;2个协调度低值城市集聚群位于内陆中部地区。     

基于LMDI的中国二氧化硫排放区域变化的因素分解

运用LMDI方法将中国SO2排放变化分解为规模效应、区域经济结构效应、能源强度效应、能源结构效应、产污系数效应和污染治理效应六个因素,并进行了东、中、西和东北四个地区的差异分解分析。结果表明：规模效应是造成各地区SO2排放增加的最重要原因,不同地区不同时段SO2排放的减排因素不同。1999―2003年间,东部、中部地区能源结构和产污系数的减排效应显著,西部、东北地区能源强度和产污系数效应突出;2003―2006年间,东中西部污染治理和产污系数减排效应明显,东北地区能源效率减排贡献大;2006―2009年间,东部、中部的污染治理和能源效率减排贡献突出,西部的产污系数效应和污染治理作用显著,东北的产污系数和能源强度效应突出。建议按照不同地区结合实际情况实行灵活的减排政策。     

Measurement and spatial statistical analysis of green science and technology innovation efficiency among Chinese Provinces

This paper measured the efficiency of green science and technology (S&T) innovation in 30 Chinese provinces from 2008 to 2017 by constructing a three-stage super-efficiency DEA model that contains undesired output and then analyzed the spatial performance for these provinces. The purpose is to calculate exactly the extent to which S&T innovation in different regions of China has contributed to economic development, excluding negative impacts on the ecological environment and any spatial differences that have emerged in the past decade. The results show that the overall performance of green S&T innovation efficiency in Chinese regions was poor in the past decade, and there is still much room for improvement. In addition, China's investment in S&T innovation and environmental management is inefficient and wasteful. From the temporal perspective, efficiency in green innovation shows a slowly increasing trend. From the spatial perspective, the efficiency shows a strict correlation with economic development, that is, an obvious three-level spatial distribution pattern of "east, middle, and west".

     

Temporal and spatial assessment of natural resource use in China using ecological footprint method

China has about 20% of the world's population. With rapid economic development and substantial population increase, China is now faced with severe conflicts between limited natural resources and increasing resource requirements. In this study, we used the ecological footprint method to assess the resource demand and supply conditions of each land use in China between 1978 and 2003. In order to provide insight into the spatial heterogeneity of resource demand and supply conditions, we also assessed the ecological footprint at provincial level in 2002. An ecological footprint curve method was introduced to compare differences in natural resource use, economic development and technological progress among different countries and provinces. The results showed that the ecological footprint, biocapacity and ecological deficit per capita for China have all been increasing during 1978–2003. The ecological footprints per person in northern and eastern China were larger than those in southern and western China. The ecological deficits per person in southern and eastern China were more severe than those in northern and western China. Though the resource use efficiency has increased considerably during 1978–2003, it was still much lower than those of the Netherlands, France, South Korea, Mexico, the Philippines and India.     

Measurement of agricultural total factor productivity growth incorporating environmental factors: A nutrients balance approach

This article proposes to use nutrient-orientated environmental efficiency (EE) measures to construct a nutrient total factor productivity index (NTFP). Since nutrient-orientated EE measures are consistent with the materials balance principle, NTFP index is superior to other existing TFP indexes. An empirical study on the environmental performance of an agricultural sector in 30 OECD countries from 1990 to 2003 yielded several important findings. First, these countries should be able to produce current outputs with at least 50% less aggregate eutrophying power, implying that they should have been able to substantially reduce the potential for eutrophication. Second, traditional TFP has grown by 1.6% per annum due to technical progress; however, there are lags in the responses of several countries to this technical progress. Third, environmental TFP has grown at a slower rate than traditional TFP growth due to reductions in nutrient-orientated allocative efficiency. Finally, changes in input combinations could have significantly improved environmental efficiency and productivity. These findings favor policy interventions and faster technological transfer to improve environmental performance.     

Measurement of agricultural total factor productivity growth incorporating environmental factors: A nutrients balance approach

This article proposes to use nutrient-orientated environmental efficiency (EE) measures to construct a nutrient total factor productivity index (NTFP). Since nutrient-orientated EE measures are consistent with the materials balance principle, NTFP index is superior to other existing TFP indexes. An empirical study on the environmental performance of an agricultural sector in 30 OECD countries from 1990 to 2003 yielded several important findings. First, these countries should be able to produce current outputs with at least 50% less aggregate eutrophying power, implying that they should have been able to substantially reduce the potential for eutrophication. Second, traditional TFP has grown by 1.6% per annum due to technical progress; however, there are lags in the responses of several countries to this technical progress. Third, environmental TFP has grown at a slower rate than traditional TFP growth due to reductions in nutrient-orientated allocative efficiency. Finally, changes in input combinations could have significantly improved environmental efficiency and productivity. These findings favor policy interventions and faster technological transfer to improve environmental performance.     

中国土地生产力变化的情景分析

中国土地生产力变化态势是当前国内外学术界、决策界关注的焦点问题之一.介绍了土地生产力估算系统(ESLP)的原理与功能模块并利用该系统研究了中国土地生产力的变化态势.ESLP是在气温、降水、辐射水平、土壤质地等自然因素控制下,受土地利用方向与强度影响的,考虑土地系统不同的投入水平和管理措施的区域土地生产力估算系统.ESLP关注土地生产力变化的时空动态,能表达出不同投入管理水平下土地生产力的时空变化.文章应用ESLP研究了1988年和2000年中国土地生产力变化及其空间分异特征,将估算结果与1988年和2000年全国分县粮食产量数据的比较与验证表明,基于ESLP估算的各县土地生产力与各县粮食总产量具有很高的相关性,在一定程度上反映一个区域的粮食生产能力.在此基础上,应用ESLP预测了2010与2020年在气候变化情景下土地生产力的变化,预测结果显示,虽然局部地区土地生产力有小幅减少趋势,但从全国来看,土地生产力增长趋势明显.平均来看,2010年比2000年增长4.4%,而到2020年,土地生产力的增长幅度达到10.7%.不过在各个农业生态分区上,不同年份土地生产力变化差异较大,在2010年和2020年长江中下游区土地生产力均呈一定幅度的下降,而甘新区和西藏区只在2010年土地生产力有小幅下降.该研究结论对我国编制土地利用规划与粮食生产方面的决策具有重要的参考价值.     

An energy-centric theory of agglomeration

This paper sets out a simple spatial model of energy exploitation to ask how the location and productivity of energy resources affects the distribution of economic activity across geographic space. By combining elements from energy economics and economic geography we link the productivity of energy resources to the incentives for economic activity to agglomerate. We find a novel scaling law links the productivity of energy resources to population sizes, while rivers and roads effectively magnify productivity. We show how our theory's predictions concerning a single core, aggregate to predictions over regional landscapes and city size distributions at the country level.     

Effects of regional vs. ecological factors on plant species richness: an intercontinental analysis

Conclusions from past studies on the roles that historical and regional factors and contemporary and ecological factors have played in regulating large-scale patterns of species richness have been controversial. Conflicting past results were likely affected by differences in the range of environments analyzed and the scales of observation. Eastern North America and eastern Asia are ideal regions for examining the relative effects of historical and regional factors and contemporary and ecological factors on large-scale patterns of plant species richness because these two regions are closely matched in terms of climate and because their floras originated from the same paleoflora but have experienced different histories of development since the late Paleogene when climate cooling caused their separation. We report on a comprehensive data set of 471 floras ranging from 10 km2 to 4.7 x 10(6) km2 and spanning a wide range of climate and latitude (from 21 degrees to 55 degrees N) to examine whether the contribution of region relative to climate persists from small to large floras and increases from cooler to warmer climates. We found that eastern Asia is richer than eastern North America when sample area, maximum elevation, and climate are accounted for, that this difference diminishes toward higher latitudes, and that elevation plays a much stronger role in eastern Asia than in eastern North America. Our analysis reconciles contemporary/ecological and historical/regional explanations for species richness variation and helps explain why different conclusions have been reached by different authors working in the same geographical areas: the strength of the region effect itself varies with location and range of climatic conditions of the observations.     

Analysis of driving forces behind diversified carbon dioxide emission patterns in regions of the mainland of China

China has large regional disparities in carbon dioxide CO₂ emissions with economic development among its 31 provincial mainland regions. This paper investigates these disparities in CO₂ emission patterns and identifies the factors underlying the differences. Results show that the 30 study China's mainland provinces (Tibet not included) can be divided into seven groups with three typical CO₂ emission patterns. Index decomposition results indicate that changes in economic development, the industrial sector, and technology contribute far more to increased CO₂ emissions than do population, energy structure, and other sectors. Close inspection reveals that different industry structures and technology contribute greatly to the differences observed in CO₂ emissions between provinces with similar economic output. This study highlights the importance of region-specific industrial structure adjustment policies, especially for regions transitioning to heavy industry and for those still in the primary stages of industrialization. The potential application of a domestic carbon emissions trading system, to encourage regional investment in updated technology, is also discussed.     

Remote sensing of global change: growth in China's Jiangsu Province

SUMMARY

This paper examines how remote-sensing data and regional social and economic data can be used together to identify changes in land-use patterns in particular regions. Study of the spatiotemporal dynamics of remote-sensing data can identify trends in competing uses of land, water and other natural resources for agriculture, industrial development and urban settlements. When combined with information on trends in industrial production, population, agricultural production, pollutant releases, water usage and natural forest coverage, these data reveal patterns of anthropogenic disturbance that can provide early signals of problems in resource decline or land-use management. This study focuses on land-cover changes in southern Jiangsu Province of the People's Republic of China between 1976 and 1984. This region, to the west of Shanghai and to the south of the Yangtze River, experienced unprecedented economic growth after the end of the Cultural Revolution. Remote-sensing imagery reveals the rapid growth of urban centres, commensurate declines in surface water area, and changing patterns of agriculture. The observed changes cast doubt on the ability of the region to sustain such rapid and intense land-use conflicts over a long period.     

Economic and Social Dimensions of Environmental Behavior: Balancing Conservation and Development in Bhutan

Abstract: One of the primary approaches to environmental conservation emphasizes economic development. This conservation‐and‐development approach often ignores how development affects sociocultural characteristics that may motivate environmental behaviors (actions that actively benefit or limit one's negative impacts on the environment). Evolutionary anthropologists espouse a theoretical perspective that supports the conservation‐and‐development approach. Others believe sociocultural factors are the foundation of environmental behavior and worry that development will erode the values and norms that may shape such behavior. My research assistants and I surveyed 170 individuals from eight villages in two communities in Bhutan to explore whether economic (wealth, market integration) or social (religious behaviors, environmental values, social capital) factors are better indicators of environmental behavior. I used multilevel modeling to analyze use of fuelwood, use of agricultural chemicals, and tree planting, and to determine whether social norms were associated with these behaviors. Although economic factors were more often associated with these behaviors than social factors, local conditions and control variables were the best indicators of behaviors. Furthermore, economic factors were not always associated with positive environmental outcomes. Instead, farmers attempted to make the best economic decisions given their circumstances rather than seeking to conserve resources. Although religion was not a strong predictor of any of the behaviors I examined, I found evidence that the understanding of Buddhist philosophy is growing, which suggests that social factors may play a more prominent role as Bhutan's development progresses. My results highlight the need for conservation planners to be aware of local conditions when planning and implementing policies aimed at motivating environmental behaviors and that economic and social motivations for conservation may not be mutually exclusive.     

Surface modelling of human population distribution in China

On the basis of introducing major data layers corresponding to net primary productivity (NPP), elevation, city distribution and transport infrastructure distribution of China, surface modelling of population distribution (SMPD) is conducted by means of grid generation method. A search radius of 200 km is defined in the process of generating each grid cell. SMPD not only pays attention to the situation of relative elements at the site of generating grid cell itself but also calculates contributions of other grid cells by searching the surrounding environment of the generating grid cell. Human population distribution trend since 1930 in China is analysed. The results show that human population distribution in China has a slanting trend from the eastern region to the western and middle regions of China during the period from 1930 to 2000. Two scenarios in 2015 are developed under two kinds of assumptions. Both scenarios show that the trends of population floating from the western and middle regions to the eastern region of China are very outstanding with urbanization and transport development.     

Incorporating greenhouse gas effects to evaluate energy efficiency in China

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions without hampering economic growth is a significant issue for China. Taking into account environmental sustainability principles, this study analysed the energy efficiency of 30 regions of China for the period 2002–2007. By employing a data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach, this study included undesirable CO₂ and SO₂ outputs and the desirable GDP output in the model. Empirical outcomes demonstrated that the overall average technical efficiency (TE) of China is 0.843, indicating a 15.70% input inefficiency. Among three geographic areas, the east has the highest technical efficiency, with the highest ability to set up clean-burning power plants based on best technology available. Performance in the west is less good because of much inefficient technology. Finally, the study demonstrates detailed management implications of the BCG matrix. The most important contribution of this paper is a detailed demonstration of an energy performance evaluation mechanism for China. The valuable results and insights gained can be equally effectively applied to studies in other developing countries facing the same gaseous emissions.     

Natural resource depletion and the economic performance of local districts: suggestions from a within-country analysis

SUMMARY

Studying the interactions among ecological factors and economic performance measured at the local scale is necessary to suggest policies able to mitigate natural resource depletion in complex ecosystems, like those in the Mediterranean region. The aim of this paper is to explore the relationship among natural resource depletion due to land degradation (LD) and some economic characteristics of local labour systems in Italy, a country where many areas, especially southern regions, are vulnerable. LD was estimated using an environmental sensitive area index, covering the national territory at a fine scale, which takes into account ecological factors such as climate, soil and vegetation. Economic indicators used here consider per capita income, land productivity, production and labour productivity by sector (agriculture, industry and services). A regression analysis was built-up at the LLS scale using an index change over time (1990–2000) as dependent variable and economic variables as predictors. A principal component analysis (PCA) was carried out to synthesise the outputs of the regression analysis. Results indicate a negative relationship among per capita income and LD over the whole study area. However, other variables showed a significant correlation with the dependent variable, highlighting the importance of local factors to increase land vulnerability. In order to clarify the contribution of economic factors to natural resource depletion it is necessary to drive integrate policies to combat LD in dry Mediterranean areas.     

Local production,downward and regional transport aggravated surface ozone pollution during the historical orange-alert large-scale ozone episode in eastern China

Increasing severe and persistent ozone pollution in China has resulted in serious harm to human health in recent years, yet the precise pollution sources are poorly known because there is few knowledge on large-scale extreme ozone episodes. Here, we studied the formation of the historical orange-alert regional ozone episode in eastern China on 6 June, 2021, by combining process analysis, integrated source apportionment modelling, and chemical and meteorological data. Results show that during the pollution episode, 94% of cities in eastern China suffered ozone pollution, and 39% had daily maximum 8-h average ozone concentrations higher than 100 ppb. This is explained by favorable local ozone formation and transports provided by the prevailing northwestern winds in the upper air, and by sinking atmospheric motions favoring the persistence of high surface ozone concentrations. During daytime, local photochemical production induced an ozone increase of 0.3–28.4 ppb h^?1 and vertical transport induced an ozone increase of 0.4–56.1 ppb h^?1. As a consequence, vertical downward transport of ozone generated in the upper air by photochemical reactions aggravated surface ozone pollution. Surface ozone concentrations include 25.8–53.9% of ozone from local provincial emissions, 0–42.6% of ozone from inter-regional transports from neighboring regions, 4.6–23.1% of ozone from outer-regional transport, and 13.6–52.9% of ozone from boundary conditions in the selected cities. Overall, our findings show that favorable meteorological conditions promoted the chemical productions of ozone on the surface and at high altitudes, thus resulting in this heavy ozone pollution. In addition, regional and vertical downward transports of aloft ozone further aggravated the surface ozone pollution, leading to the large-scale extreme ozone pollution episode.

     

经济地理学角度的区域生态补偿机制研究

传统生态补偿以保护与改善生态环境、优化资源利用为目的,已不能体现其在生态保护、环境建设和区域发展方面的全部价值。新的区域发展形势对生态补偿机制提出了新的要求,生态补偿被认为是实现区域可持续发展和区域之间协调发展的重要手段。区域可持续发展和区域间协调发展是我国经济地理学的主要研究对象之一。如何从经济地理学的视角看待区域生态补偿,成为通过区域生态补偿机制的实施实现生态良好、经济发展和社会进步三位目标和谐发展的重要命题。从经济地理学的经典理论出发,在探讨区位论、产业结构演替理论、人地关系地域系统理论的基础上,分析了传统生态补偿的缺失和不足,并在现阶段我国以构建区域可持续和有序发展格局为目标的规划工作——主体功能区规划的基础上,就区域生态补偿的理论基础、目标导向和实施机制进行了探讨,将经济地理学的空间区位论、地域功能理论、区域发展空间均衡理论等充实到区域生态补偿的理论基础中,明确了以实现区域协调发展和基本公共服务均等化为目标导向,探索了政府主导、市场参与的区域生态补偿的实施模式,最后分析了实施难点、提出了相应的解决建议。     

工业发展与环境污染关系的区域差异分析--基于江苏省的实证研究

利用格兰杰因果关系检验（Granger causality tests）方法分析了江苏省处在不同发展阶段的三大区域的工业经济增长和环境污染之间双向作用关系。研究结果表明：经济发展水平越高,工业经济增长对环境污染的影响越明显,并且持续时间长,在某种程度上环境污染已经成为受工业经济增长影响的内生变量;江苏省三大区域环境污染都不是工业经济增长的原因,环境污染的加重并不能带来工业经济的增长,因此,在实践中靠牺牲环境来换取经济增长的理念是不可取的,＂先污染后治理＂的发展思路是不可行的。