Sustainable development and systems thinking: A case study of a heritage city

The concept of sustainable cities is based on a development paradigm that recognizes that cities make an important contribution to social and economic development. System thinking, including hard and soft systems, can be used to provide a new perspective and tools to resolve questions. The 500-year-old heritage city of Udaipur in India, which has traditionally maintained the spirit of living in a sustainable manner, is now seeking sustainable development. This paper attempts to analyse the issues underlying sustainable development of Udaipur by applying CATWOE in order to comprehend the systemic elements of the city from a soft systems perspective.     

Predicting China's cultivated land resources and supporting capacity in the twenty-first century

In recent years, China's cultivated land has been shrinking, a change which has become one of the potential challenges to national sustainable development and global food security. In our research, we have predicted China's cultivated land resources for the next 50 years, based on scrutiny of systematic data and analyses of the loss of cultivated land. We have also designed an indicator of cultivated land equivalent per capita (CLEPC) to assess the capacity of cultivated land to support our population. The results show that China's cultivated land will decline to a minimum of 113.31 million ha between 2001–2010, while cultivated land per capita will decline from 0.101 ha to 0.083 ha. After 2010, the area of cultivated land will begin to increase slowly to 118.98 million ha in 2050. However, cultivated land per capita will still decline to 0.079 ha between 2010–2030; after 2030, it will start to increase and reach 0.085 ha in 2050. In contrast to the total area and per capita area of cultivated land, the CLEPC will remain at 0.101 ha between 2001–2010, and then increase to 0.156 ha in 2050. Overall, there will be increasing stress on China's cultivated land during the next two or three decades. Although the supporting capacity of cultivated land may not decline obviously with improvement in agricultural technology and infrastructure, China has to make great efforts to reduce the loss of cultivated land and to improve its productivity to ensure food security in the near future.     

Sustainable agriculture: Competing visions and policy avenues

Since the publication of Agenda 21 agricultural sustainability has become an internationally important goal. Whereas in the past issues of food security and sustainability centred on the developing world only, where large sections of the population are undernourished, it is today increasingly recognised that the developed world also has a 'food problem'. Indeed, with rising levels of obesity and environmental damage, goals of sustainable agriculture are now as pertinent in the developed world as the developing. This paper seeks to explore the policies of two competing visions for food and agricultural sustainability. One vision seeks to break the productionist hegemony with policies to promote, inter alia, organic and local food. The other vision seeks to continue the productionist hegemony in only a slightly modified fashion; emphasising biotechnology and technological panaceas. This paper contends that the modified productionist vision is flawed and political will is now required to promulgate radical agricultural policies that break the productionist hegemony.     

Evaluating land-use suitability of an industrial city in northeast China

Distribution of industrial land use has a crucial influence on the regional environment. Nanfen is a developing industrial city affiliated with Benxi City, northeastern China. The suitability of industrial land use in Nanfen was evaluated to provide a scientific basis for industrial land-use planning and to minimise negative impacts on the local environment. Multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) within GIS was employed to derive a suitability map. The suitability map was compared with current industrial land use to identify areas for relocation of current industries. A total of 25.7% of the urban area in Nanfen was rated as suitable, 28.1% as somewhat suitable, 37.9% as unsuitable and 8.2% as most unsuitable. About 20.6% of the current industrial land was in suitable areas, 46.5% in somewhat suitable areas and 32.9% in unsuitable areas. We further verified the influence of selected factors on the suitability of industrial land use using a field survey. The results confirmed that industrial land-use relocation in Nanfen is required. This study uses ecological suitability evaluation as a basis for land-use planning and has implications for other industrial cities in northeast China that have similar environmental and ecological problems.     

Achieving sustainable rural development in Southern China: the contribution of bamboo forestry

Bamboo forests, due to their special characteristics and ecological functions, play an important role in sustainable forest management and rural development in China. Over the past two decades, China has successfully established millions of hectares of bamboo forest, which has restored fragile ecosystems, provided benefits to local communities, alleviated rural poverty and eased timber shortages. However, there is potential for further improvements to the bamboo forest estate. This paper analyses the current state of bamboo forest resources and management, and the roles of the bamboo forest industry in social development, economic growth and ecosystem protection in China. We examine the main issues related to governance systems, local economic development and traditional management practices. Finally, we suggest some directions for future development.     

Water use efficiency of a mixed cropping system of corn with grasses

A new cropping system of corn mixed with grasses was tried to make full and efficient use of water and to ease environmental problems such as soil erosion by water and wind in grain and forage feed production practices. Field experiments were conducted to investigate the water use efficiency under this mixture cropping system. Six treatments with two replicates were arranged as: bare field, corn only, rye only, alfalfa only, rye–corn mixture and alfalfa–corn mixture. Lysimeters were used to measure different components of water consumption in the crop fields for water use efficiency estimation. From the yields and water consumption of crops under different treatments, combined water use efficiency of corn and grasses were estimated. The results showed that WUEs in the mixed cropping fields of corn–grasses were much higher than those in the fields where only corn or grass were grown. Averaged WUE was 3.71 kg/m³ from the corn and rye mixture fields, 30% higher than that from the plots where only corn or rye were grown. Averaged WUE was 4.55 kg/m³ from the alfalfa and corn mixture fields, 60% higher than that from the fields where only corn or alfalfa were grown. Under the same conditions of irrigation, yields from the rye and corn mixture plots increased by 33%, as compared with those from fields where only corn or rye were grown. The yields from alfalfa and corn mixture fields were 61% higher than those from fields where only corn or alfalfa were grown. The experimental results also indicated that corn and alfalfa mixture cropping is better than a corn–rye mixture system.     

Comparing indoor wastewater-fed aquaculture with two conventional wastewater treatment plants using adopted sustainable process indices

Highly aggregating 'Sustainable Process Indices' (SPI) were calculated for an indoor wastewater-fed aquaculture and two conventional wastewater treatment plants to make a direct comparison between the three facilities possible. The goal was to find out which technology would be better suited for use in a sustainable economy. The SPI provides a type of 'ecological footprint' for the three facilities on the basis that, in a sustainable economy, solar energy would be our main energy source and that surface area would become the limiting factor for economic development, because the transformation of solar energy into other forms of energy, products or services requires area. SPI calculations consider the area necessary for the sustainable dissipation of byproducts and wastes of a process into the environment. The SPI thus uses area as its basic unit for comparisons between different technologies, products or services.

Energy consumption, as well as treatment performance (both the quality and quantity of treated effluent), and multi-functionality of facilities were key variables in determining how much area a wastwater treatment plant would need to be embedded sustainably into the environment. The calculated SPIs reveal that the wastewater-fed aquaculture requires the least area to be embedded sustainably into the environment, therefore, it would be better suited for use in a sustainable economy compared to the two conventional wastewater treatment plants.     

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.     

Non-Timber forest products: Conservation status and management priorities in the community managed forests of Andhra Pradesh,South India

Primary surveys were conducted in 20 villages and an equal number of community managed forests (CMFs) of two districts, Adilabad and Chittoor in the state of Andhra Pradesh in southern India. The interviews conducted with 216 respondents listed a total of 22 and 23 non-timber forest products (NTFP) from Adilabad and Chittoor districts, respectively, of which 15 species were common to both study districts. Eight of these NTFPs, including, Sterculia urens, Thysanolena maxima, Sapindus emerginatus, Dendrocalamus strictus, Pongamia pinnata, Schleichera oleosa, Azadirachta indica and Diospyros melenoxylon were collected for commercial purposes. The vegetation survey was conducted in a total of 240 sample plots in 20 CMFs, and found 15 NTFP species from Adilabad and 18 NTFP species from Chittoor. The density of NTFP trees in Adilabad was 52 trees/ha, as against an overall tree density of 278 trees/ha, while in Chittoor it was only 28 trees/ha as against an overall density of 110 trees/ha. The regeneration density of NTFP species was, however, higher in Chittoor. Some of the NTFP species, prioritized for conservation, included Sterculia urens, Tamarindus indica, Phyllanthus emblica, Strychnos nuxvomica, S. potatorum and Anogeissus latifolia.     

Potentialities,problems, policies and progress in modelling sustainable development: A dynamic,hierarchical approach

This paper discusses some of the potentials, problems, policies and progress in modelling sustainable development. After briefly describing ten approaches to modelling sustainable development, some of the methodological problems still to be resolved are addressed. It is then suggested that policies to promote sustainable development should operate at six different spatial levels connecting global, multinational, national, regional, local and individual. Attempting to model sustainable development in such a hierarchical manner is exceedingly difficult. One way of modelling sustainable development is to develop the concept of a sustainable corridor, combining ecological, economic and equity considerations in a hierarchical fashion and through space-time. A preliminary dynamic, hierarchical model is described connecting global and national patterns of development. Using global and national data for Scotland, the calibrated model, running under the business-as-usual scenario, shows that current development paths are unsustainable. It is shown that, by implementing a judicious choice of policies, a sustainable corridor for a global and a national system can be achieved. The ways in which this preliminary model can be developed to connect all six hierarchical levels are discussed.