Comprehensive evaluation of regional ecological security for land use: a case study of Yanchi County, Ningxia Province

As an abstract study conception, most researches of ecological security generally are macro-scale theoretical study with a regional, national or global perspective. Micro-scale research mainly concentrates on ecological risk, ecosystem health and ecosystem safety. In order to assess regional ecological security and to accomplish the transition from micro-scale to macro-scale research, a Driving-Function-State-Output-Respond model framework （DFSOR model） is put forward in this paper according to the analyses on regional population, society, economy resources, environment and ecological risks＇. In empirical research an index system is set out to evaluate ecological security of land use. The DFSOR model comprises five group of indicators： （1） driving indicators, which include social population pressure and economic pressure; （2）function indicators, which include human function, hydrodynamic function, wind function and gravity.function; （3） state indicators, which include soil resources, water resources and land use/land cover; （4） output indicators, which include production output and ecological risk output; （5） response indicators, which are composed of all sorts of policies and measures for improving production of ecosystem. The method and procedure for ecological security evaluation is put forward based on DFSOR model as well. In the case study, Yanchi, the ecotone between agriculture and animal husbandry, is chosen for the study. An index system is built to evaluate ecological security based on the evaluation of regional ecological risks which including sandification, water erosion, soil salinization, soil pollution and shortage of water. The comprehensive evaluation result shows the regional ecological security index of land use in the research area increase obviously. But it is still in the state of low-graded danger.     

Ecological threshold and ecological economic threshold: Implications from an ecological economic model with adaptation

This paper investigates ecological threshold and ecological economic threshold by developing an ecological economic model—an extension of a population–resource dynamics model developed by Brander and Taylor (1998). The model reflects three critical issues regarding an ecological economic system: system boundary, non-convexity, and adaptation. The paper elucidates six main findings: ecological economic threshold may come before ecological threshold; the ecological economic threshold may exhibit a highly context-dependent and dynamic nature, which suggests the precautionary principle; markets do not respond sufficiently to maintain resiliency under an external shock as prices do not reflect thresholds; the system can be restored by intervention, even after crossing the ecological economic threshold; various transitional paths are possible in restoring the system; and adaptation affects resilience to a somewhat significant effect which suggests the importance of better information and education. Because of the complexity of the model, I adopt a system dynamics approach for the development and analysis of the model.     

Non-linear dynamics of population and natural resources: The emergence of different patterns of development

This paper studies the long-term dynamic interaction between the exploitation of natural resources and population growth. Brander and Taylor [Brander, J.A. and Taylor, M.S. (1998) “The Simple, Economics of Easter Island: a Ricardo–Malthus Model of Renewable Resource Use”. American Economic Review, 88 (1) 119–138.] started a sequence of papers which sought to deduce from historical and archaeological studies some stylized links between ecological and economic systems. In this strand of literature all the services of the natural environment are aggregated in an ecological complex which is characterized by a simple logistic dynamics. Given such assumptions, these models show a unique long-term steady state. The aim of this paper is to obtain a more general framework that could account for the heterogeneity of environmental development paths followed by past societies. Two new assumptions are introduced: i) the disaggregation of the ecological complex into two different resources; ii) irreversibility — namely, an inexorable tendency to exhaustion when the renewable resource stock is below a certain threshold. Analysis of the dynamic properties of the system shows a multiplicity of steady states which makes it possible to consider the effects of technical progress, cultural and climate changes on the resilience of the existing development path.     

论安徽沿淮低洼地的景观型生态开发

通过对沿淮低洼地类型的分析,提出适宜低洼地景观生态开发的几种类型和管理模式,提出应借助自然力,改变沿淮低洼地生态面貌的新思考：协调人与自然的和谐关系;修复和重建低洼地生态系统;提高低洼地的自然生产力、经济生产力、景观吸引力、可持续发展力,完成土地功能的转变。低洼地景观开发应与旅游开发充分结合,二者相互促进。茂密的芦苇和水苹、成群栖息水鸟和两栖生物,形成优美的湿地环境。是未来发展旅游的理想场所,同时可以适度地把湿地产品开发成旅游产品,并使之成为乡村旅游的一部分。     

Efficient ecosystem services and naturalness in an ecological/economic model

In an integrated economic/ecological model, the economy benefits from ecosystem services that include: (1) the consumptive use of a harvested species, (2) the non-consumptive use of popular species, and (3) naturalness, i.e., the divergence of the ecosystem’s biodiversity from its natural steady state. The biological component of the model, which is applied to a nine-species Alaskan marine ecosystem, relies on individual optimizing behaviour by plants and animals to establish population dynamics. The biological component is used to define naturalness. By varying harvesting we arrive at different steady-state populations and humans choose from among these steady states. Welfare maximizing levels of the ecosystem services are derived, then it is shown that in the laissez-faire economy overharvesting occurs when the harvesting industry ignores ecosystem services (2) and (3). Lastly, we introduce efficiency restoring taxes and standards that internalize the ecosystem externalities.

Renewable Resource Use and Nonseparable Amenity Benefits

We incorporate amenity benefits into an overlapping generations model with a renewable resource as a factor of production, source of amenity benefits and store of value. Unlike the conventional renewable resource problems studied under the assumption of additive consumption and amenity benefits, we let amenity benefits affect the utility of consumers in a nonseparable fashion. We examine the role that weights given to consumption and amenities have for harvesting and the resource stock. We characterize dynamics and stability of steady state equilibria with a logistic resource growth function. We demonstrate in parametric and numerical models that the weights given to consumption and amenities in the utility function matter substantially for the steady state equilibrium stock and its stability and dynamics. Both conventional saddle point equilibria and indeterminacy with infinite number of equilibria and saddle-node bifurcation is possible depending on the weights given to consumption and amenities. In addition, we show that for each inefficient equilibrium stock, there is a unique subsidy rate that can move the economy from an inefficient equilibrium to an efficient one. The presence of indeterminacy provides a challenge to resource policies, because the system becomes unpredictable. Therefore, expectations and market psychology may play an important role in resource utilization and provision of amenities.     

基于改进价值当量因子的北京市生态-经济协调度实证分析

从城市生态经济系统协调的视角,构建生态系统服务价值和生态经济协调度指数测算模型框架。以北京市16个辖区为基本研究单元,基于修正后的当量因子法,利用北京市2009—2018年土地利用相关数据,对北京市辖区10年间的生态系统服务价值进行了动态估算,并分析了10年间生态-经济协调度的变动规律。研究结果表明:近10年人类活动或自然环境变化对未利用土地的影响最大,其次是建设用地、园地、耕地、水域及水利设施用地、草地、林地;生态系统服务总价值均呈现总体增长趋势,密云区、怀柔区、延庆区占比前三;大部分地区生态经济协调度总体上升为较高协调,局部生态经济协调度没有改善,整体生态经济协调度较好。并根据北京市的生态服务价值与土地利用动态变化特点,综合考虑生态-经济协调度发展等级分类等情况,提出北京市生态-经济协调发展及土地利用优化的对策和措施。     

A human well-being approach for assessing the value of natural land areas

To decide on the policy measures to be implemented, policymakers need comprehensive information on the costs and benefits of land conversion for society. Accordingly, the EU Biodiversity Strategy requires the member countries to assess their ecosystems and the economic value of their ecosystem services by 2020. This paper takes up and extends the subjective well-being approach to valuing changes in natural land cover, which provides information on willingness-to-pay for landscape amenities such as scenic views or recreational opportunities. Results at the NUTS 2 level for European countries indicate (a) that marginal willingness-to-pay estimates tend to be higher for natural areas that are scarcer, and (b) that a nonlinear relationship between land cover and well-being is preferred to a linear relationship indicating decreasing benefits from individual landscape amenities.     

More than total economic value: How to combine economic valuation of biodiversity with ecological resilience

The assessment of total economic value has become a pragmatic and popular approach in nature valuation, yet criticisms have been raised. One major point of critique is that total economic value bases the monetary value of ecosystems purely on the flow of human benefits of services of ecosystems and consequently ignores questions of sustainable use of natural capital per se. This paper explains why total economic value by itself is in principle an inadequate concept to guide sustainable use of ecosystems and gives an overview of essential ecological theory that needs to be taken into account in addition to total economic value to fully include ecosystem sustainability. The paper concludes with a framework for combining ecological theory with economic valuation. The key elements here are theoretical ecological insights about ecosystem resilience and portfolio theory which offers an economic perspective on investment in biodiversity. Portfolio theory puts total economic value in a framework where investment in biodiversity is expanded to cover functional diversity and mobile link species in order to maintain ecosystem resilience and so fosters sustainable use of ecosystems.     

Classifying and valuing ecosystem services for urban planning

While technological progress has fostered the conception of an urban society that is increasingly decoupled from ecosystems, demands on natural capital and ecosystem services keep increasing steadily in our urbanized planet. Decoupling of cities from ecological systems can only occur locally and partially, thanks to the appropriation of vast areas of ecosystem services provision beyond the city boundaries. Conserving and restoring ecosystem services in urban areas can reduce the ecological footprints and the ecological debts of cities while enhancing resilience, health, and quality of life for their inhabitants. In this paper we synthesize knowledge and methods to classify and value ecosystem services for urban planning. First, we categorize important ecosystem services and disservices in urban areas. Second, we describe valuation languages (economic costs, socio‐cultural values, resilience) that capture distinct value dimensions of urban ecosystem services. Third, we identify analytical challenges for valuation to inform urban planning in the face of high heterogeneity and fragmentation characterizing urban ecosystems. The paper discusses various ways through which urban ecosystems services can enhance resilience and quality of life in cities and identifies a range of economic costs and socio‐cultural impacts that can derive from their loss. We conclude by identifying knowledge gaps and challenges for the research agenda on ecosystem services provided in urban areas.     

武威市凉州区发展循环经济的路径优化与仿真模拟

根据系统动力学原理,建立了凉州区发展循环经济的系统动力学模型。提出了以经济发展与生态保护为核心的路径优化模式,并设计了这种模式的具体参数。仿真模拟结果表明,这种模式不仅使经济发展保持了平稳的增长速度,使三次产业结构关系更加合理,土地利用结构更加协调,还使废弃物得到最大限度的资源化,使工业循环用水得到最大限度的再利用,使水资源得到了有效配置,是石羊河流域理想的经济发展模式。     

生态智慧引导下的城市公园绿地韧性测度 体系构建

绿色基础设施是城市韧性研究的重要组成部分，是 城市韧性的重要支撑。城市公园绿地通过提供多种生态系统服 务功能来增强城市的可持续性和韧性。对城市公园绿地韧性的 测度研究是探索城市韧性研究的微观路径。从生态智慧研究中 获得启发，重新理解“社会生态系统韧性”“干扰”等含义， 尝试将“社会生态系统韧性”与“生态系统服务”理论进行关 联研究，通过生态系统服务来表征社会生态系统韧性的本质内 涵，基于生态系统服务供需匹配构建城市公园绿地韧性测度 的体系框架，并提出通过多情景规划的路径达到“供需动态匹 配”，进而实现城市韧性提升的目标。通过生态系统服务供需 匹配构建城市公园绿地韧性的测度体系，为城市韧性提供了一 种新的研究思路和方法途径。     

ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY WITH TWO REGIONS: CAPITAL ACCUMULATION AND ECONOMIC STRUCTURE*

This paper proposes a compact two-region economic model with endogenous capital accumulation. The system produces one industrial commodity and service. Each region consists of one industrial sector and one service sector. The model describes the interaction between capital accumulation, the regional distribution of capital and labour, the division of labour, the capital distribution within each region, land rents, regional service prices and commodity prices over time and space. Accepting some simplifying assumptions, we show a way to integrate economic geography. equilibrium theory and neo-classical growth theory. We analyse how differences in regional resources such as land and amenities and the preference structure of the population may affect the equilibrium structure of economic geography.     

Drivers of Forest Ecosystem Change in Purnapani Area: Empirical Evidence and Policy Suggestions

Purnapani area of Sundargarh district of Indian state of Odisha was primarily dominated by tribal people with natural forest ecosystems. The local tribal people were mostly depending upon forest and agriculture for their livelihood. During 1958 Purnapani Limestone and Dolomite Quarry (PL&DQ) started mining of lime stone and dolomite in the area. The total land contributed by Purnapani villagers for mining, township and railway line construction was 569.64 acres. In 2003, the mines were closed and about 2000 mine workers lost their livelihood. During the last 50–60 years, unsustainable mining activities and then their abandonment have degraded the forest ecosystem and livelihood resource base of local communities in the Purnapani area. Thus in order to identify the major drivers of degraded forest ecosystems we have conducted primary surveys in Purnapani area. Using regression analyses we find that both mining activities and passenger transport services are the drivers of population growth in Purnapani area. Livelihood of local tribal people is being positively impacted by mining activity and passenger transport services operating from Purnapani area. Fuel wood consumption increases over time due to population growth which put great pressure on forest ecosystems to change. Both mineral production and population size have impacted human well-being negatively by positively impacting health expenditure. The amount of decline of community welfare in terms of net present value derived by the communities from extraction of forest resources is due to mine spoiled degraded forest ecosystem services. From our analysis we recommend that large-scale ecological restoration is necessary to protect the environment and to restore the resilience of ecosystem services in this area.

     

Pricing the ecosystem and taxing ecosystem services: A general equilibrium approach

In an integrated dynamic general equilibrium model of the economy and the ecosystem humans and other species compete for land and prey biomass. Each submodel exhibits a price-driven competitive allocation mechanism, and the endogenously determined habitat is either openly accessible or privately owned. In both scenarios specific corrective taxes or subsidies are needed to internalize ecosystem externalities. An open access habitat causes additional inefficiencies through diverging prices for biomass and land in both subsystems. Values of all ecosystem components are determined in an efficient steady state clarifying the role and the interplay of ecosystem prices and economic prices.     

金融产业生态系统的生态承载力研究

借鉴生态系统的有关理论,提出了金融产业生态系统的生态承载力概念,界定了其时空、技术和社会经济内涵,分析了其演化的客观性、整体性和动态稳定性特征.重点分析了金融产业生态系统生态承载力的控制因素:经济金融资源承载力、产业生态环境承载力和系统生态弹性力.认为金融产业生态系统要可持续发展就必须考虑系统的生态承载力.     

基于LUCC的南昌市生态资产价值演变及生态经济协调性研究

生态资产是经济社会发展过程中复合生态系统功能的价值表征,也是判断土地利用结构合理性的重要依据。论文通过GIS地理空间方法解析南昌市2008年、2013年、2018年的Landsat TM影像获得土地利用数据,利用相关模型分析南昌市土地利用幅度、速度、强度和生态资产价值的变化情况,并测算生态环境与经济发展的协调水平。结果表明:南昌市土地利用类型以耕地为主;生态资产价值主要源于耕地、林地和水域,但草地质量的下降、林地面积的缩减和建设用地的快速扩张使得生态资产价值下降了2.45%;并且生态环境与经济发展协调水平较低,生态环境在经济发展过程中承受了较大压力,从而提出要合理调整土地利用结构、注重生态经济协同发展,并建立绿色长远发展的生态保护屏障等政策建议。     

基于生态系统服务价值的区域土地整理生态效益评价——以南京市为例

以Costanza等提出的生态系统服务价值理论为基础,建立了区域土地整理生态效益经济评价模型,并以南京市土地整理为例,评价了南京市土地整理项目实施取得的生态系统服务价值。结果显示:土地整理引起了土地利用结构变化,也必然引起区域土地生态服务价值的变化,而这种变化可能是正向的,也可能是逆向的。合理开发利用各类土地资源,适当增加和保护生态服务价值高的地类,补充一定生态用地,应成为当前土地整理过程中重要的内容。     

Optimal growth and land preservation

A model of optimal economic growth with a constant population subject to a constraint on the availability of land is presented. It takes account of the dual character of land as a production factor and as a consumption good (environmental amenities) by determining the optimal intertemporal allocation of land between productive and recreational uses. An extension of the analysis for the case of a growing population with endogenous growth based on human capital accumulation shows that if the rate of discount is not very low, then there exists a set of balanced growth paths compatible with a constant allocation of land.     

基于PSR模型的城市化与产业生态化耦合发展研究

PSR模型用于分析环境压力、现状与响应之间的关系。城市化与产业生态化之间有着密切关系。城市化的经济城市化、人口城市化、空间城市化和社会城市化四个方面与产业生态化的产业化水平、生态环境水平、生态环境压力、生态抗逆能力、生态效率五个基本要素及政府、企业、居民等社会主体构成城市化与产业生态化耦合发展的PSR框架。