Identifying the internal structure evolution of urban built-up land sprawl (UBLS) from a composite structure perspective: A case study of the Beijing metropolitan area,China

Differences in the internal composite structure during urban built-up land sprawl (UBLS) will generate different effects, and thus, a city’s spatial structure has important bearings on urban sustainability. This study investigates the spatial and temporal characteristics of the internal structure and allocation relationship of UBLS using multivariate spatial correlation and the Weaver-Tomas composite coefficient based on site data of granted built-up land parcels. Moreover, the composite structure evolution process of UBLS and its driving mechanism are examined in this study. The results reveal that the amount structure of the three types of UBLS (i.e. industrial land sprawl, residential land sprawl and commercial land sprawl) tended to be balanced during the study period. Following the transformation and upgrade of the urban industry structure, the overall composite structure of UBLS ranged from single residential land-use structure (Res.) to industrial-residential land-use structure (Ind.-Res.) In the early period of land marketization, the marketization land granting mechanism caused low spatial correlation between the various types of UBLS and a single composite structure, i.e. Res., single commercial land-use structure (Com.), and residential-commercial land-use structure (Res.-Com.). Subsequently, a dual-driving force including the market economy and government interventions caused a relatively high degree of spatial correlation and a multiple composite structure, i.e. Ind.-Res. and industrial-residential-commercial land-use structure (Ind.-Res.-Com.). However, the evolution characteristics of the composite structure in various regions illustrate some problems, such as the spatial isomorphism phenomenon of the composite structure and the dislocation of urban built-up land allocation. The urban internal built-up land spatial layout pattern is the embodiment of two dominant driving forces, the market and the government, interacting with each other according to natural and socioeconomic conditions. Therefore, we suggest that it is necessary to reform the future urban built-up land granting mechanism based on market guidance, and the composite structure of UBLS should be adjusted according to the regional function. The government should reinforce the macro-control of land-use planning for the dispersed granted land parcels so as to optimize the urban land-use structure.     

The impact of temporary uses on property prices: the example of food trucks

Food trucks represent a temporary use of vacant or underutilised land. They have been assumed to increase the livability, vibrancy and attractiveness of a neighbourhood. However, no previous study has investigated whether this effect is reflected in property prices within the surrounding neighbourhood. We investigate the impact of a food truck pod on the values of single-family homes nearby. Using a quasi-experimental design, transaction data from Portland, Oregon and a difference-in-difference specification of a spatial regression model, we find that food trucks actually represent a negative externality, and that proximity of a home to food trucks is penalised by homebuyers. The closer a home is to the food trucks, the lower is the sales price. Explanations for this effect include increased parking shortages and trash issues in a neighbourhood due to food truck visitors.     

试论强化我国地理标志的法律保护——以法国香槟酒行业委员会与商标评审委员会商标争议纠纷为引

随着经济的发展,人们越来越重视地理标志在市场竞争中的作用。各国均在法律层面对地理标志予以保护,并采用不同的立法模式。我国表现为结合运用《商标法》和《地理标志产品保护规定》来保护地理标志。但从实践来看,此种方式尚存在缺陷。在最新修订的《商标法》中也没有提出将地理标志区分于其他标志而给予针对性的规定。为了进一步发挥其在国际竞争中的经济价值,我国应当给予地理标志更大力度的保护。     

Exploring under-utilised low carbon land resources from multiple perspectives: Case studies on regencies in Kalimantan

Mobilising under-utilised low carbon (ULC) land resources for future agricultural production can help reducing pressure on high carbon stock land from agricultural expansion, particularly for deforestation hotspots like Kalimantan. However, the potential of ULC land is not yet well understood, especially at regency level which is the key authority for land-use planning in Indonesia. Therefore, this study explored ULC land resources for all regencies in Kalimantan. By analysing information from six monitoring domains, a range of indicators were derived to provide insights into the physical area of ULC land from various perspectives. It was found that these indicators show largely different values at regency level. For example, regency Pulang Pisau has a substantial area of ‘temporarily unused agricultural land’ but a very limited area of ‘low carbon land’ – this implies that not all ‘temporarily unused agricultural land’ is ready for future exploitation when assessing from different aspects. As a result of such diverging indicators, using a single indicator to quantify available ULC land resources is risky as it can either be an over- or under-estimation. Thus, ULC land resources were further explored in the present paper by taking four regencies as case studies and comparing all the indicators, supported with relevant literature and evidence collected from narrative interviews. This information was used to estimate ULC land area by possible land-use strategies. For example, Gunung Mas was found to have a large area of low carbon land which is not occupied and might be suitable for oil palm deployment. However, the major limitation is that physical estimates cannot provide a complete picture of ‘real’ land availability without considering a broader range of socio-economic factors (e.g. labour availability). Therefore, physical land area indicators from different domains must be combined with other qualitative and quantitative information especially the socio-economic factors underlying land under-utilisation to obtain better estimates.     

Is there decentralization in North Korea? Evidence and lessons from the sloping land management program 2004–2014

In the 1990s, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) suffered from severe food shortages and large-scale deforestation, which triggered a stage of rural conservation reform. Since 2004, with support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), North Korea’s Ministry of Land and Environmental Protection (MoLEP) has implemented a Sloping Land Management Program (SLMP). The SLMP established sloping land user groups and granted these groups the right to use marginal land for agroforestry development. This devolution of land rights from state control onto local groups is a landmark in North Korea, and this decentralization initiative has now expanded to over eight counties to involve thousands of households. It has also led to the launch of a National Agroforestry Policy and Strategy. Drawing from both qualitative and quantitative data collected from 2008 to 2014, this paper documents the process and effects of the SLMP. It argues that the decentralization reform in land management has contributed to not only food security with increased food crop diversity and productivity, but also notably forest recovery through an expansion of tree plantations and agroforestry practices on degraded sloping lands. However, an insufficient power transfer in the form of a lack of timber rights granted to the local user groups has hampered the effectiveness of the SLMP. There are also institutional and geopolitical challenges that are limiting further scaling-up of land-use decentralization across the country. The policy implication calls for more international investment as well as national land-use policy reforms in order to promote and facilitate further decentralization of sloping land management and to secure greater use rights for sloping land user groups.     

Industrial land price between China’s Pearl River Delta and Southeast Asian regions: Competition or Coopetition?

The planned economy system’s previous form of industrial land market control in China has led to current market failure because of a large amount of industrial land being sold at a very low price, causing extensive overuse of land and negative effects on land management. As the “World Factory”, the Pearl River Delta (PRD) is well known for its rapid urbanization largely driven by Foreign Direct Investment in labor-intensive industries. A low-land price strategy has been commonly adopted by the local government in order to attract industrial investment. In the past decade, the PRD has increasingly faced the increasing competition from its neighboring competition from its neighboring countries in Southeast Asia that have established preference policies to attract FDI and foreign enterprises. Despite a growing body of literature on the internal forces of industrial land in China, little is known of the external forces involved except for the importance of FDI and the intensity of interregional competition between China and other countries in attempting to attract foreign investment. This research fills the knowledge gap by modeling the situation in the form of an international cooperative game model aimed at revealing the industrial land price formation mechanism between the PRD region and Southeast Asian regions. The conditions of industrial land in the area and several Southeast Asian countries are first analyzed for their industrial land price movements in recent years. A game theoretic model is then built that exhibits similar characteristics. The result indicates that the governments’ low land price strategy and the competition between the PRD and its neighboring countries have created unnecessarily high social and environmental costs. Policy suggestions are made to encourage a more appropriate use of industrial land in China, and the most important being the need for a mindset shift from competition towards coopetition between the PRD and Southeast Asian regions.     

Theoretical analysis and model design of search for ecological conservation redlines based on the sensitivity assessment of ecosystem services

Most small-scale social economies are characterised by their deficiency, lack, and/or difficulty in matching natural data. Against this backdrop, this paper builds a relatively uniform theoretical framework and designs a more economical and objective method for demarcating ecological conservation redlines (ECR) based on sensitivity assessment of ecosystem services. The results show that the sensitivity assessment model designed in this study can identify sensitive zones effectively, and that the ECR in Hubei Province are well within the sensitive zones so identified. The delimited areas based on the sensitive assessment of ecosystem services have great similarities (95%) with the actual ECR areas in Hubei Province. The most ecologically important functional zones (EIFZ) can also be identified using the regional ecological sensitivity coefficient. When the threshold of EIFZ is set higher, the probability that it falls within the ecologically sensitive areas is greater and the ECR delimited by the method proposed in this study will be more reliable. Theoretically, the delimitation of ECR can be inserted at any evaluation level with a grid resolution higher than that of the land use data, which can be used as a supplement to the ECR delimitation method in ecology or geography.     

The influence of risk preferences,knowledge, land consolidation,and landscape diversification on pesticide use

Researchers have spent substantial effort to identify factors influencing pesticide use intensity. However, few studies have compared the relative importance of these factors. This study examines four categories of factors that potentially influence farmers’ pesticide use decisions by evaluating incentivized experiment data, farm survey data, and remote sensing data in China. Our results suggest that land diversification has the largest effect on farmers’ pesticide use. Compared with the most rice-intensive landscape type, less rice-intensive systems cause farmers to spray less on middle rice. Heavy pesticide use intensity is associated with land fragmentation as small-scale farms still dominate crop production. Farmers’ integrated pest management knowledge has significant effects on pesticide use. We also find that loss and ambiguity preferences, rather than risk preferences, are more likely to affect pesticide use intensity.     

基于结构方程模型的集聚农户共生认知及影响因素分析:以重庆市为例

研究目的:探讨对集聚农户共生、集聚区土地利用率提高的影响因素,为提升农户共生的认知水平、优化农户共生关系及促进资源的节约集约利用提供有效路径及理论指导。研究方法:参与式农户调查,结构方程模型。研究结果:(1)户主自身特征、农户家庭特征、集聚共生效益特征及外部环境与政策特征这4类外源潜变量对农户共生认知产生重要影响且影响程度大小不同,其中,集聚共生效益特征的影响最为显著,外部环境与政策特征、户主自身特征和农户家庭特征的影响依次减弱;(2)是否为干部、对原集聚模式的满意度、是否促进农户生产生活条件和政府对集聚区的补贴力度分别对这4类外源潜变量具有较好的解释能力。研究结论:显化农户共生效益、增强"精英"农户及村干部的正向引导、提升农户成员受教育水平、培养农户"共生共荣"理念等是深化农户共生关系,促进和谐乡村人居环境建设的重要路径。