The regional system of villages and towns is an important part of national territorial development. The construction of villages and towns is of great significance for coordinated urban and rural development and adjusting regional human-land relationship. The construction of villages and towns mainly involves housing, industry, infrastructure, and ecological environment, which not only is the basis of production and livelihoods of rural communities but also reflects the development level of villages and towns and the quality of life of their residents. This article first reviewed the main types of village and town construction in Western Europe (Germany and the United Kingdom) and East Asia (Japan and South Korea) and the functional evolution of villages and towns after World War II. It then summarized the development of government policies, plans, and regulations for rural governance in terms of regional systems, industrial development, and residents’ livelihood to coordinate rural development and local resources and environment. It also explored the interactive effects between resource and environmental conditions and rural development, that is, the impact of rural development on the change of resource and environmental quality, and the feedback of resource and environmental degradation on rural livelihoods and governments’ plans and practices. Based on this literature and policy review, we comparatively analyzed the stages of rural construction, major resource and environmental issues, and corresponding urban and rural development policies in the process of rapid urbanization in China. From the perspective of international comparison, the characteristics of China’s village and town construction were summarized with respect to regional rural systems and the types of rural development. Finally, this article proposed some policy implications on how to improve the coordinated relationship between rural construction and resources and environmental protection and utilization to promote sustainable regional rural development.
With the rapid industrialization and urbanization, many villages and towns in China have experienced the phenomenon of “five problems” (non-agriculturalization of the economy, population ageing, rural settlement decay, rural environment pollution, and rural poverty), which has become a major constrain to the construction of a well-off society in China. For this reason, it is urgent to establish the theoretical foundations and a measurement system for evaluating resource and environmental carrying capacity of villages and towns. The evaluation will help village and town development to adapt to local conditions, make full use of local water and soil resources and environmental and ecological advantages, revitalize the rural economy, improve the village living environment, and enhance residents’ happiness. This article first reviewed the research context, application domains, and scale characteristics of carrying capacity. Taking the regional system of villages and towns as the research object, the concept of the carrying capacity of resources and environment in villages and towns was defined from a comprehensive and regional perspective. We also analyzed the connotation and extension of the resource and environmental carrying capacity of villages and towns. Based on the summary of different types of village and town development, the mutual feedback relationship between different types of village and town development and resources and environmental factors was analyzed, and the mechanism of influence of village and town resource and environmental carrying capacity was discussed. Finally, through the construction of an index system and a system model, the “shortcoming principle” was used to build the theoretical model of the measurement system for the resource and environmental carrying capacity of villages and towns. This study extends the theoretical system and assessment methods of carrying capacity of resources and the environment at the village and town level, and it also has some theoretical and practical significance for the program of rural revitalization in contemporary China.
The research of resources and environmental carrying capacity is an important basic work in China’s national land use planning and rural revitalization planning. Current research on resources and environmental carrying capacity remains at large regional scale, and the evaluation of carrying capacity for villages and towns is relatively uncommon. Based on a summary of previous research, this study explored the evaluation method of resources and environmental carrying capacity for villages and towns at the county scale on the basis of the “dual evaluation” technical guideline of the National Land and Spatial Planning published by the Ministry of Natural Resources. Yongfeng County of Jiangxi Province, which is located in the hilly area south of the Yangtze River, with a total population of 44×104 in 2017, was taken as an example. Based on the preliminary evaluation of the characteristics of the village and town development in Yongfeng County and the resources and environmental constraints, the index system for determining the unsuitable areas for cropping and village and town development with land, geological hazards, and ecology as the main limiting factors was established, and administrative villages were classified. Appropriate types of village and town development for village units and optimal population size of the county were determined under two scenarios of high development intensity and average development intensity. The results of the study show that the areas unsuitable for cropping and village and town development in Yongfeng County were 1797.77 km2and 1838.68 km2, respectively, which is 1838.94 km2 excluding the overlapping area, accounting for 67.81% of the county area. According to the unsuitable area, current population, and village and town development level, the 216 administrative villages in the county can be divided into four major categories: ecological protection key villages, cropping development key villages, central key villages, and other villages. Under the scenarios of local high development intensity and average development intensity, the largest population that the county’s arable land and planting industry can support will be 135.38×104 and 140.10×104, respectively. Assuming 100 m2, 140 m2, and 200 m2 per capita construction land, under the high-intensity development scenario, the number of population that can be supported by villages and towns in the county will be 84.05×104, 60.04×104, and 42.03×104 respectively; under the average development intensity scenario, the population size will be 54.61×104, 39.01×104, and 27.31×104 respectively. The results of this research can provide a case for the current “dual evaluation” technical guideline, and provide a reference for the implementation of rural revitalization and village and town planning in Yongfeng County.
Under the premise of ensuring the security of national agricultural product supply, the main agricultural production areas in China need moderate development and necessary village and town construction activities, and the resources and environment carrying capacity provides good support for their sustainable development. Taking Linze County of Gansu Province as an example, this study developed a set of approaches and methods suitable for the evaluation of the carrying capacity of resources and environment for the construction of villages and towns in the main agricultural production areas, to provide a scientific basis for the development of the main functions of villages and towns. The results suggest that: (1) The evaluation of the carrying capacity of rural construction resources and environment in main agricultural production areas needs to construct an indicator system from two dimensions: the demand impact of rural construction activities on resources and environment and the carrying capacity feedback of resources and environment on rural construction activities. We should focus on the carrying capacity of cultivated land resources and water resources and the carrying capacity of cultivated land environment, water environment, and ecological environment. (2) The overall carrying capacity of resources in Linze County is larger than that of the environment, and the comprehensive carrying capacity shows a spatial pattern of generally higher in the south and lower in the north. There is a serious polarization in the state of pressure. The cultivated land resources are mainly in surplus, and the water resources and the environment are mainly overloaded. (3) The carrying capacity of resources and environment and the spatial differentiation of pressure state in the construction of villages and towns are determined by the local resources and environment, the intensity of development demand, and the strength of governance. The key to improve the carrying capacity of resources and environment is to give full play to the moderating capacity of governance structures, change the mode of economic development, improve the efficiency of resource utilization, and strengthen the remediation of the ecological environment.
Rural ecological industrialization is an important approach to promote the healthy interaction of ecological construction and industrial development, which could advance the sustainable development of regional rural systems in the new era. China’ Loess Hilly-Gully region is a typical geomorphic unit of the Loess Plateau locating in the middle reaches of the Yellow river, regional eco-environment was fragile and conflict of the rural human-land relationship was prominent. The Grain-for-Green Project significantly improved the ecological functions, but rural issues were still prominent, including weak agricultural foundation, the increase of water-soil constrains, and relatively low production efficiency. Therefore, it is urgent to promote ecological industrialization for improving rural production and living functions. From the perspective of ecological resource value proliferation, this study analyzed the mechanism of rural ecological industrialization in the Loess Hilly-Gully region. Meanwhile, the typical patterns and its sustainable approaches were explored according to the existing practices after the Gully Land Consolidation Project in Yan’an City. The results indicate that: (1) Rural ecological industrialization should be based on regional rural system, and follow the law of evolution, the mechanism of system coupling, and the principle of value transformation. The key processes are as follows: cultivation of ecological resources by geographical engineering, asset management of ecological resources by establishing ecological property rights system, capitalization of ecological assets through asset circulation, stakeholder development and industrial integration, and the marketization of ecological products and services through improving the ecological market trading mechanism. (2) Some villages in Yan’an City realized ecological resources cultivation relying on the Gully Land Consolidation Project, explored the path of resources translating to assets, then turning to capitals and finally converting to funds. Three typical patterns of ecological industrialization have gradually formed: efficient planting-breeding, leisure agriculture, and integration of multiple factors. (3) In the future, weaknesses in the industrialization process could be overcome by geographical engineering effect maintenance, property rights system development, rural talents cultivation, social forces participation, and dynamic evaluation mechanism development. The above approaches would effectively advance the organic integration of rural production, living, and ecological functions, and achieve the aims of rural revitalization of thriving businesses, pleasant living environments, and prosperity.
Rural ecological transformation aims at realizing the economic values of ecological resources while protecting resources and the environment, so as to achieve the win-win situation of ecological environment protection and economic development. This article reviewed different paths of rural restructuring and their negative and positive impacts on the ecological environment and economic development since the reform and opening-up, namely rural industrialization, urbanization, and rural non-agricultural transformation. On this basis, we point out that rural ecological transformation is an inevitable choice to realize rural revitalization and sustainable development for agricultural villages that are located in major ecological function areas. This is a joint result of external factors such as the turn of recognition of rural functions and ecological civilization construction, and internal factors such as rich ecological resources in the rural areas and rural population’s needs for development. On the one hand, the functions of agricultural production and ecological protection are getting increasingly more important in rural regions, and on the other hand, natural capital is increasingly scarce. Therefore, the natural resources and ecological environment in rural areas can become the unique advantages for rural transformation and development. Based on the theory of Ecological Modernization and the characteristics of ecological economic development, this article discussed the possible paths of rural ecological transformation from the perspectives of factor inputs and key participants. We put forward that the essential factors for rural ecological transformation is knowledge instead of capital. Taking into consideration the characteristics of behaviors of the government, community, and other stakeholders in receiving and applying knowledge, this article suggested that it is more suitable for the rural community to participate in knowledge input. Finally, this study took the practice of ecological transformation in Chenzhuang Village of Jiangsu Province as an example to analyze the strategies of knowledge input and community participation in rural ecological transformation and their effects. The result of this study may help deepen the theoretical understanding of the necessity and paths of rural ecological transformation and provide some practical experiences for the ecological development of rural areas.
The implantation of rural ecological innovation technology plays an important role in promoting the sustainable development of rural areas in China and realizing rural revitalization. This article drew on the innovation system theory, took Chenzhuang natural agricultural technology implantation in Jurong City, Jiangsu Province as a case, and combined the interactive relationship between innovation subjects and innovation elements to build an analytical framework for the local implantation of rural ecological innovation technology. The general obstacles and paths of the local implantation of rural ecological innovation technology were analyzed in three aspects: stakeholders, technology supplier, and institutional environment. We collected and analyzed a large number of ecological innovation data in the case area by tracking the rural transformation development and operation experiments carried out in the area in the recent five years, combined with participatory observation, interview of farming households, and questionnaire survey. The study concludes that: (1) On the demand side, that is, the farming households, low level of social trust and the lack of knowledge and skills prevailed. On the supply side, the lack of effective supply of ecological innovation technology and poor local adaptability of technologies were clear. A suitable institutional environment and a healthy ecological product market system were also absent. These three factors were mutually reinforcing, and together constitute a closed loop of obstacles to local implantation of natural agricultural technologies; (2) To break the barriers to local implantation of ecological innovation technologies, effective approaches include community participation and trust building, strengthening cooperation between technical experts and farmers, and establishing an urban-rural relationship market and driving technology implantation by market benefits; (3) “Local” plays an important role in the development process of rural ecological innovation. For example, local resource endowments, rural residents’ own situation, and urban-rural locational relationship all play important roles in different stages of rural ecological innovation technology implantation.
Examining the change of rural settlement land scale and its influencing factors is of great theoretical and practical significance for optimizing the spatial pattern of rural settlements and implementing the national strategy of rural revitalization. In this study, the spatial distribution and scale of rural settlement land in the Loess Plateau between 1990 and 2015 were examined using the rank-size analysis, kernel density analysis, and geographical detector and the ArcGIS10.2 software. The influencing factors and driving mechanism of rural settlement land scale pattern are revealed. The results show that: (1) Since 1990, the number of rural settlement patches and the scale of land use in the Loess Plateau have shown an overall increasing trend, of which the number of rural settlement patches increased most obviously from 2000 to 2005, and the scale of land use expanded most obviously from 2005 to 2010. (2) The scale of rural settlements in the Loess Plateau is in a stage of unbalanced development, and the spatial distribution of rural settlements shows clear historical inheritance, which is manifested in overall expansion and local filling. (3) The formation of rural settlement land scale pattern in the Loess Plateau is affected by multiple factors. Topographic relief, annual average temperature, and annual average precipitation are the main natural forces, and per capita grain output, total population, and the proportion of rural population are the key human driving forces. The influence of any combination of two factors on the regional difference of rural settlement land scale is stronger than that of a single factor. (4) The interaction of various factors has significant influence on the scale pattern of rural settlement in the Loess Plateau. The interaction of natural geographical factors and socioeconomic factors has the most extensive influence on the scale pattern of rural settlement land in the gully region, the rocky mountain area, and the aeolian sand area of the Loess Plateau. The interaction between socioeconomic factors has obvious synergistic effect on the scale pattern of rural settlement land in the hilly and gully areas of the Loess Plateau and in valley plain areas. Grain production and location have an obvious synergistic effect on the scale pattern of rural settlement land in the irrigation agricultural areas.
Expanding the new space for marine aquaculture and carrying out deep-sea aquaculture is of great significance for the improvement of China’s offshore ecological environment, the guarantee of food security, the effective use of marine resources, and marine sovereignty. In this study, 180 mariculture species (120 species of fish and 60 species of bivalves) were analyzed. Through the comparison of the temperature tolerance range of each species and the sea surface temperature range of the study area, the species-to-geographical area matching was achieved. Then the average GPI (growth performance index) values of fish and bivalves at various locations in the sea area were obtained. By further restricting on conditions such as offshore distance and depth based on threshold distance, the potential of deep-sea aquaculture in China was quantitative analyzed. The results are that in the areas where the evaluation conditions are met: (1) For fish, the suitable areas for the Bohai and Yellow Sea (BYS), East China Sea (ECS), and South China Sea (SCS) are 19.98, 76.29, and 81.69 104 km2; for bivalves, the suitable areas of the Bohai and Yellow Sea, East China Sea, and South China Sea are 3.02, 4.17, and 2.03 104 km2 respectively. (2) With regard to different sea areas, fish aquaculture can be given priority in the East China Sea and South China Sea; however, the potential value of fish aquaculture in the Bohai and Yellow Sea is the largest, and fish aquaculture in the later stage needs to be more carefully planned and sited to select areas with large potential values as much as possible; bivalve aquaculture can give priority to the South China Sea. (3) With regard to different depths: fish can be preferentially considered for deeper sea areas; and bivalves are suitable for breeding in offshore areas that are closer to the shore and shallower in depth. According to the evaluation results of breeding potential, sea spatial planning can be carried out to provide some reference for management departments and aquaculture enterprises.
When responding to contingent valuation method (CVM) valuation questions, some respondents may show uncertainty in their willingness to pay (WTP) because of the lack of cognition of the goods to be estimated, which will cause uncertainty bias. This study took the valuation of marine biodiversity in Pingtan County, Fujian Province as an example, to identify and correct the uncertainty bias by adding follow-up questions and incorporate uncertainty into the framework of WTP estimation, which will reduce the bias and improve the validity of CVM. The results show that about 50% of the respondents were uncertain of their willingness to pay, which means that the uncertainty could be universal. Years of residency in the area, knowledge of marine biodiversity, and income had significant effects on the uncertainty. Incorporating uncertainty into the estimation of WTP, the parameter estimation results show that the estimated WTP to preserve marine biodiversity was RMB 200.24 yuan per person each year and the value of marine biodiversity in Pingtan was RMB 88.89 million yuan per year. The conclusion may deepen the understanding of the sources as well as the correction methods of uncertainty bias, and thus improve the validity of estimation results in CVM and provide data support for the protection and governance of marine biodiversity in island ecosystems.
Exploring the impact of different environmental regulatory tools on technological innovation and path selection of enterprises is of great significance for China. Based on the panel data of industrial enterprises above the designated scale in 30 provinces from 2013 to 2017, this study divided technological innovation into internal independent R&D and external introduction, and used fixed effect regression to examine the impact of different environmental regulatory tools on technological innovation of industrial enterprises. The results show that: The two types of environmental regulatory tools have played different roles in promoting the expenditure on R&D, and showed a trend of change over time, which partly verifies the “weak” version of porter’s hypothesis. From 2013 to 2015, command-and-control tools did not play a significant role in promoting the R&D expenditure, but they did play a significant role in promoting the R&D expenditure under the impetus of a new round of “environmental protection storm” in 2016 to 2017. Since 2013, market incentives had significantly promoted the internal expenditure, external introduction, and total expenditure on R&D, and the impact showed a decreasing trend. Meanwhile, their promoting effect on the internal expenditure on R&D was greater than that on the external expenditure. Carbon trading market had played a promoting role in the R&D of industrial enterprises, which is mainly reflected in the external introduction. Spatially, the results of the eastern and central regions are relatively consistent and robust with the results of the whole country. The results in western China are consistent with the “narrow” version of porter’s hypothesis. It was found that market-driven environmental policy tools had more innovative incentives for industrial enterprises in western China than command-and-control environmental regulations. This study innovatively introduces renewable energy generation subsidies and carbon trading market into the environmental regulation. In refining the mechanism of Porter hypothesis, it provides a scientific basis for the state to further optimize the environmental policy system in order to stimulate the technological innovation of industrial enterprises.
Timberland is an important alternative investment class selected by international investors. Timberland ownership structure and its associated management modes are important to timberland investment and portfolio performance. We reviewed the evolvement of timberland property rights and structure in typical European and North American countries and summarized different investors and management styles of timberland under different ownership regimes. We found that: (1) Most timberlands in European countries (for example, Sweden) and the United States are privately owned, whereas most timberlands in Canada are publicly owned. Private property rights were triggered by market speculations and landowners’ appeals while administrative public property rights still have a significant position in Canada and other countries. (2) Corporate models represented by Timberland Investment Management Organizations (TIMOs) and Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), and industry associations such as Forest Landowners Association are typical management organizational modes of private timberland. The TIMOs and REITs have promoted the worldwide development of timberland investment. Management of public timberland takes forestry bureaus as the main body, and its operation depends on provincial forestry bureaus’ administrative coordination ability to realize the sustainable management of timberland. (3) Timberland in European and North American countries shows a tendency of private fragmentation and institutional concentration. The separation of timberland ownership from its management rights is obvious. Traditional forest products companies have shifted from owning timberland to divesting timberland while public timberland management has shifted from a single administrative perspective to a comprehensive multi-functional management. Furthermore, forest certification pays a close attention to timberland investment needs in addition to traditional ecological capacity assessment. At the end of this article, we provided some suggestions for accelerating the marketization of China’s timberland assets based on timberland investment within China and the changing trend of European and American countries, including improving internal governance structure of timberland property rights, cultivating forestry management subjects of appropriate scales, promoting the marketization process of forest certification, and developing constrained forestry public private partnership investment return mechanism.
As an essential stakeholder of environmental resource, the public has become the third force that assists in promoting environmental governance together with local governments and polluting enterprises. Considering the advantages of public participation in solving the problem of information asymmetry and improving the supervisory role of public opinion, this study expounded the theoretical logics and paths of exercising public participation in environmental management. Then, we divided public participation into complaints that focus on back-end management and suggestions that focus on front-end management, and constructed an inter-provincial balance panel data set of China from 2011 to 2015 to evaluate the effect of public participation in environmental management. The results indicated that: (1) In the ternary environmental management system consisting of local governments, enterprises, and the public, on the one hand, public participation relied on government environmental enforcement to force polluting enterprises to internalize external costs, and thus indirectly take part in local environmental management. On the other hand, its deterrent effect on polluting enterprises could also produce similar effect as government environmental enforcement, to promote environmental management directly. (2) The two types of public participation showed heterogeneous environmental management effects. Public participation’s effect in promoting environmental management was mainly reflected in complaints as a representative of back-end management, while the effect of suggestions as a representative of front-end management did not pass the significance test. (3) Public participation’s effect in promoting environmental management was further enhanced after adopting instrumental variables to alleviate the endogeneity problem. This study also found that residents’ average education level had a significant positive effect on public participation. At last, some suggestions were offered to expand the level of public participation in environmental management.
On the basis of theoretical analysis, this study empirically analyzed the spatial-temporal characteristics of the coupling relationship of urban-rural coordinated development and rural poverty governance in China by using national time series data and provincial cross-sectional data. The results show that: (1) From 2000 to 2017, the coupling coordination degree of urban-rural coordinated development and rural poverty governance was between 0.4928-0.6111, which has entered a relatively mature stage, has shown a slow increasing trend, and has been developing in the direction of benign interaction. (2) Spatially, the coupling coordination degree of 27 provinces in 2010, 2013, and 2017 showed a decreasing trend from east to northeast, central China, and west. During the study period, the coupling coordination degree of each province increased, but the increase was different among the regions. (3) According to the change of coupling coordination degree of urban-rural coordinated development and rural poverty governance from 2010 to 2017, 27 provinces in China can be divided into four grades: high growth, high- medium growth, medium growth, and low growth. Under the guidance of the goal of urban-rural integrated development, according to the coupling characteristics of each region, and combining with their own resources endowment conditions, regions of different coupling types should be adapted to local conditions, strive to achieve an all-round integrated development of urban and rural areas, focusing on the integration of urban and rural space, industrial development, social and public services, and cultural integration.
Defining the distance effect of rural residents’ willingness to participate in watershed ecological restoration is an important prerequisite for improving the accuracy of restoration benefits evaluation and fully understanding public demands. Taking 390 rural residents in the Shiyang River Basin as the research object and obtaining the ecological restoration willingness by means of the choice experiment method, the distance effect in different reaches of the river basin were tested by group estimation and by including the distance variables in the multinomial logit (MNL) model, respectively. The results show that: (1) The key areas of ecological restoration that are of concern to rural residents in different sections of the river basin differ, showing significant regional effects; (2) Different from the “distance decay” pattern found in previous studies, the willingness to participate in ecological restoration of the rural residents in the middle reaches of the Shiyang River Basin increased with the distance from the river bank and the reservoir, and the willingness to participate in ecological restoration of the downstream rural residents increased with the distance from the reservoir, showing the pattern of “distance increase.” Accordingly, we recommend that: (1) Incorporate the distance effect into the methodological system of benefits evaluation of ecological restoration projects to improve the accuracy of evaluation ; (2) The design of ecological restoration policies should give more consideration to public opinions and obtain public support; (3) The objects of ecological publicity and education can be further subdivided based on the distance effect. The purpose of this study is to provide a more targeted basis for the formulation of relevant policies on ecological restoration of inland river basins.
Under the background of socialized small-scale farming operation, the complexity of farming households’ willingness and behavior directly affects the diversity of farmland function supply. By summarizing the behavioral characteristics of socialized small-scale farmers and taking farming households’ response to the demand for agricultural land multi-functions as the intermediary factor, this study constructed a conceptual path analysis model, and used the structural equation (SEM) to fit the model to analyze the direct effects of farming household differentiation on the diversification of agricultural land function supply and its indirect effects through the intermediary factor as well, in order to explore the influences and paths. The empirical study of six research areas in Huangpi, Xinzhou, Ezhou, Jiangxia, Tongshan, and Caidian of Hubei Province showed that the differentiation of farmers has both direct and indirect negative effects on the diversification of farmland function supply. The more livelihood capital the farming households possess, the lower the diversity of farmland functions they supply. The direct negative effects of farmer differentiation on the diversification of farmland function supply mainly come from the substitution of some production factors caused by the externalization of agricultural production conditions under the trend of socialized small-scale farmers, such as the weakening of ecological function of agricultural land caused by the loss of high-quality labor force and the substitution between the elements of labor force and chemical fertilizer or pesticide; while the indirect negative effect are mainly from the mismatch of three types of production factors which means the input of the three types of factors has not reached incentive compatibility, thus affecting the output efficiency of agricultural land multi-functions. Therefore, we need to pay attention to the new connection and infiltration of production factors, and make them compatible with material elements. As far as our research areas are concerned, first, it is necessary to broaden the traditional way of agricultural land use, deepen farmers’ cognition of the external production conditions of agricultural land, and alleviate the dependence of farming households on external production conditions by means of social security and finance, so as to attract high-quality agricultural labor force to return; in addition, it is also necessary to improve the transfer of land rights and build an information exchange platform to promote the multi-functional utilization of agricultural land.
Urban land use efficiency is an important factor affecting the process of urbanization. Improving urban land use efficiency is of great significance for promoting coordinated regional development. However, how to differentially improve urban land use efficiency of different regions remains to be studied. Based on the theory of production factors, this study first analyzed the mechanism of the impact of urban production factor input on urban land use efficiency, and then used the data of 30 provinces (municipalities, autonomous regions) in China from 1996 to 2017 to empirically analyze the effect of capital, labor, and innovation input on urban land use efficiency, to explore the effects of differentiation in various stages of industrialization. The results show that: (1) The regression results of all samples indicate that capital input, labor input, and innovation input have a significant positive effect on urban land use efficiency. (2) The heterogeneous regression results of different industrialization stages indicate that in the early stage of industrialization, capital and labor inputs can significantly promote the improvement of urban land use efficiency; in the middle stage of industrialization, capital, labor, and innovation inputs can all significantly improved urban land use efficiency; in the later stage of industrialization, the impact of capital input on urban land use efficiency is negative, while the impact of labor and innovation inputs on urban land use efficiency is significantly positive. Therefore, at different stages of industrialization, the factors that affect the efficiency of urban land use and their intensity and direction are different. It is necessary to formulate differentiated policies to promote the improvement of urban land use efficiency in different industrialization stages.
Many studies have shown that land use and land cover change (LUCC) has played a key role in regional and global environmental change. It is important to have a historical LUCC database, especially high-resolution land cover database, to simulate the influence of LUCC on the climate and ecosystem. There exist several important historical databases of the global environment, but the accuracy of regional data should be reexamined. In this study, we extracted the archival data that are related to the cropland area in 1909 and 1944 for the Manas River Basin in Xinjiang. These data were subsequently revised and calibrated to estimate historical cropland areas. We reconstructed cropland change of the basin in the late Qing and Republican period. We divided the study area into 1 km × 1 km grids and allocated cropland area to these grids and built a high resolution dataset (at a 1 km × 1 km resolution). We analyzed the spatiotemporal variation characteristics of cropland, and reached the following conclusions: The cropland area of the Manas River Basin in 1909 was about 140.5 km2, and in 1944 it was about 241.7 km2. The cropland area average annual increase rate was about 2.9 km2 from 1909 to 1944. Limited by the natural environment and water resources, the cropland was mainly distributed on the plains in the middle and lower reaches of the river. The cropland covered about 19.9% of the Manas River Basin. The mean cropland fraction of the Manas River Basin in 1909 was about 0.2% and in 1944 it was about 0.4%. The maximum cropland fraction in 1909 was about 6.4% and in 1944 it was about 11.0%. Compared with HYDE3.2 (cropland 1910 AD and cropland 1940 AD), the cropland area from HYDE is higher than the reconstruction results.
