Comparison of typical mega cities in China using emergy synthesis

An emergy-based comparison analysis is conducted for three typical mega cities in China, i.e., Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, from 1990 to 2005 in four perspectives including emergy intensity, resource structure, environmental pressure and resource use efficiency. A new index of non-renewable emergy/money ratio is established to indicate the utilization efficiency of the non-renewable resources. The results show that for the three mega urban systems, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, the total emergy inputs were 3.76E+23, 3.54E+23, 2.52E+23 sej in 2005, of which 64.88%, 91.45% and 72.28% were imported from the outsides, respectively. As to the indicators of emergy intensity involving the total emergy use, emergy density and emergy use per cap, three cities exhibited similar overall increase trends with annual fluctuations from 1990 to 2005. Shanghai achieved the highest level of economic development and non-renewable resource use efficiency, and meanwhile, lower proportion of renewable resource use and higher environmental pressure compared to those of Beijing and Guangzhou. Guangzhou has long term sustainability considering an amount of local renewable resources used, per capita emergy used, energy consumption per unit GDP and the ratio of waste to renewable emergy. It can be concluded that different emergy-based evaluation results arise from different geographical locations, resources endowments, industrial structures and urban orientations of the concerned mega cities.     

Emergy analysis of a farm biogas project in China: A biophysical perspective of agricultural ecological engineering

This paper aims to present a biophysical understanding of the agricultural ecological engineering by emergy analysis for a farm biogas project in China as a representative case. Accounting for the resource inputs into and accumulation within the project, as well as the outputs to the social system, emergy analysis provides an empirical study in the biophysical dimension of the agricultural ecological engineering. Economic benefits and ecological economic benefits of the farm biogas project indicated by market value and emergy monetary value are discussed, respectively. Relative emergy-based indices such as renewability (R%), emergy yield ratio (EYR), environmental load ratio (ELR) and environmental sustainability index (ESI) are calculated to evaluate the environmental load and local sustainability of the concerned biogas project. The results show that the farm biogas project has more reliance on the local renewable resources input, less environmental pressure and higher sustainability compared with other typical agricultural systems. In addition, holistic evaluation and its policy implications for better operation and management of the biogas project are presented.     

Emergy as embodied energy based assessment for local sustainability of a constructed wetland in Beijing

Ecological treatment engineering has been widely accepted as an artificially designed work to deal with the deteriorating ecological environment with low energy and resource consumption. To measure the energy and resource consumption and environmental support contained in the constructed wetland as a kind of ecological treatment engineering, emergy as embodied solar energy based assessment is performed and relative emergy-based indices including emergy yield ratio (EYR), emergy load ratio (ELR), emergy sustainability index (ESI), net economic benefit index (Np), and renewable percentage index (Pr), are also modified to evaluate the local sustainability of the constructed wetland in this paper. A case study on Longdao River constructed wetland compared with those of some earlier conventional treatment systems indicate that more local renewable resources and less ecological cost are involved, thus promoting the economic benefit due to less energy and resource consumption and simultaneously lowering the environmental stress of the treatment system on the local areas.     

Emergy-based ecological account for the Chinese economy in 2004

This paper provides an integrated study on the ecological account for the Chinese economy in 2004 based on emergy synthesis theory. The detailed flows of the Chinese economy is diagramed, accounted and analyzed in categories using the biophysically based ecological accounting. Through calculating environmental and economic inputs within and outside the Chinese economy, this paper discusses the Chinese international exchange, describes the resource structure, and assesses its sustainability as a whole. Also, the comparison of systematic indicators, such as emergy/dollar ratio, environmental load ratio, and emergy self-support ratio, with those of the other countries is tabled and explored to illustrate the general status of the Chinese economy in the world. Take, for example, the environmental load ratio, which was 9.29 in China 2004, it reveals that the Chinese economy put high pressure on the local environment compared with those of the environment-benign countries, such as Brazil (0.75), Australia (0.86) and New Zealand (0.81). In addition, in this paper, the accounting method of tourism is adjusted based on the previous researches.     

分权竞争、协同意愿与城市群建设:考虑公平偏好的委托代理解释

互惠合作机制缺失和信息不对称影响了地方政府的区域协调投入,不利于城市群建设和经济高质量发展。在委托代理模型中引入公平偏好的基础上,重点讨论协作意愿和信息条件对努力水平的影响。发现公平偏好和信息条件都对代理人的努力水平产生影响,且代理人之间的信息分布更重要。地方政府努力水平依赖于相邻城市的协同意愿,满足公平偏好中的“互惠”行为;且信息对称情形下的努力水平均高于不对称情形。改善信息分布和引导公平偏好,有利于提高地方政府的区域协同投入而改善整体产出水平。城市群建设和区域协调发展需要健全的协调机制,以增强不同区域地方政府的互信水平和互惠机制,降低、消除区域间信息不对称情形,通过互惠性合作和投入提升区域经济效率、促进经济高质量发展。     

Resources use and greenhouse gas emissions in urban economy: Ecological input–output modeling for Beijing 2002

The embodiment of natural resources and greenhouse gas emissions for the urban economy of Beijing economy 2002 by a physical balance modeling is carried out based on an extension of the economic input–output table into an ecological one integrating the economy with its various environmental driving forces. Included resources and greenhouse gas emissions belong to six categories as energy resources in terms of primary energy and secondary energy; water resource; emissions of CO₂, CH₄, and N₂O; exergy in terms of energy sources, biological resources and minerals; and solar emergy and cosmic emergy in terms of climate resources, soil, energy sources, and minerals.     

Ecological evaluation of Beijing economy based on emergy indices

An integrated ecological evaluation of the Beijing economy was presented in the paper based on the emergy accounting with the data in 2004. Through calculating environmental and economic inputs within and outside the Beijing economy, this paper discusses the Beijing’s resource structure, economic situation and trade status based on a series of emergy indicators. Through the comparison of the systematic indicators of Beijing with those of the selected Chinese cities, the general status of the Beijing economy in China is identified. The results also show that most indicators of Beijing are located at middle levels among the selected Chinese cities. Particularly, the environmental impacts, expressed by the ratio of waste to the renewable emergy, and the ratio of waste to the total emergy use, are 84.2 and 0.26, respectively in Beijing in 2004, which indicate that the Beijing economy is greatly reliant on the imported intensive fuels, goods and services with high empower density and environmental loading.     

Emergy-based energy and material metabolism of the Yellow River basin

The Yellow River basin is an opening ecosystem exchanging energy and materials with the surrounding environment. Based on emergy as embodied solar energy, the social energy and materials metabolism of the Yellow River basin is aggregated into emergetic equivalent to assess the level of resource depletion, environmental impact and local sustainability. A set of emergy indices are also established to manifest the ecological status of the total river basin ecosystem.     

Emergy-based urban ecosystem health assessment: A case study of Baotou,China

Ecosystem health has been a hot topic of ecosystem management research for years. Considering the urban area as a complex ecosystem consisted of natural, societal and economic entities, urban ecosystem health assessment is necessary to be conducted for the scientific management and proper ecological restoration. Combining with the ecosystem service function of the urban ecosystem, theoretical framework and methodology of the urban ecosystem health assessment based on emergy are proposed and the temporal variation of the health level of the city are also outlined in this paper. Following the principle of ecosystem health assessment, four major factors, including vigor (V), organizational structure (O), resilience (R) and function maintenance (F), are integrated to construct a novel emergy-based urban ecosystem health index (EUEHI). Based on the EUEHI and comparing with those of five other typical Chinese cities, the case study of Baotou city shows that its urban ecosystem health level is steadily arising despite the year 2001 as a turning point. Due to the emphasis on the resource structure adjustment and utilization efficiency, Baotou has obtained a better organizational structure and service function for the total urban ecosystem.     

Application of operations research in Israel's water sector

Israel's water sector has moved from a period of development, which ended in the mid-1960's, to an era of scarcity. Over 95% of the natural water potential is already being utilized, and there is severe competition for this scarce resource between economic sectors and geographic regions. Management of development, design and operation of the water systems is therefore an acute problem, with implications ranging from national policy to efficiency in daily operation. Operations research methodologies have been developed and applied quite extensively over the last 15 years in Israel's water sector, dealing with the full range of its problems. The paper is a survey of these applications, aimed at providing a realistic assessment of their value, from which water resources systems analysts in other countries may derive some guidelines for their own work.     

区域资源禀赋、成本约束与农业生产效率测度

农业是我国基础产业,是保障粮食安全和经济发展的根本。根据经济发展战略要求和区域资源禀赋,合理发展区域农业,提升农业对区域资源使用效率和区域资源产业配置效益,形成区域农业高效发展和资源最优配置,是区域经济发展战略的重要内容。在柯布道格拉斯生产函数的基础上,利用随机前沿技术效率测度、产业投入产出分析、偏离-份额分析,构建农业产业生产效率的测度模型,探索地区农业产出的技术效率、资源利用效率和使用效率,为农业生产和区域资源配置提供参考。结果表明,大部分区域农业产出与资源禀赋未形成最佳匹配,应在大力提高农业对区域内资本资源、政府服务资源和劳动力资源使用效率的同时,鼓励过剩的资源在产业间和区域间进行适度转移,从低使用效益产业转移到高使用效益产业,从低产出弹性区域转移到高产出弹性效益区域。     

Measurement and evaluation of the metabolic capacity of an urban ecosystem

Cities as superorganisms confront disturbances from their metabolic processes, including large metabolic fluxes, low stocks of resources and products, and a low efficiency of the urban material metabolism. Based on ecological thermodynamics, an indicator system is established in this paper to evaluate the fluxes, stocks, and effiency of the urban material metabolism using emergy analysis. Also, a new model for the urban material metabolism is proposed to define the production possibility curve using a wealth index (WI) and an ecological effiency index (EEI). Then, six large Chinese cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Chongqing, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen are selected as typical cases to validate the proposed model. The results show that Shenzhen has the highest metabolic capacity, followed by Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Tianjin, and Chongqing. It is also reflected that different urban material metabolisms of the six cities are resulted from the varied regional metabolic capacities, thus providing insights into how cities improve their metabolic capacities. Meanwhile, Shenzhen has the highest WI and EEI, Chongqing has the lowest WI and EEI, and Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Guangzhou has low WI and high EEI. It is also shown that the sustainable operation of the urban material metabolism reflects the mutualism and symbiosis between socioeconomic development and ecological environment protection.     

An evaluation of technical efficiency and managerial correlates of solid waste management by Welsh SMEs using parametric and non-parametric techniques

Strong economic growth and environmental regulation stimulus make Welsh small and medium enterprises' (SMEs) sustainability performance merit investigation in the context of European Union (EU) sustainability initiatives. This is due in part to strong economic growth and the stimulus provided by environmental regulation. We use stochastic frontier analysis, a parametric econometric technique to generate estimates of the technical efficiency of solid waste management by 299 Welsh SMEs in 2003. We demonstrate that the ranking and efficiency scores of the Welsh SMEs studied correlate significantly with non-parametric data envelopment analysis efficiency measures and are related to the use of environmental auditing practices and the use of local business support groups, but not to monitoring of waste expenditures and publication of environmental policies.     

人力资本对区域可持续发展影响的实证研究

本文以我国31个省、直辖市、自治区为单位,应用聚类分析方法对各地区的人力资本、经济发展、环境状况进行分析,试图探讨人力资本对我国区域可持续发展的影响和途径。结果表明,目前我国区域环境压力随着经济的发展而不断增大,并逐步进入减速发展阶段,各地区应加大对人力资本的投资力度,实现经济的腾飞和环境保护力度的增强,最终实现我国区域可持续发展。     

基于GIS的长三角城市群经济空间集聚特征研究

本文在界定长三角城市群空间范围的基础上,利用长三角城市群各城市2013年相关数据,应用GIS的空间聚类分析功能分别从全局聚类检验和局部聚类检验两个方面分析了长三角城市群的经济空间集聚特征。研究结果表明长三角城市群的经济产出和经济生产要素在全局上存在空间集聚现象,在局部上,GDP、人均GDP等经济产出在向上海市、苏州市等个别城市高-高集聚,而劳动、资本、技术、能源等经济生产要素也在向上海市、苏州市等个别城市高-高集聚。     

基于熵权-集对分析的矿业城市土地资源承载力评价

针对矿产资源日益枯竭以及开采行为逐渐无序的现状,矿业城市土地资源承载力正在面临严峻挑战.研究以安徽省矿业城市铜陵市为例,从水土资源系统,社会经济系统和环境资源系统三个维度中选取15个指标构建评价指标体系.借助熵权法赋权,并利用集对分析法测度土地资源承载力状况,并用障碍度模型进行障碍因子诊断.结果表明:铜陵市土地资源承载力在2014-2018年一直处于安全承载水平,并呈上升趋势;各子系统之间协调水平显著提高,其中社会经济系统对土地资源承载力影响最大;地均固定资产投资和全年降水量是制约土地资源承载力的关键障碍因子.研究结果为矿业城市土地资源规划和生态文明建设提供理论支撑.     

Competition for limited critical resources and the adoption of environmentally sustainable strategies

We develop a game-theoretical methodology that incorporates competition for limited resources to explicitly model a firm's valuation and, hence, its decision whether to adopt environmentally sustainable strategies (e.g., recycling programs to replace limited natural resources, alternative technologies). Even if switching to environmentally sustainable alternatives proves too expensive for individual firms, or resource costs are expected to remain low, we show that competition for resources would still push firms to incur switching costs as they become more environmentally sustainable. Using a sample of firm-level data from the KLD database which includes firms' sustainability policies, we find empirical support that competition for resources is positively correlated with a firm's adoption of environmental strategies. Tests that use the Chinese government's 2010 rare-earth supply suspension as an exogenous shock to competition for limited resources suggest a causal interpretation for our finding.     

Emergy evaluations for constructed wetland and conventional wastewater treatments

Based on emergy synthesis, this study presents a comparative study on constructed wetland (CW) and conventional wastewater treatments with three representative cases in Beijing. Accounting the environmental and economic inputs and treated wastewater output based on emergy, different characteristics of two kinds of wastewater treatments are revealed. The results show that CWs are environment-benign, less energy-intensive despite the relatively low ecological waste removal efficiency (EWRE), and less cost in construction, operation and maintenance compared with the conventional wastewater treatment plants. In addition, manifested by the emergy analysis, the cyclic activated sludge system (CASS) has the merit of higher ecological waste elimination efficiency.     

WEAK AND STRONG SUSTAINABILITY,ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

ABSTRACT. To investigate the role of explicit and implicit assumptions in different models of weak and strong sustain‐ability, the Solow/Hartwick model of intergenerational equity with nonrenewable resources is gradually extended to include renewable resources, endogenous technical progress, and stock pollution. This reveals the fundamental role of endogenous technical progress for sustainable development, the inconsistency of implicit sustainability assumptions in various models, as well as the existence of a Hartwick rule for Daly's steady‐state economy. Moreover, it shows that the concepts of Solow sustainability and strong sustainability coincide as a special case of weak sustainability. The latter integrates economic and environmental concerns and aims at maintaining the welfare potential of an economy over time. It does not rule out economic growth by assumption. Rather, the analysis shows that environmental conservation and economic growth can be compatible with each other, without jeopardizing social welfare. Finally, the analysis shows that the discussion of sustain‐ability models cannot be restricted to the explicit differences that are usually pointed out by their authors and commentators. Rather, implicit assumptions must be made explicit.     

Embedded diagonally implicit Runge–Kutta–Nystrom 4(3) pair for solving special second-order IVPs

In this paper, third-order 3-stage diagonally implicit Runge–Kutta–Nystrom method embedded in fourth-order 4-stage for solving special second-order initial value problems is constructed. The method has the property of minimized local truncation error as well as the last row of the coefficient matrix is equal to the vector output. The stability of the method is investigated and a standard set of test problems are tested upon and comparisons on the numerical results are made when the same set of test problems are reduced to first-order system and solved using existing Runge–Kutta method. The results clearly shown the advantage and the efficiency of the new method.