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This paper describes two payment for ecosystem services (PES) programs to restore grassland ecosystems in Inner Mongolia in Northern China. A key challenge is to sustain the livelihood of local residents, who earn most of their income from traditional animal husbandry. We surveyed 240 herders and 36 government representatives in 2 years. We used contingent valuation and logistic regression to analyze the resulting data. Since the PES implementation, income from cultivation and animal grazing decreased, whereas income from compensation and off-farm activities increased. The herders preferred an annual payment of 625 Chinese yuan (CNY) ha −1 for participating in conservation activities, but the government prefers to provide 528 CNY ha −1 , resulting in an annual gap of 97 CNY ha −1 . The current too-low payments may lead some herders to expand their grazing into restricted grassland or increase their number of animals, particularly if either payment program ends. The herders were most concerned about their economic loss, whereas the government considered both grassland restoration and income protection to be important. To create an improved and sustainable PES scheme, we recommend solutions that will let the herders sustain their livelihood while conserving the grasslands. Our findings will help to establish more effective PES schemes for the grasslands of Inner Mongolia and similar regions.

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Grassland ecosystems, as the basic natural resources in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, are becoming increasingly sensitive to human intervention, leading to deterioration in fragile ecosystems. The goal of this study was to describe the restoration policy-oriented adoptive changes to basic household consumption patterns of food, fuel, and water, and their spatial distribution by grassland types in the region. Basic household consumption data were collected in the meadow steppe (Hulun Buir), typical steppe (Xilin Gol), and semi-desert steppe (Ordos) ecosystems using structured questionnaires administered to 209 herders and farmers. In 2010, the householders’ intake comprised a low amount of agri-crops, including staple foods, vegetables and fruit with a high amount of meat, which still dominated the patterns of food consumption. However, the number of households preferring this pattern is decreasing and higher amounts of agri-crop and lower amounts of meat consumption pattern is increasing. From 1995 to 2010, fuel consumption patterns changed from being dominated by bio-fuels (dung) to being dominated mainly by electricity and gas. However, bio-fuel remains a major energy source for daily life in the meadow steppe ecosystem. In all three surveyed grassland types, the use of coal, electricity and gas increased from 1995 to 2010. The source of domestic water in all three surveyed areas is from groundwater, with an increasing trend to use tap water from a public supply rather than from privately owned wells.

Abstract:Since the 20th century, urbanization has been the main characteristic of global land development. If we can reveal and understand the characteristics and underlying mechanisms of urban development, we can then identify a sustainable development pattern for cities. In this paper, we primarily focus on the determinants of two main types of land use in urban development, industrial and commercial, in an empirical study of Beijing. We use a spatial data analysis method to seek and model major determinants of industrial and commercial land growth in the period of 2000-2010 in Beijing. A spatial logistic regression model is used to explore the impact of spatial independent variables on these two types of land use. The study shows that: (1) newly-added industrial land during 2000-2010 received significant contributions from the number of local enterprises engaged in services in 2010, the use of land for agriculture and construction in the neighborhood in 2000 and planning orders; (2) factors contributing to land transferred for commercial use included the number of enterprises, construction land in the neighborhood and accessibility improvement.

Land use conflicts are intensifying due to the rapid urbanization and accelerated transformation of social and economic development. Accurate identification of land use conflicts is an important prerequisite for resolving land use conflicts and optimizing the spatial pattern of land use. Previous studies on land use conflict using multi-objective evaluation methods mainly focused on the suitability or competitiveness of land use, ignoring land resource scarcity and the diversity of human needs, hence reducing the accuracy of land use conflict identification. This paper proposes a new framework for land use conflict identification. Considering land use multi-suitability, land resource scarcity and the diversity of human needs, the corresponding evaluation index system was constructed, respectively, and the linear weighted sum model was used to calculate the land use conflict index. Taking Jinan as the study area, the spatial distribution characteristics of land use conflicts are accurately identified and analyzed. The results show that: (1) Land use multi-suitability in Shanghe county and Jiyang district is high, but the intensity of land use conflict is not. This indicates that land use multi-suitability is the premise and basis of land use conflict, but it is not the only determinant, which is consistent with our hypothesis. (2) Land use conflicts in Jinan were dominant by medium conflict, accounting for 43.89% of the conflicts, while strong and weak land use conflicts accounted for 25.21% and 30.90% of the conflicts, respectively. The spatial distribution of land use conflicts is obviously different, with high conflicts in the north and low conflicts in the south. Strong land use conflicts are concentrated in the urban and rural transition zones of Tianqiao, Huaiyin and Shizhong districts and in the northern parts of Licheng and Zhangqiu districts. (3) Inefficient land use and land resource waste aggravated regional land use conflicts in Licheng and Zhangqiu districts. (4) The new framework for land use conflict identification proposed in this study can accurately identify land use conflicts, providing a scientific reference and new ideas for accurate identification of land use conflicts.

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A burgeoning population, pressing development needs and increasing household consumption are rapidly accelerating water use in direct and indirect ways. Increasingly, regions around the world face growing pressure on sustainable use of their water resources especially in arid and semi-arid regions, such as Northern China. The aim of this research is to obtain an overview of the cumulative water requirement for direct (domestic) water use and indirect water use for the basic food consumption of the households in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (IMAR), in order to reduce the pressure on grassland of Western China by encouraging sustainable water consumption. For indirect water use, we use VWC (virtual water content) analysis theory to analyze the total consumption package of 15 basic food types that were identified and quantified based on the household survey in 2011. In this survey, domestic water consumption data and food consumption data were collected from 209 representative households with spatial variation across three sub-regions (including meadow steppe in Hulun Buir, typical steppe in Xilin Gol, and semi-desert steppe in Ordos) and temporal variation from 1995 to 2010. The results show that the total amounts of food consumption per capita in three sub-regions all show an increasing trend, OPEN ACCESSSustainability 2015, 7 5629 especially in Hulun Buir and Ordos. Compared to the direct water consumption, the indirect water consumption behind food production made up a major portion of total water consumption, which is affected (1) geographic locations (grassland types); (2) economic development levels and (3) grassland use policy measures. From 1995 to 2010, indirect water consumption displays a decreasing trend in Xilin Gol and Ordos due to the decrease of meat consumption and increase of fruit and vegetable consumption. When considering the amount of land per household, the grassland in Ordos still faces the great threat of high water consumption pressure. Such water consumption may affect water conservation services and productivity of grassland. Therefore, changing diet behavior and reducing the population can be considered options for sustainable use of water.