Emergy-Based Adjustment of the Agricultural Structure in a Low-Carbon Economy in Manas County of China

Abstract

Abstract:The emergy concept, integrated with a multi-objective linear programming method, was used to model the agricultural structure of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region under the consideration of the need to develop a low-carbon economy. The emergy indices before and after the structural optimization were evaluated. In the reconstructed model, the proportions of agriculture, forestry and artificial grassland should be adjusted from 19:2:1 to 5.2:1:2.5; the Emergy Yield Ratio (1.48) was higher than the average local (0.49) and national levels (0.27); and the Emergy Investment Ratio (11.1) was higher than the current structure (4.93) and that obtained from the 2003 data (0.055) in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the Water Emergy Cost (0.055) should be reduced compared to that before the adjustment (0.088). The measurement of all the parameters validated the positive impact of the modeled agricultural structure. The self-sufficiency ratio of the system increased from the original level of 0.106 to 0.432, which indicated a better OPEN ACCESSEnergies 2011, 4 1429 coupling effect among the subsystems within the whole system. The comparative advantage index between the two systems before and after optimization was approximately 2:1. When the mountain ecosystem service value was considered, excessive animal husbandry led to a 1.41 × 10 10 RMB·a −1 indirect economic loss, which was 4.15 times the GDP during the same time period. The functional improvement of the modeled structure supports the plan to "construct a central oasis and protect the surrounding mountains and deserts" to develop a sustainable agricultural system. Conserved natural grassland can make a large contribution to the carbon storage; and therefore, it is wise alternative that promote a low-carbon economic development strategy.

Organic vegetables from community-supported agriculture in Italy: Emergy assessment and potential for sustainable, just, and resilient urban-rural local food production

“…At a regional or provincial level, Lefroy and Rydberg (2003) focused on three crops in southwestern Australia; Wang et al (2007) studied petroleum-based agriculture in the Shandong region, China; De Barros et al (2009) evaluated the banana production in Guadalupe, Antilles; Agostinho et al (2010) explored the agricultural economic sector of São Paulo state, Brazil, while Ghisellini et al (2014) did the same for regions Campania and Emilia Romagna, Italy; three cropping systems in the Pampa Region, Argentina, were addressed by Ferraro and Benzi (2015); and Su et al (2020) have recently assessed three types of agricultural production in Tongxiang, China. At a more local level, we can mention the Pakistani area of Bahawalnagar, in Punjab (Shah et al, 2019) and a series of Chinese districts: Manas county (Dong et al, 2011), Yanchi county (Wang et al, 2014), Gaomi city, in Shandong (Wang et al, 2019), and Chongming island (Zhan et al, 2019). Here, the interest is mostly for farming, while some authors address agriculture in combination with other kinds of food productions; among these, maize, pond fish, duck, and mushroom (Zhang et al, 2012), agro-livestock integration (Patrizi et al, 2018), and agrobusinesses involving crops, dairy products, and meat (Almeida et al, 2020).…”

Emergy-Based Urban Ecosystem Health Evaluation for a Typical Resource-Based City: A Case Study of Taiyuan, China

“…Odum claims that this ratio is similar to the load on the circuit. A large ratio value indicates that the higher intensity of energy utilization in the social economic system, which leads to the greater pressure on the urban environmental system (Dong et al, 2011). ELR is a warning to the social economic system, once the urban social economic system is always in a high ELR, will result in irreversible degradation or loss of ecological service function.…”

Research on the Survival and Sustainable Development of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in China under the Background of Low-Carbon Economy

“…Given the increase in energy consumption and the continuous deterioration of the ecological environment, low-carbon economy has become a topic of interest [1][2][3][4][5][6]. Nesticò and Pipolo proposed a model considering the social cost of carbon, not only the financial effect generated by the investment project but also the environmental results [6].…”