Estimation of the Rational Range of Ecological Compensation to Address Land Degradation in the Poverty Belt around Beijing and Tianjin, China

Abstract

Ecological compensation provides innovative ecological solutions for addressing land degradation and guaranteeing the sustainable provision of essential ecosystem services. This study estimated the ecosystem service value and the opportunity cost of land use in the Poverty Belt of China—around Beijing and Tianjin—from 1980 to 2015 on the small watershed scale, and thereafter estimated the rational range of ecological compensation in this ecologically fragile zone. Results showed that the total ecosystem service value in the study area gradually decreased from CNY 54.198 billion in 1980 to CNY 53.912 billion in 2015. Moreover, the annual total ecological compensation of the whole study area ranged between CNY 2.67 billion and 2.83 billion. More specifically, areas with higher ecological compensation standards are mainly concentrated in the northwestern and northern parts of the study area, with a lower economic development level, while areas with lower ecological compensation standards are mainly located in areas with a relatively high level of economic development, e.g., the southern and southeastern parts of the study area. These results can provide valuable decision-support information for the design and optimization of ecological compensation to address land degradation along with rapid urbanization in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region.

Variation of Net Carbon Emissions from Land Use Change in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region during 1990–2020

“…The Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region is located in the northern part of China (36 • 5 -42 • 40 N, 113 • 27 -119 • 50 E), which is one of the three major urban agglomerations in China [18,26,30]. There is very complex terrain in this region, where there are mainly higher mountains and plateaus in the northern and western parts and flatter plains in the southern and eastern parts (Figure 1).…”

“…However, there is very high energy consumption intensity along with rapid urbanization in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, leading to very high carbon emission. For example, the carbon emission in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region reached 1.085 billion tons in 2018, accounting for about 1/9 of the total national carbon emissions of China [26,30]. Exploring the long time-series variation of net carbon emissions from land use change can provide valuable information for addressing the pressure of carbon emission reduction in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, especially in the context of the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region [26,27].…”

“…The spatial data used in this study includes the 1-km land use data extracted from the Land Use Remote Sensing Monitoring Data of China in 1990China in , 1995China in , 2000China in , 2005China in , 2010China in , 2015, and 2020 (http://www.resdc.cn, accessed on 31 October 2021), which were reverted from Landsat TM/ETM images. The land types were classified into cropland, forest land, grassland, water area, built-up area, and barren land [12,26], based on which this study explored the land use transfer matrix of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region during 1990-2020. Besides, the non-spatial data used in this study mainly included the socioeconomic data (e.g., population and GDP), regional energy consumption data, and carbon emission coefficients of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, which were obtained from various issues of the China Statistical Yearbook, the China Energy Statistical Yearbook, IPCC reports, and the relevant literature.…”

“…The results of these studies provided valuable methodological references for exploring a series of issues related to carbon emissions from land use change [24,25]. However, these existing studies focused more on some major land use types, such as cropland and built-up area, with less consideration of the carbon emissions from some other land use types [25,26]. In particular, there are relatively fewer quantitative studies on the influencing factors of carbon emissions from land use change, especially the studies on the influencing factors of carbon emissions from land use change with the LMDI model [6,27,28].…”

Application of Geographic Information System to Sensing Strength and Potentiality of Ecological Industrialization in China’s Huai River Ecological Economic Belt

“…(3,4) Most ecological economic zones are typically regions with fragile ecology and backward economic development. (5) When ecological problems are entangled with developmental problems, risks increase. Thus, how to curb poverty while protecting the environment in the ecological economic zones of developing countries worldwide is currently a focus of research and debate.…”