Impact of urbanization on pollution-related agricultural input intensity in Hubei, China

Abstract

a b s t r a c tAgricultural input intensity increases significantly during the rapid urbanization in China, which has contributed to the increasingly serious non-point pollution. Using the vector autoregression (VAR) model, this study analyzes the impact of urbanization on pollution-related agricultural input intensity in Hubei, China. Results of an impulse response function analysis reveal that pesticide use intensity continues to rise following shocks from the urban population proportion and the secondary and tertiary industry proportion. Responses of chemical fertilizer intensity first decrease and then increase subjected to the shocks from the urban population proportion and secondary and tertiary industry proportion. The intensity of agricultural plastic film use first increases and then decreases when receives the shocks from the urban population proportion which is the opposite to the response to the shock from the secondary and tertiary industry proportion. In addition, the responses of pesticide use intensity, chemical fertilizer use intensity and agricultural plastic film use intensity trend decrease following their own shocks after positive initial responses. The variance decomposition results demonstrate that the shocks due to pesticide use intensity, chemical fertilizer use intensity and agricultural plastic film use intensity generally explain the largest proportion of their own variation over the 10-year horizon. However, an increase in the urban population proportion plays a critical role in determining the variations of pesticide use intensity in late periods, it account for 56.88% the variations in the tenth period. And the contribution of the urban population proportion to the variations in agricultural plastic film use intensity increases consistently, it account for 33.74% of the variations in the tenth period. Therefore, the hidden drivers of these phenomena need to be further understood regarding the relationships between urbanization and diffuse pollution from agricultural production.

The impact of urban compactness on urban sustainable development in China: The case of Nanjing

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“…Variance decomposition is applied to account for how much of the variance in the forecast error in one variable can be explained by innovations stemming from other variables in the VAR model (Tan & Lu, ; You, ). It can be used to measure the proportions of the variations in one USDI variable with respect to the whole that is caused by its own shock and the shocks from the UCI variables.…”

“…The VAR model has the ability to perform a dynamic impact analysis on the variable system based on stochastic disturbances (Gao, ), as noted in the seminal article by Sims (), and as applied in a vast range of empirical topics and various regions (Tan & Lu, ; Xu & Lin, ; You, ). Each variable in the model can explain its evolution based on the lags of the other variables and its own, and the prior assumption is that the pattern lagged among the endogenous variables.…”

“…Populations and socioeconomic activities increasingly are concentrated in cities, bringing a multidimensional pressure regarding housing, infrastructure, food security and natural resources management (Li, Peng, Yanxu, & Yi'na, ). This pattern of urban transformation poses great challenges to urban sustainable development (Shen, Zhou, Skitmore, & Xia, ; You, ).…”

Quantifying Poverty Temporal Changes in Association with Rural Transition in Guangxi, China

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