Cryosphere Services to Support SDGs in High Mountains

The cryosphere is able to provide a variety of services for the benefit of human well-being and underpins regional sustainable development. The cryosphere deterioration induced by climate change is impacting the services and will subsequently impede the efforts to meet sustainable development goals (SDGs) in high mountain societies. Here, we detail the context of cryosphere services and establish a dataset for its linkage to SDGs. This allows us to uncover its roles in supporting SDGs, directly by a causal connection and indirectly through either cascading effects or interconnection among SDGs. We find that the SDGs in association with the basic needs of high mountain societies are mostly affected by the cryosphere services. The different types of services pitch in with distinctions to be embraced by various SDGs, whilst some play a prominent role in the contribution to a broad range of SDGs. We further investigate how the services behave in their contributions to SDGs, by taking a view via the lens of a network that deciphers the relationship between the services and SDG targets as well as the interconnections among SDG targets. With an insight into the centrality and modularity of services in the network, we then delineate the inherent criticality of services to SDG targets as a whole, and reveal the specificity of services that co-contribute to a cluster of SDG targets in each network community. We take out the services from the network and maintain their interlinks to the targets of each underlying SDG system represented in six key entry points, so that the services critical to the transformation pathways in the entry points for SDGs in high mountains can be identified. Finally, we discuss the trade-offs that can occur in high mountains, which is unique for the cryosphere services. It creates more complexity in the assessment of overall benefits that the cryosphere services may provide to SDGs, and urges the balance that has to be maintained in attaining those services for the transformation.

Can Marketization Improve Sustainable Development in Northeastern China? Evidence from the Perspective of Coupling Coordination Degree Model

With the acquisition of sustainable development, pursuing the coordinated development of social economy and ecological environment has been a critical approach of Northeastern China. Since the reform and opening-up, marketization has profoundly affected the regional social economy. However, what role will marketization play in regional sustainable development? Can marketization improve sustainable development measured by the coupling coordination degree? This paper adopts the coupling coordination degree model (CCDM) to estimate the coupling coordination degree and further explore the impact of marketization on the coupling coordination degree in Northeastern China from 1994 to 2019. The results show that the average values of the static coupling degree (SCD), dynamic coupling degree (DCD), and coupling coordination degree (CCD) remained in a tiny coordinated state, which indicated that the level of sustainable development in Northeastern China is presented still primary from 1990 to 2019. Marketization has a significant negative impact on the coupling coordination degree, which indicates that marketization should be considered in the process of sustainable development in Northeastern China.

Farmland Transfers in China: From Theoretic Framework to Practice

Land transformation in agriculture is a crucial global issue for food safety and regional sustainable development. In the context of Chinese rural revitalization strategy, farmland transfer has become an increasingly engaging area of focus for those in a broad range of fields. In this paper, we make a comprehensive review of land transformation in agriculture through literature analysis. Farmland transfers in China were characterized as five dimensions: public policy, market mechanisms, influencing factors, optimization of spatial distribution, and practical results. Meanwhile, we shed light on limitations of the theories and methodologies for farmland transfers in previous studies, and propose the highlights of farmland transfers in China in the future: (1) refining the theoretical systems of farmland transfer under the background of transformations, (2) optimizing land use configuration for farmland transfers within the context of national strategic decisions, (3) developing the land use model supported by big data for understanding farmland transformation; (4) enhancing the comprehensive analysis and interdisciplinary application perspective for farmland transfer issues.

Analysis for the Interaction Relationship between Urbanization and Ecological Security: A Case Study in Wuhan City Circle of China

Exploring the interaction relationship between urbanization and ecological security is the key issue to achieve regional sustainable development. This study used coupling coordination model and vector auto-regression model to comprehensively investigate the interaction relationship between urbanization and ecological security in Wuhan City Circle from 2005 to 2018. The results showed that urbanization quality in Wuhan City Circle increased from 0.1818 in 2005 to 0.4355 in 2018, with an average annual increase rate of 10.74%. The ecological security of Wuhan City Circle decreased from 0.4890 in 2005 to 0.4511 in 2015 and increased from 0.4511 in 2015 to 0.4554 in 2018. The degree of coupling coordination between urbanization and ecological security of Wuhan City Circle presented a circle structure with Wuhan as the center and increasing outward. Additionally, the impulse analysis showed that the increase of urbanization had a significant negative impact on ecological security of Wuhan city, Huangshi city, and Xiaogan city. Meanwhile, the ecological security index of Ezhou city, Tianmen city, Huanggang city, Xiantao city, Xianning city, and Qianjiang city were all positive in early stage after the ecological security was impacted by the increase of urbanization. The analysis of historical data and future trends can provide operable recommendations for urbanization development and ecological security protection through cleaner production and efficient use of natural resources from the aspect of coordinated development.