Exploring the Benefits of Small Catchments on Rural Spatial Governance in Wuling Mountain Area, China

China is facing an important period of rural governance innovation and restructuring of territorial spatial patterns. This paper selects catchments as the most closely related spatial units for rural industrial development and rural settlement activities, profoundly revealing the characteristics of transformational development and spatial governance in mountainous areas. To date, extensive literature in this area has produced a broad multidisciplinary consensus on catchment water and soil conservation and rural industry development; however, the interactive mechanism of ecological, social, and economic networks, and the characteristics behind small catchments which benefit from spatial governance, have never been analyzed and are relatively new to the sphere of rural governance. Our research argues the relative importance of multi-scale catchment units compared with traditional administrative village units in enhancing the organizational benefits of rural revitalization in terms of workforce, resources, and capital, using the case study of a catchment in the Wuling mountainous area. Our study presents a framework to explore the multi-dimensional governance experience of a small catchment in the Wuling mountainous area and proposes to integrate the resource endowment advantages of small catchments into rural industries development and transform the economic and social benefits contained in the ecological environment into multi-scale spatial benefits among farmers, villages, and the regional rural area. However, not all cases provide positive evidence. The overall development of a catchment is confronted with complex constraints, which are mainly related to the development stage and local historical and geographical factors. Furthermore, affected by the top-down “project-system” in the “poverty era”, the logic of “betting on the strong” and the single-centered logic of resource allocation at the grassroots level exacerbated the fragmentation of the mountainous area. Generally speaking, the catchment perspective promotes regional linkage development and multi-center governance modes and triggers multidisciplinary theoretical thinking to some extent. The catchment’s overall development helps play to the comparative advantage of mountainous areas and promotes endogenous sustainable development to a certain degree. However, the promotion of catchment governance in poverty-stricken mountainous areas is faced with a lack of financial foundation and needs support in order to break through the national system and local social constraints

Research on the Conservation and Renewal of Rural Landscape and Vernacular Architecture in Chongqing, China

The study suggests that the rural construction of Chongqing, especially the characteristic protected villages, must fully protect and renew the rural landscape and vernacular buildings with regional characteristics. The local protection of the countryside,especially the tradiontal village should be based on the cognition and understanding of the characteristics of the local natural and cultural environment, exploring its inherent cultural heritage and evolutionary drive, guiding the healthy and balanced development of rural landscape systems in the period of economic and social transformation through a systematic and comprehensive methodology. Based on actual rural construction cases in Chongqing, this study explores specific methods for protecting and renewing rural landscapes and vernacular buildings. It emphasizes that conservation and regeneration strategies need to be based on fieldwork and analysis and research. It should integrate local, artistic, multi-party construction and other multiple methods, and optimize the landscape and architectural resources while highlighting the regional characteristics, so that it can inherit the culture and meet the needs of sustainable rural development,and help rural revitalization

Hydro-geomorphological Attributes and Distribution of Urban Land and Population in River Basins

Global urbanization is a major trend in the 21st century and imposes a significant impact on the hydrologic cycle, climate, and biodiversity. In particular, Asia and Africa are expected to experience the fastest urbanization rate in the following decade, manifested by impervious land cover construction and urban population growth. Therefore, accurate information on spatial distribution of urban land and population at the present stage can attribute to a better understanding of urbanization processes in the future. Meanwhile, the knowledge of hydrological responses on the land use and land cover (LULC) change can provide valuable insights into sustainable development strategies. This dissertation aims to answer three fundamental questions: (1) How do natural environmental factors that relate to water resource, climate, and geomorphological attributes constrain the distribution of current urban land and population? (2) How will the global urban growth in the near future affect the urban exposure to natural disasters such as fluvial flood, drought, and ecosystem degradation? (3) How will land change impact hydrologic processes within a river basin? To solve the research questions, studies presented in this dissertation are organized into three parts. Part one analyzes the spatial distribution of urban ratio, population density, and urban population density in 11 river basins in Asia and Africa, considering average annual precipitation, surface freshwater availability, and access to coastal zone as three influencing factors. Then, a set of regression models is conducted for the Yangtze River Basin as a more comprehensive investigation. Part two examines the global and regional patterns of urban growth from 2000 to 2030 as well as the change of urban area’s exposure to floods and droughts. Part three is an assessment of streamflow in the Chao Phraya Basin based on different precipitation and LULC scenarios. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) is used to develop the hydrological model. The results reveal that higher urban ratio and human concentration occur in the vicinity of a stream network and a coastal zone; while precipitation does not effectively influence the distribution of urban land and population as expected. The emerging coastal metropolitan regions in Africa and Asia will be larger than those in the developed countries and will have larger areas exposed to flood and drought. The case study of Chao Phraya River Basin demonstrates that land change will increase both the risk of drought and flood hazards

Integrated Ecosystem Assessment of Western China

Western Development is an important strategy of China Government. The ecological environment in the western region of China is very fragile, and any improper human activity or resource utilization will lead to irrecoverable ecological degradation. Therefore, the integrated ecosystem assessment in the western region of China is of great significance to the Western Development Strategy. This project, Integrated Ecosystem Assessment of Western China (MAWEC), will provide very important scientific foundations for both the central and local governments to make decisions on ecological construction, thus assuring the successful implementation of the Western Development Strategy. Meanwhile, MAWEC as one of the MA sub-global assessments is contributing to strengthen capability in boosting the development of the ecological science, interaction between different subjects, and combination between scientific research and practice, and pushing forward international cooperation in the relevant fields

Ecosystem services, sustainable rural development and protected áreas

Enhancing social and economic development while preserving nature is one of the major challenges for humankind in the current century. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment showed an alarming degradation of ecosystems and exacerbated poverty for many groups of people across the world due to unprecedented changes in ecosystems caused by human activities in the 20th century. Sustainable Rural Development is key to maintaining active local communities in rural and semi-natural areas, avoiding depopulation, and preserving high-ecological-value sites, including protected areas. Establishing protected areas is the most common strategy to preserve biodiversity around the world with the advantage of promoting the supply of ecosystem services. However, depending how it affects economic opportunities and the access to natural resources, it can either attract or repel human settlements. The convergence of development and conservation requires decision-making processes capable of aligning the needs and expectations of rural communities and the goals of biodiversity conservation. The articles compiled in this Special Issue (nine research papers and two review papers) make important contributions to this challenge from different approaches, disciplines and regions in the world.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Geo-Information Technology and Its Applications

Geo-information technology has been playing an ever more important role in environmental monitoring, land resource quantification and mapping, geo-disaster damage and risk assessment, urban planning and smart city development. This book focuses on the fundamental and applied research in these domains, aiming to promote exchanges and communications, share the research outcomes of scientists worldwide and to put these achievements better social use. This Special Issue collects fourteen high-quality research papers and is expected to provide a useful reference and technical support for graduate students, scientists, civil engineers and experts of governments to valorize scientific research

The Tiger and the Pangolin: Cultural Ecology, Landscape Ecology, and Nature Conservation in China\u27s Southeast Uplands.

The Wuyi-Daiyun Mountains, which form the core of China\u27s Southeast Uplands Region, support a mosaic of subtropical forest, grassland, and cropland habitats, with some 1,620 species of plants and 326 species of terrestrial vertebrates. Forty-two animal species are officially protected, including the highly endangered South China tiger (Panthera tigris amoyensis). This study, based on one year of field research, examines relationships between village land use, landscape change, and wildlife management in the Meihuashan Nature Reserve of Southwest Fujian. It includes comparative studies of reserves in Longxishan and Wuyishan, further north, and Daiyunshan, to the east. Over 500 local gazetteer records of tiger attacks from 48-1953 A.D. provide baseline data on long-term anthropogenic environmental impacts in four provinces of the southeast. Habitat utilization surveys of five ungulate species in ten habitat types show how land use patterns affect prey densities. Intensive research in five Meihuashan villages examines historical settlement, demography, land use patterns, hunting practices, household economies, bamboo forest management, paper production, and village fengshui (geomantic) systems. Until the 1980s, Meihuashan villages produced and traded bamboo paper. Local prosperity led to population expansion in the mid-to-late Qing (1644-1911), and some villages grew to five times their present sizes. Extensive wet rice agriculture and widespread burning, the latter of which enhanced the growth of bracken (Pteridium aquilinum) rhizomes (a starchy dietary staple), kept the upland region largely deforested for centuries. The chaos of the early twentieth century brought population decline, rice terrace abandonment, and partial reforestation. Reforestation increased after burning was outlawed in the 1950s, but technological, commercial, and political changes intensified the extermination of regional fauna. Logging of Cunninghamia lanceolata in the 1980s also had a dramatic impact on montane ecosystems. Nature conservation should include maintenance of sacred fengshui forests; increased protection and restoration of remote broadleaf forests, montane wetlands, and montane grasslands; containment and intensification of commercial bamboo production under more equitable tenurial systems; and promotion of sustainable agriculture and animal husbandry. These efforts will be greatly enhanced when local people have a greater role in reserve management, research, and commerce

Empire-Building and Market-Making at the Qin Frontier: Imperial Expansion and Economic Change, 221–207 BCE

This dissertation explores the relationship between empire-building and economic change during the formative process of the Qin Empire. It employs transmitted and excavated textual materials as well as archaeological evidence to reconstruct institutions and practices of surplus extraction and economic management and their evolution during the period of Qin’s expansion culminating in the emergence of the first centralized bureaucratic empire in continental East Asia. I argue that the commercial expansion and the formation of markets for land, labor, and commodities during China’s early imperial period (221 BCE – 220 CE) can only be understood by considering their origins in the distributive command economy of the late Warring States and imperial Qin. The study focuses on the southern frontier zone of the empire, which is exceptionally well documented in the official and private documents excavated from the Qin and Han sites along the Middle Yangzi and its tributaries. Chapter One “Introduction” outlines historiographical approaches to the study of the relationship between empire-building and economic change, particularly the impact of imperial conquest and extraction on commercial growth. It addresses the importance of frontiers as the sites of economic innovation and change in the ancient empires. I discuss the importance of the recent archaeological discovery of legal and administrative manuscripts from the Warring States (453–221 BCE), Qin (221–206 BCE), and Han (202 BCE – 220 CE) eras for the study of the administrative and economic organization in the early empires. The introduction also outlines the new perspectives on Qin empire-building and economic change made possible by the excavated documentary evidence. Chapter Two “Strategies of conquest and resource extraction in the state and empire of Qin, mid-fourth to late third century BCE” explores the geographical and logistical rationales for the campaigns that brought the Qin armies to the Middle Yangzi and paved the way for further advance to the south of the river. I argue that the Qin developed its fiscal institutions as solutions to the problems of military supply and control over the conquered territories. This system of surplus extraction proved efficient in financing warfare and ensuring the central government’s control over its local agents. However, it faced severe challenges as its operational costs soared in the process of territorial expansion, while the redistributive effects of the fiscal system pitted the principal against the agents. The successes and failings of the Qin model of surplus extraction, and its revision during the subsequent Western Han period profoundly influenced the approaches to economic and territorial management throughout China’s imperial history. Chapter Three “Formation of the imperial frontier: from interaction zone to centralized administration” focuses on the background and the immediate aftermath of the Qin conquest of lands to the south of Middle Yangzi, roughly coinciding with the modern province of Hunan and the southern part of Hubei Province. The chapter examines the longue durée of economic and political integration along the Middle Yangzi from the Late Neolithic period (third millennium BCE) to the dawn of the imperial era. This analysis sheds new light on the background of Qin imperial expansion in this region and the strategies of the “reconstruction of the South” adopted by the Qin emperors and the succeeding Han Empire. I conclude the chapter with detailed analysis of administrative organization and economic management in the Qin county of Qianling in present-day Western Hunan, whose archive was partly recovered during the archaeological excavation of the remains of the Qin town at Liye. Chapter Four “Between command and market: the economy of convict labor” studies the enormous system of unfree labor that incorporated a considerable portion of the Qin Empire’s population and was the key instrument of the Qin command economy. The chapter offers a comparative perspective on the historical regimes of forced labor, which allows identification of economic rationales for such systems and the organizational challenges they faced. It proceeds with an analysis of the legal foundations of penal labor in Qin and the characteristics of the main groups of forced laborers before exploring the organization of the unfree labor economy in Qianling County where detailed data is available concerning the size of the convict population, their economic roles, and the management of their labor. The chapter then discusses changes in the Qin system of unfree labor, its decline after the fall of the Qin Empire, and its impact on the formation of markets for labor in early imperial China. Chapter Five “Conquering distance: transferring goods and people in the Qin Empire” discusses the long-distance transfers of resources, goods, and people. As many other imperial states, the Qin sought to control the physical mobility of its subjects and resources by directing them into desirable channels and restricting unwanted moves. Excavated texts shed light on the previously unknown aspects of the integration of economic and humanitarian space within the empire. Although the imperial connectivity remained fragile and suffered setbacks when the physical and intellectual infrastructures of communication shrank or collapsed with the decline and fall of centralized power, the shared sphere of geographic mobility was essential for the formation of the imperial economy, society, and culture. It tended to regenerate itself after the periods of contraction or disruption and should therefore be considered an important factor in the resilience of centripetal trends in China’s political history. Chapter Six “The state and the private economy” utilizes the materials from Qianling archive to study the relationship between the state and private economies. Although the ideologists of state-strengthening reforms in mid-fourth century BCE Qin cherished the idea that the latter should be completely subsumed under governmental dirigisme, by the times of the Qin Empire, officials recognized the autonomy of private markets and their own inability to substitute for the latter with distributive schemes. In its engagement with private economic actors, the government was guided by considerations of taxation and resource procurement; cost-reduction in the state economy; and maintenance of public order through the delineation of rights and obligations. Transformation of the state economy, its increasing exposure to private markets, and the expansion of the latter, often caused by the state demand for materials and manpower, were powerfully facilitated by the monetization of the frontier region attested in the textual and archaeological evidence. Chapter Seven “Conclusion” summarizes the mutually constitutive relationships between empire-building and economic change in the Qin Empire; traces the development of economic and institutional changes, which become observable during the Qin imperial period, in the subsequent Han era; and formulates some general patterns of the state-economy relationship that may be of use in the comparative study of imperial economic systems

Landscape as Heritage: Towards a Conservation Framework for Scenic Sites in Korea

As concerns about vanishing historical landscapes and new emerging landscapes have increased over recent years, a number of countries have now put in place bureaucratic approaches to safeguarding their own landscapes in a heritage context. Korea is one, which has tried to meet the demands of the age through one type of heritage landscape, scenic sites, implemented under the CPPA passed in 1962. However, an assessment of the conservation of scenic sites in Korea reveals that this is still in a rather rudimentary state; there appears to be a general lack of understanding about scenic sites, about what is important within them and how their value may best be conserved. Therefore, this thesis aims to question practices for conserving scenic sites in Korea with critical analysis of the cultural background and the current legislation system, and to provide recommendations to inform conservation strategies, underpin management and enhance public awareness with a view to keeping landscapes as heritage. In order to re-establish a clear framework for scenic site conservation, this research first reviews international trends of academic and practical approaches to cultural heritage conservation. ‘Value-based’ conservation principles, and ‘cultural landscape’, which have contributed the establishment of a new paradigm for cultural heritage over the past 20 years, are key concepts in this research. To improve the conservation framework for scenic sites, the social and cultural structures underpinning values related to Korean cultural landscapes are identified. A profound analysis of how Koreans read, use and enjoy their surrounding landscape, with an emphasis on political, social, and cultural context, is provided. At a more general level, the thesis constantly asks what the actual and potential values of scenic sites in South Korea have been at different times, which provides new perspectives on the meaning of scenic sites and indicates how this leads to the conservation of these new values. At the practical level, this research follows developments in the conceptual and administrative understandings of scenic sites, particularly in terms of the shifting discourses of values in heritage and landscape as heritage, and in turn provides more sophisticated theoretical frameworks to establish consistent and objective ‘value-based’ principles for the conservation of scenic sites as landscape heritage. Consequently, this thesis identifies five ways of developing a coherent policy and practice framework for landscape conservation: first, the value of scenic sites must be acknowledged based on the interaction between people and their environment, and the focus of management is on this relationship; second, a value-based conservation system is needed to sustainably conserve and utilise scenic sites as public property; third, people associated with scenic sites should be the primary stakeholders for stewardship; fourth, the focus of management is on guiding change to retain the values of the scenic sites; and fifth, successful management of scenic sites should contribute to a sustainable society