Land Use Changes: Economic, Social, and Environmental Impacts

Land Economics/Use, Q24, Q28,

Predicting China’s Land-use Change and Soil Carbon Sequestration under Alternative Climate Change Scenarios

This paper examines and predicts the effects of climate change and climate extremes on China’s land use conversion and soil carbon sequestration under two alternative climate change scenarios. It intends to investigate the following three questions. 1) How did climate factors affect land-use conversion in China from 1988 to 2000 and what was the relative importance of these factors? 2) How would the predicted future climate change pattern affect land-use choice under alternative climate change scenarios? 3) How would the predicted future climate pattern change the spatial distribution of soil organic carbon in China? The study makes two contributions to the literature. First, it integrates climate change, land use conversion, and soil carbon sequestration into a whole model, which facilitates a comprehensive, systematic analysis. Second, it employs a unique dataset, consisting of high-quality Geographic Information System (GIS) data on climate, land use, and soil properties. To the best of our knowledge, no one has used such detailed Chinese data for economic research.Land-use change, soil carbon sequestration, climate change, Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use,

A spatial analysis of land use change and water quality in Lake Biwa, Japan

Land Economics/Use, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,

The Empirics of Environmental and Distributional Impacts of Conservation Targeting Strategies

This study compares the environmental and economic effects of alternative targeting strategies (benefit, cost, and benefit-cost ratio targeting) for reducing nitrate-N water pollution in the Des Moines Watershed in Iowa. The objective is achieved by applying an integrated modeling system to nitrate-N runoff from the Des Moines Watershed. Our integrated modeling system consists of an econometric model and a physically-based hydrologic balance simulation model. The econometric model estimates the opportunity cost of CRP participation is calculated at each parcel. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) is then used to simulate the level of nitrate-N runoff at each NRI parcel in the watershed. Our results show that the benefit-cost targeting achieves the highest nitrate-N runoff reduction for a given budget. The cost targeting results in the largest amount of land out of production. This strategy, however, results in the smallest environmental benefits. The benefit targeting takes the smallest amount of resource out of production and results in highest output level. The percent differences in the amount of land retired and total nitrate-N runoff reduction among alternative targeting strategies tend to be larger when the conservation budget is smaller. Finally, benefit targeting and benefit-cost ratio targeting tend to result in similar environmental and economic outcomes. Differences in nitrate-N runoff and acres of land retired between these two strategies are shown to be quite small.Environmental Economics and Policy,

Variational approach to renormalized phonon in momentum-nonconserving nonlinear lattices

A previously proposed variational approach for momentum-conserving systems [J. Liu et.al., Phys. Rev. E 91, 042910 (2015)] is extended to systematically investigate general momentum-nonconserving nonlinear lattices. Two intrinsic identities characterizing optimal reference systems are revealed, which enables us to derive explicit expressions for optimal variational parameters. The resulting optimal harmonic reference systems provide information for the band gap as well as the dispersion of renormalized phonons in nonlinear lattices. As a demonstration, we consider the one-dimensional \phi^?4 lattice. By combining the transfer integral operator method, we show that the phonon band gap endows a simple power-law temperature dependence in the weak stochasticity regime where predicted dispersion is reliable by comparing with numerical results. In addition, an exact relation between ensemble averages of the \phi^?4 lattice in the whole temperature range is found, regardless of the existence of the strong stochasticity threshold.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure

Emoticon-based Ambivalent Expression: A Hidden Indicator for Unusual Behaviors in Weibo

Recent decades have witnessed online social media being a big-data window for quantificationally testifying conventional social theories and exploring much detailed human behavioral patterns. In this paper, by tracing the emoticon use in Weibo, a group of hidden "ambivalent users" are disclosed for frequently posting ambivalent tweets containing both positive and negative emotions. Further investigation reveals that this ambivalent expression could be a novel indicator of many unusual social behaviors. For instance, ambivalent users with the female as the majority like to make a sound in midnights or at weekends. They mention their close friends frequently in ambivalent tweets, which attract more replies and thus serve as a more private communication way. Ambivalent users also respond differently to public affairs from others and demonstrate more interests in entertainment and sports events. Moreover, the sentiment shift of words adopted in ambivalent tweets is more evident than usual and exhibits a clear "negative to positive" pattern. The above observations, though being promiscuous seemingly, actually point to the self regulation of negative mood in Weibo, which could find its base from the emotion management theories in sociology but makes an interesting extension to the online environment. Finally, as an interesting corollary, ambivalent users are found connected with compulsive buyers and turn out to be perfect targets for online marketing.Comment: Data sets can be downloaded freely from www.datatang.com/data/47207 or http://pan.baidu.com/s/1mg67cbm. Any issues feel free to contact [email protected]

MICRO VERSUS MACRO ACREAGE RESPONSE MODELS: DOES SITE-SPECIFIC INFORMATION MATTER?

Because requisite micro data frequently are unavailable, it is common practice to use aggregate data to estimate economic relationships representing the behavior of individual agents. A substantial body of literature has examined conditions under which inferences between micro and aggregate specifications can be made. Less attention has been focused on the relative accuracy of predictions for each scale of model. In an empirical application, we compare the goodness-of-fit measures of eight sets of acreage response models, varying in aggregation from field- (micro-) level to regional- (macro-) level models. Results suggest aggregate models are superior to the micro model in predicting acreage response, even thought the micro models contain substantially more data on site-specific characteristics.Agribusiness,

Optimal Economic Landscapes with Habitat Fragmentation Effects

Habitat fragmentation is widely considered a primary threat to biodiversity. This paper develops a theoretical model of land use to analyze the optimal conservation of landscapes when land quality is spatially heterogeneous and wildlife habitat is fragmented and socially valuable. When agriculture is the primary cause of fragmentation, we show that reforestation efforts should be targeted to the most fragmented landscapes with an aggregate share of forest equal to a threshold, defined by the ratio of the opportunity cost of conversion to the social value of core forest. When urban development is the primary cause of fragmentation, we show how spatial heterogeneity in amenities and household neighbor preferences affect the optimal landscape and the design of land-use policies.Land Economics/Use,