Approaching integrated urban-rural development in China: The changing institutional roles

Ever since the twenty-first century, the Chinese government has been undertaking a series of rural-favored policies and measures to promote comprehensive development in rural China. The fundamental purpose is to accomplish integrated urban-rural development (IURD) given the ever enlarging urban-rural inequalities during the post-reform era. Considering the long time biased policies against the countryside, the paper aims to examine the institutional roles in approaching the IURD. IURD at provincial level in China is assessed by the principal component analysis of selected variables which represent the socioeconomic integration between urban and rural areas. The institutional roles in promoting IURD include three aspects: decentralization in directing local rural development; employment, social security system and material circulation system which influence the free production factor flows between urban and rural areas; education, medical treatment and culture system which influence public services between urban and rural areas. We carry out panel data analysis to investigate the relationship between institutions and IURD at provincial level in China in the period 1980-2010. The analysis also controls variables such as locational factors, population density, per capita GDP in each province. The data mainly refers to Comprehensive Statistical Data and Materials on 60 Years of New China and National Statistical Yearbooks in recent years. Research results show significant and dynamic roles of institution in promoting IURD at different time periods

Land Use Conflicts in the Developing Countries: Proximate Driving Forces and Preventive Measures

This research aims to analyse land use conflicts mainly caused by infrastructural development projects in the developing countries. For this purpose, qualitative data is gathered which is frequently published on land use conflicts against the development related infrastructure projects in Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and Pakistan. It identifies and defines land use conflicts, their dynamic features and contestations. The results reveal as to how the conflicts have been germinated by the property and human right violators? Further, it also focuses on the governance roles and responsibilities, the institutional inconsistency towards justice, and the local population’s mistrust in the respective case study areas. The analysis concludes with an overview of the root causes and consequences of land use conflicts, by indicating as to how land use decisions for infrastructural settings have changed rural economy, and induced local population to displace and oppose the projects. Finally, the study proposes some preventive measures to manage such conflicts. JEL Classification: D74, O16, H54 Keywords: Conflict, Proximity Relations, Infrastructure, Developing Countrie

Evaluation of Spatial and Temporal Performances of ERA-Interim Precipitation and Temperature in Mainland China

ERA-Interim has been widely considered as a valid proxy for observations at global and regional scales. However, the verifications of ERA-Interim precipitation and temperature in mainland China have been rarely conducted, especially in the spatial and long-term performances. Therefore, in this study, we employed the interpolated ground station (STA) data to evaluate the spatial and temporal patterns and trends of ERA-Interim precipitation and temperature during 1980-2012. The results showed that relatively weaker performances were observed in ERA-Interim precipitation, with the skill score (S index) ranging from 0.41 to 0.50. Interannual ERA-Interim precipitation presented comparable trends with STA precipitation at the annual and seasonal scales. Spatial patterns of empirical orthogonal function (EOF) modes and corresponding principal components were evidently different between annual ERA-Interim and STA precipitation. For temperature, annual and seasonal patterns of ERA-Interim data were in good consistency with those of STA over China with the S index ranging from 0.59 to 0.70. Yet interannual STA temperature recorded stronger warming trends (from 0.37K decade(-1) of wintertime to 0.53 Kdecade(-1) of springtime) at the annual and seasonal scales compared to corresponding periods for ERA-Interim temperature (from 0.03Kdecade 21 of wintertime to 0.25Kdecade(-1) of summertime). Overall, ERA-Interim precipitation and temperature had good agreement with STA data in east China with lower elevation (< 1000m above sea level), but good agreements were not observed in west China with higher elevation. The findings suggest that caution should be paid when using ERA-Interim precipitation and temperature in areas with complex orography

Urbanization and air quality as major drivers of altered spatiotemporal patterns of heavy rainfall in China

Context Land use/land cover change and other human activities contribute to the changing climate on regional and global scales, including the increasing occurrence of extreme precipitation events, but the relative importance of these anthropogenic factors, as compared to climatic factors, remains unclear. Objectives The main goal of this study was to determine the relative contributions of human-induced and climatic factors to the altered spatiotemporal patterns of heavy rainfall in China during the past several decades. Methods We used daily precipitation data from 659 meteorological stations in China from 1951 to 2010, climatic factors, and anthropogenic data to identify possible causes of the observed spatiotemporal patterns of heavy rainfall in China in the past several decades, and quantify the relative contributions between climatic and human-induced factors.This research was supported by the 973 Project ‘‘National Key Research and Development Program– Global Change and Mitigation Project: Global change risk of population and economic system: mechanisms and assessments’’ under Grant No. 201531480029, Ministry of Science and Technology of China, People’s Republic of China, the National Natural Science Foundation of Innovative Research Group Project ‘‘Earth Surface Process Model and Simulation’’ under Grant No. 41621061