AbstractThis paper constructs Bai Autonomous Prefecture of Dali's land ecological security assessment index system based on pressure-state-response model, using entropy method and composite index method to evaluate Dali Prefecture's land ecological security’ composite index is 0.60823 in 2009, which is in good security condition. Although the whole prefecture's condition stays comparative security, we should realize the economic disparity and land security status varies from city to city. The difficulty of land exploiting, ecological disasters and the vulnerable land ecosystem are also the reality we should face. So how to maintain the present good trend of land resources development with the rapid development of economy and intensified human activities is what the government and policy makers should consider

Hua, YE

Limin, DONG

Yan, MA

Elsevier - Publisher Connector 

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
Energy Procedia 5 (2011) 2172–2177
1876–6102 © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
doi:10.1016/j.egypro.2011.03.375
IACEED2010 
Land Ecological Security Assessment for Bai Autonomous 
Prefecture of Dali Based Using PSR Model--with Data in 
2009 as Case 
YE Huaa, MA Yana, DONG Limina* 
aSchool of Economics and Management, HuaZhong Normal University,WuHan430079,China  
 
Abstract 
This paper constructs Bai Autonomous Prefecture of Dali’s land ecological security assessment index system based 
on pressure-state-response model, using entropy method and composite index method to evaluate Dali Prefecture’s 
land ecological security ’ composite index is 0.60823 in 2009, which is in good security condition. Although the 
whole prefecture’s condition stays comparative security, we should realize the economic disparity and land security 
status varies from city to city. The difficulty of land exploiting, ecological disasters and the vulnerable land 
ecosystem are also the reality we should face. So how to maintain the present good trend of land resources 
development with the rapid development of economy and intensified human activities is what the government and 
policy makers should consider.  
 
Keywords: Dali, land ecological security, PSR model, entropy method, composite index 
1. Introduction 
Land resource is the material base for human being’s existence and development. With the aggravation 
of human being’s activity and land resources ’ using intensity, ecological environment of land resources is 
severely destroyed. As one important aspect of ecological security , research of the land ecological security 
is also the frontier of research into sustainable use of resources. At present, the assessment of land 
ecological security is still at the primary phase. There are a lot of methods to evaluate the security status 
 
* Corresponding author. Tel.:13387585356. 
E-mail address: dlm6805@126.com. 
Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
© 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.  
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of RIUDS
Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
Ye Hua et al. / Energy Procedia 5 (2011) 2172–2177 2173
of a certain region, but there is not a mature one. Entropy method and composite index methodology can 
be used to do quantitative assessment and comparison for land  resource in d ifferent time, or between 
different lands. It is very simple and the result it obtains is very reliable and direct. It is a quantitative 
method that worth popularizing. Th is paper takes the land state of Bai Autonomous Prefecture of Dali in  
2009 as an example to provide the basis for the land management and ecological environment protection 
by using the PSR model of OECD to build index system, and the composite value to assess the regional 
land ecological security, both based on the characteristic of local land ecosystem. 
2. Materials and Methods 
2.1. Date 
Date being used in the paper is from “Statistical Yearbook of Dali 2010”, “Statistical Yearbook of 
China2010” and data supplied by Dali Prefecture Land and Resources Bureau. All the index values are 
calculated based on the data collected from the above. 
2.2. The study site 
The Bai Autonomous Prefecture o f Dali, located in the middle west of Yunnan province, has a 
moderate climate and fertile field. It covers an area of 28,316.42 km² with the east-west maximum 
horizontal d istance of 320 km and the north-south maximum vertical distance of 270 km. It is one of the 
ethnic minority areas that developed earlier than the other areas in the southwest border of China. But 
with the accelerated economic development in recent years  and the growth of population, the population 
density of the dam area around the Erhai basin has already achieved more than 260 per km² and the per 
capita cultivated land is only 0.5 acres. The antinomy between  cultivated land total supply and demand 
has become more and more outstanding. So it is an urgent demand to assess and analyze the land 
ecological security that can provide the basis for the protection and management of Erhai basin. 
3. Evaluation methodology 
3.1. Pressure-State-Response (PSR) model 
The PSR model is based on the concept of causality: human activ ities exert pressures on t he 
environment and change the quality and quantity of natural resources which lead to responses in human 
behavior. Three categories of indicators are distinguished. First, eco-environmental pressure indicators 
describe pressures on the environment by human activities and climate change [1]. Second, eco-
environmental state indicators describe the status quo of the natural environment and ecosystem function. 
Thirdly societal response indicators show the degree to which society responds to eco-environmental 
changes and concerns. This could be the number and kind of measures taken, the efforts of implementing 
measures, or the effectiveness of those measures. 
3.2. Index selected 
The 20 independent indicators, representing principal Dali land eco-security traits, were selected in an 
adapted PSR framework (table1), the weight of each indicator in  each level are also listed in  the table. In 
possess of selecting these indicators, we have considered related methods about ecological security 
evaluation which used domestic and foreign at present. The indicators have four levels above all. First is 
2174  Ye Hua et al. / Energy Procedia 5 (2011) 2172–2177
target level, namely composite index of  ecological security; second is project level, including pressure 
that result from nature, society and humans, the status of the ecosystem, the responses of human society; 
and the third is of the factor level, dealing with factors by which the justification criteria is determinate. 
The specific result is in Table 1[2]. 
Table 1. Indicators Index system of Dali land ecological security evaluation 
Target  layer Project  layer Factor Index layer Index weight  
Land ecological 
security 
Land ecological 
pressure 
Population 
pressure 
D1 population density 0.0151 
D2 natural population 
growth rate 0.0187 
Land 
pressure 
D3 per capita cultivated land 0.0165 
D4 mean annual precipitation 0.0206 
D5 yield per unit area under crops 0.0471 
D6 annual forestland production 
value per unit  0.0400 
D7 annual agricultural land production 
value per unit  0.0517 
Socio-Economic 
pressure 
D8 economic density 0.1191 
D9 urbanization level 0.1228 
Land ecological 
state 
Land quality 
D10 proportion of non-irrigated farmland 0.0247 
D11 agrochemical application rate 
(calculated by pure consumption) 0.0155 
Land 
use 
structure 
D12 land resource backup rate 0.0350 
D13 proportion of cultivated land 0.0339 
D14 proportion of grassland 0.1688 
D15 proportion of forestland 0.0297 
Land ecological 
response 
Socio-Economic 
response 
D16 proportion of tertiary industry in GDP 0.0256 
D17 per capita GDP 0.0914 
D18 growth rate of total social investment 
in fixed assets 0.0223 
D19  rural per capita net income 0.0528 
D20 farming mechanization 0.0486 
3.3. Standardization of Index 
As different indexes have no comparability due to the fact that they d iffer completely in d imensions, 
it’s necessary to convert original data to dimensionless form. The evaluating indicators can be divided 
into the positive term target and the negative term target. The model takes the following two forms. 
1) Standardization of positive effect indexes: for some indexes, the higher their values are, the greater 
the positive effect they will bring to land ecological security, which means this kind of indexes has much 
less risk to ecological security. Their standardization method is: 
minmax
min
xx
xxP ii 
 
                                                                                                                              ˄1˅ 
Ye Hua et al. / Energy Procedia 5 (2011) 2172–2177 2175
2) Standardization of negative effect indexes: for other indexes, the higher their values are, the  greater 
the negative effect they will b ring to land ecological security, which means this kind of indexes has much 
more risk to ecological security. Their standardization method is: 
minmax
max
xx
xxP ii 
                                                                                                                            ˄2˅ 
In the formula, iP  is the i th standardized value of each index included in the assessment; ix  is the i th actual value˗ maxx is biggest value of this  index, and minx is the minimum value of this index. 
3.4. Determination of weights value 
During the process of land ecological security assessment, the importance of each evaluation factor to 
target ranges, the value determined by their proportion in the evaluation according to the importance of 
indicators is the weight value [5]. Assign weights to each factor is another basic issue influencing eco-
security. The correctness of the weight value not only  affects the efficiency of evaluation, but also affects 
the precision of evaluation results. As a user-friendly and pract ical tool based on simple pr incip les, the 
entropy method is applicable to problem arising in uncertain environments in which mult iple evaluation 
criteria exist. The entropy is an appropriate method for deriving the weight assigned to each indicator, and 
been applied widely in environment evaluation and sustainable management. This paper adopts entropy to 
determine the evaluation indicator weights, and the specific process is as fo llows: 
Information  entropy represents the uncertainties of things and issues, which can measure effect ive 
informat ion the data provided, the entropy and entropy weight decrease with the reduction of informat ion 
amount, and vice versa[3]. The computation of entropy and entropy weight is as following [4]: 
)(
1
¦
 
 
m
i
ijijj InffKe                                                                                                                    ˄3˅ 
Where, je  is entropy of j index, ¦
 
 
m
i
ij
ij
ij
P
Pf
1

Inm
k 1 
Suppose jW  is entropy weight of j index, then 
¦ ¦
¦
  
 


 
n
i
m
i
ijij
m
i
ijij
j
InffK
InffK
W
1 1
1
))(1(
)(1
 10 dd jW  1
1
 ¦
 
n
i
jW ˄4˅ 
3.5. Integrated evaluation index value 
In order to quantitatively assess the security status of a region ecosystem composite index (T) needed 
to be developed. A scale from 0 to 1 was chosen as a basis for ranking where T of zero indicates the worst 
possible health state and one of 1 the best possible health state. In order to facilitate verbal descriptions of 
health status, the T was further d ivided into five groups with ranges as: 0-0.3, 0.3-0.5, 0.5-0.6, 0.6-0.8, 
0.8-1 corresponding to five health states, “Worst”, “Bad”, “Middle”, “Good” and “Best”, respectively. 
2176  Ye Hua et al. / Energy Procedia 5 (2011) 2172–2177
The T is then calculated according to the following equation: 
¦
 
u 
n
i
ii WYT
1
)(                                                                                                                                   (5) 
Where T is a synthetic ecosystem security  index, iY  the i th sub-ecosystem security index for the i th 
indicator, n  the number of indicators considered in assessment, and iW  the weighting factor for the i th 
indicator. 
It can be seen from Eq. (5) that the synthetic T depends on the various iY  and the weighting factors 
for each indicator. 
4. Results and analysis 
According to the assessment method raised above, the ecological security results of Dali in 2009 are 
reveling in table 2: 
Table 2: Results of Dali Prefecture land ecological security evaluation  
City/County name pressure state response composite value rank status 
Whole Prefecture 0.30796 0.11050 0.18977 0.60823  Good 
Dali city 0.38049 0.116 0.22909 0.72558 1 Good 
Yangbi County 0.2289 0.10813 0.1484 0.48543 10 Bad 
Xiangyun County 0.32979 0.12388 0.1831 0.63677 3 Good 
Binchuan County 0.30487 0.16304 0.18913 0.65704 2 Good 
Midu County 0.27826 0.09487 0.14253 0.51566 6 Middle 
Nanjian County 0.25506 0.11246 0.138 0.50552 7 Middle 
Weishan County 0.26685 0.10233 0.13577 0.50495 8 Middle 
Yongping County 0.24545 0.11175 0.14661 0.50381 9 Middle 
Yunlong County 0.19997 0.11106 0.13158 0.44262 12 Bad 
Eryuan County 0.26439 0.12112 0.15701 0.54252 4 Middle 
Jianchuan County 0.21747 0.12783 0.13178 0.47707 11 Bad 
Heqing County 0.25432 0.12704 0.14748 0.52884 5 Middle 
 
It can be seen from table 2 that the higher the composite value of land ecological security, the greater 
the degree of land ecological security. The land ecological security composite value of Dali Bai 
Autonomous Prefecture in 2009 is 0.60823, the security level is "good" and the ecological security status 
is that the land ecological environment is good, the structure of ecosystem and the service function of land 
ecosystem are basically  sound. The ecosystem can  recover by itself if it  is mild ly disturbed, and the 
chance of ecological disasters is very small. Meanwhile, the land ecological security levels of Dali City, 
Xiangyun County and Binchuan County are also "good". These three places located in the dam area, and 
the levels of land utilizat ion and economic development in these places are relatively high. There are six 
counties that are in the levels of " middle". The economies of these places are relat ively underdeveloped 
compared with Dali City. It is hard to explo it land there because the terrain is largely moun tainous. Land 
ecological function is weak, and ecological disasters happen sometimes. The land eco logical security 
Ye Hua et al. / Energy Procedia 5 (2011) 2172–2177 2177
levels of Yangbi, Yunlong and Jianchuan County are in the level of "bad". These three counties are in  the 
remote area of the prefecture. The economy of these regions is  underdeveloped and the level of 
agricultural production is comparat ively low. Taking Yunlong County as an example, the security index 
of farming mechanization is 0.01623, the level of farming mechanization is 2.4393 KW/hm² much lower 
than that of national average value which is 20 KW/hm². It results in extensive farming method, misuse 
and ecological insecurity of land resources. According to the analysis above, t he results of the analysis 
model is consistent with the actual situation. 
5. Conclusion 
According to the results of the land ecological security assessment of Dali prefecture, the security 
status of the region in 2009 is pretty good. However, it is noteworthy that the economic d isparity among 
different cities in the prefecture and the land security level varies from city to city. The difficulty of land 
exploit ing, ecological disasters and the vulnerable land ecosystem are also the inevitable reality people 
should face. So how to maintain the present good trend of land resources with the rapid development of 
economy and intensified human activities is what the government and policy makers  should consider. 
Acknowledgements 
 This research was supported by National Water Po llution Control and Management Technology 
Major Pro jects (2009ZX07105ü001-003) by self-determined research fund of CCNU from the colleges’ 
basic research and operation of MOE.  
References 
[1] Wang Xiaodan, Zhong Xianghao, Gao Pan. A GIS-based decision support system for reginal eco-security assessment and 
its application on the Tibetan Plateau Journal of Environmental Management, 2009, 91(2010):1981-1990.  
 [2] Wellington Jogo, Rashid Hassan. Balancing the use of wetlands for economic well-being and ecological security: The case 
of the Limpopo wetland in southern Africa. Ecological Economics 69(2010):1569-1579. 
 [3] Ye YC, Ke LH. Compressive evaluation technology and application of system. 2nd ed. Beijing: Metallurgical Industry 
Press;2006. 
 [4] Wan Y. Investment risk evaluation of real estate based on entropy weight and improved analytic hierachy process. Journal 
of East China Jiaotong University 2009;26(6):119-125. 
[5] Xiao Duning. On the basic concepts and contents of ecological security. Chinese Journal of Applied Ecology, 
2002,13(3):334-358. 


Land Ecological Security Assessment for Bai Autonomous Prefecture of Dali Based Using PSR Model--with Data in 2009 as Case 

file:///data/core-remote/dit/data/elsevier/pdf/021/aHR0cDovL2FwaS5lbHNldmllci5jb20vY29udGVudC9hcnRpY2xlL3BpaS9zMTg3NjYxMDIxMTAxMzExNw==.pdf

Land Ecological Security Assessment for Bai Autonomous Prefecture of Dali Based Using PSR Model--with Data in 2009 as Case

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Elsevier - Publisher Connector