Abstract
Land use change is one of the fundamental influence factors of human life and well-being. The land use change due to the unprecedented urbanization in China not only causes an increase of resource consumption and threatens food security, but also affects the people’s living standard which deserves our attention. This study aims to reveal the impacts of land use change on residents’ living standard in Yangzhou based on urban metabolism by sensitivity and regression analysis. Results showed that during the period from 1995 to 2014, the flux of emergy increased about 156.56% and the ratio of fuels & electricity emergy flow had increased from 2.86% to 9.20% due to energy demands getting larger, while the built-up land increased by 415.05 km2 and the cultivated land reduced by 417.24 km2. Sensitivity analysis showed that the expansion of built-up land improved residents’ living standards and enriched their material life, while people’s lives were also increasingly dependent on energy consumption and sustainability was being reduced. The regression analysis indicated that people’s lifestyles were transforming to economical and intensive utilization of resources with the built-up area expansion. The results can provide feasible recommendations for land use planning and urban development from the aspect of human life and well-being.
Highlights
The land is the material foundation of human survival and development, the labor materials of social production, and the basic labor materials of agricultural production
The impact of population dynamics on emergy-based indices was minimal in Yangzhou and this paper focused on the impact of land use change
Yangzhou city was selected as the case study area due to its obvious land use change, typical improvement of its residents’ lives, and its rapid economic growth
Summary
The land is the material foundation of human survival and development, the labor materials of social production, and the basic labor materials of agricultural production. Land use change exerts an essential effect on people’s lives and human well-being. According to the rapid development of urbanization, a rising number of people live in urban areas rather than in rural areas. Urban areas will become the major living environment for most of the world’s population in the future [2]. As a consequence of urbanization, great changes have taken place in land use. The built-up area is fast expanding and the cultivated land is continuously decreasing, and that has had a significant influence on people’s daily lives
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