Carrying Capacity Of Resources Research Articles

Factors Influencing Water Resource Levels under the Water Resource Carrying Capacity Framework: A Dynamic Qualitative Comparative Analysis Based on Provincial Panel Data

Most existing evaluation frameworks for water resource carrying capacity (WRCC) neglect the interdependencies between subsystems. To fill this gap, we introduce a dynamic qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) model to evaluate WRCC and apply it to a vital economic development corridor, the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB). Ecological, social, and economic subsystems are defined as condition subsystems, while the water resource subsystem is defined as the outcome subsystem. The entropy weight method is used to calculate and calibrate the comprehensive score of each subsystem. By analyzing the necessity of a single condition subsystem and the sufficiency of condition subsystem configuration via a dynamic QCA, we qualitatively analyze the impact extent and pathways of the ecological, social, and economic subsystems on the water resource subsystem within the WRCC framework. The results reveal generally stable water resource levels despite regional variances, thereby pinpointing the influence pathways, including ecological–social and ecological–economic configurations. The 2011–2015 period saw poor stability, which subsequently improved until 2019 before declining in 2020 in the YREB. The middle-reach urban cluster showed the highest stability, which was less impacted by condition subsystems. These findings could enable provinces and municipalities to tailor policies and enhance subsystem levels for better water resource management.

Evaluation of Resource and Environmental Carrying Capacity at Provincial Level in China Using a Pressure–Support–Adjustment Ternary System

Resources and environment are essential elements of social and economic development. Whether the current resources and environment can sufficiently support economic and social development is an important scientific issue. Existing studies have not reached a consensus on the definition, assessment, and forewarning methods of resource and environmental carrying capacity (RECC). Therefore, this study puts forward a ternary theoretical system of RECC from the perspective of pressure, support, and adjustment, constructs a novel evaluation indices system of RECC, introduces a ternary evaluation model, and proposes a hierarchical forewarning method of RECC with a threshold of 1. Furthermore, an empirical demonstration of 31 provinces in China is presented. The results show that: (1) the average RECC index of 31 areas revealed a downward trend from 2012 to 2021, indicating the gradually improving RECC; (2) the RECC indices of central areas were always high, which manifests the poor RECC; (3) the number of provinces with RECC at Alert Level III decreased from 18 to 7, and the number of provinces at Non-Alert Level increased from 6 to 8.

Study of the Evaluation of Resource and Environmental Carrying Capacity and Driving Factors in Arid Areas – A Case Study in Xinjiang, China

Study of the Evaluation of Resource and Environmental Carrying Capacity and Driving Factors in Arid Areas – A Case Study in Xinjiang, China

Study on the coordination and factors affecting the coupling of resource and environmental carrying capacity and regional economy in ecologically fragile areas

The coordinated development of the resources, environment and social economy in ecologically fragile areas has become one of the urgent issues for all countries in the world. In this study, the ecologically fragile area of Ningxia was used as the typical case area. This study constructs a “four main subjects and eight dimensions” comprehensive evaluation model based on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to analyze the situation of the resource and environmental carrying capacity (RECC). This study employs the coupled coordination degree model and the obstacle degree model, integrating them with Pearson correlation analysis to quantitatively evaluate the coupled coordination relationship and influencing factors between RECC and socioeconomic development in Ningxia. The study shows that: (a) the RECC in Ningxia is on an upward trend, with obvious spatial differences, and the pressure on resources and environment in the provincial capital city is more obvious; (b) the coordination of RECC and socioeconomic development coupling in Ningxia is on a steady upward trend, but the internal development differences are more obvious, and the degree of coordination in the provincial capital cities is relatively high; (c) the coordinated development of RECC and socioeconomic development is affected by a combination of factors such as climate, water, soil, ecological resources, urbanization, and traffic accessibility in Ningxia. The findings offer scientific support for the coordination of socioeconomic development and resource environmental protection in ecologically fragile regions. Furthermore, they serve as a reference for promoting ecological civilization construction in fragile ecosystems globally.

A Comprehensive Evaluation of Water Resource Carrying Capacity Based on the Optimized Projection Pursuit Regression Model: A Case Study from China

The Han River Ecological Economic Belt (HREEB) has a substantial amount of water resources; however, its distribution is uneven, and issues such as seasonal and engineering water shortages are prevalent. This necessitates a thorough assessment of the current water resource situation and trends in water resource carrying capacity (WRCC) to provide scientific support for the rational allocation of water resources. This study employed the RAGA-PP model to establish a WRCC evaluation index system composed of four subsystems: water resources, economy, society, and the ecological environment. The WRCC of the 17 major cities in the HREEB was evaluated from 2008 to 2022. The differentiation method was introduced to compare the reliability of the RAGA-PP model with three evaluation methods: the entropy weight TOPSIS method, the rank sum ratio method, and the principal component analysis method. In addition, an obstacle degree model was introduced to analyze the factors influencing WRCC enhancement. The results indicated the following. (1) In the differentiation test of the four models, the RAGA-PP model was found to have the highest differentiation value, and the results showed that it was more reliable in the WRCC evaluation of HREEB. (2) WRCC in the HREEB underwent significant changes between 2008 and 2022. (3) The WRCC in Shiyan and Wuhan, which are located in the eastern part of the HREEB, were high in Hubei, low in four cities in Henan, and satisfactory in three cities in Shaanxi. (4) The carrying capacity of the subsystems of the cities in the HREEB exhibited fluctuating changes with obvious internal variations. (5) The problems in the WRCC guideline layer were consistent across all cities in the HREEB, with limited per capita water resources being the primary issue in the indicator layer. Assessing WRCC is essential for achieving sustainable water resource use and high-quality regional development.

Characteristics of the Evolution of Resource and Environmental Carrying Capacity in Shaanxi Province

This paper constructs a resource and environmental carrying capacity index system based on the DPSIR model, and adopts the entropy weight TOPSIS method to analyze the resource and environmental carrying capacity of Shaanxi Province in terms of time series and spatial distribution. The results show that from 2010 to 2020, the resource environmental carrying capacity of Shaanxi Province in general shows a fluctuating upward trend, and on the whole there is a small decrease in 2017 compared with 2016 and 2020 compared with 2019, and an increase in 2019 compared with 2018; in terms of the characterization value of the resource environmental carrying capacity of each city, Yan'an City is in the first place for a long period of time, and it is stable in the top three with Yulin and Xi'an; each The resource environmental carrying capacity of each city shows a gradual convergence state, indicating that the difference between their carrying capacity gradually decreases. Finally, this paper makes corresponding suggestions for the improvement of the resource and environmental carrying capacity of Shaanxi Province from five aspects: economic development, low-carbon development, resource and environmental load reduction, population growth, and environmental infrastructure construction.

Evaluation and forewarning of the resource and environmental carrying capacity from the perspective of pressure-support-adjustment: a case study of Yichang city, China

Resources and the environment are essential for socioeconomic development. A scientific and reasonable evaluation and forewarning of the resource and environmental carrying capacity (RECC) is of great significance for regional sustainable development. Although great progress has made in existing research on RECC, there is still no consensus on the definition, evaluation and forewarning method for RECC. Therefore, this study introduced the novel concepts of pressure, support and adjustment, proposed a theoretical framework of RECC reflecting the interaction between the above three, constructed a new evaluation index system of RECC, evaluated RECC based on the ratio method, identified important influencing factors using obstacle model, and put forward the hierarchical forewarning method of RECC with the threshold of 1. Finally, a case demonstration in regard to Yichang city, with a prominent ecological and economic status as the location of China’s Three Gorges Project, was conducted. The results revealed that: 1) The average pressure, support, and adjustment exhibited overall upward trends. The pressure and adjustment increased from west to east, while the support of central districts was relatively lower. 2) The RECC of Yichang city and counties improved from 2016 to 2021, increasing from west to east, and the differences in the RECC of various counties were remarkable but gradually shrank. 3) The RECC of Yichang city remained at the Non-Alert Level. The number of counties with RECC values at Alert Level II decreased from two to zero, and the number of counties at the Non-Alert Level increased from eight to ten. Xiaoting and Zhijiang, with more RECC values at Alert Level II, should receive more attention. This study is expected to enrich the methodology of RECC evaluation and forewarning, and provide possible implications for economic development and environmental protection planning in Yichang and other cities of the same type.

Method for identifying rural PLES and its applications

The quantitative identification of rural land functions serves as a basis for rural land planning, coordinated spatial development, and control capacity improvement and is significant for rural transformation and sustainable development. This paper constructs an analysis framework to identify and evaluate “production-living-ecological” space (PLES) in rural areas of central and western China. On the Loess Plateau, which was taken as the study area, a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis was completed to determine framework indicators and their thresholds. Resource and environmental carrying capacity and land suitability were measured through GIS spatial analysis under different land functional orientations. This sought to recognize production space (PS), living space (LS), and ecological space (ES) in rural areas, reveal their distribution patterns on the Loess Plateau, and determine alternative areas for future land use. The results indicate that the PS and LS of the Loess Plateau rural land show a relatively low resource and environmental carrying capacity but vary significantly in different functional regions. The space distribution of PS and LS with higher carrying capacity shows obvious consistency. Although the Loess Plateau has vast sustainable land for development, the intensity of development should be carefully controlled. Additionally, significant regional differences remain in rural PLES, so reasonable future rural land planning should be formulated according to the PLES pattern. This study provides a scientific basis for promoting coordinated development of Loess Plateau rural areas and implementing a rural revitalization strategy. It is also a reference for identifying PLES and its coordinated spatial development in rural central and western China.

The impact of environmental regulation on water resources carrying capacity in the Yangtze River Economic Belt

ABSTRACT Enhancing environmental regulation (ER) is a key strategy for improving the carrying capacity of water resources. This study employs panel data from 11 provinces and cities within the Yangtze River Economic Belt, spanning from 2008 to 2022, to calculate the carrying capacity of water resources using an enhanced TOPSIS model. It further examines the threshold effect and spatial spillover effect of ER on water resources carrying capacity (WRCC) through the construction of panel threshold models and spatial econometric models, respectively. Findings indicate a stable growth trend in the carrying capacity of water resources across the Yangtze River Economic Belt, with the upstream region typically exhibiting a higher capacity than both the midstream and downstream regions. ER positively impacts WRCC, demonstrating a single threshold effect. Nonetheless, the positive effect of ER on WRCC experiences diminishing marginal returns as industrial structure upgrades. While strengthening ER positively influences the carrying capacity of water resources in local areas, it exerts a negative spatial spillover effect on neighboring regions. In light of these findings, implementing differentiated ER, optimizing industrial structure and collaborative policies and promoting technological innovation are vital for fostering WRCC.

Spatial and Temporal Divergence of Water Resource Carrying Capacity in Hubei Province, China, from the Perspective of Three Major Urban Agglomerations

Spatial and Temporal Divergence of Water Resource Carrying Capacity in Hubei Province, China, from the Perspective of Three Major Urban Agglomerations

Potential of Horticultural and Food Crops in Kuantan Singingi-Based Agropolitan

Abstract One of the main ways to hasten the process of implementing development and enhancing community services is through regional division. Additionally, regional growth during the age of regional autonomy has given regional governments more room to conduct independent development planning in Kuantan Singingi in line with the availability and carrying capacity of regional resources. This research aims to determine the leading sectors in Kuantan Singingi Regency based on information and data regarding the production of horticultural crops and food crops that are suitable for regional advantages and community conditions. It also analyzes the concept, potential implementation, and the impact of agropolitan development on the agricultural sector and economic growth in Kuantan Singingi Regency, in order to obtain recommendations for the regions and the recommended types of horticultural crops and food crops to be developed as agropolitan areas in Kuantan Singingi Regency. The analysis results indicate that the agricultural sector can be developed as a leading sector in Kuantan Singingi Regency, as evidenced by 65% of the total area in Kuantan Singingi Regency being productive land. Kuantan Tengah and Cerenti districts are recommended for the development of agropolitan areas with a focus on horticultural crops and food crops, including spinach, water spinach, durian, corn, and cassava as the leading commodities in Kuantan Singingi Regency. The total overall production of these commodities amounts to 1,427 tons per year.

Impact of China’s Energy-Consuming Right Trading on Urban Land Green Utilization Efficiency

China is facing development challenges, such as the red line of arable land, resource shortage, and tightening ecological and environmental constraints. In this context, improving land green utilization efficiency (LGUE) is not only an important undertaking to optimize the spatial layout of the country and improve resource carrying capacity but also an inevitable choice for the comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development. China’s energy-consuming right trading (ECRT) is an important energy transition demonstration policy; however, its effect on LGUE has yet to be scientifically evaluated in academic research. Using panel data of 260 prefecture-level cities in China from 2009 to 2021, this study first uses a difference-in-difference model to test the effect of ECRT on LGUE, analyze its transmission mechanism, and further examine the impact of urban characteristic heterogeneity on policy effects from multiple perspectives. Results show the following: (1) The pilot policy of ECRT significantly improves urban LGUE, as confirmed by robustness tests. (2) The ECRT pilot policy enhances urban technological innovation, promotes the upgrading of industrial structure, and thereby improves LGUE. (3) The ECRT has a more significant enhancement effect on the central and western cities, large-scale cities, and resource-based cities. (4) Government environmental protection assessment can have a positive moderating effect, that is, further amplifying the effect of ECRT on improving urban LGUE. In conclusion, we should solidly promote the construction of a unified national ECRT market, formulate policy implementation plans tailored to local conditions, and steadily improve LGUE. To a certain extent, this paper reveals the inherent logic of how ECRT affects LGUE, which provides opportunities for cities to improve LGUE through ECRT, and provides reference for promoting the comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development.

Evaluation of resource and environmental carrying capacity in Xiong’an New Area

From four dimensions of resource, environment, ecology (green ecology) and social economy, correlation analysis method and principal component analysis method of SPSS are used to screen evaluation indexes to design a scientific and reasonable evaluation indexes system of resource and environmental carrying capacity in Xiong’an New Area in line with regional characteristics. Based on fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method, resource and environmental carrying capacity of the New Area are evaluated. The results show that: the resource and environmental carrying capacity of the New Area from 2014 to 2018 are 0.3229, 0.3556, 0.3521, 0.3859 and 0.4445 respectively, with an average annual growth rate of 8.32% and a steady growth trend. Then, some countermeasures to improve resource and environmental carrying capacity of the New Area are presented from three aspects of development and utilization of land resource, development and utilization of water resource and protection and utilization of water environment.

Analysis of the coupling coordination of livestock production, residential consumption, and resource and environmental carrying capacity in China

Analysis of the coupling coordination of livestock production, residential consumption, and resource and environmental carrying capacity in China

Model analysis and data validation of structured prevention and control interruptions of emerging infectious diseases.

The design of optimized non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) is critical to the effective control of emergent outbreaks of infectious diseases such as SARS, A/H1N1 and COVID-19 and to ensure that numbers of hospitalized cases do not exceed the carrying capacity of medical resources. To address this issue, we formulated a classic SIR model to include a close contact tracing strategy and structured prevention and control interruptions (SPCIs). The impact of the timing of SPCIs on the maximum number of non-isolated infected individuals and on the duration of an infectious disease outside quarantined areas (i.e. implementing a dynamic zero-case policy) were analyzed numerically and theoretically. These analyses revealed that to minimize the maximum number of non-isolated infected individuals, the optimal time to initiate SPCIs is when they can control the peak value of a second rebound of the epidemic to be equal to the first peak value. More individuals may be infected at the peak of the second wave with a stronger intervention during SPCIs. The longer the duration of the intervention and the stronger the contact tracing intensity during SPCIs, the more effective they are in shortening the duration of an infectious disease outside quarantined areas. The dynamic evolution of the number of isolated and non-isolated individuals, including two peaks and long tail patterns, have been confirmed by various real data sets of multiple-wave COVID-19 epidemics in China. Our results provide important theoretical support for the adjustment of NPI strategies in relation to a given carrying capacity of medical resources.

Spatial identification and priority conservation areas determination of wilderness in China

In the context of an increasingly severe ecological crisis and accelerating ecological civilization construction, the specific regional differences as well as the natural environment of China restrict the uniform population distribution and the social economy's spatial layout, forming a large and widely distributed wilderness. The post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) takes the protection of wilderness areas as one of the key conservation goals and brings new opportunities for wilderness protection. Objective and accurate identification of the spatial range of wilderness and the determination of the focus of wilderness protection are significant for carrying out resource and environmental carrying capacity evaluations, biodiversity conservation, and national park system construction. At present, fewer studies pay attention to wilderness area identification and protection in China. In this study, we used the MaxEnt and Marxan models to establish a framework to identify the spatial distribution and conservation priorities of China's wilderness as well as guide wilderness conservation. The wilderness areas in China show a large-scale, concentrated distribution in space and a small, scattered distribution. From 2000 to 2020, the wilderness area decreased from 3.6323 million km2 in 2000 to 2.9142 million km2 in 2020, and the wilderness area reduction rate from 2000 to 2010 was greater than that in 2010–2020. From 2000 to 2020, the center of gravity of the wilderness area shifted 893.5 km to the southwest. Wilderness center of gravity relocated from Pingluo County, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region to Delingha City, Qinghai Province. Considering conservation objectives and conservation costs, we determined that the wilderness area in urgent need of protection is 55,100 km2, accounting for 1.8 % of the total wilderness area. It is mainly distributed in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (13,000 km2), Yunnan Province (12,000 km2), and Sichuan Province (5300 km2). This methodological framework can provide an important reference for governments in dealing with global climate change, maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem diversity, and promoting sustainable human development.

Framework of land use planning for an energy producing city of Northwest China based on water-energy-food nexus

The development of cities and their industries is constrained by the water-energy-food nexus (WEF nexus) formed under certain biophysical conditions. Urban-scale WEF nexus research is very different from macroscale (global or national) research. There is a need for quantitative optimization of several economic sectors, as well as spatial heterogeneity of resource endowments, to develop policies that are distinctive for different levels of endowments. Currently, China is implementing Territorial Spatial Planning (TSP) at all administrative levels throughout the country. Its theoretical basis is to realize the overall management of urban ecological protection land, urban expansion, and industrial growth by measuring the resource carrying capacity and land development suitability of each plot. This provides an opportunity to explore the interconnections between WEF nexus at urban scale by examining the wide range of urban resource availability. Here, we propose the WEF-TSP framework, which helps to realize the multi-objective development needs of regional ecological protection, urban expansion, agricultural development, and energy production in a certain city and provides a decision-making basis for future urban land spatial planning. Ordos, a city in China recognized for its significant energy reserves, has been selected as the subject of a case study. Combined with the spatial heterogeneity of Ordos's resource endowment and focusing on the strong constraints of water resources and ecological protection, this study explores the urban land spatial layout scheme of Ordos in 2030 under different energy development scenarios. It can also provide a reference for other cities in China and even the world to study the spatial layout of urban land use and industrial development based on the WEF nexus.

Resource and environmental carrying capacity study of Kubai Coalfield in Xinjiang based on RS and GIS

The study of resource and environmental carrying capacity (RECC) is critical to the ecological environmental protection and sustainable development of mining areas. Using multi-source remote sensing data such as Landsat5 and Landsat8, as well as socioeconomic statistics, the impact mechanism of the Kubai Coalfield's RECC was analyzed using the theory of Driving-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR), and a three-level evaluation index system of 1-5-18 was proposed. The cloud model enhanced Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to estimate the weight value of each assessment index. The Kubai Coalfield's RECC was calculated by superimposing the weights of different variables, and the contributing elements and changing trends of the RECC were investigated. The RECC of the Kubai Coalfield is highest in the east, second highest in the west, and lowest in the center, according to the results. The vegetation cover of the mining area has a direct impact on the RECC, and mining activity is the primary cause of the change in carrying capacity; however, coal mining has a lagging effect on the RECC. The study's findings serve as a guide for the quantitative assessment of RECC of Xinjiang's environmentally vulnerable mining sites and offer theoretical justification for the approach taken in the study of RECC of mining areas and the preservation of ecological environment sources.

Spatial suitability evaluation based on multisource data and random forest algorithm: a case study of Yulin, China

With a large population and rapid urbanization, there are still many challenges to optimize the ecological-agricultural-urban space. Here, taking Yulin City, situated on the Loess Plateau of China as a case in point, we explored the spatial suitability evaluation of ecological-agricultural-urban space. Building upon the Chinese government’s concept of “resource and environmental carrying capacity and territorial development suitability evaluation” (hereinafter referred to as “double evaluation”), this study applies machine learning to the planning of ecological-agricultural-urban space. It explores an intelligent evaluation method for land space patterns using multi-source data. Based on the random forest (RF) algorithm and geographic information system (GIS), resulting in evaluated spatial patterns for ecological-agricultural-urban in the Yulin area. The results showed the constructed random forest models achieved an accuracy of 93% for ecology, 90% for agriculture, and 92% for urban space in Yulin City on the test dataset. By means of suitability analysis, the results indicated that the extremely important ecological space were predominantly located in the southwestern and eastern regions of the study area, while suitable space for agricultural production were primarily scattered throughout the southeast. In contrast, suitable space for urban construction were concentrated mainly in the central part of the study area. The use of machine learning has proven to be effective in addressing multicollinearity among spatial evaluation factors across three different areas. By eliminating human subjectivity in weight assignment during evaluation, it introduces fresh perspectives for land space planning and status assessment. These findings may offer support for the scientific delineation of ecological-agricultural-urban space (three districts and three lines) in China.

Retracted: Rough Set Construction and Entropy Weight Evaluation of Urban Higher Education Resource Carrying Capacity Based on Big Data

Retracted: Rough Set Construction and Entropy Weight Evaluation of Urban Higher Education Resource Carrying Capacity Based on Big Data