Suchergebnisse

Endowed with distinctive natural ecosystems and abundant biodiversity, regional environmental governance in developing countries, especially the environmentally sensitive areas (ESAs), is facing the daunting task to ultimately divert their regional development mode towards sustainable fashion through governance transition. However, given their less-developed status in particular expressed by under-developed economies, unsound political regimes, low governance capacity, such task seemingly insurmountable. In order to approach the incompatibility between economic development and maintenance of the ecosystem services value, and understand the complex and interlocked nature of the regional institution system of ESAs in developing countries, an ecosystem services value-based adaptive governance model was introduced to identify the deficiencies and failures of existing regional environmental governance and establish innovative arenas and transition agendas for innovating and reframing regional institutions and modifying role of regional actor groups and governance mode in the process of decision making on environmental issues. Such approaches were conducted in a circular diverting process in order to facilitate the mode of regional development transforming towards sustainable development. For demonstration the process of application and effectiveness of this methodology, a case study was conducted in a typical ESAs&mdash ; the Water Source Area of the Middle Route Project of the South&ndash ; North Water Diversion Project in China. Through integrating the ecosystem services value (ESV) assessment into a wider framework of institutional change, the regional institution system innovation and reformation was directed by taking the ESV changes and pattern of its geo-distribution in the research area as indicators or clues. Compared with traditional proposals for administrative change, the methodology proposed in this study was not prescriptive or directive: Rather, an approach for influencing the direction and speed of transition through a series of steering and coordination mechanism. Therefore, this model is with the potential to be implemented by local communities in regions, especially ESAs in developing countries, to encounter with similar regional development challenges and complex, interlocking, and over-dated regional institutional system associated with environmental issues.

In developing and emerging countries, rapid urbanization at an unprecedented pace and degradation of ecosystem services at an alarming rate have caused many regions, especially those in environmentally sensitive areas (ESAs), to encounter the &ldquo ; regional development dilemma&rdquo ; (RDD), in which regions can hardly divert their current development pattern to achieve a transition to sustainability. The main research focus of this study is to introduce&mdash ; by means of a case study&mdash ; a payments for ecosystem service (PES) scheme as a policy instrument that incorporates an ecosystem services (ES)-based baseline for payments and a spatial-targeting-based allocation plan to address that dilemma and to bridge, as well as achieve, sustainable development goals simultaneously at a regional scale. The water source areas of the Middle Route Project in the South-to-North Water Diversion Project in China were used as the case study. Land Use/Land Cover Change (LUCC) of this area between 2002 and 2010 was detected by adopting remote sensing and spatial analysis technologies. The ecosystem services value (ESV) variation was then estimated and the eco-compensation plan was determined through comprehensively applying equivalent weighting factors of the ecosystem service of terrestrial ecosystems in China and the adjustment coefficient of the ecosystem service based on the notion of willingness to pay for ecosystem services. Results show that rapid urbanization has substantial impacts on the spatial dynamics and quality of ecosystems in the research area. From 2002 to 2010, the total ESV declined by CNY 6 billion. Therefore, the baseline eco-compensation from the benefit zone to the research area was CNY 1.1 billion under the assumption of commensurability. Responsibility ought to be shared by Henan and Hebei provinces, and Beijing and Tianjin, with payment of CNY 422.3, 388.5, 110.9, and 133 million, respectively. We drafted the allocation plan of eco-compensation based on the spatial pattern of ESV variation, and suggested policy tools tailored for subregions in the research area defined by LUCC change categories. Such an integrated study can lead to a more comprehensive understanding of regional PES schemes and provide a set of policy instruments with upgraded spatial-targeting and better cost-efficiency, particularly as blueprints for regional governments in developing and emerging countries that aim at leveraging regional sustainability through bridging and achieving SDGs.

Different urban elements may exhibit various aggregation patterns. It is of great significance to quantitatively investigate the disparity and connection among various aggregation patterns of urban elements for understanding the mechanism of urban development and supporting urban planning. In this paper, the point of interest (POI) of Beijing is taken as an example, and the distribution pattern and the level of agglomeration of POI in different industries are analyzed by kernel density estimation (KDE). The study found that the distribution density of POI in various industries in Beijing showed a trend of "higher in the eastern part and lower in the western part" and gradually decreased from the center to the outer. The aggregation of other industries' POI, which is centered on enterprise POI, is analyzed by k-nearest method. The results show that the retail industry, bus station, and catering service industry are in a relatively concentrated distribution around the enterprise POI, and other urban elements are rarely distributing. In addition, this paper analyzes the kernel density chart by the vector analysis theory on landscape pattern, and how the spatial distribution pattern of enterprises is revealed by using the perspective of classical mechanics. It can be concluded that the formation of this kind of distribution comes from the centripetal force of the various industries and the axial traction of the northwest–southeast to the traffic trunk. Overall, the results of enterprise distribution analysis based on the POI data can explain part of the difference in business activities and economy distribution within urban areas. The study results of enterprise activities are also conducive to the strategy-making process of both governments and enterprises.