Search

Urban growth management is a popular topic for study area all over the world. Despite the increasingly rich literature, however, little has been considered of the complex relationship between the various urban development factors and their feedback structure. This paper contributes in understanding the mechanism of, and establishing a link between, urban growth management oriented by zoning in China (namely development priority zoning or DPZ). A system dynamics urban growth model is presented that is integrated with China's socio-economic development situation. With Yiwu city and Qingtian County as case studies, the model is applied in simulating urban growth under different driving modes. The results indicate that the DPZ in these two areas has an influence on urban growth management strategy, with the driving mode of urban growth affecting economic development levels, migration and types of land conversion. It is concluded that different driving modes are needed for different types of regions according to the functional positioning of their DPZ and that the model contributes to their identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Renewable energy is necessary for sustainable social and economic development. This is particularly so with global energy shortages, the continuous deterioration of ecosystems and the environment, as well as the world population explosion. This article qualitatively and quantitatively analyzes the effects and problems of Chinese favorable land price policy on photovoltaics. In examining the favorable land price policy in China, this study develops a multiple-linear regression model to study the effects of favorable land price policy on photovoltaic power and photovoltaic industry. Data used in this research was mainly collected from 20 provinces in China. It is found that the development of PV in China has been greatly affected by the favorable land price policy. In the end, it is highly recommended that favorable land price policy should be continued for renewable energy. Systemic deficiencies can be overcome through continual reform and innovation of mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has experienced considerable economic growth since 1978, which was accompanied by unprecedented growth in urbanization and, more recently, by associated rising urban housing and land banking issues. One such issue is that of land hoarding – where real estate developers purchase land to hold unused in the rising market for a future lucrative sale, often several years later. This practice is outlawed in China, where land use is controlled by increasingly strengthened Government policies and inspectors. Despite this, land hoarding continues apace, with the main culprits being the developers and inspectors working subversively. This resembles a game between two players – the inspector and the developer – which provides the setting for this paper in developing an evolutionary game theory model to provide insights into dealing with the dilemmas faced by the players. The logic and dilemma of land banking strategy and illegal land banking issues are analysed, along with the land inspector's role from a game theory perspective by determining the replication dynamic mechanism and evolutionary stable strategies under the various conditions that the players face. The major factors influencing the actions of land inspectors, on the other hand, are the costs of inspection, no matter if it is strict or indolent, conflict costs, and income and penalties from corruption. From this, it is shown that, when the net loss for corruption (income from corruption minus the penalties for corruption and cost of strict inspections) is less than the cost of strict inspections, the final evolutionary stable strategy of the inspectors is to carry out indolent inspections. Then, whether penalising developers for hoarding is severe or not, the evolutionary strategy for the developer is to hoard. The implications for land use control mechanisms and associated developer-inspector actions and counteractions are then examined in the light of the model's properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The energy supply–demand security and climate change has continued to be problematic, making it significant and necessary to investigate embodied energy flow, particularly in a large and fast-growing developing country like China. One of the effective approaches is the energy/emissions embodied in bilateral trade (EEBT) aiming to locate the destination of energy bi-directionally to evaluate how energy flow between producer and consumer sectors. However, in addition to the flow of energy and resources, the topological structure and impact of underlying components from a system science perspective are equally important for policy-making. This study therefore constructs an energy embodied in trade network (EETN) model to track multi-layer primary energy flow by integrating the EEBT approach and complex network analysis. The embodied coal, oil, natural gas, and non-fossil fuels associated with China’s 30 provinces/municipalities are quantified at the provincial level. By the joint analysis of the network-oriented metrics, the EETN model elicits the possibility of understanding the heterogeneity distribution of different types of energy flow and the potential impact of province-specific policy interventions. We explain how resource endowment, economic growth, income inequality, cross-provincial industrial transfer, and infrastructures affect China’s provincial energy embodiments as well as the clustering features. Other findings and policy recommendations are also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For most developing countries, local government faces a trade-off between economic growth and environmental protection. The intentions towards having a better environment as the economy grows will trigger a shift in the priorities of local government from economy to environment at a certain level of economic development. To investigate the "pollute first, control later" path in China and how environmental regulation performs differently due to economic development, this paper develops a conceptual model to depict the nexus between economic growth and environmental improvement. A panel threshold model is estimated based on Chinese data from different spatial scales – 30 provinces and 105 environmental monitoring cities. The results validate the threshold of economic development of approximately CNY 90,000 GDP per capita, which represents the turning point for the local government priority change; such that only when it is exceeded does environmental regulation significantly reduce emissions. Until 2016, only 4 provincial districts and 35 prefecture-level cities have crossed the threshold, these being mostly in the more prosperous eastern coastal areas. The results emphasize the need to consider timeliness when evaluating the effectiveness of environmental regulation and highlight the importance of adopting differentiated governance. Moreover, the need to enhance the effectiveness of environmental regulation requires driving the change of local government's priority to the environment and strengthening the institutional capacity of environmental protection agencies. • A conceptual model of local government's goals of economic growth and environmental protection. • Panel threshold model to find the economic threshold of effective environmental regulation. • Environmental regulation is effective only if regional GDP per capita exceeds CNY 90,000. • Timeliness and differentiation should be considered for environmental governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]