Effects of Land Use Change on Ecosystem Services in Arid Area Ecological Migration

Ecological migration is the process of increasing the population density in the immigration area and transferring the ecological pressure from emigration area to immigration area. This process may result in significant changes in land use and land cover in the area of immigration and have an important effect on ecosystem services. Therefore, scientifically revealing the effects and differentiation mechanisms of ecological migration on ecosystem services is becoming an important issue related to the implementation of the national ecological migration strategy in China. This study employed the Hongsibu District as a typical example of ecological migration. Hongsibu District is located in the central Ningxia steppe and desert steppe areas. Remote sensing data covering five periods from the period before ecological migration in 1995 and after migration in 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015 was used to measure the value of ecosystem services(ESV). A geographical detector model and the value of ecosystem services model were used to diagnose the dynamic mechanism of the effects of land use change on ecosystem services. The results showed that: 1) The development of large-scale ecological resettlement has caused the area of cultivated land and urbanized land area to increase significantly in the area of immigration, while the grass area decreased significantly. 2) The overall value of the Hongsibu ecosystem services increased in a form of a ‘V'. Among them, during the period of 1995–2005, the overall ESV decreased and had an annual rate of change of-0.67%. During the period of development 2005–2015, the ESV increased steadily, with an annual rate of change of 0.79%. 3) The proportion and total ESV in soil formation and protection, waste treatment, and biodiversity conservation of the Hongsibu District decreased from 57.61% in 1995 to 56.17% in 2015, indicating that the region's ecological regulation function slightly decreased. 4) The ESV in the Hongsibu District, showed a low distribution pattern of ecosystem services increasing from northeast to southwest, and the capacity of three townships, Hongsibu, Taiyangshan, and Liuquan, to provide ecosystem services gradually declined over time. The ecological service function of Xinzhuangji Township and Dahe Township gradually improved. 5) The sensitivity index of the ESV of each land use type was less than 1, indicating that the environment lacks flexibility in providing a strong ESV index in Hongsibu, which shows that the research results are reliable and believable. 6) During the study period, the decisive force of the change of land use on ecosystem services in Hongsibu District was: grassland(0.9934), climate regulation(0.9413), soil formation and protection(0.9321) and waste treatment(0.9241).

Ecological migration effects on the Tianchi Scenic Area in Xinjiang:from the perspective of migrant farmer families

As an important approach for relieving conflicts between ecosystems and human activities in the Tianchi Scenic Area, Xinjiang of China, an ecological migration policy was implemented, aiming to improve the regional ecological environment. The case of resettlement was closely related to the smooth implementation of the migration project. Based on the questionnaires and farmer family interviews, both changes in the ecological environment and the living conditions of migrant farmer families in the Tianchi Scenic Area were investigated in this study. The objectives were to assess the benefits of the ecological migration policy and to analyze the effects of ecological migration on migrant farmer families. The results showed that （1） awareness of the need for ecological environmental protection and the types of migrant families had a great influence on the willingness to migration; （2） since the implementation of the ecological migration project, the ecological environment in the Tianchi Scenic Area had improved significantly, particutarly in terms of returning farmland to forestry, while pressures on grassland had also been relieved to some extent; （3） the major income sources and occupations of the migrant farmer families changed, the range of their income sources declined, and their per capita incomes decreased at different degrees; and （4） nearly half of the farmer families were not satisfied with the living environment of new settlements and the decline in the quality of life had significant influences on the attitudes of migrants. In order to ensure the successful implementation of an ecological migration project, it is essential to enhance farmer awareness of needs for ecological environmental protection, and to solve resettlement problems properly.

An empirical analysis on factors influencing ecological migration in minority areas of China

Taking Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region as an example, this research makes an empirical analysis on the factors influencing the migration activities of the research subject: the southern mountainous farmers who don't emigrate and the farmers who immigrated in Hongsibao Development Zone. With Probit Model, the research shows that the age, educational degree, farming land per capita, number of school-aged children, vocational training experience and the quantity of gained information are all the factors which influence the farmers' emigration choice. However, the influential strength of the factors is different. The research aims to provide the government with more scientific evidences for its policies of promoting ecological migration and to encourage more poverty families to immigrate into the areas suitable for living.

Study on ecological migration in Xinjiang, China

This paper expounds on the meaning of migration and the status quo of studies at home and abroad on migration and ecological migration. It focuses on the discussion of the necessity of ecological migration in Xinjiang, and the problems faced by the ecological emigrants, such as the lack of water, the serious land salination and basification, sand storms, and the adaptation to the environment. Besides, it probes into the problems existing in the ecological migration, including the unscientific design of the moving project, the defects of the reclamation work, and the irrational treatment of the relation between ecological migration and regional development. Based on this, we put forward some suggestions about and countermeasures against those problems.

Ecological Approaches to Urban Migration of the Three Gorges Reservoir Region

With the approach of the second water storage of the Three Gorges Project, urban migration has become a great concern. However, being influenced by economical, social or other factors, ecological problems have apparently become pressing. All these problems are exerting great impact upon the speed and quality of new city’s or town’s construction. By means of ecology, urban ecology, landscape ecology, human settlement science as well as the principle of sustainable development, this paper analyzes the ecological problems in urban migration, and the corresponding approaches in order to promote ecological environment construction of new cities and give an impetus to sustainable development of the whole human settlements in the Three Gorges Reservoir Region.

Study on the influencing factors of peasants' subjective well-being

On the basis of data collected from Liupanshan poverty-ridden areas,the paper selects 24 variables under 4 groups to figure out the influencing factors of subjective well-being(SWB) of peasants in ecological migration with the method of Ordered Probit Regression.As is shown in the results,variables under peasants' personal endowment group and resource of the development group have little impact on peasants' SWB.The variables with observable impact are concentrated in the living condition group and the public atmosphere group.

Resettlement's impact on the domestic economy in lake restoration: a case study of Poyang Lake region

The Chinese government started a take restoration project in Poyang Lake region 10 years ago, and the expost mOnitor of the migrants＇ livelihoods was limited, This paper compares the composition difference of domestic income and domestic consumption between migration and non-migration villages in Poyang Lake region. The results show that the migrants＇ domestic income has increased in the last 10 years, which originated from the tncreasing trend of active and extensive rural labor migration, while the resettlement has not influenced the domestic income significantly. The resettlement stimulates younger farmers to work.far away from home whose wages contribute nearly 80% of domestic income, The resettlement decreases their savings due to higher expenditure of daily life for those who work far away from home, and higher expenditure of food for those who stay at home, losing cultivated lands with irrigation system for vegetable. On the other hand. the increase of rural labor migration leads the migrants who stay at home to have access to more cultivated lands for rice and cotton, and the farmers also apply more fertilizer in the same cultivated land for more agriculture products. The resettlement makes most of migrants spend their savings on the improvement of their housing conditions due to not enough governmental financial support for new building. After the analysis, some factors that influence migrants＇ income and consumption are discussed. The paper may contritbute to the building of Poyang Lake Ecological Economic Zone.

Fighting for the poverty:a case study for human migration in the context of sustainable dryland farming development in the Southern Ningxia Hilly Area

The Southern Ningxia Hilly Area is one of the most impoverished areas of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region(a province)of China due to an economy that mainly relies on agriculture,which is affected by droughts in two out of every three years.Government programs have attempted to develop an increased and sustainable level of scientifically based agricultural production while restoring the environment.However,since the population exceeds the capacity of the land to adequately support it,a program is underway to move 350000 people to more suitable locations.This paper outlines the past improvements to the Southern Ningxia Hilly Area and considers future development in the context of migration for ecological reasons.