Measuring the agricultural sustainability of India:An application of Pressure-State-Response(PSR)model

Analyzing agricultural sustainability is essential for designing and assessing rural development initiatives.However,accurately measuring agricultural sustainability is complicated since it involves so many different factors.This study provides a new suite of quantitative indicators for assessing agricultural sustainability at regional and district levels,involving environmental sustainability,social security,and economic security.Combining the PressureState-Response(PSR)model and indicator approach,this study creates a composite agricultural sustainability index for the 14 mainstream agro-climatic regions of India.The results of this study show that the Trans-Gengatic Plain Region(TGPR)ranks first in agricultural sustainability among India's 14 mainstream agro-climatic regions,while the Eastern Himalayan Region(EHR)ranks last.Higher livestock ownership,cropping intensity,per capita income,irrigation intensity,share of institutional credit,food grain productivity,crop diversification,awareness of minimum support price,knowledge sharing with fellow farmers,and young and working population,as well as better transportation facilities and membership of agricultural credit societies are influencing indicators responsible for higher agricultural sustainability in TGPR compared with EHR.Although,the scores of environmental sustainability indicators of EHR are quite good,its scores of social and economic security indicators are fairly low,putting it at the bottom of the rank of agricultural sustainability index among the 14 mainstream agroclimatic regions in India.This demonstrates the need of understanding agricultural sustainability in relation to social and economic dimensions.In a nation as diverse and complicated as India,it is the social structure that determines the health of the economy and environment.Last but not least,the sustainability assessment methodology may be used in a variety of India's agro-climatic regions.

Drainage and Preliminary Risk of Flooding in an Urban Zone of Eastern Amazon

Drainage system is a poorly investigated basic sanitation and urban planning issue in the Amazon, which is often related to flooding processes and public health. The aim of the present research is to correlate Preliminary Risk of Flooding (PRF) to independent variables, based on the following methodology: 1) identifying and classifying risk areas by using the Geographic Information System (GIS) and 2) statistically correlating risk to sanitary and environmental variables. Results have shown that preliminary risk is correlated to, at least, seven sanitary and environmental variables, depending on flood influence area;and there are significant correlations observed in the rainy season interval [probability or significance (p) 0.05]. In conclusion, PRF is higher in the rainy season, but it is spatially influenced by the elevation of terrain, number of flooding points, drainage typology and Environmental Salubrity Index (ESI) of neighborhoods, which directly affect the water quality in nearby groundwater wells (Total Coliforms, nitrate (NO3) and ammonia (NH3)). However, this influence can eventually significantly change in the dry season.

Development and Research of Forest Tourism from the Perspective of Forest Experience

Forest experience is an important scale for measuring the development degree of forest tourism,and also an indispensable part of forest tounsm.Domestic theoretical and practical researches on forest experience and forest tourism have been less reported,forest tounsm development and research from the perspective of forest experience have remained in the exploration stage,and researches on natural education and forest culture have also been just initiated.This paper explored problems of current forest tourism development from three perspectives of forest experience,i.e.environmental index,experience content and facility service.By applying scientific development and marketing methods,and combining with traditional health-care culture,forest tourism development spaces could be expanded.Finally,the paper proposed to establish forest ecological monitoring system and enrich forest experience projects to provide visitors forest tounsm expenence with high additional value and satisfaction degree.

Construction of SSR Linkage Map and Analysis of QTLs for Rolled Leaf in Japonica Rice

Genetic analysis of rolled leaf is important to rice ideotype breeding. To detect loci controlling rolled leaf of japonica restorer lines, SSR marker genotypes and phenotypes of flag leaf rolling index （LRI） were investigated in Xiushui 79 （P1, a japonica rice variety）, C Bao （P2, a japonica restorer line） and 254 recombinant inbred lines derived from the cross between P1 and P2 , and in two environments. A genetic map of this cross was constructed, QTLs for LRI were detected and their interactions with environments were analyzed. Among 818 pairs of SSR primers, 90 primers showed polymorphism between P1 and P2, and 12 markers showed highly significant correlation with LRI in both environments based on single marker regression analysis. The genetic map containing 74 information loci has a total distance of 744.6 cM, with an average of 10.1 cM between two adjacent loci. Three QTLs （qRL-1, qRL-7 and qRL-8-1） were detected with two softwares： WinQTLCart 2.5 and QTLNetwork2.0. qRL-8-1 was a new locus, accounting for 15.5% and 12.8% of phenotypic variations in the two environments, respectively. The phenotypic variation explained by additive effect was 6.6%. No interaction was found between qRL-8-1 genotype and environments.

Analysis on areal relationship between regional environment and socioeconomy—taking the Chinese Yellow Sea coastal zone as a case

From the regional view, this paper analyzes the regional difference between the environmental regional structure and the socio-economic structure, establishes the regional connection between them, and determines the leading direction of the regulation of the socio-economy to improve the environmental quality in different regions.

Land degradation sensitivity assessment and convergence analysis in Korla of Xinjiang, China

Land degradation has a major impact on environmental and socio-economic sustainability. Scientific methods are necessary to monitor the risk of land degradation. In this study, the environmental sensitive area index(ESAI) was utilized to assess land degradation sensitivity and convergence analysis in Korla, a typical oasis city in Xinjiang of China, which is located on the northeast border of the Tarim Basin. A total of 18 indicators depicting soil, climate, vegetation, and management qualities were used to illustrate spatial-temporal patterns of land degradation sensitivity from 1994 to 2018. We investigated the causes of spatial convergence and divergence based on the Ordinary Least Squares(OLS) and Geographically Weighted Regression(GWR) models. The results show that the branch of the Tianshan Mountains and oasis plain had a low sensitivity to land degradation, while the Tarim Basin had a high risk of land degradation. More than two-thirds of the study area can be categorized as "critical" sensitivity classes. The largest percentage(32.6%) of fragile classes was observed for 2006. There was no significant change in insensitive or low-sensitivity areas, which accounted for less than 0.4% of the entire observation period. The ESAI of the four time periods(1994–1998, 1998–2006, 2006–2010, and 2010–2018) formed a series of convergence patterns. The convergence patterns of 1994–1998 and 1998–2006 can be explained by the government's efforts to "Returning Farmland to Forests" and other governance projects. In 2006–2010, the construction of afforested work intensified, but industrial development and human activities affected the convergence pattern. The pattern of convergence in most regions between 2010 and 2018 can be attributed to the government's implementation of a series of key ecological protection projects, which led to a decrease in sensitivity to land degradation. The results of this study altogether suggest that the ESAI convergence analysis is an effective early warning method for land degradation sensitivity.

;orecasting industrial emissions： a monetary approach vs. a physical approach

Forecasts of industrial emissions provide a basis for impact assessment and development planning. To date, most studies have assumed that industrial emissions are simply coupled to production value at a given stage of technical progress. It has been argued that the monetary method tends to overestimate pollution loads because it is highly influenced by market prices and fails to address spatial development schemes. This article develops a land use-based environmental performance index （L-EPI） that treats the industrial land areas as a dependent variable for pollution emissions. The basic assumption of the method is that at a planning level, industrial land use change can represent the change in industrial structure and production yield. This physical metric provides a connection between the state-of-the-art and potential impacts of future devel- opment and thus avoids the intrinsic pitfalls of the industrial Gross Domestic Product-based approach. Both methods were applied to examine future industrial emissions at the planning area of Dalian Municipality, North-west China, under a development scheme provided by the urban master plan. The results suggested that the L- EPI method is highly reliable and applicable for the estimation and explanation of the spatial variation associated with industrial emissions.

Material selection combined with optimal structural design for mechanical parts

To reduce the environmental impact of mechanical parts, an approach integrating structural design and material selection was studied. Adding the discrete variable of material, a hybrid optimization model was built with the aim of minimizing environmental impact and based on an ordinary structure optimization model. An optional material set was built by combining measures of qualitative and quantitative screening, while the lifecycle environmental impact of the materials was quantified using the method of Eco-indicator 99. Two groups of structurally optimal solutions were calculated with ideal and negative-ideal materials selected respectively, and then the hybrid model was simplified by comparing the solutions. A material environmental performance index was calculated using an analytic method. By comparing this index for every material in the optional material set, the optimal material can be found and the structural solutions calculated. This method was applied to a dowel bar design process as a case study. The results show that the environmental impact of each material has a significant effect on the optimal structural solution, and it is necessary to study the integration of structural design and material selection.