The ecological cost of land reclamation and its enlightenment to coast sustainable development in the northwestern Bohai Bay,China

Land has been widely reclaimed in large area in coastal zones all over the world to relieve the pressure of land shortage,promoting social development and economic growth.Asia has become a focus of land reclamation with the rapid industrialization and urbanization.From the Binhai New Area of Tianjin to the Caofeidian New Area of Tangshan,the undergoing project of land reclamation on the northwest coast of Bohai Bay,China,is the largest in the world.To clarify the environmental issues and benefit sustainable development of the coastal zone,we conducted both retrospective and predictive assessments of the ecological cost caused by land reclamation on the northwest coast of Bohai Bay,China.We calculated the ecological costs of ten aspects of the four ecosystem services,i.e.,supply,regulation,support and culture,with the monetary estimate approach.The results indicate that the ecological cost of the new land reclamation is US$971.9 million from 2000 to 2010 and that the cost will be US$702.1 million from 2010 to 2020.The costs of gas regulation and marine food supply account for the greatest parts of the total value.Suggestions for land reclamation oriented to sustainable development in the study area are put forward,including a rational planning based on the comprehensive evaluation,reducing the amount of land reclamation area,optimizing the structure of the reclaimed land,reclaiming land with the concept of ＂low impact development＂ and implementing ecological compensation mechanisms,etc.

The net ecosystem services value in China's Mainland

Protection of the ecological environment is an effective strategy for maintaining ecosystem health,improving provision of ecosystem services,and increasing human well-being.However,traditional calculations of the value of ecosystem services(VES)provide weak guidance because they ignore the costs of these services,leading to economically inefficient strategies.To understand the difference between VES and the net ecosystem services value(NES,after subtracting costs from VES)and to improve evaluations of ecosystem services,we estimated NES for China's Mainland(including farmland,grassland,forest,and wetland).NES totaled 10.0×10~3RMB ha^(-1)yr^(-1)in 2014,which is only 35.1%of the corresponding VES.Grassland NES was–0.7×10~3RMB ha^(-1)yr^(-1),in contrast with a positive grassland VES.NES of farmland,grassland,forest,and wetland in2014 totaled 7.2×10^(12)RMB,accounting for 27.0%of China’s GNP.Recent Chinese planning based on VES emphasizes forest conservation and ignores the conservation of other important ecosystems,such as grassland,leading to a continuing loss of China’s natural capital.Due to regional differences in economic conditions,resource endowments,and geographical characteristics,VES and NES differ among regions.To maximize the ecological benefits from conservation,it is necessary to account for these differences by comparing strategies based on NES,thereby choosing projects that maximize both economic and ecological benefits.To maintain the ecological balance,ecological restoration and socioeconomic activities should account for the costs of providing ecosystem services.This is essential to minimize the costs and maximize the benefits of projects.

The valuation of China’s environmental degradation from 2004 to 2017

This paper aims to evaluate the cost of environmental degradation by adopting the conventional environmental economic methodology in China from 2004 to 2017 and summarize the change in both the causes and costs of China’s environmental degradation.Results from this study revealed the following:i.The environmental degradation cost in China increased from 511 billion yuan to 1,892 billion yuan from 2004 to 2017,and its share in the GDP decreased from 3.05% to 2.23%;ii.The environmental degradation cost growth rate was lower than the GDP growth rate.The environmental degradation cost growth rate decreased sharply,by dropping from 10% in 2014 to 2% in 2017.The environmental benefits of industrial transformation have emerged;iii.The provinces of Shandong,Hebei,Jiangsu,Henan,and Guangdong had the highest environmental degradation costs.The annual average growth rate of the environmental degradation costs in Jiangsu,Guangdong,and Zhejiang were lower than their growth rate of the GDP respectively;iv.Consideration of environmental degradation cost in decision-making could contribute to the high-quality development of China.

An Efficient Substation Placement and Sizing Strategy Based on GIS Using Semi-supervised Learning

As load and renewable penetration continues to grow,optimal placement and sizing of substations is becoming increasingly important in distribution system planning.This paper presents an improved methodology to solve the substation siting and sizing problem based on geographic information and supervised learning.The proposed approach can optimize the locations,capacities,and power supply ranges of substations with minimum investment and annual operation costs.Capital cost of land adds complexity and difficulty to the substation placement problem,especially for highly developed urban areas.This paper presents a theoretical framework to determine the optimal location of substations considering the cost of land.The state-of-the-art parallel computing techniques are employed so that co-optimization for substations of multiple voltage levels can be directly conducted in a computational efficient way.Case studies are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.