Carbon Characteristics And Management Decision Support System Of Inner Mongolia Typical Grassland From The Household Perspective

Global warming has become one of the most serious environmental problems in the world due to the greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activities.Therefore,reducing greenhouse gas emissions and effectively mitigating global warming have attracted the attention of governments,organizations,and the public.Inner Mongolia grassland is an important production base of livestock husbandry in China with prominent ecological,social and economic functions,whose development of low efficient ecological animal husbandry has gradually become the consensus.Household is the basic production and management unit on Inner Mongolia grassland.Exploring carbon characteristics and the affecting factors from the household perspective will contribute to better understanding of the region's carbon reserves and carbon sequestration potential and to providing more targeted and feasible suggestions for the implementation of carbon sequestration and emission reduction,thus providing a scientific basis for realizing the regional sustainable development.However,there are very few studies on the carbon characteristics and the influencing factors of the Inner Mongolia typical grassland from the household perspective.This study takes the typical grassland ranches-Baoligen Sumu and Beilike Ranch in Xilinhot,Inner Mongolia as the research areas and household as the basic unit.On the one hand,starting from the grassland ecosystem,based on surveys of communities and soil?0 to 30 cm?of 119 field sample plots,it analyzes the soil organic carbon density difference of different community types and the influencing factors.Besides,by combining with remote sensing data inversion of regional actual and potential soil organic carbon densities?SOCD?is realized.Finally,it discusses the soil organic carbon density and carbon sequestration potential of the household scale in light of the household and grassland boundary.On the other hand,starting from the pastoral socio-economic ecosystem,based on the questionnaire survey of404 households,it analyzes the carbon footprint characteristics and the influencing factors of the herding households,and further explores the carbon effect under different management methods.At the same time,based on the questionnaire survey,it assesses the cognition level of the herding households on the carbon sequestration and mitigation and the willingness and motivations of the adoption of carbon sequestration and mitigation measures.In the end,based on the study on the carbon characteristics in terms of the grassland natural ecosystem the social-economic ecosystem of herding households,the study develops the?Carbon Sequestration and Mitigation Management Decision Support System for Household in Inner Mongolia typical grassland?.The main conclusions are as follows:?1?There are five vegetation formations in the study area,which are Leymus chinensis,Stipa grandis,Stipa krylovii,Carex duriuscula+Potentilla chinensis,Artemisia frigida+Agropyron cristatum.The sequence reflects the orientation of grassland degradation;the variation range of organic carbon density in 5 groups is1.84-2.74 kg/m²,with an average of 2.41±0.84 kg/m²;with the trend of degraded succession,the soil organic carbon density decreases gradually,among which the Artemisia Frigida+Wheatgrass group is significantly lower than the other four groups;soil organic carbon density is positively correlated with vegetation type,above-ground biomass and leaf area,among which vegetation type is the most important influencing factor,which provides scientific support for further realization of remote sensing inversion of soil organic carbon density in regional and household scale.?2?Supervised classification can realize the extraction of vegetation information in this area?the overall classification accuracy is 87.36%and Kappa coefficient is84.23%?and complete the inversion of soil organic carbon density of different groups;depending on the border of the household,it is found that the average soil organic carbon density is 6.85 kg/m²,and the carbon density is higher on both sides of the river and in the south;the climate is the dominant factor that affects the soil organic carbon density in the household,and topography has a strong indirect effect on the soil carbon density in the household;based on the potential top vegetation types in this area?Leymus Chinensis and Stipa Krylovii?,the potential soil organic carbon density is assessed and the potential of soil carbon sequestration is estimated.The average soil solid carbon potential of the household is estimated as 2.37 kg/m²,which is about 35%of the present average soil organic carbon density in the household,and the region with the highest carbon potential is concentrated in northern Baoligen Sumu.?3?The average household carbon footprint of Inner Mongolia typical grassland is 6.56t CO₂.The proportion of indirect household carbon footprint?52.23%?is slightly higher than the direct carbon footprint?47.77%?.The household carbon footprint is influenced by the economic level,demographic characteristics and geographical position,among which the economic level is the most important factor.The economic level directly affects the household carbon footprint,while population characteristics and geographical position indirectly affect the household carbon footprint through the influence of economic level.Household carbon footprint is positively correlated with household income.As household income increases,household carbon footprint takes on a trend of increasing.?4?According to the income sources of the herding households,the district includes 7 main business models:small livestock breeding,large livestock,large and small livestock breeding,grassland auxiliary product management,land management,non-livestock management,cultivation and non-livestock husbandry mixed management,among which small livestock breeding is the main business model.There are significant differences in the total income of herding households among the seven business models.The income of farming and non-livestock husbandry mixed management is the highest?20.85 million yuan?,and the income of land management is the lowest?7.10 million yuan?.There are some differences in the carbon footprint of the 7 business models.The carbon footprint of farming and non-livestock husbandry mixed management is the highest?7.22t CO₂?,and the carbon footprint of grassland auxiliary product management is the lowest?5.07t CO₂?.The distribution of the five components of the carbon footprint of herding households is relatively average in the whole among the seven operating modes,but inequality between the direct carbon footprint and the transportation carbon footprint is prominent,with the Gini coefficient close to 0.4.There are significant differences in the carbon effect among the seven types of business models.The carbon effect of grassland auxiliary product management is the highest?4.34 million yuan/t CO₂?,and the carbon effect of land management is the lowest?1.45 million yuan/t CO₂??5?77%of the herding households do not know about grassland carbon sequestration and mitigation,though 23%have an idea about it,which reflects the low cognition level of grassland carbon sequestration and mitigation in this area.The herding households in the area have a high willingness to participate in the carbon sequestration and mitigation of the grassland,observed from the survey result of 60%willingness,28%average,and 12%unwillingness.The impact of carbon sequestration and mitigation on household income,the importance of economic subsidies from the government,and the government's appeal of ecological environment protection are main influencing factors that affect the willingness of the herding households to participate in carbon sequestration and mitigation,among which the government's appeal of ecological environment protection holds positive effect,while the impact of carbon sequestration and mitigation on household income and the importance of economic subsidies from the government have negative effects.The results of the decision tree show that the willingness of herding household to participate in carbon sequestration and mitigation is influenced by herding households'management values of grassland.Herding households with pure economic management values are reluctant to participate in the implementation,whereas herding households in response to the government's call intend to participate.?6?Taking the household as the unit,based on the Microsoft Visual Studio 2010,using the C#language,the.NET Framework 2.0 development Framework and the SQLite light database,the study constructs a decision management support system of carbon sequestration and mitigation for household in Inner Mongolia typical grassland which can realize the five functions of carbon reserve evaluation of household scale,Carbon Sequestration Potential evaluation,carbon footprint analysis,carbon effect evaluation and management recommendation.Moreover,the feasibility,validity,and practicability of the management decision support system are verified by the experiment.This study can provide assistance for the development of carbon sequestration and mitigation of household in Inner Mongolia typical grassland.