| The agro-pastoral transitional zone in north China is an important ecological barrier to prevent the desert invasion from the northwest to the southeast.In recent years,affected by the warming and drying of the climate and human activities,this region has experienced frequent natural disasters and has become a vulnerable ecological environment region.Under the background of rural recession being the challenge to global sustainable development,the rural human-environment system of agro-pastoral transitional zone in north China changes more intense with drought disasters,poverty gathering,multi-ethnic gathering and vulnerable ecology,which becomes a typical area of profound changes in the relationship between rural people and environment and is also the key and difficult area in the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy.What are the characteristics of the rural human-environment system in agro-pastoral transitional zone of north China? What factors influence sustainable development of the system? What are the rules of the system development process? How to alleviate the external interference of the rural human-environment system is an important practical problem to be solved urgently to realize the sustainable development of rural human-environment system in agro-pastoral transitional zone of north China,while improving the ability of sustainable development by adjusting the internal structure and function of the system.Social-ecological systems,vulnerability,adaptation,regime shift and the adaptive cycle this concept,connotation and theory characterize the evolution process of structure and function of rural human-environment system to quantify rural human-environment system of agro-pastoral transitional zone in north China,which provides analytical tools and theoretical basis for analyzing the evolution mechanism of rural human-environment system and provides a scientific basis for optimizing the structure and function of rural human-environment system,becoming the important new research paradigm of rural human-environment system sustainable development.This paper constructs an analysis framework of adaptation evolution of rural human-environment system called "vulnerability evolution of rural human-environment system and the differentiation of adaptive behaviors of farmers and herdsmen",taking Dalhan Maomingan Union Banner of Inner Mongolia as the case study area.According to logical thinking of “climate change,urbanization and policy implementing disturbance—the factors change of rural society,economy and ecological environment—evolution characteristics of spatial and temporal patterns of vulnerability of rural human-environment system—the differentiation of adaptive behaviors of farmers and herdsmen—the change rule of rural human-environment system structure,function and state—adaptation evolution mechanism of rural human-environment system—adaptive management strategies and suggestions of rural human-environment system”,this paper analyzes and summarizes the adaptation evolution process and mechanism of the rural human-environment system and solves the above problems of sustainable development of rural human-environment system of agro-pastoral transitional zone in north China.The research conclusions are as follows:(1)Since Dalhan Maomingan Union Banner was built in 1952,rural areas experienced reorganization phase(1952-1978): rapid population development,slow economic development and gradual deterioration of the ecological environment;exploitation phase(1979-2002): rapid economic development,steady population growth and aggravating deterioration of ecological environment;conservation phase(2003-2016): gradual ecological environment governance,gradual transformation of social and economic development modes and steady and coordinated development of rural human-environment system evolution.In this process,the warming and drying of the climate is an important factor restricting the sustainable development of the rural human-environment system.The social and economic activities under the guidance of policies have a profound impact on the changes of the structure and functions of the rural human-environment system.The structure of rural human-environment system tends to be complex and its functions are constantly improved.At the present stage,a compound rural human-environment system composed of agricultural-oriented,livestock husbandry-oriented,tourism-oriented and comprehensive type has been formed.The spatial heterogeneity of rural human-environment system is significant.(2)The vulnerability of rural human-environment system shows a process of high growth and low decline and the spatial pattern of "high vulnerability in the south,low vulnerability in the middle and moderate vulnerability in the north" is presented in space,but the trend of spatial fragmentation of vulnerability is significant.Judging from the variation characteristics of vulnerability,the change range of the vulnerability of agricultural-oriented rural human-environment system is low.The change range of the vulnerability of livestock husbandry-oriented rural human-land system tends to decrease with the increase of latitude.The vulnerability of tourism-oriented and comprehensive rural human-environment system shows a high-amplitude change in the development process.(3)In the process of evolution of spatial and temporal patterns of vulnerability of rural human-environment system,the cause of farmers and herdsmen adaptation is the system structure and function change.Dry climate change has led to an increased investment in agriculture.Many ecological engineering implementations lead to the lack of natural resources,becoming the thrust of adaptation of farmers and herdsmen.Grassland tourism development and rapid urbanization are the pulling force of adaptation of farmers and herdsmen.Farmers and herdsmen pursue good adaptation effects based on their family livelihood capital characteristics and preferences,which is the internal motivation for the differentiation of adaptive occurrence and adaptive behavior choice of farmers and herdsmen.Among them,the adaptive behaviors of agriculture and animal husbandry,work-oriented and tourism-oriented farmers and herdsmen come from the differentiation of the adaptive behaviors of pure farmers and pure herdsmen under the internal motivation of survival rationality and economic rationality and finally form the farmers and herdsmen with different adaptive behaviors at the present stage.Adaption is the root cause of the differentiation of adaptive behaviors of farmers and herdsmen,which directly affects the adaptive results of farmers and herdsmen.The adaptation of farmers and herdsmen is a key factor of the adaptation evolution of the rural human-environment system,deeply affecting the adaptation evolution path of rural human-environment system.(4)External disturbances formed by climate warming and drying,urbanization and policy implementation and the self-organizing capacity of system generated by structure and function evolution are the main driving force for the adaptation evolution of rural human-environment system.Among them,the self-organizing capacity of the system mainly comes from the change of social and economic development mode,the key factor of which is the adaptation of farmers and herdsmen.External disturbances exert pressure on the system and the system can buffer and adapt to the negative impact of external pressures through self-organization,thus forming the dynamic mechanism for the adaptation evolution of rural human-environment system.With the evolution of system vulnerability,the structure and function of rural human-environment system always tend to be in the cycle of development of "coordinated—uncoordinated—coordinated...".In the process of the rural human-environment system presents exploitation(r),conservation(k),release(Ω)and reorganization(α)of evolution characteristics of phased adaptation.The system state is always in the process of development of a cycle of "stable—unstable—stable..." In the adaptation evolution process of rural human-environment system,the role of policy is prominent,which leads to the correlation effect of system scale from macro-rural area to micro-farmers and herdsman.The change of structure and function of rural human-environment system stresses the livelihood transformation of farmers and herdsmen,forming the phenomenon of "big gear driving small gear".Afterwards,the state of livelihood transformation of farmers and herdsmen will react on the evolution of the structure and function of the rural human-environment system,which becomes the key influencing factor of the system evolution and even determines whether the rural human-environment system can develop sustainably.From the perspective of scale effect of system evolution,the rural structure and function evolution under the guidance of policies play a small role in promoting the livelihood transformation of farmers and herdsmen,while the livelihood transformation and development of small-scale farmers and herdsmen play a large role in the structure and function evolution of large-scale rural human-environment system.(5)Improving adaptation of farmers and herdsmen,reducing the vulnerability of rural human-environment system,optimizing the structure and function of system and promoting sustainable development of the system,are the ultimate goal of adaptation evolution of system.The essence of the sustainable development of rural human-environment system is the coordinated development of society,economy and ecological environment.But when making adaptive management measures,it should focus on the scale effect,institution and coordination between rural human-environment system and farmers and herdsmen in rural human-environment system.Therefore,this paper puts forward countermeasures and suggestions from the two perspectives of reducing vulnerability of system at the macro-scale of township and improving its adaptation at the micro-scale of farmers and herdsmen. |
PDF Full Text Request