Study On Eco-economic Regionalization Of The County Of Gulang

With the deepening of economic activities and population explosion, thecontradiction between economic growth, resources development and environmentalprotection is becoming increasingly acute. In this case, traditional ecological oreconomic regionalization, which has many shortcomings, has not provided reliable,accurate scientific bases for regional development, territorial control andenvironmental protection. Eco-economic regionalization, which takes the economicbenefits, ecological benefits and social benefits of unity as the goal, is used to dividean area into several different eco-economic units according to the area’s features ofnatural environment and economic structure and function, thus, eco-economicregionalization can provide scientific bases for rational use of resources, ecologicaland environmental protection and comprehensive improvement of land. So,eco-economic regionalization can promote the coordinated development ofenvironment, economy and society.The county of Gulang lies in the transition zone between Qinghai-Tibet PlateauRegion and Arid Region of Northwest China. Gulang’s natural environment, whichhas multiple types of ecosystems, is complicated. The appearance of regionaldifferentiation in Gulang is clear. With drought and lack of water, Gulang’s ecologicalenvironment is very vulnerable. Moreover, the extensive model of agriculturalproduction and the irrational development of water and soil resources have long madethe human-land relationship tense, as well as made the contradiction betweeneconomic growth and ecological protection prominent. On the basis of the regionaldifferentiation’s rule and the compound ecosystem’s theory, it’s vital for promotionthe sustainability of Gulang’s ecological economic development to divide Gulang intoseveral eco-economic zones in which we can take some targeted measures ofresources development and ecological protection, since the natural surroundings’features in Gulang are rather differently and the whole county can be zoned clearly.In this paper, combining with the features of Inland River Basins in NorthwestChina, the index system of eco-economic regionalization was founded consisting of24indices from natural ecology, land resources, economic development and socialprogress. Then the methods of factor analysis and cluster analysis were used to study the eco-economic regionalization in the county of Gulang. The main steps are asfollows:(1) Selecting the indices of the regionalization, factor analysis and extracting theprinciple components with SPSS. According to the rate of variance explained andcomponent load,6principle components which reflected the ecology, economics, andsocial of Gulang were extracted, named separately after peasants’ living standard,eco-environmental sensitivity, pressure of agricultural water use, development offorestry, animal husbandry and tertiary industry, ecological pressure, labor quality.(2) Cluster analysis and regionalization. The principle component scores ofeach village or town of Gulang, which were used as the data of cluster analysis, andthen, the20basic divising units of Gulang were clustered with MATLAB. Themethods of hierarchical clustering and fuzzy clustering were used separately in thecalculation. Finally, contrasting the calculations of the two methods, the county ofGulang was divided into7eco-economic zones.(3) Analyzing each eco-economic zone. The average scores of the principlecomponent of each eco-economic zone were computed according to the findings ofthe regionalization and the principle component scores of each village or town. Andthen, combining with the figures, each eco-economic zone’s current development wasanalyzed based on the principle component scores. Proposals for each eco-economiczone were also put forward.The conclusions show that each of the7eco-economic zones has its specialfactors which will restrict its development, therefore, for each eco-economic zone, it’snecessary to carry out separately particular and appropriate policies, in order that thewhole ecological economy of the county of Gulang will develop more harmoniously.