Chundi Chen

Use it or not: An agro-ecological perspective to flooded riparian land along the Three Gorges Reservoir

The extensive flooded land associated with the Three Gorges Reservoir, poses a great social and environmental challenge, yet it is a potential valuable land and sociological resource for resolving human-land conflicts in the surrounding communities. Controversies arose over use or non-use of such land among local communities and authorities; and different management strategies were adopted. We compared two representative ecosystems, Wuyang Bay in small-scale agricultural use through opportunistic farming, and Baijiaxi Bay in a state of natural succession, and learned the challenges-cum-opportunities regarding sustainability through an agro-ecological perspective. We integrated the plant diversity, water quality improvement, market production services and peoples attitudes to obtain a holistic evaluation of the socio-ecological and economic benefits delivered by two bays. Significant differences were found: Wuyang Bay performed much better than Baijiaxi Bay in terms of plant diversity maintenance and peoples acceptance. Regarding the concerns about impacts on reservoir water, Wuyang Bay has lower TN, and NH4-N concentrations than Baijiaxi Bay. This may be because of the decomposition of a large amount of naturally grown-drowned vegetation in Baijiaxi Bay. Emergy analysis showed that the economic efficiency of Wuyang Bay is better than other similar systems given its limited growing season. However, this is at the expense of the environment through chemical fertilisers and pesticides seeping into the reservoir waters. Strictly speaking, Wuyang Bay cannot be counted as a sustainable agro-ecosystem although it hints at many practical merits, such as integrating natural landscape elements in fields, and employing multiple crops in spatial and temporal patterns. Our study offers new insights into the impacts of worlds largest reservoir construction on the livelihoods of nearby communities on a small scale and the possible solutions. With the use-or-not contradiction, the government should offer appropriate policies and technical support to incentivise farmers to a more sustainable, multi-functional living landscape.

Urban carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) accounting based on the GPC framework: A case of the underdeveloped city of Nanchang, China

Purpose This paper aims to provide a typical example of accounting for the carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) in underdeveloped cities, especially for the Poyang Lake area in China. The accounting can increase public understanding and trust in climate mitigation strategies by showing more detailed data. Design/methodology/approach The paper uses the “Global Protocol for Community-scale greenhouse gas emission inventories (GPC)” method, a worldwide comparable framework for calculating urban CO2e emission (CE). The empirical case is an underdeveloped city, Nanchang, in China. Findings The results show the total CE of Nanchang, containing the electricity CE of Scope 2, grew rapidly from 12.49 Mt in 1994 to 55.00 Mt in 2014, with the only recession caused by the global financial crisis in 2008. The biggest three contributors were industrial energy consumption, transportation and industrial processes, which contributed 44.71-72.06, 4.10-25.07 and 9.07-22.28 per cent, respectively, to the total CE. Almost always, more than 74.41 per cent of Nanchang’s CE was related to coal. When considering only the CEs from coal, oil and gas, these CEs per unit area of Nanchang were always greater than those of China and the world. Similarly, these CEs per gross domestic product of Nanchang were always bigger than those of the world. Thus, based on these conclusions, some specific countermeasures were recommended. Originality/value This paper argues that the CO2e accounting of underdeveloped cities by using the GPC framework should be promoted when designing climate mitigation policies. They can provide more scientific data to justify related countermeasures.