Exploring the Dynamic Coupling Relationship between Agricultural Economy and Agro-Ecological Environment in Semi-Arid Areas: A Case Study of Yulin, China

Abstract

The rapid expansion of agricultural areas in semi-arid China over the past decades has aggravated the imbalance of the agroeconomy and agroecological environment. To further understand the coupling relationship between the two, this paper, taking Yulin as a case, develops an integrated index system for evaluation of the agricultural economy and the agroecological environment, and a model of the coupling coordination degree for evaluation of the dynamic coupling relationship between the two. Based on that, we have investigated the coupling coordination by comparing the differences of the development index of the two sub-systems at different periods. Subsequently, we further clarified the internal interaction and coupling relationship between the two sub-systems with a cross-impact analysis. The results suggested that the weights of ecological environmental conditions and agricultural development input are respectively0.5908 and 0.3570. From 1997 to 2016, a high-level interactive coupling existed between the agroecological environment and agricultural economy, and the coupling coordination degree of the two sub-systems grew slowly. Overall, the degradation of the agroecological environment impeded the coordinated development of the agricultural economy and the level of coupling coordination improved from basic coordination in the beginning to superior coordination in the end. The agricultural economy grew rapidly, at the expense of the degradation of the agroecological environment. Furthermore, more attention should be paid to improving agricultural development input for promoting economic and ecological benefits, and coupling coordination degree of the two sub-systems. These findings are important for boosting sustainable development of the agricultural economy in semi-arid areas.

Distribution of Irrigated and Rainfed Agricultural Land in a Semi-Arid Sandy Area

“…Step 12 Area constraint ∑ n j=1 s j ≤ S, min s j ≤ s j ≤ max s j (13) S is the total area of cultivated and irrigated land; mins j and maxs j are the minimum and maximum planting areas, respectively, of crop j.…”

“…Rainfed farming is characterized by extensive planting, low yields, and abandonment in drought years. Extensive management and development easily fall into a vicious cycle of exploitation-abandonment-redevelopment-abandonment [13][14][15]. The suitability of the scale of irrigated and rainfed agriculture directly affects the stability of semi-arid Land 2022, 11, 1621 2 of 13 sandy regions [16].…”

Rural Integrated Energy System Based on Bibliometric Analysis: A Review of Recent Progress

“…Given the special geographic location and ecological environment of rural areas, rural areas are potential for the development of renewable energy. On the one hand, rural areas with abundant spatial resources are rich in wasteland, rooftops, and other vacant land resources, thus becoming a priority area for the development of solar and wind energy [4]. On the other hand, biomass is mainly distributed in rural areas, indicating an important resource advantage for rural areas [5].…”

Research on Coupling and Coordination of Agro-Ecological and Agricultural Economic Systems in the Ebinur Lake Basin

“…In order to achieve sustainable agricultural development, several scholars have analyzed the impact of agricultural production from the perspectives of global climate and desertification [21][22][23][24], and proposed that it is necessary to adopt water saving measures such as drip irrigation and biological water saving in the development of precision agriculture [25,26]. Research on analysis of the degree to which coupling occurs between two or three systems from the perspective of system coordination has become popular [27][28][29][30][31], with many researchers analyzing and researching agricultural ecosystems and economic systems [32][33][34][35][36][37]. However, few studies have reported on the coupling coordination in agricultural oasis eco-economic systems in arid areas, rendering it imperative that the current situation in terms of the oasis agricultural eco-environment and economic development is analyzed to solve the contradiction between the two, allowing sustainable development of the agricultural eco-environment while increasing the economic benefits.…”