The Driving Role of Food and Cultivated Land Resource in Balancing the Complex Urban System of Socio-Economy and Environment: A Case Study of Shanghai City in China

Abstract

Food is increasingly seen as a vehicle to address complex sustainability challenges, where the quantitative driving role in balancing the complex urban system of socio-economy and environment is still a gap. To fill this gap, taking Shanghai city as an example, this paper utilizes system dynamics to innovatively set three policy scenarios that aim at adjusting food security and cultivated land resources. The results confirm their positive role in socioeconomic and environmental improvement and coordinated development. In the high-rate grain yield growth scenario, the labor force ratio of the primary industry increases back to the size of 2012 (4.1%), the proportion of the primary industrial investment grows at twice the rate of the current trend, the grain yield per unit area increases back to the capacity of 1997 (798.154 t/km2), and simultaneously, the occupation of cultivated land resources by the secondary industry and the negative impact of environmental pollution on productivity are mitigated. In that case, the coordination level between the socio-economy and the environment can keep increasing. The results indicate that future urban planning should increase the input of labor force and assets in the primary industry, improve food productivity per unit area through technical means or person training, alleviate the occupation of cultivated land resources by the secondary industry, and mitigate the negative impact of environmental pollution on cultivated land productivity.

Sustainable Land Use Diagnosis Based on the Perspective of Coupling Socioeconomy and Ecology in the Xiongan New Area, China

“…Drawing on existing research and following the norms of systematization, scientificity, representativeness, and accessibility, we developed the evaluation indicator system of LUS by using the above theoretical framework (Table 1) [1,50]. Based on SDG 1, 2, 8, and 11, four indicators were selected for the socioeconomic aspects, including population density [24,51,52], average GDP per km 2 [53], grain output, and output of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, and fisheries (AFAHF). Among them, population reflects the size of a region's labor force and the scale of demand for social services and market potential, and changes in population size are of great significance for social stability and high-quality development of the population and economy.…”