Balancing socioeconomic development with ecological conservation towards rural sustainability: a case study in semiarid rural China

ABSTRACT

Despite the dramatic progress in poverty reduction, China‘s vast rural areas of backwardness, environmental degradation and low labour productivity are a long-standing challenge to achieve common prosperity and sustainable development. Finding a balance between ecological conservation and socioeconomic development is a solution. However, previous studies have largely neglected the concept. Here, we proposed a framework that integrates the ecological environment and socioeconomic wellbeing via farm management and the use of ecosystem services (ES) to assess rural sustainability and explore a suitable balance and pathways from the perspective of the human dimension. Taking Yan’he Township in China’s Loess Plateau as an example, a clustering analysis was performed to group farm households based on their behaviour in cropping, land rental, and off-farm work. A composite index was built to assess rural sustainability at the farm household level, while a structural equation model was performed to estimate the effect of land-use practices on rural sustainability and explore adequate farm management and policy interventions. The results show that households with different farm management and land-use strategies had divergent agricultural performance, use of ES, and environmental and wellbeing outcomes. Increasing legume cropping with conservation approaches (e.g., rotation) and extended irrigation while encouraging migrant work with ensured equal urban-rural social welfare and property rights may contribute to balancing socioeconomic development with ecological conservation. The findings indicate that both interventionist policies and independent market support are vital for individual and community capacity building and public infrastructure development to stimulate agricultural adaptation and rural transformation towards sustainability.

KEYWORDS:

• Land use
• Rural revitalisation
• Dryland farming
• Ecosystem services
• Sustainable development
• Social-ecological systems

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the Institute of Water and Soil Conservation, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Ministry of Water Resources, grant number A314021402–2018. The authors acknowledge the contribution of the anonymous referees and editors. We are also grateful to all of the farmers who cooperated in the household surveys and provided data.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Institute of Water and Soil Conservation, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Ministry of Water Resources [A314021402-2018].

Notes on contributors

Qirui Li

Qirui Li holds a PhD degree in politics and economics in rural areas. He has been a junior researcher at the Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER), Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), and the Chinese Academy of Science. He is working as a post-doc researcher in the Africa Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bayreuth and a guest researcher at ZALF. His research and publications concern livelihood resilience and sustainable development.

Hua Ma

Hua Ma holds a PhD degree in agronomy. He has been a junior researcher at the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF). He is working as a post-doc researcher in the School of Life Sciences at Chongqing University. His research and publications concern soil science, agricultural plant science, crop science and nutrient cycling.

Zhuqing Xu

Zhuqing Xu holds a PhD degree in agricultural economics and management. She is a senior researcher at the Chinese Academy of Science and Technology for Development (CASTED), a state-owned institute with 100 positions. Her research and publications concern agricultural economics, rural development and governance, and S & T policy research and dissemination.

Hao Feng

Hao Feng is the Director of the Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, the Chinese Academy of Sciences & Ministry of Water Resources and a professor at Northwest A&F University. His research interests include methods and techniques of efficient rainwater use, water-saving agriculture in drylands, and crop modelling of efficient water use.

Sonoko D. Bellingrath-Kimura

Sonoko D. Bellingrath-Kimura is the co-head of Research Area 2 “Land Use and Governance” at the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) and a professor at the Faculty of Life Science at the Humboldt University of Berlin.  Her research interests are crop and soil science, agronomy, and digital agricultural knowledge and information system for provisioning of ecosystem services in agricultural systems