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| A STUDY OF REGIME SHIFT OF RURAL SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL SYSTEM IN LOESS PLATEAU——A Case Study of Hongjia Town of Changwu County, Shaanxi Province |
| JIANG Wei1, WANG Jun1,2, YANG Xing-jun1, LIU Wen-zhao2 |
1. School of Urban and Environment, Northwest University, Xi'an 710127, China;
2. Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, CAS & MOWR, Yangling 712100, China |
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Abstract This paper provides a case study of Hongjia town which is located in Changwu County in Shannxi Province to understand the regime shift of rural social-ecological system in the Loess Plateau. The social-ecological system of Hongjia town is evaluated with selected index from the social, economic and ecological perspectives which are calculated by the experts scoring process. Social-economic data is collected by social survey, questionnaire and governmental statistics. After analyzing the dynamic of Hongjia town social-ecological system from 1980, the state variables are extracted as the ratio of agricultural income per capita to total income per capita, the ratio of the number of labors in agriculture to that of total labors and the ratio of grain crop planting area to land area, which represent the state of Hongjia social-ecological system and are correlated with the controlling variable of the percent of apple growing area to total land area. During the regime shifting period, system's structure and function have undergone significant changes. The driving forces of such shift are mainly from the gaps of incomes due to the different land use and the livelihoods of individual labor engaged to. This results the increase of the percent of apple growing area-the system's controlling variable. The authors also points out that the external economic conditions change, the governmental preferential agricultural policies and the improving of local infrastructure also have great influence on the regime shift. Although such regime shift would be helpful for the local farmers to live a better life, it might weaken the resilience of the rural social-ecological system to the external disturbance, especially to the fluctuation of a price and other natural hazards.
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Received: 20 May 2010
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2011, Vol. 26 
