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Arid Land Geography ›› 2022, Vol. 45 ›› Issue (3): 901-911.doi: 10.12118/j.issn.1000-6060.2021.401

• Regional Development • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Sustainable simulation of ecological environment and socio-economic development in the Yellow River Basin based on the SD model

WANG Yiqi1(),LI Guoping2()   

  1. 1. School of Economics and Management, Chang’an University, Xi’an 710064, Shaanxi, China
    2. School of Economics and Finance, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710061, Shaanxi, China
  • Received:2021-09-07 Revised:2021-12-13 Online:2022-05-25 Published:2022-05-31
  • Contact: Guoping LI E-mail:wangyiqi17@126.com;frank1787@126.com

Abstract:

To realize ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin of China, it is necessary to solve the sustainability issues of ecological environment and socio-economic development. For sustainable development of the Yellow River Basin, most studies explain the system construction, path, and strategic design of the development from a theoretical perspective. Few scholars conduct numerical simulation on the sustainability of ecological environment and socio-economic development of the Yellow River Basin. However, the empirical research on their sustainable development is still weak. Using the method of system dynamics, this study constructs four subsystems of society, economy, resources, and environment and designs six scenarios maintaining the status quo: giving priority to developing society, developing economy, saving resources, protecting the environment, and collaborative development. Moreover, this study explores the best scheme to achieve the sustainable development of ecological environment and socio-economic in the Yellow River Basin based on the simulation of different scenarios. The results reveal the following: First, in the scenario of collaborative development, the total population, employed population, and gross domestic product (GDP) of the Yellow River Basin will increase by 10.93%, 19.62%, and 499.05%, respectively, the water consumption and energy consumption per unit GDP will decrease by 78.31% and 68.16%, respectively, and the industrial chemical oxygen demand (COD) emission and industrial sulfur dioxide (SO2) emission will decrease by 80.64% and 80.17%, respectively, in 2030 compared with those in 2007. Second, the total population and GDP maintain an upward trend, wherein the total population growth rates of Scenarios 2 and 6 are higher and the economic growth rates of Scenarios 3 and 6 are higher than those of the other four scenarios. The water and energy consumption per unit GDP show decreasing trends, and the decline rates in Scenarios 4 and 6 are higher than those in the other four scenarios. Furthermore, pollutant emission shows a decreasing trend, wherein the decline rate of industrial COD and SO2 emissions in Scenarios 5 and 6 are higher than those in the other scenarios. Third, the social economy of the Yellow River Basin has been developed rapidly, the efficiency of resource usage has been improved, and the pollutant emission can be effectively reduced in the scenario of collaborative development. Therefore, Scenario 6 (collaborative development) is the best way to achieve sustainable development of ecological environment and social economy in the Yellow River Basin compared with the other scenarios.

Key words: Yellow River Basin, ecological environment, socio-economic, sustainable development, system dynamics model