Emergy-based valuation for agricultural ecosystem in Shangri-La County, tourism region in Yunnan Province, China

Abstract

This paper quantitatively analyzes the input–output of energy values, environmental carrying capacity and the effect of ecosystem operation for the agricultural ecosystem in Shangri-La County, which is one of the tourism regions in Yunnan province. The aim of this paper is to better understand the utilization of solar energy resources and the sustainable development of agriculture. The results showed that the emergy yield rate in the area of study was 342.66, the emergy investment rate was 0.01, and the emergy density was 3.49 × 1011 sej/m2. The emergy input per capita was 2.32 × 1016 sej/pp, and the emergy yield per capita was 8.42 × 1016 sej/pp. This work revealed that the environment contribution rate was 98.97%, the renewable resource input rate was 97.34%, the non-renewable natural resource input rate was 1.63%, and the non-renewable industrial resource input rate was 1.03%. Besides, the study also showed that the environmental capacity was 0.027, and the environmental sustainability index was 12,691.11. The results affirmed that the agricultural economic development was relatively backward, and the sustainable development ability was weak. To advance the agricultural economy and strengthen the sustainable development ability of agriculture, it is necessary for the Shangri-La County authority to pay more attention to increasing the high-grade ability energy, adjustment of the emergy investment structure and agricultural development mode transformation.

Keywords

• Agricultural ecosystem
• Emergy-based valuation
• Solar energy
• Tourism region