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Eco-service

Eco-service enhancement in peri-urban area of coal mining city of Huaibei in East China

Rusong Wang,Feng Li *,Wenrui Yang,Xiaofei Zhang

State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology,Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences,Chinese Academy of Sciences,Beijing 100085,China

a r t i c l e

i n f o Keywords:Peri-urban Eco-service Coal mining City Huaibei

a b s t r a c t

After 50years of coal mining,Huaibei Mine,located at 50km southeast of Xuzhou City in East China,has grown to a middle-size city of 600,000people from a small village of 2000farmers.The Zhahe Valley,with 400km 2of a built-up area and more than 100km 2of subsided peri-urban wetland at the city center,is surrounded by eight exhausted old mines and communities.In cooperation with the local city govern-ment,an ecological landuse change assessment and eco-city planning project has been carried out with a focus on the assessment,restoration and enhancement of the wetland as an eco-service to the commu-nity.The assessment includes relationships to Green House Gas emissions and heat island effects,as well as measures for a livable,workable,affordable and sustainable human settlement development through industrial transition,landscape design and capacity building.This paper will brie?y introduce the main ecological approaches and results of the assessment,including measures such as changing the car-dom-inated transportation network to a rail-dominated network,transforming the coal-oriented high-carbon industry to a service-oriented low-carbon industry,the C-shape urban form to an O-shape with a green–blue core at the center,and the fragmentized collapsed land to integrative eco-service land.

1.Introduction

Huaibei city is now a middle-size coal mining city in the North of Anhuai Province with a population of 1.22million in a 753.5km 2urban area.It is located at 58km southwest of Xuzhou in East China at the joint between Beijing–Shanghai railway and the Asia–Europe Continental Rail Bridge connecting the Hague in the Atlantic to Lianyungang at Huanghai Sea.Following 50years’of development,the downtown area has become a middle-size modern city with 600,000citizens and diversi?ed industries [4].However,as the coal resource will soon be exhausted after 50years mining,and local coal-dependent industry is suffering.Huaibei city is in serious and timely need of ecosystem restoration and economic transition.

2.Drivers and pressures:the mining edge effects

Modern industry is characterized by a large scale exploitation and utilization of fossil energy.To meet the increasing demand of fossil energy,Huaibei city was established in 1958and has rap-idly expanded to a middle-size city since then.The downtown area of the city was only a small village of less than 2000people in 1958,when the ?rst mine started to produce coal.Before the

1980s,there were eight isolated mines and one large power station separately located in the Zhahe Valley each surrounded by sub-sided land,coal gangue hills and residential areas of mine workers.In the 1990s,in accordance with the development policy,various industries have been developed around the downtown area of Xiangshan district,where the city government is located.Since 2000,along with the rise of coal prices,the city sprawled very rap-idly along the northern and western areas,with most of the mines expanding,adjacent to each other,with more than 100km 2of sub-sided and subsiding wetland in the center (Fig.1).

Like most coal mining industry towns,the city’s development re?ects the signi?cant characteristics of edge effects between re-source exploitation and environment conservation;underground mining and surface subsiding;traf?c line and adjacent area;indus-trial landuse and rural development;and agricultural and indus-trial civilization.Starting from each mine,the edge effect is limited to a small-scale peri-urban area with some shops,slums,small factories and service facilities installed around each mine.Gradually,some of these peri-urban areas spread out and formu-lated larger urban and peri-urban areas along the main roads and railways.Before 1990,the old downtown area of the city was between the Xiangshan Mountain in the north and the railway in the south,and later the new town developed to the south of the railway extending over the subsiding wetlands,while along the railway and under the electrical transmission lines slums of the poor and migrant workers were established (Fig.2).The peri-urban pattern of the central town sprawls like a sandwich (Fig.3)

*Corresponding author.

E-mail addresses:wangrs@https://www.wendangku.net/doc/1d1562552.html, (R.Wang),lifeng@https://www.wendangku.net/doc/1d1562552.html, (F.Li).

Acta Ecologica Sinica 29(2009)

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consisting of two kinds of peri-urban edge effects:one is the ecotone between new development areas and the subsiding wet-lands in the south,another is the ecotone between the old town and new town with some slums and brown spaces in it.Along with frantic real estate business development,a fast-growing urban sprawl has descended from the northwest to southeast in the recent years by ?lling the subsided wetlands.

The landscape of a peri-urban area in a coal mining city is char-acterized by a large area of subsided land,huge piles of coal gan-gues and the massive relocation of farmers from less developed areas into the city.While relocated farmers take on underground coal mining jobs,large numbers of local farmers also lose their farmland.

According to the statistics of the Huaibei Mine company,for each 10,000tons’of coal production in Huaibei,0.28–0.30hectares of land is destroyed,further producing 700tons of coal gangues.During the past 50years,300,000farmers have lost their farmland,160km 2of land has subsided or is subsiding and more than 30mil-

lion tons of coal gangues waste has been produced.Over 600,000migrants have settled in the vicinity of the eight mines and the central town around the subsided wetlands.Agriculture has suf-fered dramatic declines over the past 50years.

3.The impacts and bene?ts:the eco-service change in peri-urban areas

The Zhahe Valley,where the Huaibei city is located,used to be grain producing farmland with annual precipitation around 863mm and an average temperature 14.5°C [4].Three main rivers,the Shuihe,Longdaihe and Zhahe all ?ow through the city.As most of the farmland is covered by saline–alkali soil,and although the ground water is plentiful,productivity is not high,biodiversity is not rich and the vegetation in most areas was destroyed leaving most hills desert during 1950s and 1960s.To provide the coal min-ing and other related industries with urban construction building materials,a large area of green land became quarry sites and local ecosystems were severely deteriorated in some places.

During the past 50years,more than 160km 2was lost to mines for production or subsidence land.Most of the subsided areas have since become wetlands,providing an important eco-service func-tion and economic value to the city’s future development (Fig.4).Approximately 300,000land-less farmers have been transferred to factory or service industries.

Coal mining has resulted in many negative impacts on ecosys-tem service in some regions,especially in peri-urban areas,includ-ing landscape destruction;farmland loss and subsiding terrain;declines in food productivity;air pollution;increased carbon re-lease;watershed eutrophication;heat island effects and weaken-ing of the hydrological cycle [9,6,11,3,5,10].

Ecosystem services refers to a wide range of conditions and pro-cesses through which natural ecosystems,and the species that are part of them,help sustain and ful?ll human life [1,2].Ecosystem services are the bene?ts people obtain from ecosystems [8,12–14].However,not all ecological conditions/processes are bene?-cial,some are restrictive or even detrimental to a certain extent,such as ?ood,storm,heat island effect [13];some are

either

Fig.1.The urban sprawling of Huaibei city

(1966–2005).

Fig.2.Peri-urban area along the railway and electricity transform line.

2R.Wang et al./Acta Ecologica Sinica 29(2009)1–6

bene?cial or detrimental to different time,space and target groups.As man is not superior to nature nor nature a servant of man,we should also discuss the service man provides to nature.So we de-?ne ecological services as a mutual interaction between people and nature,providing each other with promoting or restricting condi-tions and processes through which sustainable relationships can be maintained [7,12].

Types of eco-service from nature-to-man include product provi-sioning (the renewable goods produced or provided by nature for people,including water,?re,food,wood and minerals);infrastruc-ture supporting (the natural infrastructure conditions for life on earth supported by nature to people including land,habitat and scenery);habitat cultivating (the circumstances cultivated through soil formation,atmosphere and habitat maintenance,water and soil retention);bio-geo-chemical circulating (the fundamental eco-logical processes critical to life including the nutrients and hydrau-lic cycles,biological regeneration,pollination and genetic resources);functional regulating (these are the services that regu-late and sustain the environment,including climate regulation,environment puri?cation,biological control and disaster buffering)[13,14].

The type of eco-service from man-to-nature includes produc-tion (the semi-arti?cial goods produced by humans in harmony with or partly bene?cial to nature such as agriculture,horticulture,forestry,livestock,?shery and industry );construction (the conser-vation and protection of natural infrastructure within urbanization and industrialization,such as greening,waste treatment,disaster control,and other eco-engineering);restoration (the actions to re-turn disturbed land/ecosystems to a sustainable state,including nature reserves,re-forestation,water and soil retention,and dis-ease control);transportation (the human cultivated ecological pro-cesses critical to life such as the cycling of water,energy,materials,biological regeneration,pollination and genetic resources);cul-tural regulation (the services provided by humans to regulate and sustain nature such as institutional enforcement,spiritual enrichment,cognitive development,and eco-tourism).

During the past 50years,coal mining in Huaibei city has put a severe environmental load on local and regional ecosystem [4]ser-vices such as:

Destruction of landscape:The subsiding area of Huaibei totals about 72km 2,and will increase into 100km 2in the next 10years.The coal stone waste produced from mining totals about 30million tons [4].Landscape destruction is one of the signi?cant effects of coal resource exploitation and processing,with many exposed coal piles covering farmland and destroying the neighbouring land-

scape.In addition,the coal dust from mining operations is blown far and wide,covering plants and affecting their photosynthesis and production.

Subsiding terrain and farmland loss:Due to the effects of coal mining,the area of productive farmlands in Huaibei city has been reduced by about 60km 2in the past 50years.

Decline in food productivity :The exploitation of coal has reduced the vegetation coverage and decreased food productivity.Sulfur in the coal dust has affected the respiration of the crops and re-duced the photosynthesis activity and crop outputs.Food loss per year due to mining is about 18144t/a.Mining also produces air pollution and an increase in carbon release.

Increase in carbon release :According to the research reports,coal exploitation in Huaibei city amounted to about 60million tons since 1978.According to the average carbon dioxide release from burning coal,approx.à2.6t CO 2per ton –coal exploitation in Huaibei city has released about 156million tons of CO 2in its con-tribution to the greenhouse effect and global climate change [4].Weakened hydrological cycle :Underground exploitation of coal mining and the drainage of mine pit water brought about the de-cline of underground water levels and resulted in a funnel area.Mining also changed the natural ?ow of the groundwater and its sources and drainage.The eluviation and penetration of mining wastes brought harmful effects to the regional water environment in the rainy seasons,with mining ef?uents also leading to wa-tershed eutrophication.

Heat island effects :Many factors,such as urbanization,industry,population and built-up area result in heat island effects.In other words,the air temperature of urban area is higher than that of the rural areas.The population in built-up area of Huaibei city is about 620,000,in an area of more than 12million m 2,contributing to the urban heat island effect.

At the same time,coal mining has brought about many positive bene?ts to local and regional ecosystem service,such as:

Energy supply :With coal exploitation in Huaibei City amounting to about 60million tons since 1978,and calculating based on the average selling price of coal resource in 2008–at 600Yuan RMB per ton,it could be suggested that the indirect economic value of coal exploitation was nearly 36billion Yuan RMB over 30years [4].Income and revenue increases :The average annual income per urban resident rose from 1407Yuan RMB in 1990–8603Yuan RMB in 2005increasing more than 5times.The average annual revenue per capita enhanced from 206Yuan RMB in 1990–1267Yuan RMB in 2005and also increased more than ?ve times (Table 1).

Wetland creation:Coal mining activity in Huaibei city has led to a large subsiding area of 72km 2,but at the same time,?lling with water and creating a blue water landscape,more than 10km 2of wetlands,including South lake,Middle lake,North lake and East lake.The creation of wetlands provides many ecosystem services for citizen’s quality of life and eco-city development.

Nature conservation and infrastructure enhancement:Green coverage in the urban is this a built-up area is 37%,with 11m 2of public urban green space per person.In the built-up area of the city there are 9m 2of road area per person,with 12public busses per 10,000persons.The popularization ratio of urban water use is 90%re?ecting nature conservation and infrastructure improve-ments in the past few years [4].

Cultural restoration :Stone Figures from the Han dynasty are typical cultural items in Huaibei city with many cultural artifacts stored in Huaibei’s Museum.Coal mining culture can also be re-viewed,restored and celebrated through establishing a coal Museum.

Urban prosperity :The GDP per capita rose from 1740Yuan RMB in 1990to 10,252Yuan RMB in 2005increasing nearly ?ve times.The GDP ratio of the service industry rose from 27.3%in 1990

Fig.4.Subsiding land in the peri-urban area city.

R.Wang et al./Acta Ecologica Sinica 29(2009)1–63

32.0%in2005increasing by only17%.From1990to today,the leading industry remains coal mining and related industries(Table 1).Industrial transition from the traditional sector to ecological and service sector is urgently required in Huaibei city to avoid seri-ous social,economic and environmental problems.

Employment opportunities:In2005,Huaibei city offered921 employment opportunities for people.Employment streets and industrial parks were constructed for people to initiate their com-pany.The urban unemployment ratio was kept under3.5%.

4.The responses and prospects:conjugate ecological planning and management

The Mayor of Huaibei City,Mr.Chongxin XU,was the president of Huaibei Coal Mining Corporation before he was elected as the mayor.As president he dedicated himself to the coal mining indus-try of Huaibei for more than40years.Surveying the destroyed landscape,he felt guilty about the past exploitation of nature and promised to transition of his role from destroying,to the conserva-tion of nature and dedicated the second half of his life to compen-sating for,and restoring the deteriorated ecosystem.Mr.XU has committed to building a new eco-city encompassing an ecological civilization,strong ecosystem service,low-carbon release and a cir-cular economy.The mayor has invited foreign and domestic researchers and experts from International Council on Ecopolis Development and Chinese Academy of Sciences to work together with local people in the wetland restoration and ecopolis planning and management.

A series of actions have been taken to promote the city’s natu-ral,economic and social ecological restoration since Mr.Xu has ta-ken on the Mayor’s position.A concept plan for eco-city development,an action plan for wetland restoration and a strategic plan for industrial transition towards circular economy and low-carbon economy are being developed by a large group of interna-tional and domestic scientists and experts.An international forum on integrative ecosystem restoration and ecopolis development will be held in Huaibei in May.2009.

Recently,preliminary system identi?cation and simulations have been carried out.Some primary results have emerged from the Scenarios of3alternative city development strategies with a focus on eco-service enhancement.Indicators studied include the positive bene?ts and negative impacts related to?ooding control, water supply,food production,habitat cultivation,environment puri?cation,carbon reduction,soil cultivation,ecotone edge ef-fects,landscape scenery,heat island effects,traf?c accessibility, and economic ef?ciency.

4.1.Scenario1:C-shape urban expansion according to the city’s 2006–2020Urban Master Plan

According to the2006–2020urban master plans,a new city will develop at the foot of Longji Mountain in the southeast Huaibei, and at the same time,the old city will extend its area to the south and connect with the new city,forming a C-shape urban con?gura-tion.Under the landuse policy,the badlands and the destroyed mining lands will be rehabilitated for urban development and parts of the water area and subsiding areas will be reclaimed for urban development and agriculture–however most of water areas will be protected from urban development.The urban industries encouraged will be coal,chemical industries and real estate.The urban traf?c systems connect via an outside ring road and urban artery,based on serving bus and car traf?c.The comprehensive eco-service index of this scheme is0.42.

4.2.Scenario2:Rapid land development to meet the challenge of economic development

Economic development over nature’s ecological service.In order to satisfy the pressure to develop the urban economy,most of sub-sided areas will be restored for urban construction,?nanced by developers,with present wetlands occupied by urban development and high pro?t agriculture.The coal and chemical industries con-tinue to dominate the urban economy.The natural ecological ser-vices supply to the city will decline.It can be foreseen that the city will expand its area to south and east,and the traf?c systems will be optimized to inside and outside of the city.Urban transport is centered on bus and car traf?c.The comprehensive eco-service index of this scheme is0.25.

4.3.Scenario3:O-shape development with simultaneous natural and human eco-service restoration and industrial transition towards circular economy

This scheme encourages the system restoration of natural and urban landscape and circular economy transition,with focus on wetland and vegetation restoration,eco-mobility and compact ur-ban development,as well as a industrial transition from high-car-bon to low-carbon release but high value added industry, encouraging intangible industry development.The city will devel-op along a new eco-artery by using the existing mines’railways and form an O-shape urban con?https://www.wendangku.net/doc/1d1562552.html,pact landuse and urban renewal will be planned.Most agricultural lands are pro-tected and the subsiding areas occupied by agriculture will be re-stored for both food production and eco-service to the city.The urban traf?c systems are inter-connected with tram railways, trains and buses as dominant transport systems.The comprehen-sive eco-service index of this scheme is0.83,ranking?rst among the three scenarios.Fig.5shows the?nal result of the scenarios with Scenario3as the best and Scenario2as the worst.

A conjugate ecological planning process has been initiated.It is a kind of social-economic-natural complex ecosystem planning to balance and/or reach compromises in the relationship between environmental and economic development;social and natural ser-vice;physical and ecological infrastructure;local and regional development;historical and future contexts;tangible and intangi-ble,positive and negative ecological impacts(see Fig.6).

Table1

Change of main economic indicators in Huaibei city from1990to2005.

1990199520002005

Total population(10,000person)60.972.179.592.3 Urban population(10,000person)36.753.359.667.4 Urban built-up area(km2)23374558 GDP per capita(Yuan RMB)17404055533610252 Average annual income per urban resident1407331153118603 Average annual revenue per capita2063466381267 GDP ratio of industry(%)67.170.061.665.1 GDP ratio of service industry(%)27.327.234.732.0 4R.Wang et al./Acta Ecologica Sinica29(2009)1–6

(1)Combine town planning with three scales of Zhahe Valley

ecosystem,Suihe river watershed,and Xuzhou regional eco-nomic complex planning to promote sustainable exploita-tion,use and maintenance of the ?ve natural elements of water,?re,wood,soil and mineral in the region.

(2)Combine restrictive control planning for ecologically sensi-tive,fragile and nature conservation areas with eco-service inducement planning of the Feng-Shui (wind corridor and water artery),ecological web,urban agriculture,etc.,draw red line for built-up area control,blue line for wetland restoration,and green corridor and patches for further development.(3)Combine built-up area (red space)planning with non-built-up area planning (green,blue space,brown corridors and patches)to develop a comprehensive eco-service management plan to restore and ef?cient use the urban agriculture,forestry,gardening,wetland and wastes regen-eration,with an ambitious goal to build the city as beauti-ful as that of the lake city of Hangzhou and garden city of Yangzhou.

(4)Switch two-dimensional landuse planning to three-dimen-sional ecoscape planning including underground wasted mine space and aboveground physical space considering ecological carrying capacity

planning.

Fig.5.Scenario results of Peri-urban

restoration.

Fig.6.Urban ecological mining with light rail networking,peri-urban ecosystem restoration and low-carbon industrial transition.

R.Wang et al./Acta Ecologica Sinica 29(2009)1–65

(5)Combine water use for human consumption and production

with water use for natural ecosystem maintenance;water pollutants treatment planning and hydro-engineering plan-ning with water ecological engineering and productive wetland restoration with a focus on integrative water man-agement of rain water,runoff water,ground water and grey water.

(6)Combine intensive energy exploitation and utilization plan-

ning with extensive energy dissipation and renewal energy use planning,with a focus on low-carbon industry transi-tion;and pollution control and treatment planning with eco-service conservation and development to reduce heat island effects,pollution effects,greenhouse effects and citi-zen disturbance effects.

(7)Combine supply-oriented urban metabolism and eco-mobil-

ity planning with eco-vein planning for wastes recycling and regeneration and eco-sanitation development.

(8)Combine cultural heritage conservation of the Grand Canal

culture with ecological texture,social arteries and veins, and human ecological integrity.

(9)Combine traditional vertical,top-down and tree-shape insti-

tutional management with horizontal coupling,bottom-up, integrative decision making,information feedback and sys-tem supervision,with a focus on stakeholders participation and eco-city mapping.

Acknowledgements

This research was?nancially supported by the Knowledge Innovation Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (KZCX2-YW-324,422),the National Natural Science Foundation of China(70433001)and the Key Supporting Project of Ministry of Science and Technology of P.R.China(2007BAC28B04).We are grateful to the Huaibei government for providing informa-tion on their urban planning and development initiatives.Final-ly,we thank Philip McMaster for correcting and polishing the manuscript.

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