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The Chinese government is making vigorous efforts to control agricultural pollution. The promotion of an ecological planting–breeding mix pattern is one of them. Farmers' mode of production will affect their subjective well-being. Thus, this paper aims to analyze the impact of adopting the ecological planting–breeding mix pattern on farmers' subjective well-being based on 895 pieces of survey data from the provinces of Hubei, Hunan, and Jiangxi in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Using the endogenous switching regression model, we find that the adoption of the ecological planting–breeding mix pattern has a significant positive effect on farmers' subjective well-being. Based on this counterfactual hypothesis, if the farmers who actually adopted the ecological planting–breeding mix pattern did not adopt it, their subjective well-being would decrease from 4.006 to 3.669. Further examination indicates that self-worth identification, income increase, and neighborhood communication could be potential mechanisms. Additionally, the effect of the ecological planting–breeding mix pattern on subjective well-being is stronger in the group with low financial support. The technical support provided by the government does not have a significant regulatory effect on the adoption of the ecological planting–breeding mix pattern on subjective well-being. Our results suggest that farmers' ecological production behavior can affect their subjective well-being. This may be relevant to many developing countries today that are attempting to adopt ecological agriculture patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To test the relationships of stochastic dominance, this paper firstly proposes two new consistent K-S-type statistics based on a quantile rule. Then, we consider their asymptotic properties. We introduce the bootstrap method to calculate the p-values of our proposed tests and use the Monte Carlo method to compare the power of our proposed test with the DD test and the BD test. The simulations showed that our test performed better than these two tests. Finally, we applied our proposed tests to compare the visibility of four provinces in China and compared the effects with the DD test and BD test. The empirical results showed that the conclusions of our proposed method are more-consistent with the dominance relationships of the four provinces. For a given significance level, the results of our proposed test demonstrate that the visibility of Jiangxi province is the best. The next one is the visibility of Hubei province, which outperforms the visibility of Anhui province. The visibility of Hunan province is the poorest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To facilitate the assessment of ecological product value and provide a convenient means of measurement, it is imperative to enhance the value accounting system. Thus, this study aims to develop a methodology for assessing ecological products that accounts for both product quality and cost. This approach is used to determine the ecological product value for the three provinces and cities in the Three Gorges region of China, which are located in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River, namely Hubei Province, Hunan Province, and Chongqing Municipality. According to the results, the ecological product value of Yangtze River's Three Gorges regions was USD 32,499,414,905.7 (2,339.417 billion yuan) in 2018. Clean water made up USD 129,845,354,411 (934.657 billion yuan) of this amount, while agricultural products contributed 140.476 billion. With a value of USD16,154,661,055 (11628.50 billion yuan), Hubei province had the greatest ecological product value. In light of these results, this study advocates for strategies to ensure the diversified and balanced development of ecological products. It recommends the establishment of a market platform dedicated to ecological products, as well as the formulation of rules and protocols governing ecological product transactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global warming is caused by rising carbon dioxide concentrations, while ecological and environmental issues are becoming increasingly evident. Many governments' main objective in addressing climate challenges is to achieve carbon balance. Exploring the distribution and changing trends of carbon balance can contribute to carbon balance strategies. This study takes the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) as the study area, analyzing the spatial and temporal dynamic changes in carbon emissions and carbon sequestration in the YREB from 2000 to 2017. The county-level supply–demand ratios and accessibility are calculated based on the enhanced two-step floating catchment method according to the dynamic flow radius. According to our experimental results, carbon emissions can achieve different degrees of carbon balance according to the flow radius. After carbon emissions flow between counties within the province, some provinces can realize the transition from carbon surplus to carbon balance. With the expansion of the flow radius and the increase in internal mobility, more counties can participate in carbon sequestration, and some provinces can achieve carbon neutrality after carbon emissions transfer across provinces. Hubei, Chongqing, Zhejiang, Hunan and other provinces with special carbon sequestration capacity are very sensitive to changes in the radius of carbon emission flow. In 2017, when the carbon emission flow radius is 50 km, the net carbon emission of the flow can be reduced by 3%. If the radius is increased to 200 km, the YREB can achieve carbon balance. This study can provide decision-making information for carbon emission ecosystem management in the YREB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As sustainable development has become a trending consensus, urban ecological resilience is now a significant metric for assessing the extent of urban ecological advancement. In view of the critical roles for promoting coordinated regional development, this research evaluates the ecological resilience of 28 cities in city clusters in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River from 2009 to 2020 using the entropy weight method and analyzes the spatio-temporal evolution pattern of ecological resilience. This study uses the Moran index and the spatial Durbin model to explore the spatial correlation of ecological resilience as well as the influencing factors and presents the following conclusions. First, ecological resilience appears to be on an upward trend in time, spatially characterized by a transition from higher resilience in the east region to lower resilience in the west region. Second, spatial autocorrelation in ecological resilience exhibits a positive relationship. Most cities in Jiangxi Province are high-high agglomerative cities, while most cities in Hunan and Hubei Provinces are low-low homogeneous cities and high-low polarized cities, respectively. Third, given that population density, economic development, and financial development negatively affect ecological resilience, government green investment has a positive effect and positive spatial spillovers. Based on the findings, this paper offers targeted policy recommendations on how cities can improve urban ecological resilience. [Display omitted] • Enriching existing research by focusing on city clusters in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River. • Constructing an ecological resilience evaluation system based on the theory of resistance-adaptation-recovery. • Detailed analysis of the spatial and temporal evolution patterns of ecological resilience in city clusters. • Spatial factors are introduced to analyze the spatial correlation and influencing factors of ecological resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Niutitang Formation of the lower Cambrian (Є1n) is a target reservoir of shale gas widely developed in China's Middle-Upper Yangtze region, with the characteristics of being widely distributed, having a big thickness and highly organic carbon abundance. However, the exploration and research degree are relatively low. Based on extensive core sample, experimental test results, drilling, and field outcrop surveying, the shale gas generation capacity, gas content, and gas composition are discussed. The preservation conditions of shale gas are then systematically analyzed from the aspects of tectonic movement, fault development, structural style, and thermal evolution degree. The results show that the organic-rich shale with a thickness ranging from 40 to 150 m developed in the mid-lower part of the Є1n Formation, with the TOC content values ranging from 0.4% to 14.64%. While it has unfavorable characteristics of a high thermal evolution, with Ro values ranging from 1.92% to 5.74%, a low gas content and a high nitrogen content (70% wells). The Є1n shale gas has complex preservation conditions. The Є1n Formation has good roof-to-floor conditions, but after the main gas generating peak of the Є1n shale during the Jurassic–Cretaceous, the most intensive tectonic activity of the Yanshan movement resulted in poor preservation conditions (faults developed and cap rock fractured). The huge faults extended to the surface are formed due to tectonic movement in an extensional environment, and the structural style and development are the main factors affecting the preservation conditions of the Є1n shale gas. Additionally, the high thermal evolution of the Є1n shales also has a certain impact on the preservation conditions. Therefore, the stable area far from large faults (>2.0 km), with weak local tectonic activity and tectonic deformation, is the favorable area for shale gas preservation in the Є1n Formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]