Exploring the High-Quality County-Level Development and Governance Response for Farming–Pastoral Ecotone in China: A Case Study of Kulun

Abstract

As a special territory type, the farming–pastoral ecotone is facing challenges surrounding path creation and high-quality and sustainable development. Counties are not only an important spatial unit to promote high-quality development, but also an important part of the modernization of the national governance system. County-level development is the critical driving force of sustainable development and the breakthrough of governance modernization in the farming-pastoral ecotone. First, this study systematically reviews the progress of the farming–pastoral ecotone and high-quality development. Then, this study adopts the “Driving Forces-Pressure-State-Impact-Responses” (DPSIR) model and entropy method to construct an analysis framework. Third, taking Kulun county as a typical case, this study diagnoses the state of high-quality county-level development in the farming–pastoral ecotone. Finally, a governance mechanism of “idea-space-industry-people’s livelihood-governance” has been proposed. This study provides theoretical guidance for the high-quality development of the farming–pastoral ecotone and enriches the body of knowledge regarding high-quality development.

1. Introduction

Economic growth, urbanization, and sustainable development are major challenges facing developing countries. The Chinese government has proposed the strategy of high-quality development in the new era [1]. High-quality development is development that can meet the growing needs of the people for a better life, and comprises comprehensive economic, political, cultural, social and ecological development. It is also considered sustainable development with Chinese characteristics. A county is the most basic territorial space unit and the key arena of urbanization [2]. China has 2844 county-level administrative units. China has significant regional heterogeneity due to the diversity of impact factors, such as geographical, social, economic, and cultural. It is impossible to use the “one-size-to-fit-all” model to guide high-quality county-level development in China [3].

The farming–pastoral ecotone, also known as the agro-pasture zigzag zone, agriculture and pasture interlaced area, and ecotone of agriculture and husbandry, is a special territory type in China [4,5,6,7]. The farming–pastoral ecotone is a transitional zone between grassland and cultivated land, farming, and animal husbandry [8]. Agriculture and animal husbandry in China are bounded by a 400 mm precipitation line [9]. The eastern and southern areas are mainly agricultural regions with traditional farming, whereas the western and northern areas are pastoral areas with animal husbandry. There is an ecotone between the two regions from northeast to southwest, where agriculture and animal husbandry coexist in space and alternate in time [10]. The farming-pastoral ecotone covers 234 counties in 13 provinces, including Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Inner Mongolia, Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Ningxia, Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, Yunnan, and Tibet, with a total area of about 813,459 square kilometers, about 8.4% of China’s land area (Figure 1). The farming–pastoral ecotone is a unique and important area, which is critical to divide the ecological environment and regional economy in China [11]. The farming-pastoral ecotone has unique natural endowment, industrial structure, and cultural characteristics, which foster huge productivity and social value. It is also an important ecological security shield in northern China and plays an important role in sustainable development [12].

The farming–pastoral ecotone has been underdeveloped for a long time in China. On the one hand, the special natural environment and location conditions limit the development. On the other hand, it is impossible to develop the farming-pastoral ecotone on a wide scale due to the delicate ecological environment. In addition, the farming–pastoral ecotone area lacks important central cities, and counties are major spatial units. Therefore, the key challenge for developing the farming-pastoral ecotone is establishing how to achieve sustainable and high-quality development through a reasonable allocation of resources in the context of ecological civilization and high-quality development, which have become the national development goals. Furthermore, the development experience and model of other regions or cities may not be suitable for the farming–pastoral ecotone. Blindly copying could have unfavorable effects. There is a need to investigate a tailored model that fits the farming-pastoral ecotone’s development requirements and regional features.

To address this challenge, this study explores the potential path and governance response for the farming–pastoral ecotone’s high-quality development at the county scale based on the DPSIR model and a case study. This study selected a typical case of Kulun in Inner Mongolia, and utilizing the “driving-pressure-state-impact-response” (DPSIR) model with the perspectives of development assessment, driving mechanism, transition characteristics, and integrated governance mechanism. The contributions in this study are multifold. First and foremost, this study enriches the body of knowledge surrounding high-quality development. Additionally, it enhances the county development theoretical framework and experience. Finally, it offers theoretical directions for the farming-pastoral ecotone’s high-quality development, as well as decision-making references.

The rest of the article is structured as follows. Section 2 provides a brief overview of the farming–pastoral ecotone and high-quality development research. Section 3 details the analytical framework, data, and methods used. Section 4 analyses a case study of Kulun. Section 5 concludes the article.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Overview of the Farming–Pastoral Ecotone

The farming-pastoral ecotone is a geographical concept formally proposed in 1953 that refers to the transition zone from intensive agricultural areas to nomadic areas [13]. In 1958, the farming–pastoral ecotone was formally defined and extended from the north to the southwest. However, the farming-pastoral ecotone’s scope has not been finalized. Since then, many scholars have defined the concept of the farming-pastoral ecotone from the aspects of economic geography, agricultural zoning, agroclimate, ecology, and macrogeography by combining factors such as the economy, social production, living, and the ecological environment [8].

Due to the changeable regional climate, rough and loose soil, frequent natural disasters, and unreasonable development and utilization, the farming-pastoral ecotone’s development process faces some problems [14]. For example, the ecological environment of this ecotone is fragile and unstable due to the interaction of natural conditions such as geological landforms, climate, and biology, as well as the farming-pastoral ecotone’s transitional location [15]. Economically, the farming-pastoral ecotone is generally lagging due to deficiencies in industrial development, industrialization, human resources, labor productivity, and infrastructure. Much of the northern part of the farming-pastoral ecotone is relatively poor [16]. Therefore, the innovation of the development model and adjustment of the industrial structure has become the primary path of the farming-pastoral ecotone’s transformation and development. In recent years, a series of problems have been exacerbated by the combined effect of human activities and global climate change, which has promoted the emphasis on researching the farming-pastoral ecotone [10]. Domestic research on the farming-pastoral ecotone has developed rapidly since the end of the 20th century, mainly involving environmental archaeology, environmental degradation, and climate change, especially precipitation changes, degradation of land productivity, and soil erosion [9,17,18,19,20,21]. Most previous studies focused on the ecological environment and industrial structure. In addition, these studies covered a variety of disciplines, including agricultural, environmental, and resource sciences, geography, and ecology with a wide variety of research approaches [4]. Most of the surrounding counties of the farming-pastoral ecotone in China are not only the main driving force and breakthrough point of economic development, but also an important area for the implementation of a rural revitalization strategy [22]. However, these areas generally suffer from economic, social, and cultural backwardness and low urban and rural income levels. There is currently no literature that has considered the development of the farming-pastoral ecotone’s surrounding counties.

2.2. Progress of High-Quality Development Research

High-quality development can promote the coordinated development of economic, political, cultural, social, and ecological civilization construction [23]. According to the Chinese government, high-quality development is used as a strategy to guide future development. There are various interpretations of what high-quality development means. The research on the theory and approach of high-quality development in the Chinese context is more diversified, multi-dimensional, and dynamic [24]. With economic development and social progress, it is reflected in various fields such as the economy, politics, society, and culture. Meanwhile, an increased focus on the quality of products and services is characterized by diversity and individuality [25]. Therefore, it also includes the interpretation of the macro-economy and industry as well as micro-enterprises and products, the innovative analysis of development concepts, and evaluation of efficiency and fairness [25,26,27].

Based on theoretical cognition, development paths based on different perspectives are proposed. Through the application of economic theories and case analysis methods, the main functions and positioning of government departments in high-quality development are obtained, such as adjusting the industrial structure at the enterprise level, guiding the gradient transfer of productivity, and expanding to the outside world [28]. On this basis, various approaches are adopted to achieve the overall goals of economic growth, social development, and ecological protection, with a clear focus on building an economic powerhouse and harmonious society. Due to different understandings of the connotation of high-quality development, the measurement angles and methods are also different [29]. Most studies have measured the level of regional high-quality development at different levels from the broad perspective of high-quality development. Among them, the main methods include the entropy method, Moran index, TOPSIS method, and cluster analysis method, as well as empirical analysis of specific regions, provinces, and cities [30,31,32,33,34,35].

In general, there are a lot of studies on high-quality development, with the transformation from theoretical to empirical research and in-depth regional cognition from macro to meso, which not only enriches relevant theories and perspectives, but also provides research ideas and methods. However, the dissection of the large and extensive county-level high-quality development is relatively weak, and the cognition of county-level development’s positioning, elements, tasks, and measures in the national high-quality system is relatively vague. Overall, there is clearly insufficient research on high-quality county-level development of the farming-pastoral ecotone.

3. Materials and Methods

3.1. Study Area

Kulun is located to the east of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in China, with longitude 121°09′~122°21′ east and latitude 42°21′~43°14′ north (Figure 2). There are 4716 square kilometers of land area, including 1.38 million mu of arable land. With a population of 174,000 and 11 ethnic groups, it is a multi-ethnic county dominated by Mongolians. As a typical farming-pastoral ecotone county, Kulun has farming, forestry, and animal husbandry, which is dominated by animal husbandry. There are diverse county-level agricultural and animal husbandry resources, of which agriculture is the mainstay in the south, livestock in the north, and cash crops in the central plain. Considering the primary industry’s high proportion of shortcomings, single economic structure, and low transportation accessibility, Kulun needs transformation and development. For Kulun, high-quality development is of great significance to increase the income of farmers and herdsmen, improve the ecological environment, stabilize the society, and revitalize the countryside.

Kulun shows significant representativeness and typicality in terms of topography and economic development, which can basically reflect various common problems in 12% of the farming-pastoral ecotone’s poverty-stricken counties. Therefore, research on model innovation and governance mechanism construction in Kulun regarding high-quality county-level development has important empirical and theoretical value for farming-pastoral ecotone county-level transformation and development.

3.2. The DPSIR Model

The DPSIR model is an evaluation model proposed by the European Environment Agency (EEA) in 1998 on the basis of the pressure-state-response (PSR) model. The DPSIR model constructs an evaluation index based on five types of drivers, pressures, state, impact, and responses of the environmental system, each of which contains several indicators [36]. As a hierarchical framework model based on causal chain information and related indicators, the DPSIR model shows the relationship between socioeconomic activities and the environment through simplified causal interactions [37,38]. Figure 3 shows the general model structure.

As for the basic connotation of the DPSIR model, the economic, social, and cultural factors in the system are used as drivers (D) to promote human activities to exert pressure (P) on the environment and natural resources so the environmental state (S) changes, such as the depletion of natural resources, decline of biodiversity, and degradation of environmental quality. These changes have impacts (I) on ecosystems, human health, and socioeconomics. In the process of promoting sustainable development, human society responds (R) to these state changes in a way of prevention, adaptation, or improvement through environmental, economic, land, and other policies, decisions, or management measures. Through the effective integration of the four elements, namely economy, society, population, and environment, the DPSIR model framework not only considers the impact of social and economic development and human activities on the environment, but also increases the feedback effects brought about by human activities changing the environment. Thus, the model with comprehensiveness, integrity, and flexibility can clearly reflect the causal relationship between various indicators in the evaluation system, comprehensively reflect the constraints between the environment, society, and economy, and explain social development and human activities’ relationship with the environment. The DPSIR model has been widely used in the field of environmental assessment, and gradually extended to other disciplines [39,40,41,42,43].

This study makes full use the advantages of the DPSIR model, including system thinking, its multi-factor interaction mechanism, and human-land integration development, and introduces them into the mechanism explanation of high-quality county development in the farming–pastoral ecotone (Figure 4). By analyzing the logical relationship of various factors in county-level development of the farming-pastoral ecotone, the status and deficiencies of high-quality county-level development are identified. Then, corresponding countermeasures and methods are put forward to explore the innovative mode and governance mechanism of the farming-pastoral ecotone’s high-quality county-level development, so as to explore new ways and provide theoretical support.

3.3. Constructing the Index System

The county is a basic, organic, and complete territorial unit. The county in the farming-pastoral ecotone is a complex system integrating nature, ecology, and socio-economics. The DPSIR model can well consider the relationship between each link in the system and the influence of each other. Based on Kulun’s ecological environment characteristics and socio-economic development status, the DPSIR model selects 25 evaluation factors from five dimensions, including drivers, pressures, state, impact, and responses, for the construction of a high-quality county-level development evaluation index system (

Table 1. High-quality county-level development evaluation index system.

Target	Criterion	Indicator	Unit	Effect of Indicator
High-quality county-level development evaluation	Drivers (D)	Urbanization rate	%	+
		GDP	Ten thousand yuan	+
		Investment in fixed assets	Ten thousand yuan	+
		Per capita disposable income of all residents	Yuan	+
		Total retail sales of social consumption	Ten thousand yuan	+
	Pressure (P)	Proportion of employees in the primary industry	%	−
		Proportion of employees in the secondary industry	%	−
		Proportion of employees in the tertiary industry	%	+
		Crop sown area	Hectare	+
		Population density	Person/km2	−
		Balance of loans of financial institutions at the end of the year	Ten thousand yuan	+
		Number of professional technicians	Person	+
	State (S)	Comprehensive income of tourism society	Ten thousand yuan	+
		Total power of agricultural machinery	Ten thousand kilowatts	+
		Green coverage in built-up areas	Ten thousand yuan	+
		Road mileage	km	+
	Impact (I)	Ratio of per capita disposable income in urban and rural pastoral areas	-	−
		Number of industrial enterprises above designated size	-	+
		Proportion of added value of strategic emerging industries in GDP	%	+
	Responses (R)	Facility agriculture area	Hectare	+
		Sandy land comprehensive management area	Hectare	+
		Proportion of added value of the tertiary industry	%	+
		Proportion of science and technology expenditure in public budget expenditure	%	+
		Proportion of social security and employment expenditure in public budget expenditure	%	+
		Proportion of energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure in public budget expenditure	%	+

Note: data on GDP, PCI, investment, etc., use current prices. + and − refer to positive and negative effect respectively.

).

Drivers refer to the underlying factors, such as social and economic, that drive high-quality county-level development. With the orderly advancement of new urbanization, overall relaxation of the flow of farmers and herdsmen, and increase in investment, GDP and residents’ incomes have increased. Further, changes in market structure and development scale are introduced.

Pressure focuses on industry, talent, and environment. For farming-pastoral ecotone county-level development, the pressure is concentrated in the imbalance between economic activities in resource utilization and agricultural and animal husbandry development. The urban permanent population’s year-on-year increase will lead to the urban scale’s expansion. The population density indicator characterizes population growth pressure. Due to the relatively high proportion of the agricultural population and relatively low technological and cultural level of farmers and herdsmen, high-level professional and technical personnel are relatively scarce.

State refers to the current state of resources and environment of county-level development, which can be measured by industry and infrastructure. Under the pressure of the superposition of the above elements, the county as a whole appeared in a stage of small economic aggregate, low industrial level, scattered development of agriculture and animal husbandry, and small-scale operation. Due to the weak innovation ability and insufficient talent support, the infrastructure construction of agriculture and animal husbandry is lagging behind, the improvement of quality and efficiency of agriculture and animal husbandry is slow, and the ability to resist risks and market competitiveness is weak. An unbalanced industrial structure leads to the inability to fully integrate and utilize resources. It is urgent to find new breakthroughs and carry out the transformation and innovation of development models.

Impact mainly involves residents’ income levels and development momentum. The county-level economic development has prompted a rapid increase in the income level of urban residents. However, the single industrial structure and income source lead to a huge disparity between urban and rural incomes. The farming-pastoral ecotone county is basically in a resource-oriented and factor-driven extensive growth model.

Responses include value orientation, development models, and governance mechanisms. Farming-pastoral ecotone county-level transformation and development is a complex system of engineering that involves the transformation of natural resources, the social economy, development patterns, urban-rural relations, and other aspects. On the basis of the evaluation of resource endowment, the status quo basis, resource environment, and other factors, the resource background, development status, and future trends are studied and judged. Based on the characteristics of the economy, industry, and environment in the process of county-level development, a rational and scientific development plan is formulated. As a result, urban and rural governance mechanisms are advanced. Moreover, an innovative model of farming-pastoral ecotone high-quality county-level development can be constructed.

In accordance with the requirements of the DPSIR model, as well as the data principles of data science, completeness, accessibility, comparability, and ease, a problem-driven and causal paradigm is adopted to construct a comprehensive evaluation index system for high-quality county-level development.

3.4. Entropy Method

This paper uses the entropy method to weigh the data. The entropy method combines the information contained in the index to determine the index’s weight, which can objectively reflect the index’s importance in the evaluation [36]. The specific steps are as follows:

i.

Variables are normalized. The higher the value, the better the positive indicator. Equation (1) is used for the normalization of positive indicators. The smaller the value, the better the negative indicator. Equation (1) is used for the normalization of negative indicators:

$$r{’}_{ij}=\frac{x_{ij}-min{x}_{ij}}{max x_{ij}-min x_{ij}}$$

(1)

$$r{’}_{ij}=\frac{max x_{ij}-x_{ij}}{max x_{ij}-min x_{ij}}$$

(2)

where $r_{ij}$ is the normalized value and $x_{ij}$ is the original value of the j-th indicator in the i-th year.

ii.

According to the standardized matrix $r’$ = $(r{’}_{ij}$)_m×n, n is the number of evaluation objects and m is the number of evaluation indicators. The information entropy $e_{ij}$ of the evaluation index is calculated as follows:

$$e_{ij}=-\frac{1}{\ln n}{\displaystyle \sum }_{i=1}^n{f}_{ij}\ln f_{ij}$$

iii.

The weights of the indicators are determined as follows:

$$w_j=\frac{1-e_j}{m-{{\displaystyle \sum }}_{j=1}^m{e}_j}$$

where 0 ≤ $w_j$ ≤ 1 and ${\displaystyle \sum }{w}_j$ = 1, so as to obtain the index vector $W_j$.

3.5. Data Acquisition

To ensure the scientific and accuracy of data, the original data used in this study are all from official statistical yearbooks, including the China County Statistical Yearbook, Inner Mongolia Statistical Yearbook, and Tongliao Statistical Yearbook from 2015 to 2020. Some of the missing data in the yearbook were obtained from the official websites of the Kulun statistics bureau and annual report of the Kulun government from 2015 to 2020. The missing data for individual years were supplemented by means interpolation.

Table 2. Descriptive statistics of variables.

	Unit	Mean	Median	Max	Min	Variance	SD
Urbanization rate	%	38.117	40.45	44.8	21	75.76	8.7039
GDP	Ten thousand yuan	554,677.83	538,300	720,695	408,638	16,093,684,172	126,860.88
Investment in fixed assets	Ten thousand yuan	556,847.5	663,986.5	750,776	123,836	57,785,561,733	240,386.27
Per capita disposable income of all residents	Yuan	16,004.67	15,954.5	19,014	12,852	5,863,060.67	2421.37
Total retail sales of social consumption	Ten thousand yuan	160,683.5	168,244.5	189,600	105,230	959,573,375.9	30,976.98
Proportion of employees in the primary industry	%	66.5	66.5	68	65	1.9	1.37
Proportion of employees in the secondary industry	%	7.67	8.5	10	3	6.27	2.5
Proportion of employees in the tertiary industry	%	25.67	26.5	29	22	9.07	3.01
Crop sown area	Hectare	108,659.67	110,151.5	118,496	92,302	77,156,006.67	8783.84
Balance of loans of financial institutions at the end of the year	Ten thousand yuan	204,611.5	205,498.5	292,300	129,564	3,492,215,815	59,094.97
Population density	Person/km2	37.817	37.8	38	37.6	0.03	0.16
Number of professional technicians	Person	3683.4	3708	4022	3300	71,941.8	268.22
Comprehensive income of tourism society	Ten thousand yuan	43,645.83	50,500	65,000	1475	524,436,604.2	22,900.58
Total power of agricultural machinery	Ten thousand kilowatts	41.17	40.5	46	38	8.56	2.927
Road mileage	km	1960.83	2013.5	2031	1683	18,648.16	136.55
Green coverage in built-up areas	%	36.065	36.01	37.6	34.8	0.79	0.8919
Ratio of per capita disposable income in urban and rural pastoral areas	—	2.32	2.37	2.4	2.11	0.01	0.1141
Number of industrial enterprises above designated size	—	15.5	16	25	4	96.7	9.83
Proportion of added value of strategic emerging industries in GDP	%	9.83	9.5	15	5	13.76	3.71
Facility agriculture area	Hectare	1476.17	709.5	3500	133	2,115,850.16	1454.59
Sandy land comprehensive management area	Hectare	25.35	21.7	44	12.9	140.01	11.83
Proportion of added value of the tertiary industry	%	49.67	50	68	35	170.667	13.064
Proportion of science and technology expenditure in public budget expenditure	%	0.2	0.22	0.31	0.11	0.007	0.08456
Proportion of social security and employment expenditure in public budget expenditure	%	16.8133	16.96	22.61	11.46	14.906	3.86087
Proportion of energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure in public budget expenditure	%	1.4367	1.305	2.46	0.8	0.35	0.5915

shows the descriptive statistics of variables after processing.

4. Results

4.1. High-Quality County-Level Development Evaluation Results and Analysis

4.1.1. Analysis of DPSIR Index Based on Weight

Table 3. Kulun high-quality development evaluation results.

Target	Criterion	Weight	Indicator	Weight
High-quality county-level development evaluation	Drivers (D)	0.185	Urbanization rate	0.0008
			GDP	0.1007
			Investment in fixed assets	0.0566
			Per capita disposable income of all residents	0.0248
			Total retail sales of social consumption	0.0019
	Pressure (P)	0.327	Proportion of employees in the primary industry	0.1178
			Proportion of employees in the secondary industry	0.0511
			Proportion of employees in the tertiary industry	0.0536
			Crop sown area	0.0008
			Population density	0.0732
			Balance of loans of financial institutions at the end of the year	0.0202
			Number of professional technicians	0.0104
	State (S)	0.044	Comprehensive income of tourism society	0.0016
			Total power of agricultural machinery	0.0269
			Green coverage in built-up areas	0.0157
			Road mileage	0.0001
	Impact (I)	0.097	Ratio of per capita disposable income in urban and rural pastoral areas	0.0047
			Number of industrial enterprises above designated size	0.0727
			Proportion of added value of strategic emerging industries in GDP	0.0195
	Responses (R)	0.347	Facility agriculture area	0.0716
			Sandy land comprehensive management area	0.0728
			Proportion of added value of the tertiary industry	0.0547
			Proportion of science and technology expenditure in public budget expenditure	0.0440
			Proportion of social security and employment expenditure in public budget expenditure	0.0554
			Proportion of energy conservation and environmental protection expenditure in public budget expenditure	0.0485

shows the final high-quality county-level development evaluation model based on the entropy method.

From the perspective of the weight of the indicators, the weights of GDP, proportion of employees in the primary industry, population density, number of industrial enterprises above designated size, and sandy land comprehensive management areas are ranked high, which shows that these indicators are very important to high-quality county-level development. As for the proportion of employees in the primary industry, it can be seen that the state attaches great importance to the comprehensive development of agriculture and animal husbandry and vigorously supports the development of the characteristic industry of agricultural advantages, resulting in a large proportion of the primary industry. Driven by the steady development of the county economy and improvement of comprehensive agricultural and animal husbandry production capacity, county-level development, economic development and agricultural and animal husbandry production capacity increase, which cause increased ecological environment pressure and prominent environmental problems such as land desertification. In recent years, Kulun has strengthened ecological protection and restoration, as well as instigated comprehensive sand management. At the same time, similar indicators include the proportion of science and technology expenditures in public budget expenditures, proportion of social security and employment expenditures in public budget expenditures, and proportion of energy conservation and environmental protection expenditures in public budget expenditures, which reflects the county’s great support for and investment in these areas.

4.1.2. Comprehensive Evaluation of High-Quality Development in Kulun

Based on the data, this study further measured the comprehensive evaluation index of high-quality development in Kulun for 2015–2020 (

Table 4. Comprehensive evaluation results of high-quality development in Kulun, 2015–2020.

Year	Comprehensive Evaluation Result	Drivers (D)	Pressure (P)	State (S)	Impact (I)	Responses (R)
2015	0.437	0.419	0.629	0.320	0.561	0.257
2016	0.570	0.430	0.598	0.455	0.496	0.395
2017	0.545	0.459	0.655	0.549	0.505	0.373
2018	0.499	0.525	0.520	0.642	0.468	0.398
2019	0.514	0.550	0.428	0.727	0.511	0.467
2020	0.538	0.648	0.381	0.571	0.613	0.762

). The comprehensive index of high-quality development in Kulun increased from 0.437 in 2015 to 0.538 in 2020. There is an overall upward trend with slight fluctuations. Figure 5 further shows the changes in indicators of DPSIR for high-quality development in Kulun. The consistency of the time series changes in the development of Drivers and Impact from 2015 to 2020 is obvious, indicating the synergy effect between the Drivers and Impact.

The following is a more detailed analysis of Kulun’s high-quality development based on DPSIR. Drivers’ growth demonstrates a consistent growing tendency. It shows that Kulun’s local administration places a high value on economic development and that the county’s high-quality development has a good economic foundation. In contrast, the development of Pressure shows a decreasing trend, indicating that Kulun is facing great challenges for high quality development, with high ecological and environmental pressure due to the constraints of natural conditions and the currently extensive development model. At the same time, the development of State shows a fluctuating upward trend, rising gradually in 2015–2019 and declining significantly in 2020, indicating that the state of Kulun’s society, economy, livelihood, resources, and environment are vulnerable. Impact has a smile curve. It demonstrates that economic growth has typically benefited urban and rural residents, and that the industrial structure was initially optimized, further development is still required. The largest increase in Response, with an average annual increase of 0.08, is from 0.257 in 2015 to 0.762 in 2020. This demonstrates that the local administration in Kulun gives high-quality development more consideration and has taken proactive steps to encourage it in the county.

4.2. Regional Pressure Status and State Demands

4.2.1. Analysis of the Current Situation of County-Level Pressure

The value of Pressure is 0.327, which is obviously high, indicating that the high-quality development of Kulun is under greater pressure. Especially, the indicator of the proportion of employees in the primary industry is as high as 0.1178, which indicates that the industrial structure of Kulun is unreasonable and the proportion of primary industry is over high. The indicators of Secondary and tertiary industries are 0.0511 and 0.0536 respectively, which demonstrate that the secondary and tertiary industries have a certain foundation, but need further development. The indicators of finance and professional technicians are low, which reflect that the economy of Kulun is mainly based on extensive development, and the enterprises are mostly low-end, traditional, resource-based, and labor-intensive, which have defects in market competitiveness, diversification, and industrialization. The growth of the modern service industry in Kulun is sluggish, and the infrastructure is insufficient to support regional development.

The crop area indicator is only 0.0008, indicating that Kulun is predominantly pastoralist and less agriculture. “Abundant resources and environmental protection” are the characteristics of Kulun’s agriculture and animal husbandry. In terms of the crop planting layout, the southern part is dominated by miscellaneous grains such as buckwheat and millet, the northern part is dominated by high-quality pastures such as silage corn, and the central part is dominated by cash crops such as corn, vegetables, and melons. In terms of animal husbandry, the characteristic breeding industry develops rapidly, and the standardization and scale of farms are greatly improved. As an underdeveloped county in the western inland, Kulun not only faces common difficulties at the national, district, and municipal levels, but also has some personality problems. Among them, prominent challenges include moderate economic growth, serious government debt, slow improvement of agricultural quality and efficiency, an insufficient industrial development foundation, and a weak modern service industry. Insufficient elements such as government services, talent attraction, and investment and financing lead to a poor business environment. The single economic structure, weak agricultural and animal husbandry foundation, lack of industrial agglomeration, and low transportation accessibility are the long-term disadvantages of Kulun, which increase the uncertainty of its future development prospects.

4.2.2. County-Level Development State and Transformation Demands

The value of State is only 0.044, which is the lowest in the DPSIR, indicating that Kulun is in a primary stage of high-quality development. Specifically, the indicators of tourism (0.0016), industry (0.0269), ecology (0.0157), transportation (0.0001) are too low, which reflects that Kulun’s high-quality development faces the following demands: small economic aggregate, low industrial level, characteristic industry that has not received enough attention, and resources that have not been fully integrated and utilized. The tourism industry is still in the initial stage of development, and the production of tourism commodities lacks the support of leading enterprises, with a low degree of industrialization. Therefore, Kulun is still in an underdeveloped situation.

The value of Impact is 0.097, which is also not high. Especially, indicators of urban-rural integration development (0.0047), industrialization (0.0727), and new industries development (0.0195) are all low, deeply indicating the poor effect of quality development in Kulun. The investigation also found that the effective agricultural irrigation area in Kulun is less than 500,000 mu due to the effect of topography and climate. The development of agriculture and animal husbandry in the whole county is still in the stage of scattered small-scale operation. The socialization, organization, scale, standardization, and industrialization of agriculture and animal husbandry are lagging behind in infrastructure construction. The improvement of quality and efficiency of agriculture and animal husbandry is slow, the level of scale and intensification is low, and the ability to resist risks and market competitiveness is weak. In addition, there are still problems such as the low processing rate of agricultural and livestock products, small scale of leading enterprises in agricultural and animal husbandry industrialization, and weak brand-driving force.

Kulun’s GDP in 2020 was 5.391 billion yuan, and the ratio of three industrial structures was 35.11:6.99:57.9. As for deficiencies, there are low industrial proportions, weak technological innovation capabilities, and insufficient talent support. Enterprises are mostly low-end, traditional, resource-based, and labor-intensive, with low market competitiveness. In addition to the insufficient development of the modern service industry, there are shortcomings in people’s livelihood security, ecological environmental protection, and social governance.

4.3. Governance Response

The value of Response is 0.347, which is the highest in the DPSIR, indicating that the local government of Kulun has made great efforts to achieve quality development. The indicators of modern agriculture (0.0716), land improvement (0.0728), modern service industry (0.0547), science and technology (0.044), social security (0.0554), and environmental governance (0.0485) are all relatively high, reflecting the determination and measures of the local government in Kulun to comprehensively promote high-quality development.

In response to Kulun’s demands for socio-economic ecological foundations, regional characteristics, and transformation and development, a response mechanism of “concept-space-industry-livelihood-governance” has been constructed from this study, which can provide theoretical guidance for Kulun’s high-quality development and other farming-pastoral ecotone counties for reference.

4.3.1. Implement the People-Centered Development Concept

The essence of high-quality development is people-centered [23]. A county that connects urban and rural areas is the most basic administrative unit. Therefore, it is necessary to focus on people’s livelihood, increase support for agriculture, education, employment, housing, pension, medical and health care, and other fields, and promote the achievements of reform and development to benefit the people of the county.

Indicators related to the people’s lives, such as income (0.0248), and social security (0.0554) are at acceptable levels, indicating that the local government in Kulun values people’s livelihood, but needs to continue to strengthen them. In the new urbanization strategy centered on people, the urbanization of an agricultural transfer population is the main task [44]. Considering that a town is the breakthrough point of Kulun’s new urbanization, the quality of urbanization development should be comprehensively improved, including the construction of infrastructure, public services, environmental protection, low carbon, and intelligence. It is necessary to promote the construction of an urban public service system and urban infrastructure, as well as the development and allocation of human resources. Thus, the level of urban governance and quality of urban development can be improved through the construction of smart cities and governments.

4.3.2. Promote the Coordinated Development of Urban and Rural Areas

The integrated development of urban and rural areas is the key issue of the high-quality county-level development. Indicators related to the coordinated development of urban and rural areas, such as urbanization rate (0.0008), ratio of per capita disposable income in urban and rural areas (0.0047) are not high, indicating there is a low degree of urban-rural integrated development in Kulun. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the agglomeration effect of county towns and improve the overall level of urbanization [45]. Based on regional key industries, regional nodes are created to ensure the quality and upgrade of industrial development. Through an in-depth exploration of the characteristics and advantages of agriculture and animal husbandry in the town, the transformation and upgrading of agriculture and animal husbandry is realized. The infrastructure and public service facilities are scientifically and effectively allocated, so as to achieve the equalization of the allocation of public facilities and improvement of people’s quality of life. To coordinate the urban and rural development of towns and villages, the characteristic towns of industry-driven, characteristic planting and breeding, commerce and trade circulation, and ethnic cultural tourism are cultivated in accordance with local conditions. With the county as the carrier, the core of the county-level development has been strengthened, thus forming a coordinated development of the urban pattern.

4.3.3. Promote Ecological Protection-Oriented Industrial Transformation

Due to the special geographical typology of the farming-pastoral ecotone, the priority of county-level development is environmental protection. Indicators related to the ecological environment, such as green coverage (0.0157) and environmental protection expenditure (0.0485) show that the ecology of Kulun is fragile, but the government pays more attention to environmental protection. It is necessary to promote coordination between economic and social development and resources and environment. For example, green industries should be vigorously developed, such as ensuring new building materials and energy. By accelerating the transformation of agricultural and animal husbandry production methods and farmers and herdsmen’s production methods, Kulun grassland ecology and desert ecology are protected and developed to build ecologically livable and beautiful villages.

The rational layout of the characteristic industry and comprehensive promotion of comprehensive agricultural development are of great significance for high-quality development in Kulun (Figure 6). For the northern region, it is recommended to build a whole industry chain of grass and animal husbandry and establish a grass and animal husbandry production system of “grass planting-grass making-animal raising-manure returning”. Folk tourism based on desert landscapes and Mongolian culture is a good choice. For the central region, facility agriculture should be focused on development, such as building buckwheat planting bases. For the agro-processing industry, high-value added products should be developed. In addition, it is recommended to develop leisure tourism based on tourism resources and agricultural landscapes. For the southern regions, the emphasis is on the cultivation of grains and beans.

4.3.4. Promote Rural Revitalization

Rural revitalization is one of the core tasks of China’s high-quality development. Indicators related to rural development, such as employees in the primary industry (0.1178), crop land (0.0008), and power of agricultural machinery (0.0269) are not high, indicating that the current development quality of agricultural and husbandry in Kulun is not high. The development of industry is an important way to stimulate the vitality of rural development and establish sustainable rural development. The development of the characteristic industry is an important breakthrough for the industry’s prosperity [46]. Through the combination of characteristic industry development, targeted poverty alleviation, and rural revitalization, the characteristic industry becomes the mainstay of industrial poverty alleviation. Farmers’ way of life can be transformed through the multi-channel promotion of increasing the income of farmers and herdsmen includes agricultural income and non-agricultural income. By promoting the effective connection between comprehensive poverty alleviation and rural revitalization, and stimulate the endogenous driving force of development of undeveloped areas and low-income people, especially the willingness and development power of farmers and herdsmen. In addition, poverty alleviation industries, employment for poor households, education, and medical security are also needed. By strengthening village planning and promoting projects such as industry, talent, ecology, culture, and organization, poverty alleviation and rural revitalization are mutually promoted and integrated.

4.3.5. Improve the Modern Urban and Rural Governance Mechanism

The modernization of governance capacity and governance systems are also core tasks of high-quality development [24]. The farming-pastoral ecotone has specific grassroots environmental and developmental needs. With Kulun as an example, the vast territory, sparse population, and ethnic, religious, and development issues are intertwined, resulting in difficult urban and rural grassroots governance. With the advancement of social and economic development and urbanization, grassroots governance capabilities and governance levels have significantly improved. However, the contradiction between urban and rural grassroots governance and development demands is deepening. In recent years, major emergencies have occurred from time to time. Therefore, it is extremely urgent to establish a modern urban and rural governance mechanism. First, it is necessary to strengthen collaborative governance among multiple subjects [47]. The governance subject should be transformed from a single subject of the government to a diversified subject. In addition to enhancing the motivation and ability of social entities to participate in social governance, social groups, market entities, and the masses should be encouraged and guided to actively participate in urban and rural social governance. Second, the linkage between superiors and subordinates should be promoted. The traditional one-way top-down governance should be transformed into a multi-directional top-down and bottom-up governance [48]. By providing more platforms and opportunities for social organizations and the people to participate in community public services, governance costs can be effectively reduced, which is conducive to the establishment of a public participation mechanism.

5. Conclusions

As a special geographical type, the farming-pastoral ecotone has the characteristics of being ecologically fragile and including poor areas. There is a need to investigate a tailored model that fits the farming-pastoral ecotone’s development requirements and regional features in the context of high-quality development. Based on the DPSIR model, this paper takes Kulun as a typical case to evaluate the demand and state of county-level development, and comprehensively analyzes the natural and socio-economic drivers and pressures in their system links that cause county-level development changes. Then, the impact of system state changes on the country-level social economy, industrial structure, people’s living standards, ecological environment, is determined. Based on this, feasible governance mechanisms are proposed to facilitate high-quality county-level development of the farming-pastoral ecotone. High-quality development is a national strategy and goal, and its implementation requires the development of feasible paths with regional characteristics. The theoretical contribution of this study is to provide a potential model for the farming-pastoral ecotone and enrich the theoretical system of high-quality development.

For counties in the farming-pastoral ecotone and beyond, economic development and resource utilization should avoid the deterioration of the ecological environment as much as possible based on the actual situation of the current county-level development, under the guise of high-quality development, innovation-driven, urban-rural integration, and sustainable development should be emphasized. According to the location characteristics, resource endowment, development types, driving factors, and characteristic levels of different regions, the individual requirements for the development of each county are clarified, and the targeted high-quality development diagnosis and promotion strategies are formulated. Through the exchanges and cooperation between counties, the regional diffusion effect of high-quality development is formed.

The farming-pastoral ecotone is a complex system integrating nature, ecology, and social economy, and the high-quality county-level development of the farming-pastoral ecotone is a long-term systematic project. High-quality development and marketization present a governance challenge for integrated urban-rural development in the farming-pastoral ecotone. This study proposes an integrated governance framework through a combination of theory and case, and summarizes and discusses the function, process, and interaction of various factors in county development of the farming-pastoral ecotone. This study enriches the theory of high-quality county development from a managerial perspective.

There are some limitations in this study: on the one hand, this study is mainly based on the case study of Kulun, and whether it can be extended to other areas in the farming-pastoral ecotone needs to be further verified. On the other hand, this study is a qualitative study, and more quantitative studies such as spatial analysis and econometrics need to be carried out in the future.