Search Results (8)

Agricultural heritage education can support intergenerational knowledge transmission, yet little is known about how children engage with living agricultural heritage landscapes. Drawing on the Cognition–Affect–Behavior (CAB) framework, this study examined relationships among heritage knowledge, participation motivation, place attachment, digital facilitation, and participation intention among children in the Huzhou Mulberry-dyke & Fish-pond System, China. Survey data from 206 children aged 10–15 years were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling. Heritage knowledge was positively related to participation motivation and place attachment, both of which were positively related to participation intention. Participation motivation and place attachment were also significant mediators of the relationship between heritage knowledge and participation intention, while the direct relationship remained significant. Digital facilitation was positively related to participation motivation and strengthened the relationship between heritage knowledge and participation motivation. These findings highlight the value of combining knowledge-oriented learning with motivating activities, place-based experiences, and appropriate digital support in agricultural heritage education. Full article

The mulberry-dyke fishpond system represents China’s traditional circular agricultural heritage yet faces challenges of “circularity without economic viability” and preservation under modernization pressures. Taking the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System site of Digang in Huzhou as a case study, this paper reveals fundamental shifts in its value structure through local research and interviews. Key findings include the following: (1) Significant decline in traditional economic value: Annual income from mulberry-dyke fishpond systems is extremely low, far below the per-mu yield of modern intensive aquaculture in the area. This has led to producer withdrawal and the disintegration of the base-pond structure. (2) Ecological and social values increasingly emerge and partially marketize: The system’s ecological service value is substantial and policy-recognized, with markets responding through a 100% premium on eco-fish prices. Concurrently, heritage-based cultural tourism integration generates significant new value—for instance, Digang village’s 2023 tourism revenue reached 140 million. However, these prominent non-market values still lack stable, adequate realization pathways. The core argument of this study is that the decline in mulberry-dyke fishpond systems stems from an imbalance in value structures rather than the disappearance of value. Their revitalization hinges on institutional innovation that transforms ecological and social value into sustainable market incentives. To this end, this paper proposes a systematic revitalization framework encompassing a concession system (incorporating community interest alignment and risk management clauses), regional brand certification, carbon sink value realization, and mechanisms for deep community participation. This approach aims to provide a Chinese solution for the sustainable development of similar agricultural cultural heritage sites, offering both theoretical insights and practical value. Full article

The Mulberry-Dyke and Fish-Pond System, as a paradigm of traditional Chinese agricultural recycling models, represents a distinct ecosystem. This study focuses on the Mulberry-Dyke and Fish-Pond System in Digang Village, Huzhou, as a typical case. The village serves as a core conservation base for the Huzhou Mulberry-Dyke and Fish-Pond System, hosting the Huzhou Agricultural Science and Technology Development Center’s Academician and Expert Workstation and the world’s only Mulberry-Dyke and Fish-Pond System Visitor Center. These facilities provide strategic guidance for the conservation, development, planning, and inheritance of the Huzhou Mulberry-Dyke and Fish-Pond System. Considering the unique environment and limitations in data acquisition, this study employed the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation (FCE) to develop an ecosystem service assessment framework encompassing eight aspects and 29 factors assessing the provisioning, regulating, and cultural services of the Mulberry-Dyke and Fish-Pond System. The results indicate that the ecosystem services of the Digang Village Mulberry-Dyke and Fish-Pond System perform at a high level, with cultural services playing a significant role in the overall ecosystem services. The regulating services are relatively weak, highlighting deficiencies in mulberry land management, while the capacity of provisioning services is strong. These findings are crucial for understanding the value of ecosystem services in Digang Village’s Mulberry-Dyke and Fish-Pond System, identifying management shortcomings, and providing direction for future assessments and management. This study also offers a practical and effective assessment method for ecosystem service evaluation at smaller scales, where the targeted approach and the presence of significant ambiguity and uncertainty in data are prominent. Full article

Agricultural Heritage Systems exhibit multiple functions of agricultural production, ecological protection, and invaluable cultures and landscapes. The mulberry-dyke and fish-pond system is an important agricultural heritage. The Nanxun District of Huzhou, China is currently the area with the most complete and largest mulberry dykes and fish ponds in the world. In the past thirty years, with changes in labor force distribution and consumer demand, the production function of mulberry dyke and fish ponds has been challenged, and the production landscape as the carrier of farming culture has been threatened. Studying the spatial characteristics and optimization of mulberry dykes and fish ponds is of great significance to the sustainable development of the regional economy, culture, and environment. This study analyzes the spatial and temporal pattern evolution of mulberry dyke and fish ponds in Nanxun District since 1975. Based on the evaluation of the environmental carrying capacity of fish ponds, and according to the development goals of agricultural heritage inheritance and “planting and breeding balance”, the Future Land Use Simulation model is adopted to optimize the study area. The results show the following findings: (1) From 1975 to 2019, fish ponds and construction land increased significantly, mulberry fields and paddy fields decreased significantly, the scale of mulberry dykes and fish ponds decreased significantly, and the proportion of mulberry dykes and fish ponds was seriously unbalanced; (2) The overall scale of fish-pond breeding in Nanxun District is too large, and the proportion of farming and breeding needs to be adjusted; (3) In view of economic growth, cultural inheritance, and environmental protection, this paper simulates the spatial layout of mulberry dykes and fish ponds in 2035, and divides mulberry dykes and fish ponds in Nanxun District into a display area and an industrial development area. The display area restores the traditional mulberry dykes and fish ponds to the greatest extent. The industrial development zone maximizes the economic benefits of agriculture on the basis of “balancing planting and breeding”. Overall, this study provides a reference for protecting Huzhou mulberry-dyke and fish-pond agricultural heritage, optimizing agricultural production space, balancing human–environment relationship, and promoting regional sustainable development. Full article

Peri-urban traditional agroforestry systems are considered a priority at an international level, as they serve as a link connecting cities and rural areas, providing local food and ecosystem services for people living in the cities. The mulberry-dykes and fishponds system (MFS), located near Huzhou city (Zhejiang province, China), also has a key role in protecting the city from floods, as it developed as a consequence of the ancient flood control system created to protect local cities and villages from recurring floods. This system is recognized for its sustainability and for the strong functional interlinkages between the different components (mulberry trees, fishes, silkworms) by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which included it into the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) Programme in 2017. The research intends to measure landscape transformation in the last 12 years and to evaluate the effectiveness of the inclusion into the GIAHS Programme for land use changes mitigation. In addition, an accurate discussion focusing on the analysis of local planning has been done to evaluate its capacity in protecting and valorizing the site. Results demonstrated that MFS has undergone major land use changes in the last years due to urban sprawl, the spread of solar panels (+7% in 2018–2021), and abandonment of the traditional mulberry-based system (−75% in 2009–2021). Other changes are related to the overall number of traditional fishponds (−81% in 2009–2018 and −33% in 2018–2021) and to their shape and size. Local planning tools are too sectorial, not enough integrated one another, and they do not consider the MFS as a single system. The study demonstrated that the inclusion in the GIAHS Programme is not sufficient itself to stop negative trends in the absence of adequate planning tools, even if it can contribute to slowing them down, but it would be crucial to integrate the GIAHS action plan and vision into local planning tools. Full article

The Taihu Lake drainage basin is the birthplace of the Mulberry-dyke and Fish-pond System (MFS), a traditional eco-agricultural system. In 2017, the largest and best-preserved “Zhejiang Huzhou Mulberry-dyke and Fish-pond System” located by the South Bank of Taihu Lake, China was recognized as Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and its value has been appreciated. As a dynamic heritage, the sustainable development of MFS is a fundamental requirement of the conservation of GIAHS. In this regard, it is necessary to figure out an approach to evaluating the status of its sustainable development. This paper analyzes and contrasts the emergy embodied in the three patterns of MFS over different periods, then constructs an index system of sustainability evaluation involving the production and consumption processes based on that. Finally, it provides the evaluation and analysis. The three patterns of MFS differ in the system structure. In the Ming and Qing Dynasties (abbreviated as Ming-Qing pattern), MFS was an integrated system compromised of mulberry cultivation, silkworm breeding, fish breeding, and sheep breeding, while other patterns exclude sheep breeding, but increase the input of fertilizer, and add the production of mulberry-leaf tea and other local specialties. The results show that the MFS in the Ming-Qing pattern has the highest integrated evaluation index of sustainable development, followed by the traditional MFS pattern and the new MFS pattern employed nowadays. This indicates that the current capability of sustainable development has decreased compared to that in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. The integrated evaluation index regarding the consumption process of the new MFS pattern is higher than the traditional one, suggesting that it needs to promote sustainability in the production process, especially via the utilization rates of renewable resources and wastes. Full article

Mulberry-dyke-fish pond ecosystems are a representative traditional eco-agriculture in the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA). Investigations about the changes in the systems and their relevant water environments under the background of rapid urbanization can provide valuable information to formulate sustainable protection and development strategies. Using the Landsat images obtained after 1986, this study combined supervised classification and visual interpretation approaches, as well as water intensity index and synthesized index to identify the spatial patterns of changes in the ponds in the GBA over the past 40 years. The results indicated that during the period 1986–2013, the total surface area of the ponds in the GBA increased significantly and peaked in 2013 with a total increase of 84.63%; After that, the total surface area showed a downward trend with a total decrease of approximately 31.34%. The year of 2013 was identified as the milestone of the changes. The results proved that human activities have continuously influenced the spatial distribution and size of fish ponds in the past 40 years. The fish ponds had transformed from near-natural ponds with different sizes and a near-natural random distribution in the early stage into an artificial distribution and an artificial shape. Land use changes, industrial transfer, Government guidance and financial motives were the major drivers to the changes. If no effective measures are taken, this shrinking trend in the ponds will remain in the future. Full article

The Huzhou mulberry-dyke and fish-pond system (HMFS) is a compound structure of agriculture with interaction among several subsystems, and it is an effective example of a circular economy by exogenous input and waste reduction to maintain a harmonious relationship between humans and nature. As increases in rural urbanization and transition of peasants occur, the traditional systems remain in a constant state of change, along with different kinds of adaptation models. In this study, two main existing models are examined by field investigation and extensive literature analysis. Emergy theory and methods are adopted to make a further quantitative analysis from emergy structure and indices synthetically and systemically. In this process, the models of HMFS are split into several subsystems, including mulberry dyke, fish pond, rape dyke, and silkworm, in terms of a modularization approach. The proportion of combinations among different subsystems is calculated by the average production level of local peasants. The empirical results of emergy analysis indicate that the two existent patterns of HMFS are themselves superior in terms of environmental capacity and commercial efficiency. The mulberry–silkworm–fish model possesses more sustainable characteristics than the rape–fish model by the mass flow and energy flux. In addition, the rape–fish model may obtain considerably better economic returns by more inorganic resources, and thus achieve higher economic benefits. Therefore, the rape–fish model may be an evolutionary model to make directions for further research and protection, while other adaptive units are introduced to form multiple systems. Full article