Assessing the environmental impacts of high-altitude agriculture in Taiwan: A Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) framework and spatial emergy synthesis

Abstract Limited land resources in Taiwan have resulted in the conversion of many agricultural production areas to residential and commercial areas through urbanization. In addition, in order to produce more crops with a higher market value, many traditional cultivation areas have been transformed to high market-value cultivation areas. These transformations of the agricultural production system have led to an increase in agricultural practices in high-altitude areas in Taiwan, resulting in serious environmental impacts. This study integrates emergy evaluation with GIS (Geographic Information System) to investigate the environmental impacts resulting from the changing agricultural production system in high-altitude areas in Taiwan. The Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) framework is used for interpreting the problem of high-altitude agriculture in Taiwan. The spatial emergy synthesis in this study reveals the following: (1) total agricultural production areas in Taiwan decreased by 72,930 ha from 1995 to 2006. However, the high-altitude agriculture (over 500 meters) increased significantly, by about 9665 ha; (2) ecosystem services (calculated by combining food provision services and the regulation services) decreased by about 6.97E+20 sej (solar emergy joule) from 1995 to 2006; (3) the results of the sustainability of ecosystem services index (SESI) indicate that the increases in the food producing function are outweighed by the losses in regulatory services (3.83 times) in the high-altitude agricultural areas; (4) there is a negative relationship between the altitude of the agriculture development and the social adaptive capacity provided by the government for environmental impacts (defined by the Social Response Ratio, SRR); and (5) the spatial emergy approach effectively identifies the distribution of vulnerable areas via GIS, and provides the government with the information required for the appropriate allocation of resources for environmental protection in different areas.

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