Discussion of the study on sustainability of land resources in Dengkou County based on emergy analysis

摘要

Sustainability evaluation of land resources could help policy decision-making in land use planning and management in a region. Zhang et al. (2018) presented a study on sustainability of land resources in Dengkou County based on emergy analysis. We commented on their major shortcomings including limitations of the energy system diagram, lacks of the emergy accounting of water resources, soil losses, machinery, environmental pollution and control, and the results of dynamic simulation. It is concluded that the emergy analysis method could serve land sustainability analysis, but it is of vital importance to create normative system diagrams and select proper emergy accounting items and dynamic simulation methods for ensuring the validity of evaluation results. (C) 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.