iBusiness, 2010, 2, 415-420
doi:10.4236/ib.2010.24055 Published Online December 2010 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/ib)
Evaluation and Adjustment of Coordinated
Development between Land Use and
Eco-Environment in Wuxi City*
Hua Sun1, Yan Liu2, Hailang Pan3, Jing Zhao1, Qingzeng Qu1, Fengxiang Han4
1College of Land Management, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China; 2
Library of Nanjing Agricultural University,
Nanjing, China; 3School of Automation, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, China; 4Institute for Clean Energy
Technology, Mississippi State University, Starkville, USA.
Received August 10th, 2010; revised September 22nd, 2010; accepted November 2nd, 2010.
ABSTRACT
The purpose of this paper is to assess the coordinated development degree of land use and eco-environment in Wuxi
City and choose the appropriate adjustment mode. Methods employed include documentation analysis, the coordinated
development degree model analysis and BP neural network model analysis. The result shows that the coordinated de-
velopment degree of land use and eco-environment in Wuxi City presents overall ever-increasing trends and that the
overall consideration mode can reduce the contradiction between land use and eco-environment, which is a suitable
mode for Wuxi City. It is concluded that the coordinated development degree model and BP neural network model have
high reliability and practicability in evaluating and adjusting the coordinated development degree of land use and
eco-environment in Wuxi City.
Keywords: Coordinated Development, Evaluation, Adjustment, Wuxi City
1. Introduction
With the development of research projects, such as “In-
ternational Geosphere and Biosphere Program” (IGBP)
and the “Global Environmental Change Program in the
humanities” (IHDP), etc. [1,2], the influence of land-use
change on the ecological environment have been exten-
sively studied [3-6]. However, few studies focused on
the coordination of the relationship between land – uti-
lization and ecological environment, especially in regu-
lative research of coordinated development of land use
and ecological environment. In Wuxi City, due to a high
level of economic development, population density, eco-
logical and environmental problems were highlighted.
This paper explores the evaluation and adjustment of the
coordinated development of land use and ecological en-
vironment in Wuxi City as an example, to provide a sci-
entific basis for sustainable development, and to lay the
foundation for carrying out in-depth research in this area.
Wuxi City, Jiangsu Province, is located in the south-
east of China. Geographic coordinates for east longitude
119°31' - 120°36', north latitude 31°07' - 32°00'. The
total area of the city is 4787.61hm2, with plains primar-
ily, along with the distribution of some low mountains
and residual mounds. Wuxi City has a northern sub-
tropical maritime monsoon climate, with four distinct
seasons, mild climate, plentiful sunshine and rainfall,
long frost-free period, an average annual temperature of
15.7℃, annual average sunshine of 1993.6 hours, annual
rainfall of 1048 mm, and annual frost-free period of
about 220 days. Wuxi City has the high rate of land
utilization and output and a large area of water. There-
fore, it had a lack of land resources, resulting in more
prominent ecological and environmental problems.
2. The Determination of the Evaluation
System
Based on in-depth content of coordinated development
between land use and eco-environment, this paper dis-
cuss economic and social development and eco-envi-
*The manuscript was sponsored by the humanities and social scientific
research project in 2010 funded by Ministry of Education of the P. R.
Chin, under Grant No. 10YJA630138 - “environmental risk evaluation
and adjustment mechanism research of typical brownfields on Taih
u
Lake Basin” and National Science Foundation of China, under Grant
N
o. 61075031

Evaluation and Adjustment of Coordinated Development between Land Use and Eco-Environment in Wuxi City 416
ronment, which are two aspects related to evaluating the
coordinated development of land use and eco-environ-
ment. Learning from similar studies on the index system,
taking into account the actual situation in Wuxi City and
the accessibility of data, the study established the evalua-
tion index system of coordinated development of land
use and eco-environment, from two sub-systems of the
land-use system and ecological environment system. The
system was broken down into 3 levels: target Layer,
guidelines layer and index layer as shown in Table 1.
3. The Evalution Model of Coordinated
Development Degree
The coordinated degree and model of coordinated de-
velopment degree [7] will be employed in three present
studies. It comprehensively evaluated the development
level of land use subsystems and integrated environment
subsystem and the coordinated development degree of
the two systems. This model included the following sec-
tions:
3.1. Comprehensive Evaluated Functions of Land
Use f(x) and Comprehensive Evaluated
Functions of Eco-Environment g(y)
Composite score of the level of land use and ecological
environment, respectively, displays the level of land use
and he development degree of ecological environment,
while they are the basis for calculating integrated benefit
index, land use and eco-environmental. The formulas are:

1
m
ii
i
f
xWx



1
n
j
j
j
g
yWy


The formula: f (x), g (y) are the composite score of the
level of land-use, the composite score of the level of eco-
environment, respectively; m, n are the number of indica-
tors of land use subsystems and the number of indicators
of eco-environment subsystem, respectively; Wi, Wj are the
weight of each index of land use subsystems and the
weight of each index of eco-environment subsystem, re-
spectively; x
i, yj are the standard values of each index of
land use subsystems and the standard values of each index
of eco-environment subsystems, respectively [8].
3.2. Comprehensive Evaluated Functions of Land
Use and Eco-Environment


Tfxgy  
The formula: T is comprehensive benefit index of land
use and eco-environment;

,

are, respectively, the
weight of level of land use and the weight of level of
eco-environment.
3.3. Comprehensive Evaluated Functions of
Coordinated Degree of Land
Use and Eco-Environment
Coordination degree is designed to reflect the level of
coordinated degree of land use and eco-environment.
The formula is:
 
 
2
2
k
fx gy
C
fx gy










 







Table 1. The evaluation index system of coordinated development between land use and eco-environment in Wuxi City.
Target Layer Guidelines Layer Index Layer
Economic benefits of land use
GDP per unit of land area, revenue per unit of land area, fixed asset investment
per unit of land area, industrial output per unit of land area, grain yield level, the
proportion of tertiary industry in GDP, growth rates of retail sales of social con-
sumer goods, Hoffman coefficient, annual profit and tax per unit of land area,
multiple cropping index
Land-use subsystem
Social benefits of land use
Per capita net income of rural residents, per capita disposable income of urban
residents, jenny coefficient, engers coefficient, population density, Scientific and
technical personnel for every thousand people, residents per-capita savings de-
posits, road line density, per unit of land area of employment and beds number
in thousands health institutions
Eco-environmental quality
Respirable particulate matter (PM10) on average, average daytime of noise in
regional environmental, emissions of industrial waste water, emissions of indus-
trial waste gas, industrial solid waste, compliance rate of drinking water quality,
compliance rate of urban ground-water quality, the amount of chemical fertilizer
in per unit of agricultural land, the amount of pesticide in per unit of agricultural
land
Environment subsystem
Eco-environment Construction
Compliance rate of industrial wastewater discharge, comprehensive utilization of
industrial solid waste, treatment rate of urban sewage, rban gasification rate,
green coverage rate of built-up area, indexes of investment in urban environment
protection, output value of utilization of products made from “three wastes”
value of comprehensive products

Evaluation and Adjustment of Coordinated Development between Land Use and Eco-Environment in Wuxi City 417
The formula: C is the coordinated degree of land use and
eco-environment; f(x), g(y) are, respectively, the com-
posite score of the level of land-use, and the composite
score of the level of eco-environment; k is the adjusted
coefficient, k: 2, the general value of 2.
3.4. Some Common Mistakes
The degree of coordinated development reflects the level
of coordinated development of land use and ecological
environment. On the one hand, it reflects the synchroni-
zation of the changes in land use and eco-environment.
On the other hand, it reflects the comprehensive level of
the development of land use and eco-environment.
DCT
The formula: D is the coordinated development degree
of land use and eco-environment; C is coordinated de-
gree of land use and eco-environment; T is comprehen-
sive benefit index of land use and eco-environment.
4. Analysis on the Results of Evaluation
According to the evaluation, model can be calculated.
composite score of the level of land-use f(x), composite
score of the level of eco-environment g(y), comprehen-
sive benefit index of land use and eco-environment T, the
coordinated degree of land use and eco-environment C,
the coordinated development degree of land use and
eco-environment from 1998 to 2007 in Wuxi City, as
shown in Table 2.
From Table 2, we can see that the coordinated devel-
opment degree was only 0.2732 in 1998, but had reached
0.8193 in 2007. Coordinated development degree of land
use and eco-environment presented an ever-increasing
trend in Wuxi City. It showed that the overall relation-
ship of land use and eco-environment tended to ease up,
land use and eco-environment were moving in the direc-
tion of coordinated development. This mainly resulted
from the sharp increasing of social and economic bene-
fits during the land use. In the same time, the quality of
eco-environmental had also been improved, but what can
not be overlooked is that the eco-environment still face d
enormous pressure, the situation of eco-environmental
protection was still not optimal.
5. Regulation of Coordinated Development
of Land Use and Ecological Environment
5.1. Choosing the Technical Methods for
Regulating Coordinated Development
It was to seek a better controlled strategy for regulating
coordinated development of land use and eco-environ-
ment, which required a scientific and rational approach
as support. This method should not only have qualitative
methods such as expert advice and determination, but
also should have a quantitative method. Because the co-
ordinated development system which is composed of
land use and eco-environment is complex, non-linear, etc,
this study chose the artificial neural network model for
controlled study.
Artificial neural network can approximate the struc-
ture and function of socio-economic systems. When the
information was not complete, the program has a strong
capacity in pattern recognition and decision-making. It
has been widely used in the socio-economic system.
BP neural network was used by transmitting the error
from output layer to input layer [9], which was a back-
propagation algorithm (BP algorithm) [10] to establish mul-
ti-level and non-recycling network. The network was also
continuously self-improved [11]. This algorithm has a
strong applicability for the coordinated development sys-
tems of land-use and eco-environment, which were com-
plex, non-linear and controllable.
5.2. Selecting Controlled Indicators
To ensure network uptime and system stability, this
study chose the gray correlation method. According to
transformed slandered data, calculated correlation coef-
ficients and associated sequence, and formulate correla-
tion matrix, the model quantified the process of dynamic
development of the system, resulting in sorting out the
relationship of main elements and identifying the most
influential factors [12].
The paper concluded the correlation of land use sub-
systems and eco-environment subsystems by DPS v7.55.
Table 2. The coordinated development degree of land use and eco-environment in wuxi city.
1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
f(x) 0.0841 0.1145 0.1541 0.2588 0.3257 0.3872 0.5507 0.6412 0.7528 0.9074
g(y) 0.4557 0.4825 0.5368 0.5197 0.5388 0.6487 0.5414 0.5676 0.4967 0.5779
T 0.2699 0.2985 0.3455 0.3892 0.4323 0.5179 0.5460 0.6044 0.6248 0.7426
C 0.2766 0.3844 0.4807 0.7879 0.8821 0.8767 0.9999 0.9926 0.9178 0.9040
D 0.2732 0.3387 0.4075 0.5538 0.6175 0.6738 0.7389 0.7745 0.7572 0.8193

Evaluation and Adjustment of Coordinated Development between Land Use and Eco-Environment in Wuxi City 418
Then, other various factors were selected, including fixed
asset investment per unit of land area, scientific and
technical personnel for every thousand people, per capita
disposable income of urban residents, population density,
growth rates of retail sales of social consumer goods, and
other main factors. Similarly, output value of utilization
of products was made from “three wastes” value of
comprehensive products. Similarly, indexes of invest-
ment in urban environment protection, urban gasification
rate, respirable particulate matter (PM10) on average, the
amount of chemical fertilizer in per unit of agricultural
land and other main factors were selected from eco-en-
vironment subsystem.
5.3. The Design of Network in the Model
The paper set a three-layer network structure in con-
trolled model for coordinated development of land use
and environment in Wuxi City. These are: input layer,
one hidden layer and output layer. We can see that the
three layers of BP neural network model can achieve an
arbitrary mapping

nm
f
R：0,1 from Kolmogorov
theorem. A hidden layer is sufficient.
According to controlled indicators selected from
aforementioned, we can determine the number of neu-
rons that are in the input layer to be 10. The degree of
coordinated development of land use and eco-environ-
ment can be used to reflect the level of coordinated de-
velopment of land use subsystems and eco-environment
subsystem. Therefore, the output layer of the model
which is the degree of coordination development and the
number of neurons is 1. The number of neurons is deter-
mined by numerous experiments through the design
process in hidden layer. BP network has better approxi-
mation effect to function when the number of neurons is
9 in the hidden layer. To sum up, the structure of BP
network model was 10-9-1. Further, the hidden layer was
using tansig which is “S” activated function; the output
range was limited to (0, 1), so output layer was used log-
sig function; which could use Levenberg-Marquardt al-
gorithm to ensure fast convergence of the network. This
network design was completed by neural network tool-
box ‘nntool’ of MATLAB 7.0.
5.4. Training and Testing of the Network
Because the reality system which was compounded by
land use and eco-environment was very complex, the
system needed approximate and abstract by BP neural
network model. This paper made use of existing samples
for the network training and testing. Initial weights of the
network and biases were given random values, learning
rate was 0.05, the final learning error was 0.00001. Data
from 1998 to 2005 as training sample and data from
2006 to 2007 as testing sample were all treated through
the differential standardization. After six times training
for training samples, the network tended to stabilize and
achieved target error. The training error curve is shown
in Figure 1. The data from 2006 to 2007 were to test the
model. Finally, it came to the network input, as shown in
Table 3. In 2006, the relative error of simulation output
value is 0.1301. In 2007, the relative error of simulation
output value is 0.0075.
The actual output Samples were basically consistent
with the evaluated and calculated results. It showed that
the performance of the network could get the require-
ments of practical applications, the training of network
had succeeded and effected. The network already had
good generalization capability and carry out carried the
simulation calculations of coordinated development on
degree different controlled modes.
6. The Design of Control Mode
This paper extrapolated the simulation calculations of
coordinated development degree on Wuxi City from
2008 to 2012. Then, it settled the following control mode.
The controlled parameter values of each controlled mode
were comprehensively determined by the trend analysis
and comparing the parameters of different types cities.
6.1. High-Yield Model of Land Use
This model emphasized on economic, social and high-
speed development. Social resources and investment
Table 3. The test results of BP neural network model.
Sample Expected output Actual output Relative error
2006 0.7572 0.7474 0.0130
2007 0.8193 0.8131 0.0075
0 1 23 4 56
10-8
10-7
10-6
10-5
10-4
10-3
10-2
10-1
100
6 Epochs
Training-Blue Goal-Black
Performance is 2.20001e-008, Goal is 1e-005
Figure 1. The training error curve of BP neural network.

Evaluation and Adjustment of Coordinated Development between Land Use and Eco-Environment in Wuxi City 419
tilted to the social reproduction. The model also vigor-
ously developed industry and the tertiary industry, accel-
erated infrastructure construction and occupied a large
amount of agricultural land. So, eco-environmental pro-
tection has not done enough and environmental invest-
ments reduce using this model.
6.2. Eco-Environmental Protection Model
This mode emphasized protection on eco-environment and
paid attention to economical land use. It also emphasized
the protection on agricultural land, especially in the pro-
tection of arable land. The model minimized the construc-
tion land and other land use, slowed economic growth,
limited the development of industry which causes serious
harm to the eco-environment, strictly controlled popula-
tion, positively developed eco-environment industry, in-
creased the utilization rate of “three wastes” and enlarged
investment of eco-environmental protection.
6.3. Balanced Model
This model focused on the coordinated development of
land use output and eco-environmental protection to en-
sure the rational and efficient use of agricultural land and
on developing secondary and tertiary industries, while
focused on reducing the harm to eco-environment during
industrial development. It strengthened the investment of
eco-environment industry, optimized the structure of
industry, and developed new industry which had high
economic output and low environmental pollution.
7. Analysis on the Result of Regulation of
Coordinated Development
As shown in Figure 2, it could conclude the simulation
output of coordinated development degree of land use
and eco-environment of Wuxi City, through using the
trained BP neural network model and entering controlled
parameters of each model.
The degree of coordinated development of high-yield
model of land use declined from 2008. In 2012, it would
be only 0.4730 which is mainly due to the fact that this
pattern only focuses on the economic and social benefits.
The model also neglected the investment and protection
of eco-environment. Therefore, this model led to a high
level of economy and the sharp decline in eco-environ-
mental quality. Under the enormous pressure on the eco-
logical environment, the stable high-output capacity of
land use would also be affected. It was indicated that
high-yield model of land use is a profit-oriented developed
model; problems of land use and eco-environmental were
not under control but had been intensified. If the model
only cares for immediate benefits and ignores long-term
development, it is an unreasonable development model
which runs counter to sustainable development.
Figure 2. Change of coordinated development degree in
three adjustment modes.
The degree of coordinated development of eco-envi-
ronmental protection model was firstly increased and
then decreased, mainly because this mode tended to re-
flect the economical use of land, focused on the protec-
tion of agricultural land and eco-environment and fo-
cused on controlling pollution. These improved the qual-
ity of eco-environment and provided a good eco-envi-
ronment for the development of the economy and the
social network. But the pattern was more restricting to
the economic growth rate and the expense of economic
interests in this region. The model could ease the contra-
diction between land use and eco-environment in short-
term, but low economic growth rate would lead to the
level of regional economic development backward in
long-term. It also could not continue to support the in-
vestment of eco-environmental. The contradiction be-
tween land use and eco-environment would be strength-
ened. So, eco-environmental protection model only de-
veloped eco-environment and did not consider economic
development. Its legitimacy is also questionable.
The degree of coordinated development of balanced
model was steady increased. It would rise to 0.9780 in
2012, which was mainly due to the coordinated develop-
ment of land-use output and eco-environmental protection.
It resulted in developing a new industry with high eco-
nomic output and low environmental pollution. The level
of output of land use was very high, which provided fund-
ing guarantees for the investment of eco-environment in-
dustry and the control of pollution. Good eco-environment
also provided a foundation for rapid economic develop-
ment. They mutually promoted to reach a win-win situa-

Evaluation and Adjustment of Coordinated Development between Land Use and Eco-Environment in Wuxi City 420
tion of land use and eco-environment.
Balanced model is worth recommending because it
eased the contradiction between land use and eco-envi-
ronment.
Through analysis on the degree of the coordinated de-
velopment of three-pattern, this study suggests that bal-
anced model better coordinated the contradiction be-
tween land use and eco-environment. It could promote
the improvement of environmental quality and the sus-
tainable development of regional economy. It is more
suitable for Wuxi City.
8. Conclusions
The coordinated development of land use and eco-envi-
ronment is the inevitable requirement of regional sus-
tainable development. This paper used coordinated de-
velopment degree model to quantitatively assess the co-
ordinated development land use and eco-environment of
Wuxi City from 1998 to 2007.
The results show that the degree of coordinated de-
velopment of land use and eco-environment presents
ever-increasing trends. Land use and eco-environment is
moving in a coordinated direction which benefits the city.
These were mainly because of sharp increases of the so-
cial and economic benefits. But the eco-environment still
faces a huge pressure. The situation of eco-environ-
mental protection is still not optimal.
Based on the evaluation, coordinated development
model of land use and eco-environment of Wuxi City
was established by BP neural network. By comparing the
change of the degree of coordinated development in
three kinds of controlled models from 2008 to 2012, the
study found that the contradiction between land use and
eco-environment had been eased in the balanced model.
Balanced model improved environmental quality and
sustainable development of regional economy. It is a
developed model which is more suitable for Wuxi City.
This article researched regulations of coordinated de-
velopment of land use and eco-environment by using BP
neural network method. It achieved good results and
further expanded the content of coordinated development,
which provided the reference value for similar research.
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