Metabolic Aspects of Rural Life and Settlement Coexistence in China

Among realms of settlement coexistences, desakota areas or Township-Village-Enterprises in China stand out as relatively conservative of material and other resources, including embodied energy. Chencun Village in the Shunde District of Guangdong Province is an agriculturally productive example of such a settlement covering some 131 hectares in area and hosting some 6,000 inhabitants, including villagers and migrant so-called “floating” households. Formerly a center of sericulture, the village now produces flowers and plants, alongside some factory operations making needed hardware in support of agriculture. From a metabolic perspective consisting of what Chencun is made of in material flows of stocks, including material extracted from the Geosphere, Biosphere, and Hydrosphere resulting in building materials, buildings, and land-uses, alongside of collected waste and recycling, the village’s environmental performance is comparatively better than many other forms of settlement coexistence. Measured by stock-flow models represented by Sankey Diagrams, Chencun registers slightly lower than an average of 4.0 MJ/Kg/Yr. or about 106 metric tons of building material per year, below that of more compact and even peripheral modes of settlement. Water use, though very present due to agricultural production takes place in a non-water-stressed part of China and benefits from graywater recycling. Energy use is likewise relatively restrained due to the small amount of transportation and the largely compact and stay-at-home pattern of desakota life. Further, such desakota forms of settlement should be preserved as more environmentally suitable than denser and more profligate forms of settlement in emerging Metropolitan Regions of China like the Greater Bay Area.