| Northern plain is the largest plain in Zhejiang province, a comprehensively developed agro-economic region of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery. It is an area with developed rural and town-ship industries, and a high level of economy. However, the development of economy and the increase of population result in negative ecological and environmental influences to the development.It can offer lessons and reference to the research and construction of Agro-Ecosystem Sustainable Development (AESD) in other regions to study AESD on such an area. In China, a large agricultural country, it is an important aspect for sustainable development researches to conduct studies on the regional AESD. Unfortunately, there have only a little research on the selection of AESD indicators adjusted to local conditions and on quantitative evaluation of AESD. Therefore, it is very significant to establish such an indicator system with criteria for assessment of AESD, which can serve not only as basis for assessing state of AESD objectively, but also as optimization and development goals and diagnostic measures for AESD.Based on investigating numerous references in literature both at home and abroad, collection of statistical data and field survey, county level of agro-ecosystems in the plain area was analyzed with respect to natural resources, ecological environment, social and economic conditions. Then the assessment indexes framework of AESD with criteria was created.Applying the created indexes to assess and analyze the sustainable development degree of AESDs of Xiaoshan District in Hangzhou City, Deqin County in Huzhou City and Pinghu City in Jiaxing City from year 1991 to 2000 showed verysatisfactory results. Main research results and conclusions of the study are as follows:1) An assessment indexes framework for evaluating AESD in plain region was established, which is composed of four hierachical levels (objective level, systemic level, static level and elements level), four subsystems and 38 assessment indicators. Results of application showed that the indexes framework was suitable, practical, convenient and scientific for assessment.2) The indexes framework was simplified, linear dependence was reduced by the correlation analysis and principle factor analysis. Application results showed that this method could be used to simplify indicators to establish an effective, simple and convenient indicator system.3) Degree of sustainable development (/)) was defined on the complex ecosystem field theory to assess the progress of AESD qualitatively. It was the function of development location (L), development potential (P) and harmonious degree (//)?^ means the level or status of system development, P means the gap between the development speed of system and expectancy value, H describes the harmonious and coincident degree between systems and/or factors during development processes. The application in Xiaoshan District, Deqin County, Pinghu City showed that this quantitative methodology could reflect the development status and potential of system effectively, as well as the harmonious degree in system factors.4) This method was applied to the Xiaoshan District, Deqin County, Pinghu City in Zhejiang province hi 1991-2000. Results showed that the D of three regions were all improved to different extent; the D of agro-economic subsystem and agro-social subsystem were increasing steadily and quickly. However, natural resource conservation and construction of ecological environment) due to increasing of population and development of industry, should be further strengthened although inputs were increased in recent years.5) Based on the D assessment results for Xiaoshan District, Deqin County, and Pinghu City in Zhejiang province, it can be easily found that the increase of D in Xiaoshan District was the highest, then Deqin County, Pinghu City. The status ofnatural resources subsystem in Deqin County, an ecological agriculture county, was better than those in Xiaoshan Dist...
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