Agricultural Structure, Urbanization And Their Impact On The Ecologicalenvironment In Dunhuang

Oasis ecological environment of Northwest China is not optimistic since the reform and open policy. Chinese agricultural modernization and market orientation, especially the policies on increasing rural income in order to solve "ThreeAgricultural Problems", promotes urbanization of Northwest Arid Region, but in the other hand, it has more and more disadvantageous effects on ecological environment-Based on methods of deep interview and participative observation, this study analyzes the agricultural structure evolution, urban development and theirown impact on the ecological environment in Dunhuang oasis from the perspective of agriculture.The results are as follows:Firstly, modern agriculture under market and policy orientation improves farmers’ income steadily, and, the latter leads to rapid increase of the urbanization level. Finally, with the improvement of the urbanization level, it forces agriculture development to further cater to market orientation conversely. Secondly, although local government has taken strict water and reclamation control measures, "water-saving agriculture"has not been widely promoted. And agriculture scale expansion results that agricultural water consumption continues to rise and oasis ecological crisis becomes more and more serious. For example, with the continuous declination of underground water level, not only the Crescent Moon Lake landscape is threatened, but also underground water level of Dunhuang oasis will go to the dangerous suspension without supply of external water. Thus, the local agricultural development has no choice but turn into drip irrigation agriculture pattern or limit cultivated land use.Thirdly, the urbanization level in Dunhuang has increased gradually from 1995 to 2010, meanwhile, ecological environment state has gone down undulated, then rose slowly and finally gone down again. The response of ecological environment to urbanization has been evident, but lagged behind the urbanization course. At present, the harmonious development system inDunhuang is in its relative harmonious developmental phrase. However, the coupling degree has been increasing, which is signaling that the system is about to enter the utmost increasing phrase, and the ecological crisis will enter the latent period.