Rural areas are crucial to the realization of sustainable development goals (SDGs). Rural social capital is indispensable for these areas to fulfil the SDGs. As China pursues rural revitalization, it is essential to achieve the sustainable development of rural areas within the agropastoral transition zone (APTZ) in northern China. The same applies to the SDGs’ realization in other APTZs across the globe. From the micro perspective of individual farmers and herdsmen, this article collected 732 microscopic datapoints through repeated rural surveys, and adopted the multivariate ordered probit model to empirically analyze how the subjective well-being of farmers and herdsmen in northern China’s APTZ was affected by the individual (person) and collective (community) layers of rural social capital. Specifically, the production mode was introduced to study the relationship between social capital and subjective well-being, and social capital was measured by a self-designed theoretical analysis framework, which covered six dimensions and two layers (person and community). It was verified that the individual social capital and collective social capital were mutually replaceable in terms of the effect on the subjective well-being of farmers and herdsmen. Additionally, this article examined the influence of different production modes on the social capital and subjective well-being of farmers and herdsmen, and discussed how the same amount of social capital contributes differently to the subjective well-being of farmers and herdsmen under different production models. The results showed that: (1) Social capital significantly promoted the subjective well-being of farmers and herdsmen, and social network was the leading contributor among the dimensions of individual social capital, while social trust was the leading contributor among the dimensions of collective social capital. By the contribution to the subjective well-being of farmers and herdsmen, the six dimensions of social capital can be ranked as social network > social trust > social participation > social standard > social fame > common vision. (2) Individual social capital and collective social capital were mutually replaceable in terms of enhancing the subjective well-being of farmers and herdsmen; when the individual social capital was insufficient, the collective social capital would exert a much greater influence on the subjective well-being of farmers and herdsmen; when the individual social capital grows, the farmers and herdsmen would depend less on collective social capital. (3) The same amount of social capital contributes differently to the subjective well-being of farmers and herdsmen under different production models; by contribution strength, the production models can be ranked as pure herdsmen (PH) > pure farmers (PF) > non-farmers/herdsmen (NFH) > farmers + herdsmen (FH). Finally, several policy suggestions were provided to improve the subjective well-being of farmers and herdsmen in APTZ. The results show that collective social capital eliminates the negative effect of individual social capital shortage on the subjective well-being of farmers and herdsmen. Thus, it is suggested to consider not only the construction of macroscopic hardware environment, but also to roll out policies and measures to improve the subjective well-being from the micro perspective of farmers and herdsmen. These suggestions are concentrated on the implementation of China’s rural revitalization strategy, and the creation of relevant institutions and cultural environments, as well as the optimization of the internal hierarchy of farmers and herdsmen’s social capital. The research results may help to promote the subjective well-being of farmers and herdsmen in rural areas within the APTZs of China and the world, and provide a reference and a path to realize SDGs in China and similar places across the globe.

The sandstorm in 2021 in East Asia demonstrated the ecological issues that culminated for decades in Mongolia. Mongolia is facing challenges to realize green and sustainable development. This article aims to increase the understanding of eco-efficiency and its influencing factors in Mongolia and to provide a reference for similar developing countries and regions to achieve green and sustainable development. This article used the Slacks-Based Measure of Efficiency (SBM) model with advantages of dimension freedom and unit variable to estimate the economic efficiency and eco-efficiency of 22 provinces in Mongolia from 2007 to 2016; energy consumption and undesirable environmental outputs were taken as ecological/environmental indicators in the input and output system of regional eco-efficiency in Mongolia, combining traditional indicators of economic efficiency to build Mongolia’s eco-efficiency input–output framework. This article applied hot spot analysis and gravity center analysis to reveal the temporal and spatial evolution characters of eco-efficiency in Mongolia. Finally, the article applied panel Tobit regression to analyze the influencing factors of eco-efficiency. We were found that Mongolia’s eco-efficiency slightly improved from 0.7379 in 2007 to 0.7673 in 2016, lower than the economic efficiency. The high eco-efficiency provinces appeared in the capital Ulaanbaatar and its surrounding areas, showing an obvious spatial spillover effect. The low eco-efficiency provinces were mainly in the undeveloped western region. The relationship between per capita GDP and eco-efficiency was U-shaped and consistent with environmental Kuznets theory. Accelerating economic growth, optimizing population distribution, and improving energy structure and green technology can improve Mongolia’s eco-efficiency.

Pastoral areas are the key difficulty in China’s pursuit of common prosperity and a key region for China to build the northern ecological safety barrier and to realize the Two Centenary Goals. It is of great significance to scientifically evaluate the quality of rural life (QRL), measure the relative poverty level (RPL), and identify the relatively poor areas, making it possible to dock poverty elimination with rural revitalization. Based on the socio-economic data of 18 pastoral areas in Inner Mongolia, this paper draws on spatial layout theory to evaluate QRL and measures RPL by the natural breakpoint method and then identifies the relatively poor areas in Inner Mongolia. The results show that (1) the QRLs of pastoral areas in Inner Mongolia were unbalanced and highly polarized. The mean score of QRLs was 0.2598. Eleven (61.11%) of the counties/banners had a QRL smaller than the mean score. On the spatial layout of QRLs, the western areas were stronger than the central areas. High QRL counties/banners are mainly concentrated in the western region. In the central region, the QRLs were very fragmented, falling onto all five levels. (2) The pastoral areas in Inner Mongolia differed significantly in RPL. The mean score of RPL stood at 0.3788. Nine counties/banners (50%) had an RPL greater than the mean. Contrary to the spatial layout features of QRLs, the central pastoral areas in Inner Mongolia had stronger RPLs than the eastern ones. High RPL counties/banners are mostly clustered in the central region. The spatial layout of RPLs is relatively reasonable in the central region: the RPLs decreased gradually from Dorbod Banner. (3) Nearly 45% of the pastoral areas in central and western Inner Mongolia face serious relative poverty and a high risk of returning to poverty. Eight counties/banners (45%) were identified as high composite relative poverty areas. From spatial layout, the composite relatively poor counties/banners clustered clearly, mainly in the western region. Finally, this paper establishes a warning mechanism against large-scale returning to poverty, aiming to lower composite RPL. The research results provide empirical reference and implementation path for consolidating the results of poverty eradication and facilitating rural revitalization.