Title: Measuring and Forecasting Regional Sustainable Development by Using Ecological Footprint: A Case Study of Guangxi, China
Abstract: Ecological Footprint(EF) is a significantly accounting tool for overall assessing the status of sustainable development, and a comprehensive indicator for human resource consumption. It was developed in the early 1990s by M. Wackernagel and W. Rees. In this paper, the ecological footprints of Guangxi in 2002 were calculated, the status of sustainable development was analyzed based on the data of the statistical yearbooks. The result shows that ecological footprint per capita was 1.3369hm2,ecological capacity is only 0.3901hm2, and ecological deficit per capita is 0.9468hm2 in 2002. A dynamic model for measuring regional sustainable development was constructed by coupling ecological footprint model and System dynamic(SD) model, and the status of ecological footprint and ecological capacity of Guangxi were simulated from 2003-2020. The result of SD model shows that, according to the current speed of social-economic development and the increasing ratio of population,ecological footprint of Guangxi well be in a state of strong rising. By 2020, ecological footprint per capita will reach 2.139hm2, ecological capacity will reach only 0.4322hm2, thus ecological deficit per capita is expected to reach 1.7068hm2. The ecological footprint deficit shows that the human load has already stayed beyond the regional ecological capacity.
Publication Year: 2005
Publication Date: 2005-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Access and Citation
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot