Accounting On The Ecological Footprint Of Hunan Province

Since the middle of the 20th century, there has been a series of problems, such as global resource depletion, global energy crisis and the worldwide deterioration of the ecological environment. Human beings began to pay attention to the balance of the earth' s ecosystem and rational utilization of resources. Sustainable development therefore has emerged as the goal of the global development and the standard which judges the development whether healthy or not. Among the several evaluation standards, the ecological footprint, which was proposed by Canadian ecological economist William Rees in 1992 and perfected by his student Wackernagel, comes to the fore and be widely used because of its sound analysis with better theory, image understanding of the conceptual framework, the simplification and harmonization of the index system and the method itself universal adaptability.This paper introduces the concept of the ecological footprint calculation method. on the basis of many foreign scholars' research, the author improved the calculation method of the ecological footprint which based on the signal region and inter-region input-output model and makes it more accurate, more detailed calculate the various ecological productive lands occupied by various departments to meet the final demand, and improves the current adjustment method of a regional trade in order to make it more suitable for measuring the sustainable development degree of a particular area. In practical application, we could combine the ecological footprint model which bases on input-output model and the computable general equilibrium model to evaluate relevant policy made by the government departments, and forecast the implementation of the policy whether achieving the desired results or not and make consequential amendments.This paper calculates Hunan Province' s ecological footprint in 2002 and 2005. The result shows that the mode of development in Hunan Province changed from the sustainable in 2002 to the unsustainable in 2005. Hunan' s current development is achieved by consuming the natural capital stock to make up for the ecological carrying capacity deficiencies. Through the contrast of the industrial sectors' per capita ecological footprint and ecological footprint per 10, 000 Yuan in 2002 and 2005, as well as the structural path analysis of various departments' ecological footprint in 2005, we canalize the reasons caused this situation. And when the government is making the policies and planning aimed at achieving sustainable development, it need take into account the relationship of the three industrial sectors and promote the sustainable development of three industries.