Empirical Study On The Relationship Between Ecological Carrying Capacity And Economic Development In The Area Around Poyang Lake

With the deepening of the application of sustainable development, the research focuses gradually shifting from qualitative connotation research into quantitative evaluation measurement. Carrying capacity is one of the core quantitative evaluation methods, and ecological carrying capacity depicts the carrying capacity of natural resources and environment to the scale of regional economic and social development. We delivered quantitative research on the relationship between ecological carrying capacity and economic development to seek coordinational development between eco-environmental system and economic-social system, which is the inevitable requirement of regional sustainable development.As social and economic development, The Poyang Lake which is called as "the last lake with clean water in China" and the region around the lake is facing a worsening situation of ecological environment and a more serious damage trend of ecological system in the trend. "Construction of Poyang Lake Ecological Economic Zone" has become a global strategy in Jiangxi Province and upgraded to national strategies, the coordinative development between ecology and economy in the Area around Poyang Lake form the aspect of carring capacity is a research of great theoretical and practical significance.Ecological footprint (EF) is a traditional and mature approach to measure ecological carrying capacity. Considering that the water resources is so important for the virtuous cycle of carrying capacity in Poyang Lake ecosystem, we introduced the water footprint (WF) model in this paper, so that we can comprehensively measure the ecological carrying capacity in the Area around Poyang Lake with integrated perspective from water footprint analysis and ecological footprint analysis. This paper first calculated out two decades (1989-2008) of time series values of EF and WF through the econometric model, and then evaluated their own load conditions. Then, we respectively made cointegration analysis among EF, WF, GDP and the three industries'outputs which are transferred at constant prices, and to find the four long-term equilibrium relationships area around Poyang Lake. The main conclusions are as follows:1) Both the EF and WF time series in the Area around Poyang Lake are presenting a rising tendency in the past two decades though none of the EF and WF is overloaded, but the surplus space showed a decreasing trend.2) Long-term equilibrium relationships are existed between the EF, WF, GDP and the three industries'outputs in the Area around Poyang Lake. Changes magnitude in EF is larger than that of WF both caused by the same change of GDP. This means the impact from the fluctuation of GDP on the EF is greater than the WF. And economic growth in the area around Poyang Lake generates bigger demand pressure on biological production area than on water resources. So it can be considered that the capability from EF is larger than the capability from WF to the total economy volume in the area around Poyang Lake.3) In the three industries of the Area around Poyang Lake, the primary industry is the chief factor that affects the EF and WF, Which is consistent with the fact that Jiangxi is a major agricultural province in China. And then the impact from the third industry to the EF and WF is bigger than that from the second industry. In addition, the fluctuation of the three industries will cause EF and WF both fluctuating in the same direction. The development of primary industry leads more pressure on the biological production area than on the water resource. This means the carrying capability of ecosystem in the area around Poyang Lake to the primary industry is lower than the secondary industry and the third industry. In addition, the three industries in Poyang Lake Area ecological footprint and water footprint of the impact are the same direction.Finally, this paper proposed countermeasures for improving the regional ecological carrying capacity from the aspects of reducing the demand pressures of EF and WF, and also from increasing the supply of EF and WF. Also we delivered several sugesstions for coordinational development between the ecological environment and economic-industrial development from the aspects from industrial system, green national accounting system, and performance evaluation system, publicity guidance.