Assessment Of Ecological Safety Of The Dongting Ecological Economy Zone

Ecological environment is the basic space for human subsistence and development. Its security directly influences the regional economy and social sustainable development. As environmental problems are increasingly serious with the rapid social development, the evaluation of ecological condition has become one of research hot spots at home and aboard.The area of Dongting Lake is the land of fish and rice, boasting its advantages in location, industrial foundation, transportation, and culture, and attracting more attention with the policy of "Dongting ecological economic zone". Since the11th Five-Year Plan, it has enjoyed the rapid economy development and economic aggregate increase, while the extensive progress has serious ecological and social influences in this area, such as frequent occurrence of natural disasters, water pollution, sharp decrease of wetland, increase of ecological pressure, unreasonable industry structure, and low standard of people’s wellbeing.Therefore, On the basis of advantages and defects of Dongting ecological economic zone, selected the status of2002,2007, and2012, and applied the ecological footprint approach which is international popular, the thesis discusses whether human being’s exploitation of nature and the increase of waste surpass the regeneration and self-purification of nature, and makes the research about whether the regional development is sustainable and ecology is secure. With the help of Excel and Arcgis from the time and space point of view, the article analyzes and evaluates25cities and towns in ecological footprint, ecological carrying capacity, ecological deficit and ecological tension index. The result shows:(1)The per capita ecological footprint is relatively high and continues to increase in every cities and towns of Dongting Lake ecological economic zone. The index of most cities and towns has increased from0.5-1.5hm2in2002to1.5-2.5hm2in2012, while the east and the west area is higher than the middle. The per capita ecological carrying capacity is stable in the research period, and most of it ranges from0.1hm2to0.9hm2.Taoyuan Town, Shimen Town, and Anhua Town are the highest towns in those three years. Cities with the districts are commonly lower than towns in terms of per capita ecological carrying capacity.All cities and towns are in ecological deficit in those typical three years. What’s more, with time passing by, the per capita of ecological deficit in most areas will continue to increase and the contradiction of supply and demand tends to more serious.(2)Cities’and towns’ecological footprint shows decline in terms of10,000GDP, increase in resource use efficiency which will speed up with the development of economy and technology. As for this index, towns are higher than cities, demonstrating that towns’resource use efficiency is rather lower.(3) With the status of ecological pressure index of Dongting Lake ecological economic zone, it shows that the pressure of all cities and towns in this area is increasing. Based on the standard of ecological pressure index grade, cities and towns could be classified into3levels in2002, while a few are in the extremely dangerous state, most in very dangerous state. However, only two towns and districts are in very dangerous state in2007and2012, and others are extremely dangerous. The severe conflict exists between the carrying capacity of ecological system and human being’s economic exploitation.(4)According to those conclusions, the article analyzes problems in Dongting ecological economic zone and puts up relevant suggestions. In order to realize the harmony between human being and land, and secure the regional ecology security, the government needs to reasonably plan the lake ecological economic zone insist on the priority of ecology, improve the infrastructure, adjust the industry structure and economy development direction, promote the ecological economy and accelerate the harmonious development between nature and social economy.