A Study On The Economic Development Model Of Resource-based Regions According To Ecological Economics

Resource-based regions, as the source of basic energy and important raw materials,have made tremendous contributions to the development of nationaleconomy.Under the traditional model of the development of economy, resource-basedregions mainly depend on physical capital and natural resource as their developmentmotive force. After a long period of large-scale development and utilization of naturalresources, resource depletion, environmental degradation and other issues exposed,these problems have become a constraining factor in further economic development.So how to promote the development of ecology and economy integration and balanceis an important issue for the resource-based regions at present.Ecological economics, as an intersecting discipline of ecology and economics,provides a new perspective researching relationship between ecology and economy.And therefore, this paper proceeds from the ecological economics, and researches onhow to transformed the traditional model of the resource-based regions which at theexpense of consuming resources and destroying environment to the coordinateddevelopment model of ecology and economy, in order to achieve win-win situationbetween ecology and economy. This paper uses the theory of economic developmentand the related theory about ecological economic system through the methods ofsystem analysis, comparative analysis and case analysis, analyses the formation of theroot causes of the development challenges in resource-based regions and give thesolutions, and proposed a new model for the development of economy, nameddematerialization symbiosis mode. Then analyzes the operation mechanism andinfluencing factors of the dematerialization symbiosis mode, proposecountermeasures to propel it forward through domestic and foreign case studies, andmeanwhile construct three-dimensional system evaluation methods and correspondingindicator system that can be used to evaluate the operational results of thedematerialization symbiosis mode.The main conclusions of this paper are as follows:First, theoretical analysis shows that, under the traditional economicdevelopment model, two-way entropy of the formation of ecosystem caused by the economic development leads to ecosystem confusion and reaction to economicsystems, and then becomes obstruction. This paper points out we should takeimproving the eco-economic efficiency as a breakthrough point for the industrytransformation and sustainable development of resource-based regions in order toachieve a coordinated development between ecology and economy.Second, to achieve sustainable economic development, the resource-basedregions must build an industrial symbiosis network on the basis of dematerialization.Dematerialization and industrial symbiosis are eco-efficient way of improvingeconomic efficiency, but they do existing differences: dematerialization focus oncontrolling the initial investment amount from the source of production, but theindustrial symbiosis network concerns about the material and energy used in theeconomic system. For the economic development of resource-based regions, it isnecessary to increase the recycling of resources, and at the same time to control theexploitation of resources, so they should integrate dematerialization and industrialsymbiosis together.Third, this paper makes construction of the new resource-based regionaleconomic development mode, named dematerialization symbiosis mode, which makesthe relationship of the material and energy cycle shows progressive and coupledbetween enterprises, industries and regions. Compared with the traditional model ofeconomic development, dematerialization symbiotic model has the advantage offorming a multi-level compensation mechanisms and physical energy cyclemanagement.Fourth, technology, resources structure, prices of natural capital influenceresource-use-efficiency and resource inputs, and then affect the realization ofdematerialization, therefore, selecting core industries, constructing eco-industrialchain, and building supporting information networks are important factors forbuilding industrial symbiosis network. In accordance with the specific factors, thispaper proposes a series of corresponding countermeasures and suggestions, such as,suggests advance enterprises exerting the principal role of innovation to promotetechnological progress on the basis of the industry-university-research-government platform, standardizing resource tax through resource price reform, strengtheningeducation and training, optimizing resource structure, playing a guiding and securityrole of government and playing assist function of social service organizations in theindustry transition in order to promote the operation of dematerialization symbioticmode, and so on so forth.The main innovations of this paper include:First, the innovation of this paper is making combination of the eco-economicsystem theory, dissipative structure theory and entropy theory and applying them toanalysis the development issues of resource-based regions. It takes the resource-basedregion as an eco-economic system, makes the research focusing attention onecosystems and economic systems interaction in the analysis of the formation of thesources and the solutions to the economic development challenges, and breaks theone-sidedness and limitations of focusing on economic system in previous studies.Second, this paper have reconstructed ecological economic efficiency in order toeffectively measure the material and energy circulation and the level of industrialsymbiosis under dematerialization symbiosis mode in resource-based regions, anddefined the reconstructed ecological and economic efficiency as "Effective energyproduced by unit pressure suffered by ecosystems-value for money”.Third, this paper makes an innovation on research methods, it constructs athree-dimensional system evaluation of "weight-space-value" by integrating threemethods together through mutual complement each other, and it can be used toevaluate the operation effect of the dematerialization symbiotic pattern inresource-based regions. The method combines the concept of weight, space andvalues, analyses the ecological space utilization, material consumption and energyvalue of regional economic development-monetary value, etc., and it can conduct acomprehensive, three-dimensional evaluation to assess the level of sustainabledevelopment of resource-based cities from various angles.