Study On The Calculation And Application Of Ecological Footprint Of Chengbu County

It is the key field of studying on district sustainable development to judge that whether the existence condition of the mankind staying within the global carrying capacity or not. The ecological footprint (EF) method was put forward in 1992 by William-E-Rees, a Canadian ecological economist, and improved by him and his postgraduate, Wackernagel Mathis, in 1996. The method was used to analyze and evaluate a district's ability of sustainable development from totally different angle. The concept, the calculation method of the EF and the current research results was introduced in the paper, then utilized the data of recent 8 years' statistics of the Chengbu County, to calculate the County's EF and dynamically analyzed it, at last compared it with the local ecological carrying capacity.The results showed that the average of EF per capita of the County was 0.8809 hm2/cap from 1996 to 2003, the average of ecological capacity (EC) per capita was 0.8054 hm2/cap. There was average ecological surplus (ES) of 0.0755hm2/cap in the county from 1996 to 2003. But the ES will disappear in 2004 as anticipation.Seen from the result, the main reasons that caused the ES disappearance were: (1)the demand type of the ecological productive area was too concentration. The chief type was the arable land (which occupied 73.17% of the total demand of EF), then was the pasture (which occupied 20.58%). The demand of EF of forest, built-up area, water area, and fossil energy land was too little, (2)the exploiting extent of forest, pasture, water area in the supply of EF was not enough. The proportion of forest was 78.23%, but the proportion of its supply of EF was only 19.78%, and the exploit intensity was only 25.78%. Under the traditional management model, the productive force of pasture was too low and its huge potential ability of EC was not exerted enough, (3)the natural resource of fresh water was very rich in the County. Its supply ability of EF has not yet been exploited completely. (4)the city ratio was too low.The main countermeasure of maintaining and improving the ES in the near future is:...