| Along with the tremendous exchange of substance and energy between human system and ecosystems, a series of environmental issues took place, which restricted the development of social economy,became a big challenge that all the human beings had to be faced with. Sustainable development had been driven from concept to action by the publication of《Declaration on the Human Environment》,《Declaration on the Environment and Development》and《Agenda 21》. To implement the strategy of sustainable development, we must first make it operable; to achieve this goal, we must make sure whether the development is sustainable and whether the environment is safe.Currently, many scholars are committed to the quantification of the extent of sustainable development and they have also made some substantial evaluation methods and index system, among which the Ecological Footprint (EF) analysis is a case in point. EF analysis was advanced in the early 1980s by the Canadian ecological economist William Ree and his doctor Mathis Wackernagel. In this method, the pressure of the ecological resources caused by the human development and the carrying capacity of the natural resources are respectively calculated from the aspects of demand and supply, and thus the states of the ecological security and the sustainable development of the research object can be evaluated through the comparison of the pressure and the carrying capacity. This method has scientific sound theoretical basis, clear conceptual framework and simple and coherent index system, so that it is easy to operate and has great prospect for development.Located in the west of Jilin Province, Changling Country is the base county of corn exports in Jilin, national grain production base and key national oil crop production country, where agriculture is the pillar industry of economic development. Changling County is in arid and semi-arid continental monsoonal climate zones. As a result of natural conditions constraints, the environment itself is very fragile. Owing to the irrational exploitation and utilization of natural resources in the area, soil fertility decline and soil erosion are becoming severe, the land acreage of desertification and salinization has increased, grassland has been degraded, waters and wetlands have shrunk. Regional environmental quality has gradually degraded, ecological security has been threatened and the ability of the environment to support socio-economic development has been gradually weakened, all of which greatly hampered the potential capability of agricultural production and the sustainable development of society. Meanwhile, with the improvement of the people's living standard, the per capita consumption of natural resources will rapidly increase. The fast development of economy and the large population will put the natural resources of Changling Country under more pressure and its ecological situation is faced with more challenges. In order to provide a substantial scientific basis for regional decision-making and planning for Changling County, it is imperative to quantitatively measure the utilization of natural resources and ecological security standard. By using EF analysis, the author estimates the Changling County's EF from 1986 to 2005, and also does a pilot study on ecological security.On the basis of summing up the study results of EF at home and abroad and according to the actual situation of Changling Country, the "local Ecological Footprint" concept was put forward and the calculation model and the evaluation indexes were amended. According to production and consumption characteristics of Changling County, a basic database of EF is established; the time sequential EF and the Ecological Capacity (EC) are calculated and the results were compared. Meanwhile, the ecological security situations of arable land,pasture land,forest land,water area and built–up area etc., were evaluated respectively. This paper combined EF indexes with the traditional economic indexes, measured the ecological coordination coefficient, EF diversity index, development capacity and EF per unit of GDP and finally forecasted the related indexes.To summarize the whole thesis, we can get such conclusions as follows:①In despite of some flaws in the EF theory, researchers are actively exploring corresponding improvements. The theory in the evaluation of sustainable development has broad application prospects.②Empirical research shows that the "local Ecological Footprint" results are slightly greater than the traditional ones, but they can reflect the pressure of the region's ecological resources more factually.③During 1986-2005, the "local Ecological Footprint " per capita and EC per capita generally showed increasing trend. However, the upward trend in EF exceeds that of EC, which lead to the gradual increase of ecological deficit.④Results of all types of Ecological Footprint Intensity Index(EFI)show that the ecological security of pasture land has been faced with the greatest threat, water takes second place, the arable land is located in the third place, which is in line with the actual situation. Therefore, the EFI for ecological security evaluation is reasonable.⑤The results of EF per unit of GDP show that the efficiency of resource use in Changling County has been improved. However, the utilization of resources is still inefficient, compared with the overall level of Jilin Province or the national average level. Results of EF diversity index and development capacity show that the Changling County's development capacity has been continuously enhanced, EF diversity has increased but the extent is not adequate. Therefore, we should pay more attention to land use diversification in the future.⑥There was a significant positive correlation between EF per capita and the region's GDP per capita. Regression results indicated that the EF per capita in 2010 will be as 1.09 times as that in 2005 if we achieve the economic goals in the current production level and the way of resources utilization.The author calculated the long-time series EF of Changling Country from 1986 to 2005 to avoid the shortcomings of static indexes. The "local ecological footprint" indexes can reflect the actual situation of the ecological resources utilization and ecological security of Changling County. It was the first time to evaluate and analyze the ecological security situation of subsystems, such as Arable land,Pasture land,Forest land,Water area and Building land, etc. This approach can reflect the details of the environmental pressure and the results of the evaluation can enhance the decision-making supporting capabilities. The calculated results of EF and EC were forecasted by using the Gray Prediction method and the results were reasonable. The author did a Correlation Analysis between EF per capita and GDP per capita and gave regression models in order that EF model will have prediction analysis functions. Therefore, we can say that this research is not only of theoretical significance, but also of extensive practical value, and it is a useful try and exploration for the research on the complex eco-environmental systems.
|
PDF Full Text Request