Research Of Regional Sustainable Development Based On The Emergy Theory And Ecological Footprint Model

Chongqing Wanzhou District, locating in the hinterland of the Three Gorges Reservoir area, is the second large city of Chongqing and also the northeast economic center of Chongqing. With the developing of economy, ecological problems had been serious increasingly. So it is important to achieve regional sustainable development. But the study is not perfect on region sustainable development in this area. Based on emergy theory and ecological footprint Model, this paper evaluated comprehensively the sustainable development condition of Wanzhou district from 2000 to 2008. Specific research contents and results are as follows:(1)Firstly, calculating the emergy flow by emergy theory and emergy analysis and selecting related indexes to evaluate the sustainable development of eco-economic system in Wanzhou distract. The conclusions showed that from 2000 to 2008, both emergy inputs and emergy outputs had increased, but the utilization efficiency of emergy had decreased gradually. Emergy per capita had increased from 2.24E+15sej to 3.68E+15sej, and emergy per area had increased from 1.12E+12sej/m2to 1.84E+12sej/m2. The increasing of emergy exchange rate and sharp raising of GDP showed that economy had made great development in Wanzhou district. However, emergy self-support ratio had dropped from 78.46% to 44.71%, environment load rate had increased 1.22 times from 2000 to 2008. All these showed that the developing potential of environment had been reducing continuously in Wanzhou district, and economic development had caused increasing pressure on environment.As the result, the sustainable developing index ESI from 0.92 in 2000 had declined to 0.18 in 2008 continuously. It showed that the development trend in Wanzhou was resource-consuming development. The economic development which relied heavily on inputs of nature resources was based at the cost of destroying environment. Because of this, the development of ecological environment had been hindered. Sustainable developing index EISD, which was between 0.28-0.55 during these years, was profited from the rapid growth of economy, which also had mitigated the adverse development of eco-economic system.(2)Secondly, the ecological footprint, ecological capacity and ecological deficit have been calculated to evaluate the sustainable development of the eco-economic system of Wanzhou district by related indexes. The conclusions showed as follow:From 2000 to 2008, per capita footprint in Wanzhou district had increased from 0.937 hm2 to 1.102 hm2, per capita ecological capacity had slowly dropped from 0.375 hm2 to 0.355 hm2. Because of this, ecological deficit became more and more serious. The utilization of nature resources exceeded the supply of environment. The pressure of human activities on ecological environment was beyond the scope of local ecological capacity.Through the calculation results of sustainable development evaluation indices, it showed that the ecological footprint for ten thousand yuan GDP had reduced gradually. Ecological stress had a relatively rapid growth. Ecological demand was much larger than supply. Ecological coordination factor was up to 1.317 in 2001, and then dropped to 1.258 in 2008. Although the ecological footprint diversity index had shown a decrease at first and then increased, the truth was that the distribution of land use was uneven. Development ability of eco-economic system had. been increasing because of the increasing of ecological footprint. All these showed that there was a serious imbalance between ecological supply and demand in Wanzhou district. Development was using the consumption of resource to compensate for the lack of ecological capacity. It was in a state of unsustainable development.(3) Thirdly, establishing the emergy & footprint model basing on emergy theory and ecological footprint model. It showed that ecological footprint per capita basing on emergy analysis had increased from 1.668 hm2 to 2.917 hm2, and per capita ecological deficit had increased from 1.455 hm2 to 2.752 hm2. Ecological coordination factor increased gradually Ecological footprint diversity index and development ability had increased gradually. It had similar conclusions to traditional ecological footprint model. The supply of natural resource could hardly satisfy the need for people living. These showed that the development of Wanzhou was unsustainable.(4) Through the comparative analysis among emergy analysis, ecological footprint analysis and ecological footprint basing on emergy analysis, it summarized that the results which concluded from different aspects are similar. Although the focus of the three different evaluation methods are different. Some appropriate proposals are put forward according to the current state of development in Wanzhou distract.