Study On The Population Carrying Capacity In Northeast China

China's national economy in Northeast China occupies an important position, but the long-term development of the industrialization in Northeast China brings about tremendous pressure to natural resources, ecological environment and sustainable development of the Northeast China. The research of resources and environmental status in Northeast China covers the general and special problems of China. Therefore the study of the population carrying capacity in Northeast China has a strong theoretical and practical significance.Population Carrying Capacity is an important part of sustainable development research. Summing up the relevant researches of population carrying capacity, basing on studies of sub-resources, this paper studies Northeast China's population carrying capacity current status. This paper uses sustainable development and ecological economic theory as the theoretical basis of the paper, and the basis of population carrying capacity in Northeast China.This paper uses economy, energy, resources and environmental monitoring data as a basis for analysing the natural economic condition in Northeast China. The results show that the economy of Northeast China is quickly developing, but the total economic output is still small. Industrial GDP, the degree of opening and other indicators is at the end of the four major economic regions of the nation. The population growth in Northeast China is relatively stable, while the urbanization level is gradually improving. However, the deterioration of ecological environment, and the depletion of non-renewable resources is not optimistic to regional sustainable development. The results show that the contradictions between population, resources and environment in Northeast China has intensified. As time goes on, these issues would profoundly constrained the improvement of people's living standard and the steady development of socio-economic.This paper analyzes the current land, water resources and ecological carrying capacity in Northeast China.First of all, basing on the comparison of the data of farmland from 1993 to 2008, this paper shows that the land resources are relatively abundant in Northeast China, so the land carrying capacity in this region is strong. However, as land area declining, population rising, and the environmental damage intensifying, the Northeast land carrying capacity would become increasingly limited. The calculated capacity of cultivated land in 2007 is up to 486.944 million, 4.5 times of the actual population size in 2007 in Northeast China.Second, in the analysis of the water resources carrying capacity, this paper exploit measures to improve water resource carrying capacity by analyzing main factors effectively. The results of principal component analysis show that the first principal component is the unit of the per capita GDP, urbanization rate, water emissions per capita GDP, and the second principal component is the unit of per capita water resources and arable land water resources. As a result, to improve the development of socio-economic levels and utilization of water resources is of great importance to elevate water resource carrying capacity. In 2007, the water resources carrying capacity is 343.0128 million, 3.16 times of the actual population in Northeast China. Third, this paper uses the method of ecological footprint to study the ecological carrying capacity of Northeast China. The results show that in 2007, Ecological deficit per capita reached 2.115 gha in Northeast China. Among them, fossil fuel land contributes to the highest ecological deficit, following by grassland ecological deficit. There are two reasons for high fossil fuel ecological deficit: the root is Northeast China's economic structure; the contributing factor is the natural and geographical conditions in Northeast China. The reason for land ecological deficit is that Northeast China is a net exporter of domestic and international food trade; The deficit of grassland is closely related to the rapid development of animal husbandry in Northeast China recently. Land and building land contributes to ecological surplus. As in recent years, the protection and management of forestry has achieved certain fruits in Northeast China; the city planning of the government has also achieved great success. Overall, Northeast China has an enormous ecological deficit, which sustainable development has been limited. Comparing the population carrying capacity level of three resources, from the angle of arable land and water resources carrying capacity, Northeast China still has some expanse for population size, but from the angle of ecological carrying capacity, the development of Northeast China's population scale has basically reached its limit. Later, this paper lists three kinds of programs to calculate ecological optimum population. After comparing the calculated results we draw the conclusion that in 2007 the maximum value of ecological optimum population is 105.449 million, slightly lower than the actual population.Because the regional population carrying capacity is closely related to the size of population, economic development, supportive resources and the environment, this paper puts forward corresponding policy recommendations from the angle of the use of resources, energy, economic structure and population policy. This paper believes that: first, using available resources stocks rationally and improving the efficiency; second, establishing a rational use of energy and advocating the establishment of recycling economy mode; third, adjusting economic structure and production; forth, maintaining steady growth of population and keeping the stabilization levels of fertility. These policies would contribute to enhance the status of the Northeast region's population carrying capacity at a certain extent, improve people's living standards, and ultimately realize the coordinated development of population, resources and environment.