Research On The Comprehensive Evaluation Of Ecological Carrying Capacity Of Zhengzhou City

With the development of science and technology, the economy advances rapidly while a range ofissues arise such as resource shortages, environment disruption and population explosion, which makessustainable development necessary for human beings. As the capital of Henan province, Zhengzhouachieves notable success in economy development. The Midlands-Rise strategy and the plan of CentralPlains Economy Area also speed up the process of industrialization and urbanization. But due to theextensive mode of economy development, population pressure and the constraints of resource andenvironment, the ecological condition of Zhengzhou is becoming increasingly serious. The way by whichthe city’s economy development can coordinate the ecological environment becomes a critical problem thatfaces Zhengzhou city. In order to solve the above problems, this study analyzes the eco-carrying conditionof Zhengzhou through its eco-carrying capacity and tries to figure out the cause of ecological unbalance tosuggest concrete measures for Zhengzhou’s sustainable development.This study includes several parts as follows:The first part identifies the definition, characters and connotation of eco-carrying capacity through itsorigin, evolution, development and the researches of basic theory about eco-carrying capacity. It finds thateco-carrying capacity is the base of sustainable development and performing research on eco-carryingcapacity will benefit the implement of sustainable development and the perfection of theory abouteco-carrying capacity. The first part also introduces the evaluation methods of eco-carrying capacity.The second part constructs an evaluation index system of eco-carrying capacity from economy,society and environment perspectives combined with the characters of Zhengzhou city and some rules and methods of selecting indices. The evaluation method adopts the state space method and makes the relativestandards native and abroad as a threshold value according to the goal of development plan. This studyanalyzes the eco-carrying condition from two perspectives. It analyzes the eco-carrying condition ofZhengzhou from sub-system perspective and all three sub-systems as a whole, using a time series from2006to2011. It also compares the eco-carrying condition of Zhengzhou with other cities of Central PlainsEconomy Area. After a classification of the cities of Central Plains Economy Areaaccording to thecalculations, it concludes that Zhengzhou is ranked as a first level eco-carrying condition area. It also givesan evaluation of the differences between all the cities. The second part then adopts the grey forecastingmodel to simulate the eco-carrying capacity dynamically and predicts the RCC values of Zhengzhou cityfrom2014to2020.The third part provides the final results of the study.The results show that the eco-carrying capacity ofZhengzhou city was overloaded from2006to2011. The pressure of economy development on resource andenvironment is rather high and cannot be labeled as sustainable development. Compared with other cities ofCentral Plains Economy Area, the economic development does not synchronize with the ecologyconstruction of Zhengzhou city and there is a huge room in improving the eco-carrying capacity of the city.The results mainly consists four parts.(1) Thestructure of industry is not reasonable and the efficiency ofthe allocation of resource is low with a condition of consuming resource badly.(2) Environment pollutionand ecological damage are increasingly serious. The circular economy is undergoing a slow development.(3) The infrastructure construction of the city lags behind.(4) The eco-carrying capacity is overloaded andsustainable development meets bottleneck. Based on the dynamic stimulation of the eco-carrying capacityof Zhengzhou city, the value of eco-carrying capacity will decline and approximates the ideal value in theyears from2014to2020. But the successes of the sustainable development path and the harmony of the society, economy and environment will depend on a clear awareness of the current eco-carrying conditionand scientific plans and decisions.The study finally suggests some feasible measures. An early warningsystem of the eco-carrying capacity needs to be constructed and the structure of the industry needsadjustment to accelerate the tertiary industry. Resource should be utilized rationally to build a conservingsociety and continue to develop circular economy with great efforts.