Dynamic Measure Of The Ecological Footprint Of Residents' Living Consumption In Hunan Province

Environmental protection, as a worldwide issue, is of vital importance to the well-being of the descendants. We can not develop economy at the cost of destroying the environment, but must uphold the scientific outlook on development, take the way of sustainable development. Quantitative evaluation of sustainable development is currently by the focus and the frontier research in this field. Ecological Footprint Approach, as a bio-physical method used for the quantitative measuring of the degree of sustainable development, has been spreadly applied by the scholars home and abroad.This paper describes the related theories of ecological footprint, aand takes advantage of the ecological footprint model for calculating and analyzing the ecological footprint of living consumption of residents in Hunan Province from 2002 to 2008, and at the same time, for forecasting the ecological deficit of living consumption of residents here in 2015. And finally it explores the way to reduce the whole consumption. The results show that:(â… ) Both the whole and average account of ecological footprint have risen fluctuatingly, while the former has been increasing more faster than the latter under the influence of population increasing; (â…¡) Following the raise of peoples'living standard, living consumption of residents has been concluding the slow-down needs to provision of food, but the rising needs to fruits, milk products, vegetables, feather and wood, while the needs to oils and fats being at a rate of increasing and then decreasing; (â…¢) Living consumption of residents in Hunan Province has been decreasing in the field of living resources but increasing in the field of energy resources; (â…£) The average ecological capacity to building land, cultivable land and water has been descending in Hunan Province; (â…¤) Ecological capacity in Hunan Province from 2002 to 2005 has grown linearly but slowly, but it has descended from 2005 to 2008, during which the rate of increasing speed has grown more slower than that of decreasing speed; (â…¥) Woodland and plowland are the two main constitutes of ecological capacity in Hunan Province; (â…¦) The average ecological deficits has grown rapidly as a result of the annual growing of average ecological footprint and the gradually descending of average ecological capacity, (â…§) The account of ecological deficits and ecological footprint have grown linearly, during which the rate of speed of the former is more faster than that of the latter. Taking the advantage of the Model GM(1,1), this paper makes a forcast that the ecological deficit in Hunan Province will continue to expand to reach 58,59590398 million hm2, which elucidated that the supply of nature could not meet the whole needs of human comsuption, especially in Hunan Province, the ecological footprint of living consumption of residents leads to a way without scientific outlook on development by seriously exceeding its ecological capacity. Thus it is a important and instant task to seek an effective measures to release ecological footprint.