The Dynamic Changes Of Ecological Footprint Of Chinese Three Major Industries (1987-2012)

Ecological footprint is the newly-developed quantitative index of sustainable development in the world. What kind of effect on environment caused by the economic development can be acknowledged by means of calculating ecological footprint. In order to do quantitative study on the pressure of the development of Chinese three major industries on the environment, this paper adopts input-output method to calculate the land footprint, the energy footprint, domestic footprint, the net exports footprint, the total ecological footprint and ecological efficiency of Chinese three major industries in 1987-2007. By comparing the amount and the changing tendency of ecological footprint in three major industries, calculating ecological efficiency of them, we can conclude as follows by empirical analysis:The proportion of land footprint is decreasing, while the proportion of the energy footprint is increasing, which shows that energy is more and more important. The ecological footprint of the net exports is much lower than that of domestic ecological footprint, which shows that the majority of the ecological footprint is occupied by China. The primary industry’s net import is increasing, while the net export of the secondary and tertiary industries is increasing. All of this indicates the gradual increase of foreign dependence in the three industries.The ecological footprint of the primary industry is declining, while the secondary and tertiary industries are increasing in general. But on the whole the pressure of the three industries on our environment is growing. The secondary industry’s ecological footprint is the highest, the third industry’s ecological footprint gradually exceeds the first industry’s ecological footprint. The three major industries are gradually improving ecological efficiency and the ecological efficiency of the primary industry gradually exceeds the tertiary industry, being in the first place.It can be seen from the analysis and the conclusion that the development of Chinese three industries brings increasing pressure on environment In order to achieve sustainable development, the suggestions are as follows:energy conservation and emission reduction, creating new energy; to control import and export scale moderately, increasing inland resource utilization and reducing resource consumption and waste emissions, and then to decrease the pressure on ecological environment caused by economic development; to optimize industrial structure and improve the ecological efficiency.