Ecological Footprint Calculation Of Import And Export Wooden Furniture In China

Public concern about the environmental impacts of trade forest products had been sparked by deterioration of domestic ecological environment and booming development of forest products trade. At present, in the methodologies which could reflect the ecological impacts of human economic activity, ecological footprint are very popular, and was often used as the measure indicator of environmental impact. So, it is worthy to carry out ecological footprint research of export and import commodity by choose the wooden furniture, which was the largest-export-amount wooden forest product in China, as the breakthrough.Through rationally using comparative analysis, field research, questionnaire survey and modeling calculation, this paper chose emergy-based footprint method as the ecological footprint calculation method of import and export wooden furniture in China from compound approach, input-output method, emergy-based footprint method, multi-regional input-output method, product land use matrix method and input-output & product land use matrix method, ascertained the key factors and major parameters of ecological footprint calculation of import and export wooden furniture, constructed the calculation model, obtained the specific parameters values, solved the ecological footprint of import and export wooden furniture in China from 2000 to 2014 with trade data of China’s wooden furniture, and analyzed the calculation results, made clear the environmental impact of import and export wooden furniture in China.The results showed that:1) The calculation model was that: EFIM=(im×UPCT×eT×seT + im×UPCE×eE×seE)/P, EFEX=(ex×UPCT×eT×seT+ex×UPCE×eE×seE)/P.2) The values of major parameters in the calculation model: timber consumption per unit product(UPCT) and energy consumption per unit product(UPCE) were respectively 0.0913 m3/unit and 6.8244 kwh/unit.3) Between 2000 and 2014, in China, the average annual amounts of timber and energy used in the production of export wooden furniture were 20 262 392 m3 and 1 514.55 million kwh respectively, and the average annual amounts of timber and energy used in the production of import wooden furniture were respectively 282 221 m3 and 21.84 million kwh.4) The annual ecological footprint of export wooden furniture increased from 7 225 616 hectares in 2000 to 24 997 753 hectares in 2014 by 2.46 times in China, and the annual ecological footprint of import wooden furniture were smaller, but went up faster, accordingly rose from 49 046 hectares to 777 620 hectares, grew 14.85 times.Concluded from the above results:1) The model of emergy-based footprint method could be applied to calculate the ecological footprint of China’s import and export wooden furniture.2) The premise and basis for the calculation of the ecological footprint of wooden furniture was to ascertain the parameter values in the calculation model.3) Between 2000 and 2014, the average annual amounts of timber and energy used in the production of export wooden furniture were both much more than import wooden furniture’s in China, the wooden furniture trade added pressure on domestic supplies of timber and energy.4) From 2000 to 2014, the degree of environmental impacts of export and import wooden furniture in China trended to strengthen.This paper could not only lay the foundation for understanding the influence of China’s forest products, even all trade commodities, on ecological environment, but also provide reference for evaluating the environmental impacts of some kind of trade commodity.