Dynamic assessment of China's sustainable development possibility based on the eco-environmental footprint during the period of 1997-2006

This paper is concerned about its authors' work on the dynamic assessment of China's sustainable development possibility based on the eco-environmental footprint during the period of 1997-2006 in hoping to provide a rather scientifically based assessment of the country's carrying capacity in terms of time sequence and per-capita natural resources exploitation and consumption as well as the rational relationship between man and nature. When choosing the ecological footprint model for evaluating the dynamic characteristics of the resource exploitation of the country,the present authors take as the key link the deep-going analytic approach to the problems whether the current development mode remains within the scale of sustainable sphere. The result of our work shows that ecological footprint per capita of China has quickly expanded from 1.287 hm2 in 1997 to 1.941 hm2 in 2006,while the ecological deficit per capita has risen sharply from 0.596 9 hm2 in 1997 to 1.267 0 hm2 by 2006. Thus,the assessment results reveal that the decade's fast development,particularly,the production boom and the abrupt increase of people's demand for living comfort has far exceeded the sustainable carrying capacity limit of the natural ecosystem. When analyzing the eco-footprint demand,including that for energy,drinking and industrial-purposed water and per-capita green space in the urban areas and grassland for pasture,it has become clear to find one of the greatest ecological deficits is the serious shortage of energy and water. It is the shortage of such material and energy resources that has led to the shrinking of woodland,farming land and the natural resource supply. For example,the ecological footprint per 104 RMB GDP of China in the past 10 years has dropped from 2.014 8 hm2 in 1997 to 1.209 8 hm2 in 2006,which means that the energy resource exploitation efficiency has gone up,though the economic boom mode is still generally believed as positive. Based on the above results,this paper has brought about its proposal on how to reduce the ecological deficit of our country and technicalities and measures to enhance the efficiency in energy and water use,in addition to the controlling the population and production and consumption manners so as to be able to protect eco-environment better and make our economic growth really sustainable.