Download The Quantitative Analysis of Regional Sustainable Development of

The Quantitative Analysis of Regional Sustainable Development of
Shandong Province Based on Ecological Footprint Model
YI Dongfeng
School of Economics, Shandong Institute of Business and Technology, Yantai, Shandong, China,
264005
[email protected]
Abstract: Ecological Footprint Model is a biophysical method adopted for quantitative assessment of
the extent of the sustainable development, which is concise and comprehensive. By calculating the gap
between human demands of ecological footprint and the ecological carrying capacity, we can
quantitatively determine whether the regional development is within the scope of its ecological capacity
so as to provide evidence for the evaluation of the regional sustainable development. Based on the
introduction to ecological footprint and ecological capacity, the paper adopts the ecological footprint
model to conduct the computational analysis of the ecological footprint in Shandong province in the
year of 2008. The result of the analysis shows that the ecological deficit per capita of Shandong
province in 2008 is 2.616hm2.cap-1, which greatly surpasses its ecological capacity, and result implies
the lack of stamina for Shandong’s sustainable development. Finally, the paper puts forward some
related methods for Shandong province to enhance its ecological capacity and realize its sustainable
development.
Keywords: Shandong province, ecological footprint, ecological capacity, sustainable development
1.
Introduction
20th century is the era of rapid development of material civilization, however, the development is at cost
of immense consumption of a variety of resources, especially non-renewable resources, widespread
environmental pollution, and ecological imbalance. Rachel Carson firstly proposed the "sustainable
development" concept in 1962, and "Our Common Future" was published in 1987. Since then,
sustainable development changed from theory to practice as a new development concept and model. The
sustainable development index system is basis for quantitative research of sustainable development.
Foreign scholars have put forward a variety of framework models of index system. The concept of
ecological footprint and its calculation model proposed by William Rees and Wackernagel focuses on
the ecological concept of quantitative indicators of sustainable line, which gains more and more
attentions because of its scientific, complete theoretical basis, clear conceptual framework, concise
index system and the popularity of its methods. The paper describes the model and related content, and
applies the model in the example of Shandong province, in which the paper makes analysis of the
regional sustainable development and proposes related development policies against the problems.
2.
Ecological footprint model and the basic calculation methods
2.1 The concept of ecological footprint
Human must consume a variety of resources to maintain a certain quality of life. Each of the final
consumption can be traced back to ecological productive land needed to provide production of the
natural materials and energy. The ecological footprint refers to the area of the ecological productive land
needed to maintain a certain level of material consumption under a certain conditions of population and
economic scale.
2.2 Ecological Footprint Calculation Model
Ecological footprint calculation is based on the following basic assumptions: (1) the vast majority of
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human consumption of resources, energy and the amount of generated waste is determinable; (2) Most
of these resources and waste can be converted to ecological production land area which is needed to
provide and absorb the resources and waste; (3) Various sites are exclusive to each other and can be
additive in space; (4) When the ecological productivity is used to measure land, the land between
different regions can be expressed in the same unit; (5) The total ecological service supply capacity and
the human system’s total demands for natural system can be compared. In the calculation of the
ecological footprint, the various kinds resources and energy consumption amounts are converted into the
areas of the six basic ecological productive land, namely, cultivated land, pasture, woodland, built land,
sea (water), and other fossil energy land etc.
n
n
EF = N × ef = N ∑ (a i ) = N ∑ (ci pi )
i =1
(i = 1,2,L , n)
i =1
From the formula, we can see that ecological footprint is a function of population and material
consumption per capita,and is the sum of ecological production area for each consumer good.
As the six types of land differ in ecological productivity, their areas should be converted into the area
with the same ecological productivity for better summing and comparison, during which process the
conversion factor is used as equivalence factor. Equivalence factor for a certain ecological productive
land area is equal to the average productivity of these lands divided by the total global average
productivity of all types of global land. The equivalence factor adopted in the paper is from the WWF’
data in the traditional calculation, and the equivalence factors for various types of land are: 2.8 for
arable land; 1.1 for forest; 0.5 for grassland; 2.8 for built-up land; 1.1 for fossil energy land and 0.2 for
water.
Ecological capacity refers to the supply amount of a region's ecological footprint, which amounts to the
total area of the ecological productive land that a certain region can provide. As the productivities of the
same type of bio-productive land are different in different countries and regions, the area of the same
type of bio-productive land in different countries and regions can not be compared directly. Instead, the
yield factor should be adopted to convert the same type of land in different countries or regions into the
comparable area. Yield factor is a ratio of average productivity between a country or region’s certain
type of land and the world’s.
6
6
EC = N ∑ ec = N ∑ (a ij × r j × γ j )
i =1
( j = 1,2,L,6)
i =1
2.3 Ecological Footprint Deficit/Surplus
Make a comparison between them based on the calculation of the regional ecological footprint and
ecological capacity, and then we can determine the sustainability of the land use in the region.
When the ecological capacity is less than the ecological footprint of a region, the ecological footprint
deficit appears, which equals to the amount that remains when ecological capacity is subtracted from the
ecological footprint amount. The ecological deficit shows that the region's ecological load is beyond its
ecological capacity, and the development model is in a relatively unsustainable state. And the size of
deficit is a measure of the degree of the unsustainability. When the ecological capacity is greater than
ecological footprint capacity, then there will be3 an ecological surplus, which is equal to the amount that
remains when the ecological footprint is subtracted from ecological capacity. The surplus shows that the
ecological capacity in the region is able to maintain its ecological load and the development pattern is
relatively sustainable.
Ecological Footprint Deficit = Ecological capacity—Ecological Footprint= EF—EC
Ecological Footprint Surplus= Ecological Footprint—Ecological capacity= EC—EF
3.
Ecological footprint calculation and analysis of Shandong province in 2008
Shandong province is located in the lower Yellow River in east China coast, situated between the 114
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°36'-122°43 ' east longitude and 34°25'-38°23' north latitude, with the capital city of Jinan. The
topography of Shandong province features mainly plains and hills, and the total area of plains and basins
is about 97920 km2, which accounts for 64% of the total area of Shandong province. The area of hills is
53 397 km2, accounting for 34.9%, and the rivers and lakes with the total area of 683 km2, accounts for
1.1%. In 2008, Shandong province has the population of 94 172 300, 17districts and 140 counties,
which made the GDP of 3107.21 billion yuan. The GDP per capita has risen by 11.4% to 33 083 yuan.
Based on the concept of ecological footprint and its calculation model, this paper makes a computational
analysis of the ecological footprint of Shandong province in 2008, according to the related data and
statistics provided by Shandong Provincial Bureau of Statistics in 2009, FAO and WWF in 2008.
The land yield factor used by Wackernagel in the global ecological footprint research is adopted in the
calculation of ecological capacity: arable land and built-up land 1.66; forest 0.91; grassland 0.19 and
water 1.0. In addition, in accordance with the proposition in the report “Our Common Future” of WCED,
12% should be deducted from the ecological capacity for the conservations area of biodiversity.
Table 1 Ecological footprint and ecological capacity of Shandong province
ecological footprint
Ecological capacity
Land
Category
Area
hm2·cap-1
Equivalent
Factor
ecological
footprint
hm2·cap-1
Land
Category
Area
hm2·cap-1
Yield
Factor
ecological
capacity
hm2·cap-1
Arable
land
0.042 351
2.8
0.118 584
Arable land
0.122 820
1.66
0.570 866
Grassland
1.002 695
0.5
0.501 348
Grassland
0.000 361
0.19
3.428E-5
Forest
0.010 083
1.1
0.011 091
Forest
0.000 276
0.91
0.000 276
Fossil
energy
land
1.872 017
1.1
2.057 219
CO2
absorption
2.123E-07
0.91
2.126E-07
Water
2.674 141
0.2
0.534 828
Water
0.007 033
1.00
0.001 407
Built-up
land
0.001 199
2.8
0.003 357
Built-up land
0.026 659
1.66
0.123 913
Total ecological footprint
3.228 427
Minus 12% for biodiversity
0.083 597
Total ecological capacity
0.612 916
Ecological Footprint Deficit/Surplus
4.
-2.615 511
Results Analysis
The calculation indicates that the ecological footprint per capita of Shandong province in 2008 is
3.228hm2·cap-1, and the ecological capacity per capita is 0.613 hm2·cap-1, so the ecological deficit is
2.616hm2.cap-1. The result shows that the ratio of between ecological footprint of Shandong province
and ecological footprint of the country (1. 848 hm2·cap-1) is 1.75, and the ratio of between ecological
footprint of Shandong province and ecological footprint of the global (2.3 hm2.cap-1) is 1.4 in 2008.
Both at the national scale or global scale, Shandong province is in a state of unsustainable development.
On the whole, in 2008, the ecological footprint per capita of Shandong province is 5.3 time of the
ecological capacity per capita and the ecological deficit per capita is 4.3 times of the ecological capacity
per capita, which shows that the relationship between people and land supply in Shandong province is
tense and the human social and economic activities have imposed immense pressure on ecological
system. Fossil energy consumption takes up a large proportion in the total ecological footprint,
accounting for 63.8%, indicating that social and economic development in Shandong province rely too
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much on the consumption of natural resources. The arable land takes up a proportion of 93.1% in the
total ecological capacity, which reflects that the ecological footprint supply of Shandong Province
depends on arable land very much.
From the composition of the ecological deficit, the ecological deficit of various types of land have great
differences, and the ecological deficit in order from large to little is: fossil energy land (-2.059 hm2.cap-1,
accounting for 78.7%), water (-0.533 hm2.cap-1, 20.4%), pasture (-0.501hm2.cap-1, 19.2%), woodland
(-0.011 hm2.cap-1, 0.4%), but the arable land and built-up land are still in surplus, ecological surplus is
0.452 hm2.cap-1 and 0.121 hm2.cap-1. The reason why fossil energy land has the biggest ecological
deficit is in 2008 Shandong province had only 20 hectares of forest to absorb the CO2 from energy
consumption, and coal consumption takes up a larger proportion in energy consumption structure;
Grassland ecological deficit is mainly due to people’s increasing consumption and demands for animal
products with the economic development; Waters ecological deficit is due to a large output of aquatic
products, and the lower actual utilization. At the same time, we should see although there is a small
surplus in ecological conditions of cropland in Shandong Province, it does not indicate that the
cultivated area in Shandong province is very rich. In fact, the per capita cropland of Shandong province
is only 0.16hm2.cap-1 in 2008. The ecological deficit showed that high energy consumption,
overcrowding, decrease of arable land are the main reasons for high ecological deficit of Shandong
province.
5.
Measures to ease the state of unsustainable development in Shandong
Province
Through the above analysis, rapid economic development in Shandong province has brought huge
environmental pressure, increasing population, increasing ecological footprint and ecological deficit. To
improve its ecological capacity, reduce its ecological deficit, and regain its sustainable development, the
government of Shandong province must develop such practical measures as follow:
Energy
conservation, new energy development. Industrial and port trade developed very well in Shandong
province. Its large consumption of large coal and oil, renewable resources can greatly affect the
sustainability of economic development and the environment, causing the energy consumption to
account for more than half of ecological footprint. In view of the region's windy climate and coastal and
other natural conditions, besides the use of energy conservation, some high and new technologies, such
as solar, wind and tidal energy, should also be developed. The use of natural resources, new energy
sources will reduce energy consumption share of the ecological footprint, which, at the same time, is
conducive to environmental protection
Use high-tech production technology and improve the
biomass yield per unit of land. The ecological footprint of almost all the ecological productive lands is
greater than the ecological capacity, which calls for reasonable development of land, especially the
development of ecological agriculture to guarantee the sustainability of agricultural ecological economy.
At the same time, the urban greening should be strengthened to protect the urban ecological
environment.
Adjust the industrial structure, improve resource utilization, and build resource-saving
society. The water footprint of Shandong is high, so on one hand, we should develop the marine
resources reasonably, improve the marine ecological benefits and develop marine ecological culture to
satisfy human needs; on the other hand, we should develop the management technology for marine
environment, strengthen marine pollution control, close and regulate the heavy polluted enterprises and
establish a perfect supervising system for pollution discharge. Make a comprehensive use of economic,
legal and scientific ways and take necessary administrative measures to enforce the environmental
protections law so as to reduce the marine ecological footprint and boost the sustainable development of
marine ecology and economy.
Control population to an appropriate degree and reduce resource
consumption. We should improve the population quality; enhance their production and consumption
patterns, and promote sustainable lifestyles. From the lifestyle side, we should try to change the existing
consumption patterns, build the concept of sustainable consumption and promote scientific, rational,
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efficient use of various resources, which could reduce fossil energy consumption, thereby reducing the
ecological footprint. We should also intensify the publicity on the protection of the environment,
enhance public awareness of the ecological environment, mobilize the whole society to achieve
sustainable development of resources, economy, environment and social in Shandong province.
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