生态足迹研究述评

REVIEW OF ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT THEORY

自然资源是人类赖以生存的物质基础 ,人类活动必须限制在环境资源承载力的阈值范围之内。传统的资源利用评价方法存在着考虑不全面、计算复杂、可操作性差等不足 ,因而有必要从生态系统本身的功能出发对人类活动的可持续性进行评价。生态足迹提出于 2 0世纪 90年代 ,是一种新颖的资源利用评价方法 ,它计算简明 ,对地区可持续发展决策具有一定的指导性。迄今为止 ,人们已在不同尺度上开展了大量相关研究。本文介绍了生态足迹的基本概念和研究进展 ,并评述了该方法的优点及不足 ,最后对今后的研究做出了展望。

Natural resources are indispensable to human beings, and activities of human society should not exceed the bearing capacity of ecosystem. Traditional methods of resources utilization assessment have the disadvantages of narrow consideration, complex calculation and hard application. Ecological Footprint is a novel method developed in the 1990s. It is simple in accounting and useful for regional development policy instruction. Up to now, a lot of case studies on Ecological Footprint have been carried out on various scales. This article firstly introduced concepts and current progress of this method, then discussed its advantages and disadvantages; at last, some suggestions for further study were put forward.