高等教育的生态效率——大学校园生态足迹

Ecological Efficiency of High Education——Ecological Footprint of University Campus

介绍了生态足迹成分法的基本原理和计算模型,以东北大学和沈阳大学为例将该方法应用于高等教育的生态效率研究.结果表明:东北大学2003年的生态足迹为24787hm2,即需要24787hm2的生态生产性土地支持该校的各类消费并吸纳所产生的废弃物,其生态效率(即单位生态生产性土地占用可支持的学生数)为0.94人·hm-2;沈阳大学2003年的生态足迹为17218hm2,生态效率为0.8人·hm-2.在两所学校的生态足迹中,能源消费的足迹最大,分别占总足迹的68%和54%;食物消费和固态垃圾次之.对东北大学、沈阳大学和澳大利亚RedlandsUniversity的比较分析发现,学校所在地的经济发展水平、学生的经济状况以及学校的专业领域构成和研究强度,对大学校园生态足迹、足迹构成和生态效率有重要影响.这一研究定量揭示了高等教育的生态效率及其影响要素,为创建“生态”校园提供了科学的依据,也为评价“生态”校园提供了科学、实用的指标和方法.

The principles of the componential method for ecological footprint calculation are introduced and its mathematical model formulated. The method is then applied to case studies of university campuses to investigate the ecological efficiency of high education. The ecological footprints of two university campuses, Northeastern University (NEU) and Shenyang University (SYU), were calculated and analyzed for the year of 2003. The components considered in this study include energy (coal, natural gas and electricity) consumption, food consumption, waste disposal, water supply, transportation, and paper consumption. The ecological footprint of NEU was {24 787 } hm +2, which means that nearly {25 000 } hm +2 of ecologically productive land was needed to support the consumptions and to Absorb the wastes from the campus for that year. The ecological efficiency of NEU was 0 ^94 student/ha. The ecological footprint of SYU was {17 218 } hm +2 with an ecological efficiency of 0 ^8 student/ha. It can be seen that one hectare of land with the global average productivity is not sufficient to support a single student at NEU or SYU. The largest footprint component for both NEU and SYU is from energy consumption, which takes up 68% and 54% of the total footprints of the two universities, respectively. The second and third largest footprint components are from food consumption and waste disposal. Reducing energy consumption and waste generation is, therefore, crucial to reducing the footprints and thus making the campus ecologically efficient. ;The student consumption power has a significant effect on the total footprint and eco-efficiency of the campuses. The higher is the per student consumption, the lower the eco-efficiency. The student consumption level is in turn determined by the average per capita income of the student families. Preliminary investigations reveal that there exist pronounced differences in the student income situation between the two universities. NEU has more students from remote and rural areas where the economy is less developed than from cities; some 30% of the students of NEU are from low income families; 10%~15% from very low income families and above 5% from extremely low income families. On the contrary, most students of SYU are from city families whose income is much higher than those of NEU. The effect of this difference in family income and, thus, in on-campus consumption can be clearly seen from the composition and proportion of the footprint from food consumption (Table 2). The per student consumption of meat at SYU is twice as high as that at NEU, and consequently, the footprint proportion from food consumption at SYU is higher than that at NEU (37 ^5% vs. 21 ^8%). The student income situation is one of the main factors causing the eco-efficiency of SYU (0 ^80 student/ha) lower than that of NEU (0 ^94 student/ha). ;The disciplinary areas and the intensity of research activities also have a significant effect on the ecological footprints of university campuses. This effect is mainly reflected on the footprint of electricity. The main disciplinary areas of NEU are in Engineering and Technology while those of SYU in social sciences and, hence, the former has many more laboratories with relatively heavy equipments than the latter. Also, NEU is research oriented and its intensity of research is much higher than that of SYU, which is, teaching oriented. As a result, the per student electricity consumption at NEU is 1 ^75 times as high as that at SYU, and the footprint component associated with electricity takes up a much higher proportion of the total footprint at NEU than that at SYU (13 ^5% vs. 6 ^5%). ;A comparison of the ecological footprints of NEU and SYU of China and Redlands University (RU) of Australia reveals that the level of economic development has significant impacts on the total footprint, the proportions of footprint components, and the eco-efficiency of a university campus. Australia, being an industrial nation, has a much higher level of economic development than China who is a developing countr