Ecological Footprint Dynamics of Yunnan, China

A fundamental element of sustainable development is that humans live within nature's biological capacity. Quantifying this, however, remains a significant challenge for which there are many emerging tools. The concept of the Ecological Footprint is one such accounting tool for comprehensive assessment of the status of sustainable development, based on integration of resource consumption and land capacity, reflecting the human impact on the environment. A region's development is defined as unsustainable when the Ecological Footprint surpasses the biological capacity. In this paper, the Ecological Footprint concept was applied in assessing the development of Yunnan Province, China in a period between 1988 and 2006. The results showed that the Ecological Footprint per capita in Yunnan rose from 0.854 gha in 1988 to 2.11 gha in 2006. Ecological deficit, defined as when the human demand on the land surpasses the regions biological productive capacity, emerged in 1991 and quickly increased from 0.02 gha in 1991 to 1.05 gha in 2006. The increase in the ecological deficit is primarily a result of the rapid increase in population and consumption level. To achieve sustainable development in Yunnan, production and consumption rates need to be modified.

Sustainable Development of Wuhan City Based on Methods of Conventional Ecological Footprint and Emergy Ecological Footprint

This article uses the conventional ecological footprint method and its improved model of ecological footprint to analyze the state of the sustainable development of Wuhan City in 2009, the results show that the per capita ecological deficit calculated by the method of emergy ecological footprint is 3.8629 hm2, and the per capita ecological deficit calculated by the method of conventional ecological footprint is 2.0169 hm2. The results obtained by the two methods respectively show that current development of Wuhan is unsustainable. The emergy ecological footprint method introduces the energy flow to reflect the relationship between human resource demand and supply of nature to human and adopts parameters—emergy conversion rate and energy density to calculate the ecological carrying capacity data which is more accurate.

The Effect of Anthropogenic Increase on the Earth as a Life-Support System for Mankind

Exponential increase of anthropogenic impact （human population number, some technological parameters） becomes menacing for biosphere functioning. Anyway, we should be able to estimate quantitatively limits of our impact on functional parameters of the biosphere. Considering biosphere as a natural life-support system （LSS）, we can receive the helpful information for working out and creation of artificial LSS of various types. Big biotic cycle induced with flows of a solar energy, is a basis of functioning of the biosphere and its basic cells-ecosystems. It＇s possible to summarize briefly the main functional and structural properties of the biosphere： integrity, closure, substance cycling, steady state, energy dependence and biodiversity. These properties of the biosphere, as a LSS, ensure potentially everlasting life under the conditions of a limited quantity of substrate suitable for the life on the planet. Ecological Footprint （EF） as a quantitative measure of anthropogenic impact on biosphere functioning is discussed in the paper. The index of the ecological reliability （IER） is introduced as a quantitative ecological indicator of different territories. The comparative dynamics of the United Nations＇ Human Development Index （HDI） and EF is discussed. The vital goal of sustainable human development： all humans can have opportunity to fulfill their lives without degrading the biosphere. To support sustainability, we should try to develop each nation and the mankind as a whole with a high HDI and a low ecological footprint. It means to have high level of HDI at low level of EF. But current tendency of economical and social development shows that the higher HDI is, the bigger EF is. EF of mankind is growing menacingly. Now actual pressure of the human civilization of our planet （2010） upon 50% exceeds its potential possibilities biological capacity （BC）, measured on the area ＂global＂ green hectares）. It means that we need 1.5 planets of the Earth＇s type. It leads to ecological incident in the scale of biosphere. Our biosphere is the large, multilevel, hierarchically organized system, and our civilization is only a part of it. This part is not central; it can disappear for ever, if we do not cope to be included in the biosphere as a great system.

The calculation of equivalence factor for ecological footprints in China： a methodological note

The Ecological Footprint （EF）, a physical indicator to measure the extent of humanity＇s use of natural resources, has gained much attention since it was first used by Wackemagel and Rees in 1996. In order to appraise land area types with different levels of productiv- ity, they introduced the concept of an equivalence factor. This relates to the average primary biomass productivities of different types of land （i.e. arable land, pasture, forest, water/fishery, built-up land and fossil energy land） to the regional average primary biomass productivity of all land types in a given year. Hence, the equivalence factor is an important parameter in the EF model and it directly affects the reliability of all results. Thus, this article calculates equivalence factors on the national and provincial levels in China based on Net Primary Production （NPP） from MODIS 1 km data in 2008. Firstly, based on the Light Utility Efficiency and CASA model, the NPP of different biologically productive lands of China and of different provinces was calculated. Secondly, China＇s equivalence factor for 6 land area types was calculated based on NPP： arable land and built-up land has an equivalence factor of 1.71, forest and fossil energy land has a factor of 1.41, pasture has a factor of 0.44 and water/fishery 0.35; Finally, the equivalence factor of 6 land area types in different provinces was also calculated. The NPP of each ecosystem type varies along with the equivalence factor in different provinces. However, the ranking of the equivalence factors in different provinces remain the same, with that of arable land being the largest, and the water/fishery being the smallest.