Climate and Environmental Change

The eco-environmental guarantee for China’s urbanization process

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  • 1. Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resource Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China|
    2. Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China

Received date: 2008-04-15

  Revised date: 2008-07-26

  Online published: 2009-02-25

Supported by

Knowledge Innovation Project of CAS, No.KZCX2-YW-307-02; No.KZCX2-YW-321-05; Major Project of 11th Five-year Scientific and Technological Support Plan of China, No.2006BAJ05A06

Abstract

Studying the change of resources consumption and eco-environmental carrying capacity are of importance to the sustainable development of urbanization. Based on the China’s economic and social statistical data from 1950 to 2006, the ecological footprint, ecological footprint intensity, ecological deficit and surplus, and eco-environment quality comprehensive index are calculated, the correlation between urbanization and eco-environmental change is analyzed and the eco-environmental guarantee for China’s urbanization in 2030 is forecasted. The major results could be summarized as follows: (1) there is a positive linear relation between urbanization and ecological footprint, negative linear relation between urbanization and ecological footprint intensity, ecological deficit and surplus and the negative exponential relation between urbanization and eco-environment quality comprehensive index. (2) By 2030, the urbanization level will reach 61.32%, the ecological deficit will increase to 42.2866×108 hm2 and the eco-environment quality comprehensive index will drop to 0.3016 on the condition that the total quantity ecological footprint achieves 55.9348×108 hm2. (3) Under the existing urban development pattern, the ecological overload will be more serious in the next 24 years. Constructing the reasonable industrial structure and establishing the intensive resources utilization system to alleviate the eco-environmental pressure are the tough challenges in China’s urbanization process.

Cite this article

FANG Chuanglin, LIN Xueqin . The eco-environmental guarantee for China’s urbanization process[J]. Journal of Geographical Sciences, 2009 , 19(1) : 95 -106 . DOI: 10.1007/s11442-009-0095-z

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