A study on the assessment of sustainable regional development in Lhasa area

Abstract

Based on the idea that socioeconomic development and health of environment are two integral goals of sustainable regional development, a theoretical frame defined by two coordinate axes of development and sustainability is developed. Development consists of three sub goals of regional social development, economic development and demographic change; and sustainability concerns three subsystems: the health of environment or the support capability of resources, life support system and biodiversity. Using up down and bottom up approaches and this theoretical framework, the system of 18 indicators for evaluating sustainable development in Lhasa area was developed. The assessment of Lhasa area during 1960 to 1999 revealed that: 1) Socioeconomic development in Lhasa area (1995～1999)was remarkable, and the development index was improved by 36%. The index of economic development in the 1990s increased 3.9 times compared to that in the 1960s, and the index of demographic development increased 58% simultaneously. But the index of social development decreased due to the enlarging gap of resident incomes. 2) The index of sustainability reduced from 0.76 of 1960～1964 to 0.61 of 1995～1999, a decrease of 19.37%. That means the support capability of environment to the regional development decreased. 3) Using barometer of sustainability, regional development and its sustainability can be pictured in four different quadrants of this theoretical frame: weak sustainability, almost weak sustainability, almost unsustainability, and unsustainability. The assessment results show that regional development process of Lhasa area in the past 40 years was almost weak sustainable. Although the indices of development and sustainability fluctuated in different periods, the tendency of regional development can be clearly reflected. With the rapid socioeconomic development, the index of development will be improved highly in the future. But the index of sustainability cannot decrease further; otherwise Lhasa area cannot realize the goal of sustainable development. 4) To identify the unfavorable factors, indicators that score less than 0.75 or whose score decrease continuously are defined as unsustainable indicators. Thus the following unfavorable factors were recognized: the decrease of arable land per capita, land desertification, degradation of grassland, dependency of bio fuel, enlarging gap of resident incomes, high population growth rate, and high illiteracy rate and low education level of resident etc. The future development strategy should aim to alleviate the restrictions of these unfavorable factors.