Abstract
The implementation of ecological restoration programs is intensively changing the original ecological carrying capacity and the status of ecological security. To evaluate the spatiotemporal variation of ecological carrying capacity and ecological security in China’s eco-engineering areas, an indicator system of ecological carrying capacity and ecological security should be developed. This study developed an evaluation indicator system that contains 29 indicators. The indicators were generated by long-time series and multi-source data. The indicator system presents the relationship between ecological carrying capacity and ecological security and reflects the dynamic change of them in eco-engineering areas. We selected the Three-River Headwaters Region (TRHR) and implemented the Ecological Conservation and Construction Program (ECCP) as a case study. The results showed the variation of ecological carrying capacity (ECC) and ecological security (ES) in the TRHR before (2000–2004), during early term (2005–2009), and during medium term (2010–2015) implementation of ECCP, and limiting factors of ecological carrying capacity and ecological security in TRHR was analyzed. The results showed that the ECC index and the ES index were significantly increase, indicating that the ECC improved and that the ES state got better in the TRHR after implementing ECCP. The water conservation was the major factors limiting the increase of the ECC. The leading factors limiting the improvement of the ES were educational expenditure before 2010 and turned into proportion of tertiary industry and investments for ecological restoration after 2010. The implementation of the ECCP has improved the ES state but has also resulted in new problems. It provides a scientific reference for future research on the indicator system of ecological carrying capacity and ecological security in eco-engineering areas and also has vital practical significance to guide the sustainable development of ecological restoration programs.
Highlights
After population explosion and rapid economic development, which benefited from sacrificing the ecological environment, causing a large number of serious global ecological and environmental problems, people became aware of the importance of ecological sustainable development
The mean ecological carrying capacity index (ECCI) for the entire Three-River Headwaters Region (TRHR) was 0.559 for 2000–2015, which indicates that the mean ecological carrying capacity (ECC) in TRHR was at the medium but close to a good level
The mean ecological security index (ESI) for the entire TRHR was 0.595, which indicated that the ecological security (ES) status of the TRHR was between endangered and basically safe
Summary
After population explosion and rapid economic development, which benefited from sacrificing the ecological environment, causing a large number of serious global ecological and environmental problems, people became aware of the importance of ecological sustainable development. As vital issues in the ecological sustainable development field, the ecological carrying capacity (ECC) and ecological security (ES) were published successively [1,2,3]. In the context of the continuous imbalance between human demand and ecological supply, a series of ecological and environmental problems appear and the concept of ecological security is put forward. The controversy regarding the definitions of ECC and ES involves whether to consider the influence of human on ecosystems, which have led to selecting similar indicators when relevant studies evaluate ECC and ES. ECC should be a prerequisite for judging whether an ecosystem is safe, whereas ES, which focuses on the relationship between human survival demand and ECC, is the key to judge whether an ecosystem is sustainable. This paper clarifies the definitions and relationship between ECC and ES
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