Assessment of ecological footprint of land use in Chongqing, China

Abstract

The land use in China has an important impact on environment and the Chinese economic development. The sustainable development has been recognized as the key element to keep China's development with success in the future. This paper uses ecological footprint and biological capacity as indicators to measure regional sustainable degree of land use. The ecological footprint and the biological capacity of land use in Chongqing municipality with 28 million populations have been calculated from 1999 to 2007. The ecological footprint and the biological capacity of land use in Chongqing municipality had obvious changed from 1999 to 2007. The change degree of ecological footprint affected by land use is more prominent than the change degree of biological capacity. The fossil energy land possesses the most proportion, which exceeds 58% in average. The cropland is also an important effect to ecological footprint, which achieves to 35% in proportion. The results from the research can inform the Chongqing municipality government in more detail enhances the land protection in the balance of urban development with society, ecology, environment and resource.