Ecological Footprint Analysis:Case of Xiushan County

Abstract

Protecting the ecological environment of Wuling Mountain Area is important for realization sustainable development in the area. This study, using the ecological foot print model calculated the ecological footprint and ecological capacity of the XiuShan county. According to the analysis the results for the year 2011 were 2.3719hm,0.5830hm and -1.7889hm for per capita ecological footprint, per capita ecological carrying capacity, capita ecological deficit of the area respectively .Based on these results XiuShanXian monetization ecological footprint was found to be -68 one hundred million. This shows the local ecological environment is under serious deficit. Finally this paper recommended course of actions that need to be taken in order to integrate the economic development with the environmental protection for realization of sustainable development in the area. Introduction Combing the economic development and environmental protection by realizing sustainable development is the key for the regional development and poverty alleviation. Wuling Mountain Area is among national minority areas which are the focus of poverty alleviation and sustainable development plans by the government, Xiushan County is one of the counties in the area. In the past various studies developed models for calculating the ecological foot print.one of the model is developed in the early 1990s by the Canadian ecological economist William Rees who was first to propose a model that can be used to measure the ecological footprint of human activities on natural resources. His model uses the ecological carrying capacity to measure the supply of natural resources and then use the supply and consumption to measure the sustainable development of the region. [1] Scholars are continuously refining the theory in order to develop a method which can provide a more accurate result which can be helpful in the process of integrating the economic development and environmental protection in a more sustainable way. Research Methods Ecological Footprint. The ecological foot print model was used to calculate the area’s ecological foot print. Ecological Footprint is calculated as follows: * * * * * ( ) i j i j i c EF N ef N r aa N r p = = = ∑ ∑ Where, EF is the total ecological footprint; N is the local population; ef is ecological footprint per unit; j r is balancing factor of j-th land; i aa is the conversion of consumer goods into biologically productive area; i c is the total consumption of the i-th kinds of consumer goods; International Conference on Economy, Management and Education Technology (ICEMET 2015) © 2015. The authors Published by Atlantis Press 391 i p is global total consumption of i-th kind of consumer goods. Ecological Capacity.This paper adopts the calculation of ecological carrying capacity to determine the supply of local ecological footprint. Ecological carrying capacity is calculated as follows: * * * EC= * j j j j N c N a r y = ∑ ∑ Where, EC is the total ecological force; N is the population, j c is the ecological carrying capacity components per capita, j a is biologically productive land area per capita of -th , j r is balanced factor of j-th kind of land, j y is the yield factor of j-th kind of land. Ecological Benefits. In the study we monetarized the ecological surplus or deficit basing on the analysis of the ecological carrying capacity, which makes ecological benefit appears more intuitive. The procedure for monetization of the ecological benefit is the following: The ultimate value of ecological benefit: 2 (S )*C *p f f co V D = − The forest ecological footprint supply : *( ) f