Relationship between the ecological footprint and the economic growth in China

Abstract

Regional eco-economic system is an open complex system with the interaction between human being and nature. As a policy guide and planning tool for sustainability, the ecological footprint method created by Rees and Wackernagel has been widely used with an ongoing discussion and modification. In this paper, by using the panel data model, we improved the ecological footprint model, accounted the changing process of the per capita consumption ecological footprint, analyzed the relationship between economic growth and ecological footprint and forecasted the inflection years on provincial level in China from 1996 to 2008. The results showed that: based on panel model, simulation results fitted well and the coefficients were significant. The relationship between ecological footprint and per capita GDP accorded with the Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) characteristics of reversed U shape. The ecological footprints of most regions were still accelerated increasing on provincial level in China, not reaching the inflection point. The reaching sequence was east, middle and west regions. At present, ecological footprint growth gradually slowed down in Shanghai, while the extreme points were reached in Tianjin and Beijing. In west, the inflection points would be reached after 2020. As to the progress of ecological footprint, the east was 3 years faster than middle and 7 years faster than west. t)