The spatiotemporal evolution of ecological security in China based on the ecological footprint model with localization of parameters

Abstract

With the outbreak of the current global eco-environmental crisis, ensuring global and local ecological security (ES) has become a priority for many countries in the world. In the past few decades, social and economic development in China has induced many ecological and environmental problems, which have negatively impacted ES of China and the world. In recent years, with the increasing awareness of China’s ecological and environmental protection, the Chinese government has actively participated in global ecological and environmental governance and raised ES to the height of national security. A systematic and comprehensive assessment of ES is the basis of ES assurance, which can enable governments to accurately grasp the ES status of different regions and adopt targeted management measures. The ecological footprint (EF) model is a mature model that has been widely used for ES assessment. Thus, this study used an EF model with localized parameters analyzing the spatiotemporal changes in China’s ES from 2006 to 2016 on a provincial scale. Then, from an “occupation-carrying” perspective, this study explored the main aspect that induced changes in regional ES and identified the main type of ecological land that threatened regional ES. Results showed that a) during the study period, China’s ES status showed a deteriorating trend and the current ES is not optimistic. However, the ecological carrying capacity of most provinces in China has increased, indicating that China’s ecological and environmental protection has achieved initial results; b) currently, the provinces whose ES status are moderate unsafe and quite unsafe are mainly distributed in the eastern coastal region and the region near the boundary between the second and third ladders; c) the high-intensity occupation of the ecological environment and biological resources attributed to the rapid development of the social economy is the main cause for the negative changes in ES in most areas; d) for most provinces in China, cropland occupation and fossil energy consumption pose great threats to the regional ES status. China should jointly consider ES, energy security, and food security in its future development plans.