Comparative analysis of environmental carrying capacity of the Bohai Sea Rim area in China

Environmental carrying capacity is an essential metric for measuring regional sustainability. Although the term "carrying capacity" has been applied for over a century, the concept definition, quantitative methods and comprehensive evaluation remain arguable. This study analyzed the carrying capacity of four environmental elements, including water resources, air, surface water and offshore sea, and integrated them into a comprehensive index to represent overall regional profiles of resources and environment. The method was then applied to thirteen municipalities in the Bohai Sea Rim area, one of the most rapidly developing regions in transition China. The results show that the comprehensive environmental carrying capacity of the municipalities in the south sub-region were largest in 2007, while that of the west municipalities were lowest. The regional economic development exceeded the overall environmental carrying capacity by 36% and the west sub-region area deserves overwhelming attention for future industrial allocation.     

Emergy Analysis of Human Carrying Capacity and Regional Sustainability: an Example Using the State of Maine

The human carrying capacity for a region at a specified standard of living depends on the economic and environmental resources of the region and the exchange of resources across regional boundaries. The length of time that a human population living at a given standard can be sustained depends on the rates of use and renewal of the resource base. All environmental, economic, and social resources are produced as a result of energy transformations; therefore, the energy required for their production can be specified and evaluated in common terms by converting their energy values into emergy. Emergy is defined as the available energy of one kind, previously used up directly and indirectly to make a product or service. Its unit is the emjoule. Emergy values and indices are used to evaluate the resource base for Maine, a politically defined region, and to estimate its human carrying capacity at the 1980 standard of living and for possible future resource bases. Emergy indices for Maine are compared with similar indices for Florida, Texas, and the United States to demonstrate variations in human carrying capacity and sustainability among different regions. The 1980 standard of living for Maine, Florida, Texas, and the Nation as measured by emergy use per person fell within a relatively narrow range of 3.4E16 to 4.3E16 solar emjoules y-1. The human carrying capacity for a region is considered within a pulsing paradigm for sustainability and within the constraints provided by a renewable resource base. For example, in the short-term the developed human carrying capacity for Maine is largely determined by the fuel emergy inflow relative to renewable emergy resources. If purchased emergy inflows relative to Maine's renewable emergy increase to the average ratio for a developed country around 1980, the population living in Maine at 1980 standards could increase to 2.9 million or 2.6 times Maine's 1980 population. In contrast, the human carrying capacity based on Maine's renewable resources alone was 0.37 million people at the 1980 standard of living or 33% of the 1980 population.     

“省公顷”下渭河干流甘肃段生态安全评价及预测

摸清流域生态需求和生态供给是流域生态治理和促进其高质量发展的基础。文中应用改进生态足迹法对2009—2018年渭河干流甘肃段生态足迹和生态承载力进行核算,并运用GM（1,1）模型对流域未来的生态供需趋势进行预测。结果显示,2009—2018年渭河干流甘肃段生态足迹和生态承载力呈波动下降趋势,生态足迹下降2.26%,下降趋势低于生态承载力的4.18%;生态赤字以每年0.58%的速率波动减小。如果继续当前的发展模式,那么预计到2028年,生态赤字较2018年降低16.27%,流域生态安全状况将得到缓解。     

An environmental impact assessment of economic complexity and energy consumption: Does institutional quality make a difference?

The relationship between ecological footprint and economic complexity has important policy implications for environmental sustainability. Furthermore, institutional quality can be an imperative tool to ensure environmental sustainability, and it may also moderate the nexus between economic complexity and ecological footprint. Therefore, this study investigates the linkage between economic complexity, institutional quality, disaggregated energy consumption, and economic growth on environmental degradation in emerging countries from 1984 to 2017. In addition, it also probes the moderating effect of institutional quality in the nexus between economic complexity and footprint. To do so, the study applies an advanced econometric approach, cross-sectional autoregressive distributed lags (CS-ARDL) estimator, for short-run and long-run estimation, that allows heterogeneity in the slope parameters and dependencies across countries. The analytical outcomes demonstrate that economic complexity increases environmental degradation by exacerbating ecological footprint, while a high level of economic complexity mitigates ecological footprint. The findings of the study unfold that institutional quality supports environmental sustainability by reducing the ecological footprint. The outcomes also indicated that institutional quality promotes environmental sustainability by moderating the nexus between economic complexity and ecological degradation. Moreover, renewable energy is found to decrease ecological footprint, whereas non-renewable energy use leads to intensifying the ecological footprint. It was also found that there is an inverted u-shaped association between ecological footprint and economic growth. Based on the results, the study suggests that emerging countries should accelerate economic complexity along with a stronger institutional framework to combat environmental issues without compromising sustainable economic growth.     

Ecological footprint accounting: A multi-scale approach based on net primary productivity

The Ecological footprint accounting is a resource accounting tool that is used to track the sustainability of human systems. In this paper, we present a new approach to calculate the Ecological Footprint metrics at different geographic scales using Net Primary Productivity data. Our study focuses on the town of Afourar, Morocco, as a case study examined at three different scales; national, regional, and provincial scale. In contrast with other studies, our footprint accounting results are expressed in what we have called territorial hectares. The accounting results show that geographic scale has a significant influence on the footprint model, where three cases of sustainability were found. This implies that the efforts to maintain the sustainability of territories are more important at some scales than others. We argue that the relationship between sustainability and geographic scale is both strong and complex and that sustainability is a spatially relative concept. Therefore, we conclude that multi-scale analysis is crucial for making sustainable decisions and management policies.     

Index system of sustainable rural development based on the concept of ecological livability

Ecological livability points out the direction for the realization of environmental sustainability and livable sustainability. According to the interaction between ecological livability and sustainable rural development (SRD), this study deconstructed the concept of SRD and selected the corresponding indicators to construct the SRD index system with universal value. We divided SRD into two dimensions: rural ecological sustainability and rural livable sustainability. The former was described by green production and waste disposal, while the latter was represented by public service and social amenity. To demonstrate the application of the SRD index system, we chose China as an example. Through empirical measurement, this study found that the SRD in China was unbalanced and inadequate, and had the characteristics of spatial differentiation. We also explored the direction that can be improved in each region of China. The SRD index system can measure the level of SRD comprehensively and quantitatively, providing a useful reference for each country to analyze the situation of SRD. It is of practical significance to guide the development of ecological livability and achieve SRD.     

An Indicator for the Economic Performance and Ecological Sustainability of Nations

This document proposes a new indicator to assess countries’ sustainability. The indicator synthetises measures of economic and ecological efficiency. In other words, we assess the ability of countries to use resources to produce the maximum possible amounts of goods and services while keeping production activities’ impact on the environment as low as possible. The measure of ecological efficiency is the ecological reserve/deficit (ERD), which is based on the concept of ecological footprint. The new indicator is computed using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) model, a well-known non-parametric technique that delivers measures of productive efficiency by comparing outputs to inputs used in production. We modify the standard DEA model in two ways. Firstly, we allow for negative input and output data. Secondly, to increase DEA discriminating power of countries, we compute anti-efficiency measures. This allows us to obtain a ranking of countries based on the best and worst performances. Results show that the new efficiency indicator is valid and that high ERD positively influences the ranking of countries. Introducing anti-efficiency provides more plausible results and a more accurate ranking, for example high-polluting countries like China previously economically efficient are now ranked as low efficient when sustainability is taken into account.

     

Environmental sustainability assessment in supply chain: An emerging economy context

Environmental sustainability is not being practiced in the supply chains of many industries. Previous studies on environmental sustainability have not outlined clear strategies to achieve sustainability across supply chains, particularly in the context of emerging economies, and have been of limited relevance in settings beyond the geographical region of their focus. To address these gaps, we have proposed a best worst method (BWM) as a framework to assess the environmental criteria for sustainability in select industries in Bangladesh. Different industrial activities or criteria affecting the environment in various ways were assessed and weighted using the BWM. To ensure the efficiency and accuracy of this framework, we sought the opinions of 34 experts to specify the most suitable indicators from our initial literature review. Findings from this study revealed that “waste management” was the most important indicator for establishing environmental sustainability in industries in Bangladesh, which was substantiated by a sensitivity analysis. This research will assist industry managers and entrepreneurs to work toward environmental sustainability across supply chains.     

An environmental impact assessment of fossil fuel subsidies in emerging and developing economies

The impact of fossil fuel subsidies on environmental degradation has not been adequately examined in the existing literature. However, environmental degradation is often suggested as one of the causes of climate change. This paper examines the factors driving environmental degradation, emphasising the role of fossil fuels, in 35 emerging and developing countries. The ecological footprint is used as a proxy for environmental degradation. Using Generalized Method of Moments (GMM), the results show that an increase in fossil fuel subsidies leads to an increase in ecological footprint. Specifically, a 10% increase in fossil fuel subsidies will increase the ecological footprint by between 0.3% and 1.5%. The results further suggest that variables such as population size, real GDP per capita, urbanisation and the non-dependent population also boost environmental degradation. It is also shown that primary energy supply per capita, industry share, resource rent and globalisation have a positive effect on environmental degradation. However, the global oil price and human capital development do not have a significant impact on environmental degradation. The implications of these empirical findings are analysed in the paper.