Detailed Ecological Footprint Accounting of Liaoning in 2006

Abstract

Ecological footprint (EF) has received considerable attention as a useful indicator in the context of sustainable development. So far, EF has been used in numerous studies by academies, organizations and government authorities. However, the results of these studies failed to be comparable directly with each other due to imprecise data sets, unmodified accounting methods of pasture and fossil energy, ignored secondary products, undefined process of calculating yield factors and improper biocapacity for biodiversity. In this paper, we elaborated on EF estimating methods from six categories of consumption in order to overcome the limitations above. We adopted precise data and revised methods, calculated EF of some secondary products, introduced weighted factor to calculate yield factors and adjusted biocapacity by an appropriate amount. Meanwhile, we investigated the resource consumption of Liaoning Province in 2006 to assess EF. Its results showed that Liaoning Province overused its natural capital and was in an unsustainable state. We concluded that two specific problems that had arisen in EF assessment and gave some suggestions for Liaoning Province to improve its unsustainable state.