Dynamic Changes of the Ecological Footprint and Its Component Analysis Response to Land Use in Wuhan, China
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sustainability Article Dynamic Changes of the Ecological Footprint and Its Component Analysis Response to Land Use in Wuhan, China Xiaowei Yao, Zhanqi Wang * and Hongwei Zhang School of Public Administration, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China; [email protected] (X.Y.); [email protected] (H.Z.) * Correspondence: [email protected]; Tel.: +86-27-6788-3088 Academic Editor: Vincenzo Torretta Received: 9 January 2016; Accepted: 30 March 2016; Published: 5 April 2016 Abstract: Humans’ demands for biological resources and energies have always been increasing, whereas evidence has shown that this demand is outpacing the regenerative and absorptive capacity of the planet. Since China is experiencing unprecedented urbanization and industrialization processes, how much impact this has imposed on the earth during economic development worldwide is conspicuous. Therefore, this paper tries to examine the environmental impact in detail and track its changes in a typical city of Central China, Wuhan, based on ecological footprint analysis. By calculating the ecological footprint and its components in terms of biologically productive land areas during the period of 1995–2008, it is found that the ecological footprint increased in fluctuations from 1.48 gha per capita to 2.10 gha per capita, with the carbon footprint contributing most within the whole time period. Compared to the tiny declining biocapacity of the region, a gradually aggravated ecological deficit in the city was observed, which increased from 1.12 gha per capita in 1995 to 1.79 gha per capita in 2008. Component analysis on the trends of the ecological footprint and ecological deficit reveals that the impact on the ecosystem induced by humans’ demands for resource production and energy consumption became greater than before, and cutting down the consumption of fossil fuels could reduce the carbon footprint and the overall ecological deficit of the city. Keywords: ecological footprint; ecological deficit; biocapacity; energy consumption; carbon footprint; biological resource; Wuhan 1. Introduction It has been widely recognized that sustainable development with various species on the planet is the common pursuit of human beings. However, there is an increasing worldwide discussion about humans’ sustainability due to the rising trend of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the excessive consumption of natural resources. Even though the key impact factors are still under debate, academia across the world has come to an agreement that this situation is basically ascribed to anthropogenic disturbances with agriculture, urban development and energy production [1–4]. In order to provide indicators for sustainability on the environmental side, in other words, to measure the human environmental impact on the earth, several methods have been developed during the recent decades [5–7]. However, each approach has its strengths and weaknesses in application [8]. Among these, ecological footprint (EF) analysis is one of the most widely used approaches. It is a quantitative environmental accounting tool for estimating the requirements for resource consumption and waste assimilation by a certain number of populations. Instead of calculating what population a particular region can support sustainably, the ecological footprint indicator directly shows the areas of biologically productive land appropriated to sustain a defined population, which were described Sustainability 2016, 8, 329; doi:10.3390/su8040329 www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability Sustainability 2016, 8, 329 2 of 14 as “footprints” that humans impose on the earth’s surface [9]. Therefore, it represents the impact of human consumption activities and waste assimilation requirements on the natural ecosystems, and moreover, is able to compare the consumption (footprint) with the amount of resources that nature can produce in the same time (biocapacity). Due to its full picture of the sustainability concept of the planet and its global comparability, accessibility and operability, the ecological footprint model has been applied to various scales by many scholars and governments. At the global scale, today humanity uses the equivalent of 1.6 planets to provide the resources we use and absorb our waste, according to the research report of the Global Footprint Network [10]. Carbon has been the dominant component of humans’ ecological footprint for several decades, primarily caused by the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas. It rose up to 53% of the total ecological footprint by 2010, while it was only 36% in 1961 and 45% in 2005 [10]. At national and sub-national scales, Wackernagel et al. have explored ecological footprint trends in Austria, the Philippines, and South Korea for the past 40 years [11]. Pereira et al. analyzed the ecological footprint in Brazil combined with energy synthesis [12]. Palacios-Agundez et al. provided a detailed assessment of ecosystem services supply and demand and analyzed the local service provisioning mismatch by using ecological footprint analysis [13]. Moore et al. calculated the residential consumption and ecological footprint of Metro Vancouver in 2006 by means of bottom-up ecological footprint analysis with the urban metabolism framework [14]. There are also footprint studies at smaller scales, for example on specific sectors and products, to identify local environmental impacts [15,16]. In order to assess the impact by a certain kind of resource consumption or waste generation associated with human activities across multiple dimensions., a series of footprint-style indicators including the carbon footprint, water footprint, energy footprint, biodiversity footprint, nitrogen footprint and chemical footprint, et al. have been widely proposed and analyzed [17–24]. In recent years, efforts have been made to build up a “footprint family” [25–27] as a combination set of ecological footprint, carbon footprint and water footprint indicators to evaluate the comprehensive impact of resource consumption and GHG emissions on the earth. However, some important issues are still quite controversial in the footprint combination, such as cross-scale measuring and weighting [28–30]. Currently, the concept of the ecological footprint created by Wackernagel has become very popular and the analysis model has a clear benchmark to compare the human consumption of resources and energies versus what nature offers to humans. China has been experiencing very fast economic development in recent years, but its process of urbanization and industrialization is still far from completion. This implies that there has been considerable demand for various products (agricultures, energies, etc.) and services (waste assimilation, etc.) because it is one of the biggest developing countries in the world. As a consequence, how much impact China imposes on the earth’s system is what we need to examine first, so it can be compared with the biocapacity to reveal whether the environment has been overloaded or not. Moreover, how the impact has changed in accordance with time and space is another question that we need to explore, as it directly reflects the implementation effect of sustainability policy. These objectives are of profound guiding significance for future socio-economic development. Though there has been research on the footprint analysis of Chinese society [31,32], explorations are seldom reported at the sub-national scale of this huge developing country. This study therefore aims to explore the two questions above based on a case analysis at a regional scale. It takes a typical city, Wuhan, in central China to track the dynamic changes of the city’s demand for raw materials and energies in terms of corresponding, biologically productive land types, and furthermore, to identify the component changes within the footprint in terms of material productivity and energy consumption. It is greatly valuable for local governments to adjust industrial structures and implement more suitable land use policies for reducing pressures on the planet. Sustainability 2016, 8, 329 3 of 14 Sustainability 2016, 8, 329 3 of 14 2. Study Area 2. StudyThis Areastudy was performed in Wuhan Municipality (113°41′E–115°05′E, 29°58′N–31°22′N), central China, which is the capital city of Hubei Province. It covers a total area of 8523 km2 with a ˝ 1 ˝ 1 ˝ 1 ˝ 1 populationThis study of 10.33 was million performed inhabitants in Wuhan (2014). Municipality Seated along (113 the middle41 E–115 reaches05 E, of 29 the58 YangtzeN–31 22River,N), 2 thecentral city China,is located which at the is the Yangtze capital Plain city ofwith Hubei only Province. small hilly It covers parts in a totalthe north area of and 8523 northeast. km with In a addition,population the of Yangtze 10.33 million River’s inhabitants largest tributary, (2014). Seated Hanjiang along River, the middle flows from reaches the of west the Yangtzeand into River, the city’sthe city downtown, is located and at thetens Yangtze of lakes Plain interconnect with only within small the hilly region; parts the in water the north bodies and occupy northeast. nearly In 20%addition, of the the metropolitan Yangtze River’s area. largest tributary, Hanjiang River, flows from the west and into the city’s downtown,Owning and to a tens considerably of lakes interconnect abundant withinamount the of region; water theresources water bodiesand good occupy heat nearly conditions, 20% of Wuhanthe metropolitan and its surrounding area. areas used to be an important grain‐ and fishery‐producing