Ecological Carrying Capacity Analysis

I. Ecological footprint analysis

Ecological footprint (Ecological footprint) refers to the amount of natural capital, such as land and water, required to support the nature of the economy and population of a particular region, energy consumption and waste disposal, measured by spatial area under the existing technical conditions. The model examines the space in which natural capital is consumed in terms of specific biophysical quantities, and compares the space in which the consumption of a given natural capital is measured (the ecological footprint) with the ecological carrying capacity of the region to measure the sustainable development of the region. The ecological footprint is expressed as the biologically productive area required to produce the resources consumed by the population of a region and to absorb the waste generated by that population. The biologically productive area is divided into six categories: arable land, grassland, forest land, watersheds, built-up land and land used for fossil fuels. Ecological carrying capacity refers to the sum of all biologically productive land areas (including waters) that a region actually provides to humans.

In 2002, the per capita ecological footprint deficit of the Shandong Peninsula Urban Agglomeration was 2.4 times the per capita ecological carrying capacity, and if the area for biodiversity conservation (12%) is not taken into account, the per capita ecological footprint deficit is still 2.1 times the per capita ecological carrying capacity (Table 9-2).

Table 9-2 Summary of Ecological Footprint and Ecological Carrying Capacity of Shandong Peninsula Urban Agglomeration

Second, the analysis of resource and environmental pressure

Shandong Peninsula Urban Agglomeration has a total area of 64,956km2, and the spatial carriers, the total amount of resources, and the carrying capacity of the environment needed for the development of the human race are all limited in this limited area. Limited, but for a long time people did not pay enough attention to the limited resources, environmental carrying capacity and the fragility of the ecological environment system, focusing only on economic development and the improvement of people's material standard of living, focusing only on the ecological environment system to ask for, and do not pay attention to the effective and reasonable use of natural resources and the protection of the ecological environment in the limited conditions, which resulted in the crisis of the resources and ecosystems of the destruction of the development of urban agglomeration of the Shandong Peninsula has caused a huge impact on the development of the urban agglomeration of the Shandong Peninsula. This has caused resource crisis and ecosystem destruction, as well as tremendous pressure on the development of Shandong Peninsula urban agglomeration. At present, the trend of increasing environmental pollution and ecological damage in the urban agglomeration of Shandong Peninsula has not been fundamentally improved, the relative insufficiency of resources, insufficient environmental capacity, the large population base and high growth, and the aging problem is serious, which are the actual problems and pressures in the process of development of the urban agglomeration of Shandong Peninsula.

The ecological environment is the basis for the survival and development of human society. However, all kinds of environmental pollution and ecological damage produced by human economic activities have created more and more pressure on this foundation. If this pressure exceeds the maximum capacity of the ecological environment, it will cause the collapse of the natural ecosystem, and then the human society will not be able to survive. Therefore, the pressure index of the ecology is used to quantitatively evaluate the pressure of economic development on the ecological environment and to coordinate the economic, ecological and environmental effects of sustainable development research. The pressure index of ecology is defined as the ratio of the per capita ecological footprint of renewable resources to the ecological carrying capacity of a country or region, which represents the degree of pressure on the regional ecological environment (Zhao Xiangui et al., 2006; Xu Fuliu et al., 2004).

In order to further analyze the development pressure on the ecological environment system of the Shandong Peninsula Urban Agglomeration, to coordinate the contradiction between development and ecological environment in the Shandong Peninsula Urban Agglomeration, and to promote the benign operation of the natural-economical-social composite environmental system of the Peninsula Urban Agglomeration, a sustainable development indicator system for the Shandong Peninsula Urban Agglomeration has been established. A sustainable development index system was established to quantitatively assess and spatially analyze the pressure and level of sustainable development in the urban agglomeration region of Shandong Peninsula.

The total pressure index refers to the combination of population, resource and ecological environment pressure indices. The average total pressure index of Shandong Peninsula Urban Agglomeration reaches 0.56, of which only 10 counties and municipalities with total pressure index less than 0.50 are under light pressure, accounting for 20% of the total area of Shandong Peninsula Urban Agglomeration, and most of them are distributed in the western fringe of Shandong Peninsula Urban Agglomeration and the central part of Shandong Peninsula Urban Agglomeration, and they are counties and cities with relative economic backwardness; and there are 24 counties and municipalities with total pressure index of 0.50-0.59, accounting for 24% of the total area of Shandong Peninsula Urban Agglomeration. There are 24, accounting for 54% of the total area of the Shandong Peninsula, mostly distributed in the central part of the Shandong Peninsula urban agglomeration of medium-sized cities; total pressure index of 0.60 to 0.69 of the total pressure of the heavier counties and municipalities, including 8 counties and municipalities, accounting for 16% of the total area of the Shandong Peninsula, mostly for the economic development of the relatively good areas; total pressure index of 0.70 or more heavy pressure counties and municipalities in Jinan, Zibo, Qingdao, Longkou and other 4, accounting for 10% of the total area of the Shandong Peninsula, there are 3 for the distribution of megacities on the Jiaoji line (Table 9-3). Taken together, 80% of the areas in the Shandong Peninsula have a total pressure index of more than 0.50.

Table 9-3 Total Pressure Index Zoning of Shandong Peninsula Urban Agglomeration