Ecological footprint of Shandong, China

Article type: Research Article

Authors: CUI, Yu-jing^; | Luc, Hens | ZHU, Yong-guan | ZHAO, Jing-zhu

Affiliations: Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China | Human Ecology Department, Free University of Brussels, Belgium

Note: [] Corresponding author. E-mail: yujing3@yahoo.com

Abstract: Ecological footprint has been given much attention and widely praised as an effective heuristic and pedagogic device for presenting current total human resource use in a way that communicates easily to almost everyone since 1996 when Wackernagel and Rees proposed it as a sustainable development indicator. Ecological footprint has been improving on its calculation and still can be a benchmark to measure sustainable development although there are still ongoing debates about specific methods for calculating the ecological footprint. This paper calculates the ecological footprint of Shandong Province, China with the methodology developed by Wackemagel and analyzes the current situation of sustainable development in Shandong.

Keywords: ecological footprint, carrying capacity, sustainable development, Shandong

Journal: Journal of Environmental Sciences, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 167-172, 2004