Study On The Ecological Service Flow Of China In The Open Economy

Ecological service was an important source of human welfare, and was the environmental conditions and existence utilities for mankind, which was formed and maintained by natural ecosystems and its ecological process. With the increasing openness of the economy, and the increasing economic ties between countries and regions, inter-regional spatial flow of ecological service had become increasingly frequent, and had produced an important impact on the sustainable development of national and regional levels. Under the open conditions, the ecological services appeared large-scale spatial flow transfer in the product trade. In view of that, in this paper, the theory and measurement method of ecological services spatial transfer was constructed by revealing the ecological service flow implied in the product trade, and the effects of ecological service space transfer on China’s sustainable development was researched by studying the measurement of the ecological services spatial flow transfer in international trade and inter provincial trade in China.The results of analysis of the theory and measurement of ecological services spatial transfer showed that:Spatial flow of ecological services was mainly due to the openness of ecosystem and economic systems. Therefore, ecological service flows had two forms of non-market and market flow. Spatial flow of ecological services induced by human economic activities had several characteristics, which were the implicit, the concomitant and the objective existence of the flow. Spatial flow of ecological services induced by human economic activities could be studied and measured from three aspects:First, the implied natural resources, the second was the implied energy and carbon emissions; the third was the implied pollution emissions. In the specific measure model, the ecological footprint, virtual water, and water footprint could be used to measure the implicit natural resources; the implicit energy or carbon footprint could be used to measure the implicit energy flow; the implicit pollution and the pollution footprint could be used to measure the implied pollution emissions.The results of empirical study of ecological services flow in Chinese international trade showed that:During the research period, China’s imports of natural resources were greater than exports and showed a growth trend, so the implicit natural resources to the domestic net transfer were achieved by foreign trade in China, with the transfer amount increased from 6770.58 million gha in 1995 to 244.372 million gha in 2013. In terms of the implied pollution emissions, the COD and SO2 emissions from imported products were generally less than the export products. In 2002-2013 years, the international trade led to Chinese domestic COD and SO2 emissions increased by 14.7921 and 6.1189 million tons, with an average annual increase row of 1.2337 and 0.5098 million tons. In terms of the implicit carbon emissions, in addition to imports of 2002-2004 carbon in amounts was greater than exports, international trade leaded to an increase of 17.01 billion tons of carbon emissions in China. The international flow of ecological services had an important impact on the sustainable development of China.1995-2013 years, China’s input of ecological services by international trade had an average annual reduction of ecological footprint of 1.19 million gha. The environmental deficit in international trade led to COD overall emission reduction task was delayed 5 years to complete, total sulfur dioxide emission reduction targets was postponed 1 year to complete. According to the evaluation of the virtual governance cost method, within the study period, trade led to influx of environmental value was less than outflow. China was in the state of "deficit" in the exchange of environmental value, and the maximum loss of year environmental value of the deficit reached 233.546 billion Yuan.The results of empirical study on the inter-provincial ecological service flows in China showed that:From inter-provincial net flow pattern of ecological footprint, in the course of provincial trade, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Tianjin, Jiangshu, Shanxi, Beijing and other 15 provinces obtained input of ecological services from outside the region. From inter-provincial net flow pattern of implicit sulfur dioxide, in 30 provinces only Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Guangdong, Zhejiang and Jilin the transfer of implicit sulfur dioxide were in positive value. If the inter-regional flow of ecological service was taken into account, in 30 provinces Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and other 14 provinces got relief from ecological debt, on the contrary Inner Heilongjiang, Hebei, Xinjiang, Anhui and other 12 provinces increased ecological debt. If the inter-regional transfer of implicit sulfur dioxide was taken into account, in 2010, the number of provinces to achieve emission reduction targets reduced from 30 to 26.