Research On Ecological Carrying Capacity And Ecological Footprint Of Yongxiu County

In this paper, we probed into the sustainable development of Yongxiu County in Jiangxi Province by investigating the ecological footprint and ecological carrying capacity.In Yongxiu County, the net primary productivity (NPP) of natural vegetation of the western mountainous area , the eastern plain area , and the eastern lakeside area are 12.18tDW/(hm~2.a), 12.21tDW/(hm~2.a), 11.94tDW/(hm~2.a) respectively. The ecological carrying capacity of Yongxiu County is high theoretically, but the ecological environment is very fragile, its capability for resisting those adverse natural factors is most weak. According to the sensitive degree of every fragile factor, the order from strong to the weak is that vegetation >physiognomy >climate >soil >hydrology> geology. The main behavior of the ecological environment frangibility is that the rate and efficiency of vegetation covering is low, and soil erosion is serious with a varied topography, and the influence of floodwater and water logging is hard.The potential productivity of cultivated land in Yongxiu County is 14055.62 kg/hm~2, and the current productivity of cultivated land is 6175 kg/hm~2 , so there are 56% of the productive potentiality which can be developed. Because the local productivity level is relatively low, soil erosion is serious, the big flood is of great impact, the carrying capacity of cultivated land is limited, so the carrying capacity of cultivated land in Yongxiu County is only above medium-size.The index of water bearing capacity is 83.97 and the pressure degree of water bearing capacity is 0.30, in Yongxiu County. So the water resource is relatively abundant, it is still quite abundant to continue developing the water resource utilized.The per capita ecological footprint in 2003 of Yongxiu County is 1.5307hm~2/cap, and the per capita carrying capacity is 1.5327hm~2/cap, so the per capita ecological remainder is 0.0020hm~2/cap. The per capita ecological footprint and per capita carrying capacity is nearly fair. The output value of per ecological footprint is 426 dollars / hm~2, which is lower than which of Jiangxi Province (535 dollars / hm~2). So the efficiency of resource utilization is quite low.This research has also analyzed the ecological footprint in 1999-2002 years of Jiangxi Province. The per capita ecological footprint of Jiangxi Province improves year by year, the per capita carrying capacity drops year by year, there appeared ecological deficit in 2000, and the ecological deficit increases year by year.The economic development of Yongxiu County must take the road to sustainable development. In the future, three big pillar industries of Yongxiu County are characteristic ecological agriculture in the outskirts, the industry of fine chemistry industry relying mainly on organic silicon and ecological tourist industry.