Sustainable Development Indicator System And Sustainability Assessment In Zhejiang Province

The development approaches just focused only on the economic growth is becoming limited as the dire consequences are inormus. Sustainable development is increasingly accepted all over the world and the development is moving forward with the harmony between human and the nature.Zhejiang Province has earned a special position in Chinese economy. Due to its advantageous location, Zhejiang Province has acquired a great economic progress during the period of reforms and opening-up drive in late 1970s. In the meantime, it is trying to reduce the negative effects caused by the industrial development through controlling the pollution from the origin, improving the waste disposal technologies etc. Besides, the government encourages recycling processes in order to protect the environment and to improve the quality of peoples' life as well.The objective of this study was to evaluate the current status of development in the Zhejiang province based on the theory of sustainable development. A procedure and a conceptual framework of an indicator system was developed after refering a large number of domestic and international studies. The conclusions derived by this study are as follows:(1) The IDHI is always increasing during the period 1995-2004 in Zhejiang Province, especially Economical Development Index and Entironment Quality Index. On the contrary, the Resource Support Index is discreasing from 2002. It's caused by the population pressure and natural resource scarcity.(2) Based on the different weights given by the experts, the Resource Support Index accounted the highest value and followed by the Economical Development Index, the Entrionment Quality Index and the Social Security Index respectively. According to the weights, we can conclude that human are paying more attention to resource and economy.(3) The skilled human resource is gradually expanding in Zhejiang province. It is rich in forest resources but scarce in natural resource such as arable land, clean water, mineral etc. It is the key factor that hinder the economical development.Zhejiang should develop the excellent methodologies to utilize these limited resources in an efficient way. In addition they should emphasize on recycling economy, pollution control at its origin and introduction of waste minimizing production stratagies. If the government can fulfill these requirements, Zhejiang will be a greener zone in China.(4) The value of IDHI for all cities is between 47 and 55 in 2003. The highest index was obtained by Lishui and followd by Hangzhou, Jinhua, Ningbo, Taizhou, Quzhou, Wenzhou, Zhoushan, Shaoxing, Jiaxing and Huzhou. Lishui is a mountainous area located in the west of Zhejiang province. Although it develops slowly, it is blessed with natural resources and attractive environment which led to earn the highest IDHI. As a whole, IDHI in the cities of north-west Zhejiang is higher than that of cities situated along the coast and the north-east Zhejiang.