Development Sustainability Comprehensive Assessment Of Jiangxi Province On Ecological Footprint Model

The paper first retrospects the background of the originative of sustainable development and its deep meaning. Comment on and analyze the index of sustainable development at home and abroad. With the further study of sustainable development, the quantitative measurement of it becomes the key of the problem. As one quantitative way to measure sustainable development, Ecological Footprint becomes popular with its visual definition, ample connotation and easy manipulation.The ecological footprint model is produced firstly by two Canadian ecologists William and Wackernagel, which provides a brief frame for checking the use of natural capital within different regional dimensions, and by checking the consummation of the nature and the capacity of the natural capital, determines the using conditions of the natural ecological system by the human, thus judges whether the development of a region or a country is sustainable. This model of sustainable development has apparent advantages, while its disadvantages are also existing, mainly represented by the ecological bias in the assessment , and an ignorance of the self-recovering and self-adjusting ability of the ecological system. The motive of this paper is to make use of the advantages and avoid the disadvantages of the ecosystem footprint model, and to try to produce a comprehensive assessment method with the ecosystem footprint model as the ground work, which comprehends the economic and social figures of sustainable development, in order to assess the sustenance of development within these three areas: ecological, economic and social sustainable development.In the meantime, this paper take Jiangxi Province as the realistic example of the comprehensive evaluation of regional sustainable development, individually evaluates the ecological, economic and social sustainable development and the comprehensive sustainable developing ability of Jiangxi Province since 2000 to 2004. The results show that the economy and the society sustainable development ability of Jiangxi province shows an upward tendency, while, the ecological sustainable development ability has been falling. From the system management prospective, the ecology unsustainable will make big influence on or hinder the sustainable development in Jiangxi province. From long term perspective, a society and economy that built on the over-consumption of ecological capacity will widen its way of sustainable development. To sustain the development of Jiangxi's society and economy, some measure must take place. This paper analyses the inherent reasons of the ecological pressure of Jiangxi province from many aspects: the ecological footprint, the ecological flexibility,the circumstances of population, and the ecological footprints per 10000GDP.The reasons as follow: (1) The population in Jiangxi province is increasing greatly, land resource is limited to every people, the ecological footprint is bigger than the ecological capacity as a whole. More badly, the ecological deficit is increasing, which is the mail reason of ecological pressure in Jiangxi province. (2) The ecological elastic index is dropping in waving lines which decreasing the ecological capacity of the ecosystem. (3)The ecological footprint of per 10000GDP is high relatively, the low efficient of resource using worsen the deficit of resource and the ecology damage.Finally, the paper put forward to some constructive advices and countermeasure of reducing ecological footprint need and improving the ecological capacity for there exists concrete problem in implementation of sustainable development process of Jiangxi province.