Resource Productivity in Tianjin Based on Ecological Footprint
JianLi,ZhePan
School of Management, TianjinUniversity of Technology, Tianjin, China
(, )
Abstract- [1]This paper regards the ecological footprint as the comprehensive indicator of natural resource to Calculation and analysis the resource productivity in Tianjin from 2000 to 2010. The results indicated that the resource productivity generally represented the trend of escalation in Tianjin. The resource productivity increased 1.66 times from 1128.778 yuan per hectare in 2000 to 3005.613 yuan per hectare in 2010, the average annual increase value was 187.68 yuan per hectare. The GDP growth rate of Tianjin exceeded the growth rate of ecological footprint, but the growth rate of resource productivity is less than GDP growth rate. So the pressure on the environment in Tianjin still increases gradually. The growth rate gap between resource productivity and GDP has narrowed since 2003. This is consistent with the fact of more pollution disposal investment, higher resource productivity and better environmental quality.
Key words- Ecologicalfootprint; Resource productivity; IPAT model; Tianjin
I. INTRODUCTION
At present, to develop recycling economy, and build a resource-conserving and environment-friendly society has become the important objectives of China, and the key to achieve this goal is resource productivity theory.Living Planet Report 2008of World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) tells us, we consume resources too fast, so that beyond the speed of updating of the resource.As reckless spending causing economic recession, reckless spending will also run out of global resources, and endanger future prosperity[1].Living Planet Report 2010 indicated that by 2030 the human will need two earth to absorb carbon dioxide and to satisfy the demand for natural resources[2].
The importance of resource productivity wasacknowledged in the very early, the British economist Jevons had involved it in “coal crisis” in 1865[3].Since the 1990s, resource productivity research has entered a rapid development period, and the definition and calculation method formed a preliminary unity.In short, resource productivity refers to output efficiency of resources[4].But this definition has its narrowness and one-sidedness, so the improvement of the definition continues on.For example, Material Input Per Service Unit (MIPS)[5] proposed by Hinterberger and Schmidt Bleek, is a definition which expanded resource productivity from the output per unit resource input to the service attached to per resource.From the essence of sustainable development, the emergence of MIPS is a great progress undoubtedly.
Since the reform and opening up, China's economy has been in a steady, rapid growth pattern, but economic growth largely depends on the expense of resources, the economic growth pattern is characterized by “high investment, high consumption, high pollution”[6].At present, China is in a stage of accelerated development of urbanizationand industrialization.The contradiction between economic development and environment and resources protection is becoming increasinglyacute[7].Sustainable economic growth must be constrained by resource bottlenecks, so we have to improve the efficiency of resource utilization on the basis of protecting environment.
II.METHODOLOGY
- Principle
Resource productivity is the ratio between the Value of a country or regionor enterprise socio-economic development and the physical quantity of resources and environment consumption[8]. It represents the relationship between economic growth and environmental pressures.The resource productivityis a good substitute for labor productivity, but thenotion can’tbepracticedinafeasibleway[9].Thereason is thatnoindicatorhasbeen found to denote the collectiveconsumptionofnaturalresources.Therefore，theonlyway is toestimatethe productivityofenergy, land, water, materialsindividually.
Ecological footprint (EF)methodpresentsamethodologicallysimplebutintegratedframeworkfornationalnaturalaccountingof capital[10]，which is capableofmeasuringthe impactofHuman’s consumptionon ecosystem. Throughtheintroductionoftheecologicalproductiveareatorealizethe integratedof naturalresources，theecological footprintcanmeasuretheconsumption ofnaturalresourcescomprehensively.Therefore，EF canrepresenttheinputofallkindsofnaturalresourcesinthe productionfunctioninsomeway.
B.Ecological footprint
“Ecological footprint” (EF), refers to the biologically productive land area (including land and water)consumption of resources and services to produce a certain population, and to absorb the waste these populations produce[11]. All of the indicators which ecological footprint method involved should be replaced by the corresponding biologically productive land area.
This method not only reflects the occupation of the natural capital, but also reflected the impact of human consumption of natural.
C.Resource productivity
“Resource productivity” (RP) is a measure of the resource use efficiency[12].It combines ecological footprint indicators and economic indicators to comprehensively reflect the efficient use of resources. “Resource productivity” (RP) is the ratio of GDP and ecological footprint.
(1)
EF refers to ecological footprint. Because natural resource is limited, and in the mining will produce the environment load, we should improve the resource productivity to create more GDP by fewer resources.
D. Synergy effects of economic development and environmental pressures
In the ideal state, human and nature shouldlive in harmony, co-evolution and balance each other.
This paper uses IPAT model to measure the relationship among material consumption, environmental degradation and economic growth.
IPAT model was first proposed by famous demographer Ehrlichand Holdren of Stanford University.It is actually an identity about the environmental impact (I) , population (P), affluence (A) and technology (T) [13]. It can be expressed as:
(2)
“A” represents the average annual per capita GDP. It can be expressed as:.From a resource perspective, “T” represents the resource consumption per unit GDP, that is:.
Consideringthat the resource productivity can represent the relationship between economic growth and environmental pressures, the IPAT model can be used to analysis resource productivity.It can be seen that the RP and T has a reciprocal relationship, equation (2) can be expressed as:
(3)Set the base year's GDP and resource productivity for GDP0 and RP0, the average annual growth rate of GDP and resource productivity for RGDP and RRP, thenGDP and resource productivity in year n are as follows:
(4) (5)
The environment load of year n is:
(6)
Equation (6) shows that, when GDP and resource productivity has grown exponentially, the environmental load (or resource consumption) may rise, remain unchanged or decrease,its conditions are as follows:
(1) If , the environmental load (or resource consumption) will increase with GDP growth year by year, and the greater the difference between RGDP and RRP, the faster environmental load (or resource consumption) increases;
(2) If , the environmental load (or resource consumption) and economic growth will achieve "decoupling" (no matter how GDP grow, environmental loador resource consumption will not rise);
(3) If , the environmental load (or resource consumption) will decline with GDP growth year by year, and the greater the difference between RGDP and RRP, the faster environmental load (or resource consumption) declines;
III. DATA COLLECTION AND PROCESSING
This paper uses acomprehensive method to calculate the ecological footprint of Tianjin. The data is from calendar year “Tianjin Statistical Yearbook”. In the data collection process, according to the results already at home and abroad, the actual situationin Tianjin, do the following treatment:
A.Divided consumeritems, and calculate the consumption of major consumer items and waste elimination on natural resources.In this paper, consumer project is divided into three categories: the consumption of biological resources (mainly the consumption of agricultural products, livestock products, aquatic productsand forest products), energy consumption, building land.
B.The average yield data, these two types of resource consumption were converted into the six categories of ecological productivity of the main land and water ecosystems in accordance with the region's ecological capacity and waste elimination, the assimilative capacity of the area (arable land, grassland, woodland, fossil energy land, built land and waters)
C.Conversion. Per unit area of arable land, fossil energy land, grassland, woodland and other biological production capacity very different, in order to make the calculation results into a standard of comparison, it is necessaryto multiply each of the biologically productive area by an equivalence factor,to transfer it into unified, comparable biological productive area.Equivalence factors refer to the comparison of a certain type of land with world average productivity of land. Each kind ofecological system equivalence factor is determined by the unit space area of each ecosystem type relative biomass production.WWF's latest adjustment, namely: arable land, 2.19; grassland, 0.48; waters, 0.36; woodland, 1.35;built land, 2.19; fossil energy land, 1.35 [14].They weigh the equivalence factorsbasing on the maximum potential crop yields of the various types of land estimated by the FAO Global agro-ecological zones (GAEZ) and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) [15].In the specific calculation, because continental shelf is the biggest currently available marine resources so marine waters area mainly refers to the continental shelf.
TABLEI
ECOLOGICALFOOTPRINTANDITSCOMPONENTSINTIANJINFROM 2000TO2010
Year / Per capita ecological footprintof various types land（hm2/person) / Per capita ecological footprint(hm2/person) / Population（million） / Ecological footprint（hm2)Arable land / Grassland / Woodland / Fossil energy land / Built land / Waters
2000 / 0.224 / 0.5491 / 0.0043 / 0.7882 / 0.0311 / 0.0565 / 1.6532 / 912.00 / 15077184
2001 / 0.2436 / 0.5819 / 0.0043 / 0.9071 / 0.0375 / 0.0589 / 1.8332 / 913.98 / 16755081
2002 / 0.238 / 0.5973 / 0.0043 / 1.0726 / 0.0594 / 0.0596 / 2.0312 / 919.05 / 18667744
2003 / 0.2419 / 0.6089 / 0.0043 / 1.1132 / 0.0798 / 0.062 / 2.1101 / 926.00 / 19539526
2004 / 0.247 / 0.6064 / 0.0043 / 1.1936 / 0.0882 / 0.0651 / 2.2046 / 932.55 / 20558997
2005 / 0.2523 / 0.6131 / 0.0043 / 1.2376 / 0.1047 / 0.0657 / 2.2777 / 939.31 / 21394664
2006 / 0.2512 / 0.6149 / 0.0043 / 1.3368 / 0.1112 / 0.0661 / 2.3845 / 948.89 / 22626282
2007 / 0.2506 / 0.5654 / 0.0046 / 1.4463 / 0.1162 / 0.0683 / 2.4513 / 959.10 / 23510418
2008 / 0.2514 / 0.5764 / 0.0047 / 1.5634 / 0.1282 / 0.0685 / 2.5926 / 968.87 / 25118924
2009 / 0.2484 / 0.5896 / 0.0047 / 1.6273 / 0.1392 / 0.0704 / 2.6795 / 979.84 / 26254813
2010 / 0.243 / 0.6183 / 0.0051 / 1.6314 / 0.1134 / 0.0691 / 2.6803 / 984.85 / 26396935
TABLEII
TIANJINRESOURCEPRODUCTIVITY
Year / Ecological footprint（hm2） / Ecological footprintgrowth rate（%） / Real GDP(one hundred million yuan) / Real GDP growth rate（%） / Resource productivity（yuan/ hm2） / Resource productivity growth rate（%）2000 / 15077184 / — / 1701.88 / — / 1128.778 / —
2001 / 16755081 / 11.13 / 1720.312 / 1.1 / 1026.74 / -9.04
2002 / 18667744 / 11.42 / 1931.084 / 12.3 / 1034.45 / 0.75
2003 / 19539526 / 4.67 / 2190.836 / 13.5 / 1121.233 / 8.39
2004 / 20558997 / 5.22 / 2600.487 / 18.7 / 1264.89 / 12.81
2005 / 21394664 / 4.06 / 3086.791 / 18.7 / 1442.785 / 14.06
2006 / 22626282 / 5.76 / 3691.184 / 19.6 / 1631.37 / 13.07
2007 / 23510418 / 3.91 / 4389.554 / 18.9 / 1867.068 / 14.45
2008 / 25118924 / 6.84 / 5298.238 / 20.7 / 2109.262 / 12.97
2009 / 26254813 / 4.52 / 6719.01 / 26.8 / 2559.154 / 21.33
2010 / 26396935 / 0.54 / 7933.898 / 18.1 / 3005.613 / 17.45
According to the calculated results finishing Table 2, Table 2 is for the 2000-2010 real GDP in Tianjin, the ecological footprint (EF) and resource productivity (RP) values. In 2010, the GDP, ecological footprint (EF) and resource productivity (RP), respectively, compared with the 2000 increased by 442.0%, 75.1% and 209.6%, with an average annual growth rate of 44.20%, 0.75% and 20.96% respectively.In the analysis of 11 years, Tianjin's annual growth rate of resource productivity is less than the annual GDP growth rate, and is consistent with condition (1).
IV. CONCLUSION
Through the calculation of the Tianjin’s resource productivity and the detailed analysis of the relationship between economic development and environmental pressure, the following main conclusions can be reached:
A.The analysis of Tianjin's GDP, the ecological footprint (EF) and resource productivity (RP) in 2000-2010 shows that, Tianjin's GDP growth rate is higher than the growth rate of the ecological footprint (EF), butthe growth rate of resource productivity islower than the GDP growth rate. That indicates that environment pressure of Tianjinis still increasing.
B.Since 2003, GDP and resource productivity gap was becoming narrowed. The reality is consistent with the fact of more pollution disposal investment, higher resource productivity and better environmental quality.
C.The resource productivity of Tianjinhad a gradual upward trend, but the IPAT model analysis results showed that the“high investment, high consumption, high pollution” mode of economic development had not fundamental changed.
D.By improving resource productivity and promoting the absolute reduction of consumption of substances (or resource),the sustainable development of Tianjin can be finally achieved.
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Fund Project: Tianjin Education Commission, the major project of Social Sciences (2011ZD031,), Tianjin Science and Technology Plan Project (11ZLZLZT08100), the Ministry of Education Humanities and social science research projects (11YJA630046)