TY - JOUR
T1 - Are the drylands in northern China sustainable? A perspective from ecological footprint dynamics from 1990 to 2010
AU - Li, Jingwei
AU - Liu, Zhifeng
AU - He, Chunyang
AU - Tu, Wei
AU - Sun, Zexiang
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2016/5/15
Y1 - 2016/5/15
N2 - The drylands in northern China (DNC), characterized by water scarcity, high climatic variability, and infertile soil, are crucial for China's sustainable development in the context of rapid urbanization. However, few studies have systematically investigated its sustainability. Our objective was to assess the sustainability of the DNC according to their ecological footprint (EF) dynamics from 1990 to 2010. We analyzed EF in the DNC at multiple scales ranging from the whole, to four dryland subtypes, to the drylands in each province. We found that the total EF in the DNC increased from 3.48 × 108 global hectares (gha) in 1990 to 1.26 × 109 gha in 2010, with a growth of 2.63 times, resulting in a more than 14 times increase of ecological deficit from 6.26 × 107 gha to 9.63 × 108 gha. In addition, the water withdrawal increased from 133.29 km3 to 153.23 km3 with a growth rate of 14.96%, while the Human Development Index grew from 0.62 to 0.79. We concluded that the DNC has already become unsustainable after the rapid increases of EF and water withdrawal from 1990 to 2010. We argue that effective management is needed to maintain and improve the environmental sustainability of the DNC.
AB - The drylands in northern China (DNC), characterized by water scarcity, high climatic variability, and infertile soil, are crucial for China's sustainable development in the context of rapid urbanization. However, few studies have systematically investigated its sustainability. Our objective was to assess the sustainability of the DNC according to their ecological footprint (EF) dynamics from 1990 to 2010. We analyzed EF in the DNC at multiple scales ranging from the whole, to four dryland subtypes, to the drylands in each province. We found that the total EF in the DNC increased from 3.48 × 108 global hectares (gha) in 1990 to 1.26 × 109 gha in 2010, with a growth of 2.63 times, resulting in a more than 14 times increase of ecological deficit from 6.26 × 107 gha to 9.63 × 108 gha. In addition, the water withdrawal increased from 133.29 km3 to 153.23 km3 with a growth rate of 14.96%, while the Human Development Index grew from 0.62 to 0.79. We concluded that the DNC has already become unsustainable after the rapid increases of EF and water withdrawal from 1990 to 2010. We argue that effective management is needed to maintain and improve the environmental sustainability of the DNC.
KW - Drylands in northern China
KW - Ecological footprint
KW - Multiple scales
KW - Sustainability
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84960910072&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.02.088
DO - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.02.088
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84960910072
SN - 0048-9697
VL - 553
SP - 223
EP - 231
JO - Science of the Total Environment
JF - Science of the Total Environment
ER -