Analysis on The Dynamic Evolution Characteristics of

Three-Dimensional Ecological Footprint in Shaanxi Province

Zhaowen Duan

, Shan Xie

and Yuanli Su

School of Tourism & Institute of Humanities and Geography, Xi'an International Studies University,

Xi'an, Shaanxi, 710128, China

Keywords: Footprint Size, Footprint Depth, Ecological Sustainability, Shaanxi Province.

Abstract: With the accelerated pace of industrialization and urbanization, the rapid economic development of Shaanxi

Province is accompanied by increasingly prominent ecological and environmental problems. An improved

three-dimensional ecological footprint model was used to analyze the evolution characteristics of ecological

footprint in Shaanxi Province from 2010 to 2019. The results showed that 1) The per capita footprint size and

per capita footprint depth in Shaanxi Province from 2010-2019 showed an overall increasing trend. 2) The

per capita three-dimensional ecological footprint increased at a rate of 10% year by year, and the per capita

ecological carrying capacity has been maintained at about 0.8 hm

; By 2019, the per capita ecological deficit

reached 3.0264 hm

, and Shaanxi Province's ecological development was in an unsustainable state. In the

future, we need to pay attention to the reasonable control of urbanization process, improve the efficiency of

energy utilization, and advocate economical consumption patterns, so as to realize the sustainable

development of Shaanxi Province.

1 INTRODUCTION

With the economic development and the

improvement of people's living standards, the

uncontrolled use of resources by humans has led to

land degradation, soil erosion, and a sharp decrease

in biodiversity, which has seriously restricted the

sustainable development of urban ecological

construction. In 1992, William E. Rees, a Canadian

scholar, proposed the "ecological footprint model",

which is mainly used to measure the harmony of

human-land relationship and ecological sustainable

development in the region (Rees, 1992), and

Wackernagel further supplemented and improved the

ecological footprint model (Wackernagel, 1999).

Later, Chinese scholars such as Xu Zhongmin and

Zhang Zhiqiang introduced the model into China

(Xu, 2000; Mo, 2020). It has been widely used by

scholars at home and abroad because of its concise

framework and easy operation (Niccolucci, 2009).

However, with further research, it was found that the

model only focuses on capital flow in natural capital

and ignores the capital stock. Therefore, Niccolucci

introduced two indicators of footprint depth and

footprint size to classify and measure natural capital

use, which solved the problem that capital stock was

ignored in previous models and developed the

research scale from two-dimensional to three-

dimensional (Fang, Gao, Li, 2013). Fang Kai further

improved the defects of the three-dimensional

ecological footprint model (Fang, 2012; Zhang,

2019), which not only measured the use of natural

capital from the time and space levels, but also

overcame the situation that the ecological deficit or

ecological surplus among different land types offset

each other in the accumulation process of the

traditional three-dimensional ecological footprint

model.

Through the summary of relevant ecological

footprint studies, it can be seen that ecological

footprint theory and models have been applied by

some scholars to evaluate the natural capital

utilization of land, water and other resources (Wu,

2020; Niccolucci, 2011), but most of them are still

based on two-dimensional ecological footprint

models, and the application of improved three-

dimensional ecological footprint models is still

relatively lacking, and previous studies have focused

on macroscopic scales such as global, national, and

urban clusters (Niccolucci, 2011; Zheng, 2018).

Therefore, this paper analyzes the dynamic evolution

characteristics of the ecological footprint of Shaanxi

292

Duan, Z., Xie, S. and Su, Y.

Analysis on The Dynamic Evolution Characteristics of Three-Dimensional Ecological Footprint in Shaanxi Province.

DOI: 10.5220/0011735100003607

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Public Management, Digital Economy and Internet Technology (ICPDI 2022), pages 292-296

ISBN: 978-989-758-620-0

 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Province from 2010 to 2019 based on the improved

three-dimensional ecological footprint model, in

order to promote its ecological environment

construction and sustainable development level.

2 RESEARCH DESIGN

2.1 Research Method

Footprint size refers to the area of biologically

productive land actually occupied within the carrying

capacity and indicates the level of human

appropriation of capital flows, with spatial attributes.

Footprint depth refers to the number of multiples of

the land area that humans need for themselves to meet

the actual resource consumption and the number of

years required to regenerate these resources,

indicating the level of human depletion of the capital

stock with temporal attributes (Fang, 2013). The

calculation equation is as follows:

(1)

3, ,

size region depth region

EF EF EF=×

(2)

(,0)

depth region

EF EC

−



(3)

where EF

size,region

represents the size of the regional

footprint; EF

depth,region

represents the depth of the

regional footprint; EF

, EC

are the ecological

footprint and ecological carrying capacity of the i-th

land type; EF

represents the regional three-

dimensional ecological footprint.

2.2 Data Source and Processing

According to the resource consumption status of

Shaanxi Province, this paper combines the research

results of Guo Xiurui, Wang Ruijie and Shi Lei (Guo,

2003; Wang, 2020; Shi, 2017), and constructs the

type of ecological footprint account as shown in

Table 1. The consumption data of the main products

of biological resources account and fossil energy

account in Shaanxi Province are obtained from the

Shaanxi Statistical Yearbook and Shaanxi Economic

and Social Development Statistical Bulletin from

2011 to 2020.

3 RESULTS

3.1 Dynamic Change of Per Capita

Footprint Size

It can be seen from Table 2, the per capita footprint

size in Shaanxi Province showed a slow upward trend

from 0.5105hm

in 2010 to 0.6352hm

in 2019, with

an average annual growth rate of 2.4%, reflecting the

increasing occupation of natural capital flow by

residents in Shaanxi Province. In terms of different

land types, the per capita footprint size of cultivated

land decreased slowly during the decade; forest land

and construction land were on the rise as a whole;

grassland and water area did not change significantly,

remaining at 0.0062 hm

and 0.0014 hm

respectively. The contribution of per capita footprint

size of each land type was in the following order:

cultivated land > forest land > construction land >

grassland > water area, which indicated that the main

carriers of natural capital flow in Shaanxi Province

were cultivated land and forest land. Cultivated land

accounts for more than 66% of the footprint size in

Shaanxi Province, providing food demand for

residents; forest land occupies the second largest

share, which is mainly used to provide wood for

economic construction and absorb greenhouse gases

such as CO

produced by human activities.

Table 1: Types of ecological footprint accounts in Shaanxi Province.

Account type

Consumption items Land type

Biological resources

account

Grain, oilseeds, vegetables, melons and fruits, pork, poultry

eggs, pastries, flue-cured tobacco, tea, wine, cotton

Cultivated land

Beef, mutton, poultry, milk Grassland

Wood, walnut, chestnut Forest land

Aquatic product Water area

Fossil energy account Electric power Construction land

Raw coal, coke, crude oil, gasoline, kerosene, diesel oil, natural

gas

Fossil energy land

(, )

ize region i i

EF EF EC



Analysis on The Dynamic Evolution Characteristics of Three-Dimensional Ecological Footprint in Shaanxi Province

293

Table 2: Per capita footprint size of Shaanxi Province from 2010 to 2019.

Year

Cultivated

lan

Forest land Grassland Water area

Construction

lan

Per capita footprint

size

2010 0.4435 0.0355 0.0069 0.0014 0.0232 0.5105

2011 0.4363 0.0514 0.0049 0.0014 0.0265 0.5205

2012 0.4346 0.1000 0.0064 0.0015 0.0286 0.5712

2013 0.4330 0.0876 0.0064 0.0014 0.0309 0.5594

2014 0.4317 0.0997 0.0063 0.0014 0.0327 0.5719

2015 0.4305 0.1117 0.0063 0.0014 0.0325 0.5824

2016 0.4286 0.1236 0.0062 0.0014 0.0384 0.5982

2017 0.4255 0.1355 0.0062 0.0014 0.0416 0.6102

2018 0.4216 0.1453 0.0062 0.0014 0.0455 0.6201

2019 0.4197 0.1583 0.0062 0.0014 0.0497 0.6352

Table 3: Per capita footprint depth of Shaanxi Province from 2010 to 2019.

Year Cultivated land Forest land Grassland Water area

Construction

lan

Per capita footprint

depth

2010 1.5248 1.0000 21.0519 19.8571 1.0000 3.7360

2011 1.5517 1.0000 30.2354 18.7857 1.0000 3.9406

2012 1.6188 1.0000 23.1009 19.1845 1.0000 4.3965

2013 1.1957 1.0000 8.3126 8.3097 1.0000 4.5885

2014 1.2367 1.0000 8.7595 7.8125 1.0000 4.8522

2015 1.3122 1.0000 9.8327 8.8068 1.0000 5.1915

2016 1.2974 1.0000 11.0435 9.0909 1.0000 5.6478

2017 1.3737 1.0000 11.1076 10.0142 1.0000 6.0425

2018 1.4895 1.0000 11.7318 10.7955 1.0000 5.7141

2019 1.4449 1.0000 14.3182 12.7131 1.0000 6.0183

3.2 Dynamic Change of Per Capita

Footprint Depth

As can be seen from Table 3, the per capita footprint

depth in Shaanxi Province showed a continuous

upward trend from 2010 to 2019, from 3.7360 hm

2010 to 6.0183 hm

in 2019, with an average annual

growth rate of 8.3%. In the past 10 years, the per

capita footprint depth of Shaanxi Province has always

been greater than 1, indicating that the capital flow

can no longer meet people's demand for natural

resources, and the capital stock needs to be consumed

to make up for the shortage of capital flow. From the

perspective of different land types, the per capita

footprint depth of cultivated land changed little and

was basically the same as that in 2010; grassland and

water area showed a fluctuating downward state. The

per capita footprint depth of cultivated land, forest

land and grassland were all greater than 1. Therefore,

these three types of land could not meet the ecological

needs and the capital stock was excessively

consumed. The per capita footprint depth of forest

land and construction land was equal to 1, indicating

that these two types of land were in ecological

surplus, and the consumption of capital flow could

meet people's consumption demand for these two

types of natural resources. The contribution of the per

capita footprint depth of each land type was in the

following order: grassland > water area > cultivated

land > forest land = construction land, which

indicated that the residents of Shaanxi Province

consume the most capital stock in grassland and

water area. The per capita footprint depth reached

6.0183hm

in 2019, which indicated that Shaanxi

Province needs 6.0183 times the existing land area to

meet the demand for natural resources for socio-

economic development.

3.3 Change in Supply and Demand of

Per Capita Ecological Footprint

It can be seen from Figure 1, the per capita three-

dimensional ecological footprint showed an overall

upward trend, from 1.9072 hm

in 2010 to 3.8231 hm

in 2019, with an average annual growth rate of 10%,

indicating that the residents of Shaanxi Province have

an increasing demand for resources. The per capita

ecological carrying capacity has not fluctuated

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Figure 1: Per capita ecological footprint, carrying capacity and ecological deficit of Shaanxi Province from 2010 to 2019.

greatly and has been maintained at 0.8 hm

indicating that the ecological supply in Shaanxi

Province was relatively stable. The per capita

ecological deficit increased from 1.1262hm

in 2010

to 3.0264hm

in 2019, which was consistent with the

change trend of per capita ecological footprint. As of

2019, the per capita ecological footprint was 4.8

times of the per capita carrying capacity, indicating

that residents' demand for resources has far exceeded

the supply of environmental ecology, and the

ecological economic development of Shaanxi

Province has been in an unsustainable state. The

intensification of resource consumption due to rapid

population growth and the consumption of fossil

energy due to the need for vigorous industrial

development for economic and social development

are important reasons for the continuous increase of

ecological deficit in Shaanxi Province.

4 CONCLUSION AND

DISCUSSION

Based on the improved three-dimensional ecological

footprint model, this paper analyzes the dynamic

change characteristics of the footprint size, footprint

depth and ecological deficit in Shaanxi Province. The

main conclusions are as follows:

(1) From 2010 to 2019, the per capita footprint

size of Shaanxi Province showed a slow upward

trend, indicating that residents' occupation of capital

flow was increasing day by day. The per capita

footprint depth showed a continuous upward trend,

indicating that the capital flow could not meet the

needs of residents, and the capital stock was

continuously consumed.

(2) The per capita three-dimensional ecological

footprint was on the rise, with an average annual

growth rate of 10%. The development of per capita

ecological carrying capacity was relatively stable,

which has been maintained at 0.8 hm

. The trend of

per capita ecological deficit was consistent with that

of per capita ecological footprint. By 2019, the per

capita ecological footprint was 4.8 times of the per

capita carrying capacity, indicating that the human-

land relationship was tense and the sustainable

development situation was grim in Shaanxi Province.

Considering the availability of the data and the

characteristics of the analysis model, in the

calculation of ecological footprint, the missing data

or small negligible values of some consumption items

in the ecological footprint calculation lead to the

small calculation result of per capita ecological

footprint, indicating that the per capita ecological

deficit of Shaanxi Province may be larger. In

addition, indicators such as ecological stress index

and ecological diversity index are not introduced in

the paper, and future studies can introduce these

indicators for a more in-depth exploration of natural

capital utilization and sustainable development.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work was financially supported by the Shaanxi

Provincial Social Science Foundation (2020D045)

and Xi'an social science planning foundation

(2020WL154).

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295

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