Study on the Sustainability of Hefei City Economic Ecosystem Based on Emergy Analysis

Abstract

From the theory of urban ecosystem, using emergy analysis method founded by Odum, this paper analyzed the emergy flow of Hefei city systematically, and evaluated the status of the natural environment of its ecosystem and its socioeconomic sustainable development through a series of emergy indices. The results showed that the environment loading ratio of Hefei urban ecosystem was 19.71, emergy sustainable indices(ESI) and emergy index for sustainable development (EISD) was 0.0425, 0.0507, respectively in 2010, slightly higher than the neighboring capital cities. This indicated that Hefei had strong sustainable development ability. In 2010, the input emergy of eco-economic system of Hefei city was 2.35×1022sej, the output emergy was 1.95×1022sej, the surplus emergy was 0.40×1022sej, which indicated that the emergy of Hefei city continued to increase and accumulate, and this was the real reason of the rapid development of Hefei city in recent years.