Sustaining Human Carrying Capacity: A tool for regional sustainability assessment

Graymore, Michelle; Sipe, Neil; Rickson, Roy E.

doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2009.08.016

Cited by 180 publications

(92 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…But these theories were mainly concentrated on the carrying capacities of natural resources (Di et al 2007), among which, the carrying capacities of land and water resources have been studied for a long time and some fruitful research results have been achieved. And some others, such as human carrying capacity (Graymore et al 2010;Yue et al 2008;Zhang et al 2010), environment carrying capacity (Arrow et al 1995), aquaculture carrying capacity (Duarte et al 2003), etc., were also used to assess the regional sustainability. The concept of WRCC was first suggested by the China Xinjiang Water Resource Soft-Science Research Panel in 1989.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of Water Resources Carrying Capacity in Tianjin City of China

Song

Kong

Zhan

2010

Water Resour Manage

134

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Regional sustainable development is an important focus on natural resources management, and also is a critical requirement for socio-economic system's sustainability. Water resource is one of the most important supports for the sustainable development of society and economy. The study proposed the concept of water resources carrying capacity (WRCC) to assess the scale of economy and population that the local water resources can support. And the study took Tianjin city of China for an example, and its population size and economic scale were chosen as two main indices. Based on the historical statistical datum, the carrying index (CI) and index of water supply-demand balance (IWSD) were evaluated, and then the current WRCC in Tianjin city and its dynamic tendency were evaluated by means of the method of carrying capacity of relative resources (CCRR). The results showed that the utilization of water resources in Tianjin is inefficient for now, the dynamic trend would be partly rational after the protection policy of water resource was put into practice in 2010 and 2020, and the WRCC of Tianjin city went beyond the average WRCC of China and was roughly equal to that of Beijing city. This paper showed that the rational policies and measures should be established and implemented to make sure utilize water resources efficiently in Tianjin city.Keywords Water resources carrying capacity · Carrying capacity of relative water resources · Carrying index · Index of water supply-demand balance · Tianjin City of China

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of Water Resources Carrying Capacity in Tianjin City of China

Song

Kong

Zhan

2010

Water Resour Manage

134

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“…Cole and Sinclair [2002], Bicknell et al [1998], and Parker and Selman [1997] are some of the leading proponents of this approach. Other researchers have started to establish their own methodologies with a focus more on environmental impacts than resource availability, among which are Mwalyosi [1991], McConnell [1995], Graymore [2005], and Graymore et al [2010]. NRECC methodologies form a different perspective regarding resources and environment which so far includes various organizational elements, such as the carrying capacity of land resources [Cohen, 1995;Gutteridge, 2006;Fairlie, 2007], the carrying capacity of water resources [Falkenmark and Lundqvist, 1998;Peters et al, 2009;Song et al, 2011], the carrying capacity of the environment or environmental capacity [Van Den Bergh, 1993;McConnell, 1995;Graymore et al, 2010], the ecological sustainability index or ecological footprint [Rees, 1992;Barrett and Odum, 2000;Sidle et al, 2013].…”

Section: Supporting Informationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Risk forewarning of regional development sustainability based on a natural resources and environmental carrying index in China

et al. 2017

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It is a matter of public consensus that China's high growth rate has been achieved at the expense of natural resources and the environment, leading to serious risks to sustainability. This research, which proposes a theoretical model to forewarn of risks to regional developmental sustainability in China, constitutes the first empirical evaluation of this to be undertaken there. The results show that: (a) the areas at risk cover almost 43% of the land and 44% of the population of mainland China. In those areas, 83.56% of people at risk are threatened by the low carrying capacity of the environment and limited water resources. (b) With 70% of the total population living in "at risk" areas, urbanization zones remain as the primary category suffering from overload across China. Extensive industrialization has resulted in environmental pollution, which contributes the most to the forewarning status, while the secondary cause is found to be the special coupling of the scarcity of natural water resources and their inefficient use. In addition, most urban conglomerations suffer from pollution by industrial production and household consumption, which tends to extend to their surrounding agricultural areas. Extensive mineral exploitation in ecologically fragile areas has made them increasingly more vulnerable to disturbances from their neighboring resource-driven urban areas. The paper uses these findings to suggest how to intensify the special regulatory administration of resources and the environment, and to transform approaches to industrialization, in order to address sustainable development issues in developing countries.

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“…Human carrying capacity is an indicator of regional sustainability (Yount, 1998), and achieving regional sustainability is important because social institutions and ecological functioning are closely linked at this scale (Graymore et al, 2009). Studies of a regional ecosystem's urban population carrying capacity emphasize the need to manage demand rather than supply, since the supply is usually limited to some degree.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating Beijing's human carrying capacity from the perspective of water resource constraints

Yingxuan

Chen

Zhou

et al. 2010

Journal of Environmental Sciences

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As the demands on limited water resources intensify, concerns are being raised about the human carrying capacity of these resources. However, few researchers have studied the carrying capacity of regional water resources. Beijing, the second-largest city in China, faces a critical water shortage that will limit the city's future development. We developed a method to quantify the carrying capacity of Beijing's water resources by considering water-use structures based on the proportions of water used for agricultural, industrial, and domestic purposes. We defined a reference structure as 45:22:33 (% of total, respectively), an optimized structure as 40:20:40, and an ideal structure as 50:15:35. We also considered four domestic water quotas: 55, 75, 95, and 115 m 3 /(person·yr). The urban carrying capacity of 10-12 million was closest to Beijing's actual 2003 population for all three water-use structures with urban domestic water use of 75 m 3 /(person·yr). However, after accounting for our underlying assumptions, the adjusted carrying capacity is closer to 5-6 million. Thus, Beijing's population in 2003 was almost twice the adjusted carrying capacity. Based on this result, we discussed the ecological and environmental problems created by Beijing's excessive population and propose measures to mitigate these problems.

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Sustaining Human Carrying Capacity: A tool for regional sustainability assessment

Cited by 180 publications

References 13 publications

Assessment of Water Resources Carrying Capacity in Tianjin City of China

Assessment of Water Resources Carrying Capacity in Tianjin City of China

Risk forewarning of regional development sustainability based on a natural resources and environmental carrying index in China

Evaluating Beijing's human carrying capacity from the perspective of water resource constraints

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