Ecological footprint model of cultivated land based on ecosystem services in Beijing

Abstract

The existing ecological footprint model is limited to the defects of material production and consumption. The researchers proposed an ecological footprint model based on ecosystem services (EF-ES) to strengthen research into the services provided by ecosystems, and calculated and analyzed the cultivated land in Beijing from 1995 to 2010. The results shows that: (1) from 1995 to 2000, the equilibrium factors of cultivated land in Beijing were relatively stable in EF-ES, but the yield factors in 2000 were significantly lower than that of the other years; (2) the equilibrium factors based on EF-ES were far less than other methods results. It was mainly due to ecosystem services provided by farmland ecosystem which is far less than the other ecosystem types. The yield factor based on EF-ES was similar to the result of EF-NPP; (3) the annual ecological carrying capacity was the lowest, and the ecological deficit was the highest in 2000. The ecological deficit gradually decreased from 1995 to 2010. Compared with EF-NPP, the ecological deficit of EF-ES was small, which showed that the ecological services provided by cultivated land can compensate for the ecological deficit caused by material production. The calculation results based on the model accord with the development of urban agriculture in Beijing. So EF-ES has an objective and comprehensive response to the ecological security of cultivated land, and it is a good expression for the localization of ecological footprint.