14. The Ecological Footprint and Carrying Capacity in Northeast Asia

Under the goal of sustainable development, optimum population rests on the comprehensive carrying capacity of many factors, such as ecology, economy, and land, etc. Recently, the ecological environment of the Northeast Asia has been deteriorating seriously, because of the fall of its ecological carrying capacity resulted from human activities. The ecological carrying capacity of the Northeast Asia is directly related to its ecological environment and socioeconomic sustainability. The ecological carrying capacity is based on the net primary productivity (NPP) of natural vegetation which can reflect the productive and recovery capacity, and thus is the index of the ecological integrity of natural system. Based on the above purposes and the assessment method, this paper studies the distribution and the change of the ecological footprint (EF) and the ecological carrying capacity in the Northeast Asia. The change of per capita EF shows a trend of decline in the Far East of Russia, Japan, and Mongolia, but the original value is still higher in the front row. It is more than 3 hm² and showed an upward trend in the Northeast China and South Korea. North Korea is the most stable and the lowest EF is about 2 hm². As a whole situation of the Northeast Asia, we can see in addition to a small part where its ecological carrying capacity is near 0, in the northern areas and the most regions of Northeast Asia, the ecological carrying capacity is between 0 and 30 hm²/km². In the most central region of the Northeast Asian the ecological carrying capacity is between 30 and 50 hm²/km². In the southeastern and midwestern areas, the ecological carrying capacity is between 80 and 100 hm²/km². The ecological carrying capacity even exceeded 150 hm²/km² in southern areas. In the southwest region there is a large bareland area, the ecological carrying capacity is near 0.