Evaluation of urban ecological carrying capacity: a case study of Beijing, China

In process of global rapid urbanization, it becomes a hot issue that whether urban ecosystems can sustain the high intensity of the human activities and eliminate impact that socio-economic development induced or not, therefore the evaluation of urban ecosystem carrying capacity has become a significant point of urban ecology. Currently the theory and method of urban ecological carrying capacity can be categorized into three main patterns by represented characteristics: population carrying capacity, ecological footprint and relative carrying capacity. The relative carrying capacity in urban ecosystem can be defined as a potential ability, which can show the sustainable developing trend via comparison between ecological pressures and supportive ability. In this paper, an evaluation method of urban relative carrying capacity based on grey relevant degree is proposed and applied with Tongzhou district of Beijing, China as case study. The results indicated that accompanied with the improvement of urbanization ratio, the region comprehensive carrying capacity had been enhanced from 2000 to 2004 year, but its development in planning year is not sustainable and might create some detrimental impacts on urban ecosystem if it keeps the current developing mode. (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd.