Ecological evaluation of Beijing economy based on emergy indices

An integrated ecological evaluation of the Beijing economy was presented in the paper based on the emergy accounting with the data in 2004. Through calculating environmental and economic inputs within and Outside the Beijing economy, this paper discusses the Beijing's resource structure, economic situation and trade status based on a series of emergy indicators. Through the comparison of the systematic indicators of Beijing with those of the selected Chinese cities, the general status of the Beijing economy in China is identified. The results also show that most indicators of Beijing are located at middle levels among the selected Chinese cities. Particularly, the environmental impacts, expressed by the ratio of waste to the renewable emergy, and the ratio of waste to the total emergy use, are 84.2 and 0.26, respectively in Beijing in 2004, which indicate that the Beijing economy is greatly reliant on the imported intensive fuels, goods and services with high empower density and environmental loading. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.