Research progress in ecological carrying capacity

Abstract

Conflicts among population, resources and ecological environment become more and more severe with the increasing of population and with the development of social economy, and the problems resulted from lack of resources and depravation of eco- system environment have been drawing close attention all over the world. Using ecological carrying capacity theory to study the interrelationship among region resource, ecological environment, increasing of population and social economy is the most commonly adopted method in ecological, geographical and economic research nowadays. This paper expatiates upon the carrying capacity’s origin, evolvement and development, and states the domestic and overseas progress of ecological carrying capacity from its con- cepts,characteristics,research methods and relationship with Sustainable development. And briefly evaluating the different concepts and the research methods of ecological carrying capacity are proposed. This paper summarizes ecological carrying capacity concept as follows: The capability of specific ecosystem maintains and regulations itself in specific time. The capacity of the subsystem of resource and environment can be offered for the human being society system to remain sustainable development, and the economic scale possessed of certain development degree and the population volume possessed of certain standard of living the ecosystem can afford persistently. The potential capability that the ecosystem owned can provide for its services and maintain its health. Ecological carrying capacity has a direct close relation with sustainable development. It is not only the basis of sustainable development, but also can serves as the criterion for it. The paper also put forward the direction of research in future:The subject of Research is di- versified and the territory of research is mixed together, Fragile bioenvironmental should be the hotspot to study still. Research key- stone goes from static state evaluation to dynamic simulation. New research methods and technology should be applied to obtain and analyze the data constantly.