Measuring China's regional ecological development through “EcoDP”

Considering the traditional indicator of Green GDP and EDP, which ignored the ecological content when used to assess the regional sustainable development level, we proposed a new indicator, “EcoDP”, which consists of five sub-indicators: eco-service domestic product, eco-disaster domestic product, eco-construction domestic product, eco-threat domestic product, and eco-protection cost input, to distinguish the traditional EDP; we also suggest that the “EcoDP” should rather be divided into two main types: the “EcoDP value-stocked” and the “EcoDP value-added”. An analysis is carried out of China's “EcoDP” change from 1999 to 2008, providing the following figures for the past 10 years: eco-service domestic product rose by 0.11 trillion yuan; eco-disaster domestic product increased by ¥1.03 trillion; eco-construction domestic product dropped by ¥9.8 billion; eco-threat domestic product rose by ¥114.4 billion; eco-protection cost input grew by ¥431.1 billion; and then we discussed the reasons for this change in China's “EcoDP” from the perspectives of ecosystem, environment, resources and energies. Finally, based on various uncertainties regarding the research methodology adopted, the paper considers how to conduct quantified research and assessment for regional sustainable development in a comprehensive way in the future, in terms of GDP, EDP and social domestic product, like HDI.

Figure optionsDownload as PowerPoint slideHighlights
► We proposed the indicator of “EcoDP” to measure China's ecological development level in the past 10 years.
► From 2000 to 2008, China's absolute EcoDP provided by ESF were dropped from 6.667 to 5.727 trillion Yuan.
► The relative EcoDP were dropped from 6.42 to 4.954 trillion Yuan.
► The EcoDP value-added were dropped from 4.4 to 1.8 billion Yuan.