Quantitative Evaluation of Sustainable Development and Eco-Environmental Carrying Capacity in Water-Deficient Regions: A Case Study in the Haihe River Basin, China

Quantitative assessment of development sustainability could be a challenge to regional management and planning, especially for areas facing great risks of water shortage. Surface-water decline and groundwater over-pumping have caused serious environmental problems and limited economic development in many regions all around the world. In this paper, a framework for quantitatively evaluating development sustainability was established with water-related eco-environmental carrying capacity (EECC) as the core measure. As a case study, the developed approach was applied to data of the Haihe River Basin, China, during 1998 through 2007. The overall sustainable development degree (SDD) is determined to be 0.39, suggesting that this rate of development is not sustainable. Results of scenario analysis revealed that overshoot, or resource overexploitation, of the Basin's EECC is about 20% for both population and economy. Based on conditions in the study area in 2007, in order to achieve sustainable development, i.e., SDD>0.70 in this study, the EECC could support a population of 108 million and gross domestic product (GDP) of 2.72 trillion CNY. The newly developed approach in quantifying eco-environmental carrying capacity is anticipated to facilitate sustainable development oriented resource management in water-deficient areas.