Abstract
Building a Green Silk Road by integrating the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is one of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) visions, but the BRI faces enormous challenge that is the conflict between economic development and ecological sustainability. Understanding the current scale and trend of the impact of human activities on the ecosystem is the preliminary work to ensure that human activities do not exceed the ecological carrying capacity under the BRI. This study evaluated the ecosystem pressure in countries along the Belt and Road (B&R) from 2000–2017 based on the supply-consumption balance relationship of ecological resources. Net primary productivity (NPP) is taken as the measure of ecological resources, and the supply level and consumption intensity of ecological resources is estimated based on remote sensing data and statistical data, respectively. Results show that thirteen countries with over-consumed ecological resources concentrated in the West Asia/Middle East. Although the intensity of the ecological resource consumption correlated with ecological resource endowments, the ecosystem pressure was determined by social development dependence on the ecological resources at the same ecological resource endowments level. Nearly 80% of countries along the B&R suffered from significantly increased (P < 0.05) ecosystem pressure during 2000–2017, since most of the countries along the B&R were developing countries, and their economic development was highly dependent on ecological resources. Some West Asia/Middle East countries successfully mitigated the ecosystem pressure by importing feed for livestock. Likewise, the Southeast Asian islands benefitted from the import of agricultural products. The results highlight that the BRI should reduce the dependence of social development demands on local ecological resources by international trade for ensuring the increasing ecosystem pressure trend within the ecological carrying capacity.
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Foundation item: Under the auspices of the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. XDA20010202), Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. XDA19040301)
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Du, W., Yan, H., Feng, Z. et al. Spatio-temporal Pattern of Ecosystem Pressure in Countries Along the Belt and Road: Combining Remote Sensing Data and Statistical Data. Chin. Geogr. Sci. 32, 745–758 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11769-022-1298-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11769-022-1298-9