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Ecological Indicators 60 (2016) 514–523

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Ecological Indicators

jo ur nal ho me page: www.elsev ier .com/ locate / ecol ind

he evaluation of environmental capacity: Evidence in Hunanrovince of China

ue-Jun Zhanga,b,∗, Jun-Fang Haoa,b

Business School, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, PR ChinaCenter for Resource and Environmental Management, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, PR China

r t i c l e i n f o

rticle history:eceived 15 April 2015eceived in revised form 15 July 2015ccepted 27 July 2015

eywords:nvironmental capacitynformation entropy theorycological comprehensive index

a b s t r a c t

Environmental capacity paves the foundation for sustainable economic development. As the vital growthpole in the Rise Strategy of Central China, the environmental and economic construction of Hunanprovince proves to have enormous demonstration effect. In order to better understand the environ-mental condition in Hunan province, this study combines the information entropy theory and ecologicalcomprehensive index to measure the environmental capacity of 14 administration divisions in Hunanprovince and 30 provinces across China in 2013. The results indicate that, first of all, the average environ-mental capacity of 14 administration divisions in Hunan province is relatively lower, i.e., 0.39. Second,Chang-Zhu-Tan city cluster in Hunan province exerts limited radiative and guiding effect on its sur-roundings; in particular, Xiangtan possesses a notably lower environmental capacity than other twocities, which hampers the integration process. Third, among the four types of environmental capacities

concerned, i.e., population capacity, land capacity, resource capacity and waste assimilative capacity,waste assimilative capacity takes up the biggest weight, i.e., 0.31, indicating the most important rolein environmental improvement. Finally, the environmental capacity of Hunan province ranks the 24thamong the 30 provinces in China and the last in central China. Hunan should pay special attention to theexpansion of waste assimilate capacity, so as to promote the overall environmental capacity.

© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

. Introduction

Environmental protection is one of the dominant themesf nowadays development across the world, and a permanentopic closely related to the survival of mankind. Facilitating thestablishment of ecological civilization, improving the supervisionystem of ecological environment and strengthening the pollutionontrol capabilities are atop the agenda of China’s transition andustainable development, as well as crucial measures to accom-odate the “New Normal” proposed by the new political leaders

n China. With China’s economy stepping into the “New Normal”hase, China will still be in the stage of accelerating development of

ndustrialization and urbanization in a relatively long time,1 which

ay lead to huge amount of energy consumption and related CO2

missions as well (Zhang et al., 2014; Wang et al., 2014). As a result,he current rough economic development mode, which is at the

∗ Corresponding author at: Business School, Hunan University, Changsha 410082,R China. Tel.: +86 731 88822899; fax: +86 731 88822899.

E-mail address: zyjmis@126.com (Y.-J. Zhang).1 http://www.nea.gov.cn/2015-03/05/c 134039005.htm

ttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2015.07.028470-160X/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

expense of environment quality, may impede China’s transitionto green, cycle and low-carbon development. Therefore, Chinashould give uppermost priority currently to enhance the energyconservation and emission reduction, accelerate the ecologicalcivilization construction, improve the environmental regulationmechanisms and promote the economic transition.2

Hunan province is located in the south of China’s mainland andthe middle of Yangtze River field (see Fig. 1), which acts as a bridgebetween the east coast and west inland provinces. Due to the dis-tinctive location advantage, Hunan province has become one of thekey regions to implement the Rise Strategy of Central China pro-posed by China’s central government in 2004.3 In 2007, China’scentral government entrusted Hunan province the important mis-sion to explore the resource-saving and environment-friendly

development pattern, as well as to drive the economic transitionin central China.

2 http://sc.cqn.com.cn/huanbao/339325.html3 http://www.legaldaily.com.cn/locality/content/2014-03/12/content 5355096.

htm?node=31243

Y.-J. Zhang, J.-F. Hao / Ecological Indicators 60 (2016) 514–523 515

stratio

aHztafpdAdCca

miretedaa

odaatreowetaofwip

Fig. 1. The location and admini

Now there are 14 administration divisions in Hunan province,s shown in Fig. 1, which are Changsha, Zhuzhou, Xiangtan,engyang, Shaoyang, Yueyang, Changde, Zhangjiajie, Yiyang, Chen-hou, Yongzhou, Huaihua, Loudi and Xiangxi cities. In particular,he three neighboring cities, i.e., Changsha, Zhuzhou and Xiangtan,re called Chang-Zhu-Tan city cluster, which is the key region toacilitate the economic upgrade and sustainable growth of Hunanrovince. Meanwhile, the Chang-Zhu-Tan city cluster has beenevised as the national comprehensive reform pilot. For instance, inpril 2015, the “Development Plan for City Clusters along the Mid-le Reaches of the Yangtze River” was approved by China’s Stateouncil, which covers the urban clusters around Chang-Zhu-Tanity cluster and in a move to create a new economic growth enginend promote the new urbanization in China.4

Overall, the new mission and position for Hunan provinceeans both great opportunities and challenges. On the one hand,

t provides a historical opportunity for Hunan province to advanceeforms in realizing the win–win of economic development andnvironmental protection during the new economic transition. Onhe other hand, the current overall extensive and high-carbonconomic development pattern makes sustainable developmentifficult for Hunan province in face of a series of problems, suchs the severity of environmental pollution, the restriction of coalnd electricity scarcity, the absence of oil and gas resources.5

In order to address the cumulative impact of economic devel-pment on environmental changes or ecosystem, GESAMP (1986)efines environmental capacity as “a property of the environmentnd its ability to accommodate a particular activity or rate ofn activity. . .without unacceptable impact”, which is central tohe promotion of sustainable development. Compared with car-ying capacity, which is on the basis of natural resources (Arrowt al., 1995), environmental capacity stresses both the utilizationf resources, human activities and environmental sustainability,hich proves a more suitable index for environment. In addition,

nvironmental capacity provides basic support for environmen-al regulation making, pollutant control, environmental planning,nd the evaluation of economic transition advance. Currently, inrder to continue exploring the resource-saving and environment-riendly development pattern, and to construct the new Hunanith prosperous economy, fine ecology and harmonious society,

t is imperative to evaluate the environmental capacity of Hunanrovince, which aims at optimizing the economic growth with

4 http://news.sohu.com/20150405/n410842536.shtml5 http://www.lxshjs.com/Infor/News/Show.asp?id=10905

n divisions of Hunan province.

environmental protection and forcing the economic transition byenvironmental regulation.

In fact, many studies have been conducted on environmentalcapacity, whereas most studies mainly focus on the environmen-tal capacity of water, airborne and tourism. Particularly, thereare enormous studies about water environmental capacity withvarious pollutants. For example, Han et al. (2010) utilize the eco-hydrodynamic model to assess the environmental capacity ofdissolved inorganic nitrogen and phosphorus in Jiaozhou Bay, withthe purpose of easing the serious environmental problems. Wanget al. (2012a) choose chemical oxygen demand (COD) as the index tocalculate the water environmental capacity in the Central Shaanxiof the Wei River, and find that the seasonal pollutant load distri-bution and total quantity control are beneficial to effective usageof the water resource. Li et al. (2010) explore the water environ-mental capacity in Zhangweinan canal sub-basin, and the resultsindicate that 90% and 50% of the hydro-logical guarantee flow ratesare suitable to be the design flow rates for rainy and dry seasons,respectively, which can ameliorate the water problems to someextent. In addition, some developed countries have explored manyyears for building the pollutant emission trading market, whichproves to be an effective way to reduce the emissions. Then, thereare also some scholars wondering that if this similar trading mecha-nism can be applied in terms of water environmental management.A case in point is the study of Huang et al. (2014), they suggest thatwater environmental capacity should be the constraint of pollutantemissions, and then present an example to verify the alloca-tion validity of this multi-object evolutionary algorithm under therestriction of finite capacity. In brief, water environmental capacityis an important component of the regional environmental regula-tions and programs as well, and the uncertainty analysis of capacitycan offer practical suggestions for relevant decision makers (Liuet al., 2012), which can also solve some crucial problems, such aswater shortage, water pollution and low utilization, and reflect thepositive effect of environmental capacity upon the environmentalconstruction.

Moreover, Lapade (1963) firstly proposes the concept of tourismenvironmental capacity, and then some scholars gradually expandand improve the concept (Tony, 2001; Perdue et al., 1990;Papageorgiou and Brotherton, 1999). For instance, Alexis (2000)defines the volume of tourism as the environmental capacity ofAyia Napa, a resort on Cyprus’ east coast, and argues that as timegoes by, the volume of tourism can be manipulated by manage-

ment techniques and controls. Fernando et al. (2004) estimate theenvironmental capacity of Hengisbury Head in the British coastalarea using the LAC model, and the results show that the capacity isinfluenced by many factors, such as economy and social culture.

5 ical Indicators 60 (2016) 514–523

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Table 1The indicator system of environmental capacity evaluation.

Criteria Indicators

Population capacity

Natural population growth ratePopulation densityProportion of non-agricultural populationEmployment ratePer capita GDP

Land capacityPer capita area of cultivated landArea of built districtsCoverage rate of forest

Resource capacity

Per capita freshwater resourceEnergy intensityEnergy consumptionElasticity of energy consumptionEnergy utilizationRenewable energy utilization

Waste assimilative

Ratio of daily rubbish treatmentPer capita green areas of developed areas

16 Y.-J. Zhang, J.-F. Hao / Ecolog

Besides, there are also some scholars paying attention to the air-orne environmental capacity (An et al., 2007; Wang et al., 2012b).esource and environment are rigid restrictions of the sustainableconomic development, thus sufficient environmental capacity ishe basis of human survival and development. Based on this logic,i et al. (2006) comprehensively analyze the existing methods forcological condition evaluation, and then propose a scientific eval-ation method suited to China, i.e., ecological comprehensive indexECI). Afterwards, a few scholars apply the ECI to examine theegional environmental capacity. For instance, Feng et al. (2013)ntegrate the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) with ECI to assesshe natural ecological environment in Fuxin, a coal-based city in theorthwest of Liaoning province in China. However, there have noniform criteria and authoritative norms of environmental capacityvaluation up to now, and the quantitative evaluation methods areelatively scarce, so continuous efforts should be made to improvehe environmental capacity indicator system and develop bettervaluation methods. Meanwhile, few studies focus on the envi-onmental capacity in a region (Feng and Timmermans, 2014),lthough some talk the topic about waters, tourism and airborne asentioned above.Under this circumstance, this paper mainly makes three aspects

f contribution. First of all, it studies the environmental capacity ofunan province by integrating the population capacity, land capac-

ty, resource capacity and waste assimilative capacity. Second, itefines the weights of evaluation indicators with the informationntropy theory and use the ecological comprehensive index toetermine the level of environmental capacity in Hunan province.inally, this paper thoroughly estimate the environmental capac-ty of the 14 administration divisions in Hunan province and thatf the 30 provinces across China, and then summarizes the envi-onmental status of Hunan province and the advanced experiencef other provinces for Hunan province to realize green, cycle andow-carbon development.

The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2ntroduces data definitions and methods. Section 3 puts forwardhe results and analyses. Section 4 concludes the paper and offersome policy implications.

. Data definitions and methods

.1. Data definitions

Ecological indicators can be used to assess the environmentaluality, and to provide an early warning signal for environmen-al changes, or to diagnose the causes of environmental problemsDale and Beyeler, 2001). According to some previous studies (Johstnd Watzold, 2002; Muniz and Galindo, 2005; Wang and Xu, 2015;eng et al., 2013), we single out the population capacity, land capac-ty, resource capacity and waste assimilative capacity as indicatorso assess the environmental capacity, and devise the indicator sys-em shown in Table 1. When evaluating the environmental capacityf the 14 administration divisions in Hunan province, we applyatural population growth rate, population density, proportionf non-agricultural population, employment rate and per capitaDP to measure the population capacity; use per capita area ofultivated land, area of built districts, coverage rate of forest tostimate the land capacity; employ per capita freshwater resource,nergy intensity and renewable energy utilization to determinehe resource capacity; and utilize treatment rate of daily rubbish,er capita green areas of developed areas, comprehensive uti-

ization of straw and rate of wastewater disposal to describe the

aste assimilate capacity. It should be noted that, due to the avail-

bility of data, there exist some slight adjustments in the latterwo criteria, i.e., resource capacity and waste assimilative capacity,hen the environmental capacities of 30 provinces across China are

capacityComprehensive utilization of strawProportion of environmental investment in GDPRate of wastewater disposal

concerned. Specifically, we use per capita freshwater resource,energy intensity, energy consumption, elasticity of energy con-sumption and energy utilization to define resource capacity, andutilize treatment rate of daily rubbish, per capita green areasof developed areas, comprehensive utilization of straw and pro-portion of environmental investment in GDP to estimate wasteassimilate capacity.

Besides, the relevant data of the 14 administration divisionsin Hunan province is collected from Hunan Statistical Yearbookand the Statistical Bureau of Hunan province, while the data of 30provinces is obtained from the Ministry of Land and Resources ofChina, National Bureau of Statistics of China, China Statistical Year-books and the statistical yearbook of each province. Most of thedata takes the year of 2013 as the base year, except for the indica-tors of energy intensity, energy consumption, elasticity of energyconsumption, energy utilization and comprehensive utilization ofstraw for provinces based on the data in 2012, due to the dataavailability.

2.2. Methods

2.2.1. The information entropy theoryIn 1948, Claude E. Shannon proposed the concept of informa-

tion entropy (Shannon, 1948), which is employed to describe theuncertainty of information, and to quantify the importance andutilization of different indicators in the evaluation system. If theentropy value of an indicator is smaller than others, then we maysay that this indicator contains more information, and should beendowed with greater weight. The concept of information entropyhas been introduced into environmental management before; forinstance, Wang et al. (2012c) explore the ecosystem condition ofTongzhou district of Beijing City based on the information entropytheory, and provide several suggestions for future city developmentand environmental protection. However, little research uses theinformation entropy theory for environmental capacity evaluation.More importantly, the multi-criteria system of information entropytheory considers both equality and efficiency (Sun et al., 2013).Additionally, Shannon’s information theory constitutes the basis ofsensitivity analysis framework, which can determine the contribu-tion of each indicator to the uncertainty of a given output (Lüdtke

et al., 2008). Thus, according to the information entropy theory, wetake the population capacity of the 14 administration divisions inHunan province as the example, which covers five indicators, andthe calculation procedures can be seen as follows:

ical Indicators 60 (2016) 514–523 517

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Table 2Five grades of environmental capacity evaluation.

Grade ECI value State

1 >0.75 Great condition2 0.5–0.75 Good condition

Y.-J. Zhang, J.-F. Hao / Ecolog

First, we construct the information decision-making matrixnder the indicator j for the administration division i, namely, the

nitial evaluation information matrix, as Eq. (1).

′ = (r′ij)14×5

=

⎛⎜⎜⎝

r′11 · · · r′

15

.... . .

...

r′14,1 · · · r′

14,5

⎞⎟⎟⎠ (1)

here i = 1, 2, . . ., 14, j = 1, 2, . . ., 5, and r′ij

is the value of indica-or j for administration division i. The directions and dimensionsf various indicators may be different, some indicators are con-ucive to expanding the environmental capacity when the valuesre bigger, whereas others are better for capacity expansion whenhe values are smaller. For instance, under the criteria of popula-ion capacity, a relatively lower value of natural population growthate would offer more space for development, while a higher valuef per capita GDP could strengthen the ability for capacity expan-ion. As a result, direct comparison among these indicators mayring about confused results and false arguments. Consequently,e need to conduct the normalization for these indicators, afterhich the initial evaluation information matrix M′ can be called

he normalized matrix M. The normalization process is shown asqs. (2) and (3).

The high indicator, which is conducive to expanding environ-ental capacity, can be normalized as Eq. (2):

ij =r′ij

− min{r′ij}

max{r′ij} − min{r′

ij} , (2)

hile the low indicator, which is unfavorable for capacity expan-ion when its value is bigger, can be normalized as Eq. (3):

ij =max{r′

ij} − r′

ij

max{r′ij} − min{r′

ij} , (3)

here max{r′ij} and min{r′

ij} denote the maximum and minimum

alues of r′ij, respectively, in the initial evaluation matrix M′ of

ndicator j for each administration division; rij is the element oformalized matrix in column j line i. Thus, the normalized matrix

can be expressed as Eq. (4):

= (rij)14×5 =

⎛⎜⎜⎝

r11 . . . r15

.... . .

...

r14,1 . . . r14,5

⎞⎟⎟⎠ (4)

Next, we calculate the ratio of indicator j for administrationivision i among the 14 administration divisions, i.e., Pij, as follows:

ij = rij∑14i=1rij

, (5)

Then, the information entropy value of indicator j, i.e., Sj, isefined as Eq. (6):

j = − 1ln 14

14∑i=1

Pij ln Pij (6)

Finally, the weight of indicator j can be specified as Eq. (7) (Wangnd Lee, 2009):

j = 1 − Sj∑5j=1(1 − Sj)

. (7)

.2.2. Ecological comprehensive indexComprehensive index can fully take economy and environmen-

al protection into consideration, which is a significant reference

3 0.35–0.5 General condition4 0.25–0.35 Low capacity5 <0.25 Poor condition

for regional development. For instance, Dovern et al. (2014) applya comprehensive wealth index for the 100 largest autonomouscities in Germany to measure their endowment, including envi-ronment, energy, society, human and economic capital stocks.Ecological Comprehensive Index (ECI) is in line with the princi-ple of objectively reflecting the environmental condition, whichis a quantitative, intrinsic and comprehensive index and can beemployed to judge the level of ecological environment treatmentand environmental damage (Li et al., 2006). The ECI can be calcu-lated as follows:

First, the indicators need to be normalized. According to Fenget al. (2013), the indicators, which are conducive to expandingthe environmental capacity, when their values are bigger, can benormalized as Eq. (8):

Qij =r′ij

− min{r′ij}/1.05

1.05 ∗ max{r′ij} − min{r′

ij}/1.05

, (8)

while the low indicator, which is unfavorable for capacity expan-sion when its value is bigger, can be normalized as Eq. (9):

Qij =1.05 ∗ max{r′

ij} − r′

ij

1.05 ∗ max{r′ij} − min{r′

ij}/1.05

. (9)

Second, the four types of environmental capacities, i.e., popula-tion capacity, land capacity, resource capacity and waste assimilatecapacity when k = 1, 2, 3, 4, respectively, for administration divisioni can be obtained from Eq. (10):

Vik =∑

j

Qijwj, (10)

Third, according to Eqs. (2)–(7), we can obtain the influ-ence of population capacity, land capacity, resource capacity andwaste assimilate capacity on the overall environmental capacity,respectively, namely their weights in the environmental capacityevaluation system, i.e., wk(k = 1, 2, 3, 4). Then, we obtain the ECIfor administration division i from Eq. (11):

ECIi =4∑

k=1

Vikwk (11)

Finally, taking previous studies about environmental capacityevaluation into account (John, 1998; Feng et al., 2013), we alsodesign a set of evaluation thresholds and illustrate each grade withcorresponding state in Table 2.

3. Empirical results and analyses

3.1. Environmental capacity calculation results of Hunanprovince

Based on the information entropy theory and Eqs. (2)–(7),we calculate the weights of various indicators. Next, using Eqs.(8)–(10), we determine the capacity values of these four criteria

for each administration division. In the end, based on Eq. (11),we get the ECI value of the 14 administration divisions in Hunanprovince. The calculation results of population capacity, land capac-ity, resource capacity, waste assimilate capacity and environmental

518 Y.-J. Zhang, J.-F. Hao / Ecological Indicators 60 (2016) 514–523

Table 3Environmental capacity results of the 14 administration divisions in Hunan province.

City Population capacity Land capacity Resource capacity Waste assimilate capacity Environmental capacity

Changsha 0.6362 0.3743 0.2273 0.8402 0.5325Zhuzhou 0.3051 0.6376 0.3751 0.7182 0.5256Xiangtan 0.3806 0.2310 0.1382 0.6207 0.3571Hengyang 0.4119 0.3590 0.2185 0.2830 0.3096Shaoyang 0.4049 0.1251 0.3175 0.2297 0.2649Yueyang 0.3709 0.1240 0.2621 0.428 0.3042Changde 0.2985 0.5698 0.3664 0.3757 0.4013Zhangjiajie 0.1999 0.6794 0.8872 0.3866 0.5459Yiyang 0.2705 0.4662 0.3511 0.3959 0.3744Chenzhou 0.3025 0.5485 0.5107 0.3853 0.4381Yongzhou 0.2663 0.4794 0.5389 0.2470 0.3800Huaihua 0.2724 0.5606 0.6358 0.3336 0.4516Loudi 0.3466 0.1014 0.1295 0.3627 0.2392Xiangxi 0.2489 0.2161 0.7279 0.2820 0.3773

Average 0.3368 0.3909 0.4062 0.4206 0.3929

dmin

ceFf

rdeieattr

tively, and its population capacity and resource assimilate capacitylargely lag behind other two administration divisions as well. More-over, the lowest resource capacity of Loudi is mainly owing to its

Fig. 2. Environmental capacity of 14 a

apacity are shown in Table 3, based on which, we also make thenvironmental capacity radar plot of Hunan province, as shown inig. 2. Together with the results in Tables 2 and 3, we draw theollowing arguments.

First, the overall environmental capacity of Hunan province iselatively lower, with the average ECI 0.39, and there exist sharpifferences among different administration divisions. To somextent, this result is in consistent with some previous research. Fornstance, from the perspective of environmental efficiency, Wangt al. (2015) investigate the environmental protection mechanisms

nd economic development of 211 cities in China, and argue thathe overall environmental efficiency of Chinese cities is lower. Also,hey divide the cities into five groups according to their envi-onmental conditions, and find that huge differences exist among

istration divisions in Hunan province.

these five groups. In this paper, half of the administration divi-sions in Hunan province stay in the state of General Condition,and their environmental capacity values range from 0.35 to 0.50.6

Moreover, Loudi city has the least environmental capacity (0.24),indicating its relatively weakest environmental condition in theprovince. When compared with others, Loudi city has the lowestland capacity and resource capacity, i.e., 0.10 and 0.12, respec-

6 The 7 administration divisions are Xiangtan, Changde, Yiyang, Chenzhou,Yongzhou, Huaihua and Xiangxi.

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of environmental capacity in six central provinces of China, whichis mainly caused by the fact that Hunan province faces huge gapsin land capacity, resource capacity and waste assimilate capacity

Y.-J. Zhang, J.-F. Hao / Ecolog

nreasonable industrial structure. Here we take the data of 2011s an example, and the heavy industry accounted for 82.65% ofhe total industry and the percentage of coal in the energy con-umption was up to 83.30%,7 which largely hampers the expansionf the resource capacity. Besides, there are only three adminis-ration divisions, i.e., Zhangjiajie, Changsha and Zhuzhou, whosenvironmental capacities surpass 0.50 (i.e., 0.55, 0.53 and 0.52,espectively), with the environmental capacity state in Good Con-ition. Now China is still in the dilemma that the establishment ofcological civilization cannot keep pace with the economic devel-pment (Zhang et al., 2013), and so is Hunan province. Specifically,he present environmental condition of Hunan province cannot sat-sfy the development demand of “New Normal”, and it is urgent toromote the economic transition.

Second, Chang-Zhu-Tan city cluster has limited radiative effectn the surrounding divisions, and Xiangtan plays a major role inlowing down the integration process within the Chang-Zhu-Tanity cluster. From the point of economic development, Chang-hu-Tan is an essential component of the national city clusters,hose total economy accounts for more than 45% of that of thehole province now. With regard to the environmental develop-ent, Chang-Zhu-Tan city cluster has reached the Good Condition

tate, with the average environmental capacity of 0.47, which islightly better than the overall level in Hunan province. However,hang-Zhu-Tan city cluster produces finite radiative and guiding

mpact on its surroundings in environmental construction, suchs Yueyang, Yiyang, Hengyang and Loudi, and the environmen-al capacity of these cities lags far behind the average level ofunan province. The integration development of Chang-Zhu-Tanity cluster makes environmental protection plan as one of theey topics, which aims at controlling the water pollution, garbageollution and air pollution, thus the joint effort and common devel-pment are required for this final goal.8 However, it should be notedhat Xiangtan possesses relatively lower environmental capacityn the city cluster, and its ECI value is only about 0.36, which is

eaker than the provincial level (0.39) and notably lower thanhat of Changsha and Zhuzhou, and hampers the integration andestricts the role as an essential growth pole. This result is closelyelated to the economic structure of Xiangtan city. For instance,he Secondary industry in Xiangtan city reached 57.3% of the totaln 2014, which is much higher than that of Hunan province andhina. Meanwhile, the dominant enterprises in the city like ironnd steel plants and coal-fired power plants are high energy-ntensive, which are also the mainstay plants in Hunan province.s a result, those plants have caused huge energy consumptionnd relatively higher energy intensity in Xiangtan city and eventu-lly relatively lower resource capacity and overall environmentalapacity.

Third, waste assimilate capacity is the key part of environ-ent improvement in Hunan province. The sensitivity analysis

SA) is mainly used for assessing the importance of input fac-ors, and can determine the contribution of each uncertain inputactor to the uncertainty of a given output (Convertino et al.,014). Here, in terms of the contribution of these four capacitieso environmental capacity, we find that waste assimilate capacityas the largest weight (0.31), which reflects that waste assimi-

ate capacity may affect the environmental construction of Hunanrovince to the deepest. In the future, Hunan province still faces a

eries of environmental pollution problems, such as, heavy metalollution, air pollution and industrial wastewater pollution, andhese also indicate the key role of waste assimilate capacity in

7 http://finance.sina.com.cn/roll/20130718/042216159380.shtml?from=www.ao10086.com8 http://www.hn.xinhuanet.com/news/2001-7-16/200171692951.htm

dicators 60 (2016) 514–523 519

beautifying the environment. Moreover, the weights of resourcecapacity and land capacity follow, i.e., 0.26 and 0.23, respectively,which imply that these two capacities may accrue less impact onenvironment development. In addition, population capacity hasthe smallest weight among the four types of capacities, i.e., 0.20.These results can provide important implications for managementpurposes. For instance, continuous effort should be made in theexpansion of waste assimilate capacity; specifically, effective poli-cies should be shaped as soon as possible to control the wastewaterdisposal and more investment should be put in the environmentaltreatment.

Finally, the expansion of these four capacities produce differ-ent influence on the overall environmental capacity, and wasteassimilate capacity affect the whole capacity to the deepest, fol-lowed by resource capacity, land capacity and population capacity.In general, uncertainty analysis (UA) determines the overall uncer-tainty in the model outputs due to the uncertainty in the inputs(Convertino et al., 2014). Thus, as Table 4 shows, we set the growthrate of 10% for these four capacities, and change only one typeof capacity each time. The results indicate that the environmen-tal capacity is most sensitive to the fluctuation of waste assimilatecapacity; for instance, a 10% increase of waste assimilate capac-ity will lead to a 2.78% increase of environmental capacity inHunan province. Meanwhile, the effect of resource capacity onenvironmental capacity is second only to waste assimilate capac-ity. Moreover, the same expansion magnitude of population andland capacities, i.e., 10%, may increase the environmental capacityby 1.45% and 1.79%, respectively.

3.2. Environmental capacity comparison between Hunan andother provinces in China

In order to have a comprehensive understanding of the envi-ronmental condition of Hunan province and fully draw valuableexperience from developed provinces, we further calculate theenvironmental capacity of 30 provinces except for Tibet in China.According to the economic development and geographical features,these 30 provinces can be divided into four regions, i.e., central,west, east and northeast China.9 The related results of environ-mental capacity of the 30 provinces and four regions are shownin Table 5, and we draw the environmental capacity across Chinain Fig. 3. Based on the results in Tables 2 and 5 and Fig. 3, severalfindings can be obtained as follows:

First of all, the average environmental capacity of central Chinais 0.32, and among the six central provinces, Jiangxi province hasbest performance, with the ECI 0.40, while Hunan province ranksthe last. This result is caused by the fact that the land capac-ity, resource capacity and waste assimilate capacity in Jiangxiare obviously higher than those of other five provinces. In fact,Jiangxi province has taken a number of actions in the past years toaddress environmental protection, such as the Ecological and Eco-nomic Construction of Poyang Lake and the South Jiangxi Strategy,and made unremitting efforts to promote ecological civilization.10

However, Hunan province has the weakest performance in terms

compared with other central provinces. Therefore, special efforts

9 The central China involves Shanxi, Anhui, Jiangxi, Henan, Hubei and Hunan;the west China embraces Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan, Chongqing, Shaanxi, Gansu,Ningxia, Qinghai, Xinjiang, Guangxi and Inner Mongolia; the east China includesBeijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Shandong, Guangdongand Hainan; and the northeast China consists of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang.

10 http://finance.china.com.cn/roll/20130108/1224935.shtml

520 Y.-J. Zhang, J.-F. Hao / Ecological Indicators 60 (2016) 514–523

Table 4Environmental capacity of 14 administration divisions in Hunan province under four different scenarios.

Administration divisions Population capacity (+10%) Land capacity (+10%) Resource capacity (+10%) Waste assimilate capacity (+10%)

Changsha 0.5480 0.5423 0.5398 0.5591Zhuzhou 0.5277 0.5351 0.5306 0.5425Xiangtan 0.3654 0.3621 0.3605 0.3756Hengyang 0.3209 0.3198 0.3174 0.3203Shaoyang 0.2766 0.2704 0.2758 0.2745Yueyang 0.3133 0.3079 0.3118 0.3179Changde 0.4061 0.4122 0.4089 0.4107Zhangjiajie 0.5436 0.5544 0.5620 0.5508Yiyang 0.3783 0.3827 0.3814 0.3842Chenzhou 0.4423 0.4478 0.4487 0.4471Yongzhou 0.3839 0.3887 0.3919 0.3854Huaihua 0.4543 0.4608 0.4646 0.4583Loudi 0.2487 0.2433 0.2444 0.2519Xiangxi 0.3728 0.3728 0.3867 0.3764

Average growth rate (%) 1.4548 1.7898 2.2322 2.7844

Table 5Environmental capacity of 30 provinces across China.

Population capacity Land capacity Resource capacity Waste assimilate capacity Environmental capacity

Shanxi 0.3112 0.2383 0.1864 0.5168 0.2916Anhui 0.3056 0.2540 0.2753 0.3851 0.2995Jiangxi 0.3481 0.3394 0.4443 0.4866 0.4056Henan 0.4173 0.1815 0.2202 0.2753 0.2743Hubei 0.3694 0.3368 0.2927 0.3660 0.3355Hunan 0.3266 0.2573 0.3491 0.2432 0.3047Beijing 0.5910 0.4465 0.2925 0.7795 0.4934Tianjin 0.6894 0.2781 0.2599 0.4556 0.4128Hebei 0.2801 0.1996 0.1790 0.4048 0.2520Liaoning 0.4589 0.4807 0.2679 0.6499 0.4329Shandong 0.3807 0.2988 0.1937 0.5265 0.3265Shanghai 0.6846 0.1930 0.2750 0.4191 0.3926Jiangsu 0.5110 0.3414 0.2279 0.5375 0.3832Zhejiang 0.4910 0.4395 0.3444 0.4697 0.4257Fujian 0.4617 0.3935 0.3937 0.4340 0.4190Guangdong 0.4617 0.4378 0.3347 0.4442 0.4095Guangxi 0.1902 0.3372 0.4882 0.3195 0.3477Hainan 0.2294 0.3860 0.6178 0.3402 0.4168Sichuan 0.3102 0.2461 0.3822 0.1788 0.2975Guizhou 0.2090 0.2624 0.2989 0.1983 0.2491Yunnan 0.2226 0.3266 0.4132 0.2727 0.3193Inner Mongolia 0.3746 0.6402 0.3853 0.6174 0.4779Jilin 0.3935 0.6166 0.3624 0.5318 0.4541Heilongjiang 0.4645 0.6553 0.4229 0.4225 0.4810Chongqing 0.3286 0.3386 0.3316 0.4151 0.3479Shaanxi 0.4652 0.2933 0.3025 0.3301 0.3485Gansu 0.2706 0.2952 0.8175 0.3077 0.4722Ningxia 0.2035 0.5240 0.1806 0.7327 0.3600Qinghai 0.2660 0.1463 0.7734 0.2826 0.4207Xinjiang 0.2573 0.3748 0.2810 0.6383 0.3608

Central 0.3464 0.2679 0.2947 0.3788 0.3185West 0.2816 0.3441 0.4231 0.3903 0.3638East 0.4781 0.3414 0.3119 0.4811 0.3932Northeast 0.4390 0.5842 0.3510 0.5347 0.4560China 0.3758 0.3520 0.3531 0.4327 0.3737

N l capae n divi

sw

fleptcect

is an effective measure for pollution control, energy conserva-tion and emission reduction (Yu et al., 2012; Apergis and Ozturk,

ote: Due to the indicator difference as mentioned above, here the environmentanvironmental capacity of Hunan province is averaged among the 14 administratio

hould be made in the future to strengthen these three capacitieshen the environmental issues are concerned in Hunan province.

Second, the average environmental capacity of west Chinauctuates around 0.36, and Inner Mongolia has the highestnvironmental capacity, with the ECI 0.48, among eleven westrovinces concerned. Inner Mongolia has attached great impor-ance on environment development. In 2013, in order to

omprehensively regulate the enterprises involved in pollutantmission, the local government accomplished 331 air pollutionontrol projects, which pushed the establishment of emission rightrading pilot and strengthened the enforcement of environmental

city of Hunan province is 0.3047, a little bit lower than that in Table 3, when thesions, i.e., 0.39.

regulation and supervision.11 Meanwhile, Inner Mongolia govern-ment plays a decisive role in environmental optimization. Forinstance, it stresses that environment should be employed to servethe economic development, which is fairly consistent with someprevious research. They often state that severe political supervision

2015). As for Hunan province, its land capacity and waste assimilate

11 http://news.h2o-china.com/html/2014/06/128922 1.shtml

Y.-J. Zhang, J.-F. Hao / Ecological Indicators 60 (2016) 514–523 521

ation

cHtMtaYrit

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Fig. 3. Environmental capacity evalu

apacity sharply fall behind those in Inner Mongolia. In particular,unan province should learn the advanced experience in regula-

ions and supervisions for heavy metal pollution. In May 2015, theinistry of Finance of China subsidized 2.8 billion yuan for the

reatment of heavy metal pollution for 30 heavy polluted cities,nd there were 11 cities in Hunan province, except for Zhuzhou,ongzhou and Huaihua.12 Meanwhile, Hunan province also shouldequire local government to thoroughly regulate those enterprisesnvolved in pollution and substantially increase the cost of pollu-ion.

Third, the environmental capacity of east China is 0.39 on aver-ge, and Beijing has the best performance among the ten eastrovinces, with the ECI 0.49. Because of the special economicnd political superiority in Beijing, the municipal government hasevoted tremendous efforts to environmental protection. In 2013,eijing still faced a series of development problems, such as thexcess of PM2.5, water shortage, and the vacancy of environmen-al control facilities; nonetheless, along with the serious politicalupervision, powerful technological support and extensive pub-ic participation, the environmental condition in Beijing remainedlmost unchanged and the environmental safety obtained effectiveuarantee.13 Meanwhile, according to the development planning,eijing may invest over 100 billion yuan in the treatment of waste,ewage and forestation during 2014–2016.14 Public participationnd governmental regulation are major elements for the establish-ent of ecological civilization (Rametsteiner et al., 2011). Based on

he experience in Beijing, Hunan province, on the one hand, shouldtress the importance of environmental protection and increaseublic awareness to lead low-carbon lives; on the other hand,unan province also needs to call for particular efforts to increase

he investment in environment improvement, due to its mismatchf environmental treatment facilities and the requirements of envi-onmental monitoring accuracy and validation.

12 http://news.xinmin.cn/domestic/2015/07/03/28028964.html13 http://www.360doc.com/content/14/0514/11/17103623 377470785.shtml14 http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2013-03/29/c 124517178.htm

results of 30 provinces across China.

Finally, northeast China, including Liaoning, Jilin and Hei-longjiang, has superior environment condition compared withother three regions, with the ECI 0.46. The natural condition andresource endowment of the three northeast provinces are abun-dant, which provide relatively larger resource capacity. Moreover,at the provincial level, resource capacity is the most importantcriteria to expand the overall environmental capacity with theweight of 0.35. As a result, northeast provinces have achieved thebest performance in environmental capacity. Hunan province lacksfossil energy resources, especially oil and gas. In addition, the indus-trial structure of Hunan province is unsound; for instance, theadded value of the Secondary industry accounted for 47% of theprovincial GDP in 2013, which was higher than the national aver-age and hampered the expansion of resource capacity (Pan et al.,2013). Consequently, the tense energy supply restricts the coor-dinated development of environment and economy, and Hunanprovince only has the resource capacity (0.3491) close to thenational average level (0.3531), as shown in Table 4. Therefore,Hunan province has to pay more attention to energy explo-ration (such as new energy), efficiency improvement and energyconservation.

To sum up, we can obtain that the combination of informationentropy theory and ecological comprehensive index enables us tocomprehensively evaluate the regional environmental condition.By analyzing the environmental capacity of the 14 administra-tion divisions of Hunan province and comparing that across 30provinces except for Tibet in China, we can have a relatively thor-ough understanding about the environmental condition of Hunanprovince, which is beneficial for policy making and environmentalsupervision in Hunan province, as well as its successful economictransition.

4. Conclusions and policy implications

Taking into consideration what has been discussed above, wemay soundly obtain the following conclusions:

First of all, the average environmental capacity of the 14 admin-istration divisions in Hunan province is relatively lower, i.e., 0.39,

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22 Y.-J. Zhang, J.-F. Hao / Ecolog

ndicating that the environmental capacity of Hunan province staysn the General Condition level. In fact, there are 7 administrationivisions whose environmental capacity is on the level of Gen-ral Condition, ranging from 0.35 to 0.50. In addition, Loudi cityas the worst environment capacity (0.24), while only three cities,

.e., Zhangjiajie, Changsha and Zhuzhou, own the Great Conditiontate.

Second, as one of the crucial city clusters in China, Chang-hu-Tan city cluster produces limited radiative and leading effectn the surroundings despite its relatively better performance innvironment, with the average ECI 0.47. Meanwhile, within thisity cluster, Xiangtan possesses a notably lower environmentalapacity than Changsha and Zhuzhou, which is non-beneficial tohe integration process of the city cluster. Therefore, Xiangtanity has to alleviate the environmental pollution from the originalources. For instance, it is expected to augment the eliminationf backward production capacity and decline the share of directombustion of coal utilization.

Third, in the environmental capacity evaluation system, we takeopulation capacity, land capacity, resource capacity and wastessimilative capacity into consideration and find that waste assimi-ate capacity proves to be the most important factor with the largest

eight of 0.31. Resource capacity and population capacity follow,.e., 0.26 and 0.23, respectively, while land capacity accrues themallest impact on environment condition.

Finally, Hunan province’s environmental capacity reaches theower-middle level among the 30 provinces in China (ranking the4th) and the least level in central provinces. This is mainly dueo its weaker performance in land capacity, resource capacity andaste assimilate capacity. In particular, Hunan province shouldake full efforts to strengthen the resource capacity in order to

romote the overall environmental capacity, such as explorationf new energy and elimination of backward production capacitynd decrease of energy waste.

Based on the results above, we also provide some suggestionsf environmental development for related governmental depart-ents of Hunan province. First and foremost, more cooperation

hould be encouraged to speed up the resource exchange amongts administration divisions. Meanwhile, more joint investmenthould be put in environmental upgrade, such as the update ofnvironmental treatment facilities.

Second, the environmental accountability system should bestablished as quickly as possible and strictly implemented to nor-alize the enterprise behaviors in terms of energy consumption

nd environmental pollution, and substantially increase the cost ofnvironmental pollution.

Last but not the least, a number of the third-party agencies forconomic and environmental quality assessment should be culti-ated soon to strengthen the capability building to participate inarbon trading and make full preparations for the national carbonarket after 2016.It should be noted that there is still some work to do in the

uture with regard to environmental capacity evaluation. On thene hand, we can pay attention to optimizing the indicator sys-ems; on the other hand, we may focus on expanding the algorithmsor environmental capacity evaluation and some more sophisti-ated approaches can be employed to determine the weights of thendicator system, such as the particle swarm optimization (PSO)pproach.

cknowledgement

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support from theational Natural Science Foundation of China (nos. 71001008,1273028, 71322103).

dicators 60 (2016) 514–523

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