Emergy-based ecological account for the Chinese economy in 2004

This paper provides an integrated study on the ecological account for the Chinese economy in 2004 based on emergy synthesis theory. The detailed flows of the Chinese economy is diagramed, accounted and analyzed in categories using the biophysically based ecological accounting. Through calculating environmental and economic inputs within and outside the Chinese economy, this paper discusses the Chinese international exchange, describes the resource structure, and assesses its sustainability as a whole. Also, the comparison of systematic indicators, such as emergy/dollar ratio, environmental load ratio, and emergy self-support ratio, with those of the other countries is tabled and explored to illustrate the general status of the Chinese economy in the world. Take, for example, the environmental load ratio, which was 9.29 in China 2004, it reveals that the Chinese economy put high pressure on the local environment compared with those of the environment-benign countries, such as Brazil (0.75), Australia (0.86) and New Zealand (0.81). In addition, in this paper, the accounting method of tourism is adjusted based on the previous researches. (c) 2007 Published by Elsevier B.V.