Impact Study on Human Activity to the Resource-environment Based on the Consumption Level Difference of China's Provinces or Autonomous Regions

Abstract

The study on population and the resource-environment by the consumption may contribute to the further cognition about their correlations and provide the policy references for natural resources use and environmental protection. This article has studied the impact status of the consumption level difference of China's 31 provinces or autonomous regions on the resource-environment in 2005 by per capita consumption expenditure and serial statistical data with unit person method and constructed consumption model and hierarchical cluster analysis. We found several trends. To the intensity that population acting on the resource-environment, four sorts of regions might be divided in 2005, furthermore, most of them were at the level of unit person. Provinces or autonomous regions, located in the developed coastal areas in China, generally have the bigger impact intensity on the resource-environment than the others. That is to say, the natural resources mainly flow from west to east and from north to south, but the environmental loads are shared in the whole China and are likely to be aggravated from east to west reversely. The main causes of imbalance of pressure on the resource-environment should be the difference of consumption level, the unmatchable resource exploitation and utilization, the imbalance of discharging pollutants, and the difference of moderate carrying capacity. To the total impact quantities that population acting on the resource-environment, four sorts of regions were divided in 2005 and the difference of them was notable. Provinces or autonomous regions, having the bigger impact quantities on the resource-environment, are generally located in the eastern and central China while the extended western China is still the weak impact area of the resource-environment consumption or terminal pressure. Provinces or autonomous regions are few, where the total impact quantities are more or less; alternately, those are many, where the total impact quantities rank the middle.