Early Warning Evaluation and Warning Trend Analysis of the Resource and Environment Carrying Capacity in Altay Prefecture, Xinjiang

Abstract

Ecologically fragile areas in China account for more than half of its land area. Performing early warning assessments and trend analyses of resource and environment carrying capacity in ecologically fragile areas can lay a scientific foundation for ecological conservation in the areas. Based on the connotation of resource and environment carrying capacity, an early warning index system of resource and environment carrying capacity in Altay prefecture was constructed from the three aspects natural resource carrying capacity, eco-environment carrying capacity, and economic and social support capacity. The grey relational projection method model was used to analyze the current alarm situation of the resource and environment carrying capacity in Altay prefecture from 2011 to 2020, and then the back propagation (BP) neural network and a mathematical statistics software were used to predict the evolution of the alarm situation of the resource and environment carrying capacity in Altay prefecture from 2021 to 2025. The results demonstrated that (1) the natural resource carrying capacity subsystem was the main system of the development of the resource and environment carrying capacity in Altay prefecture, and its impact on the resource and environment carrying capacity in Altay prefecture was greater than the eco-environment carrying capacity and economic and social support capacity; (2) the resource and environmental carrying capacity of Altay prefecture showed a slight upward trend from 2011 to 2020, although the range was constrained and the level of warning remained “moderate warning”. A spatial pattern of “weak in the middle, strong in the two poles” was exhibited by the warning scenario about the carrying capacity of each county and city. Except for the warning of Habahe County and Qinghe County, where the warning was slightly worse than that in 2020, the warning of resource and environment carrying capacity in Altay prefecture and other counties and cities would show a trend of fluctuation and decline from 2021 to 2025. However, the degree of alarm did not change substantially and remained at the level of “moderate warning”; (3) the main factors restricting the mitigation of the warning of resource and environment carrying capacity in Altay prefecture included a low soil fertility index, a small total reservoir capacity, low per capita mineral resource reserves, a low water resource development and utilization rate, a low comprehensive utilization rate of industrial solid waste, and a low land output rate.

Dynamic Matching and Spatial Optimization of Land Use and Resource-Environment Constraints in Typical Regions of the Yellow River Basin in China

“…When this limit is exceeded, it will hinder and curb sustainable development [14]. The two major systems of social economy, represented by territorial space utilization, and natural objects, represented by the resources and environment, constitute the resources and environment carrying capacity; it has to be noted that there is a highly coupled relationship between these two systems [12] (Figure 1). The environmental carrying capacity is a comprehensive and scientifically based evaluation method that serves as a crucial indicator for assessing the long-term sustainability of ecosystems [36].…”

“…Land 2023, 12, 1420 2 of 19 The "dual evaluation" refers to the evaluation of the carrying capacity of the environment and the evaluation of the suitability of the spatial development of territorial space. The suitability evaluation can be traced back to the land ecological suitability evaluation method [6].…”

“…The resources and environment carrying capacity is the standard for measuring whether social and economic activities are overloaded. It has multiple attributes, such as objectivity [12], and is an important research topic in the field of international sustainable development [13]. From a theoretical perspective, many theories, such as the Growth Limit Theory [14][15][16], serve as the theoretical bases for understanding the resources and environment carrying capacity, and finally form a diverse, multi-scale, and multi-objective-oriented research paradigm [17].…”

Mapping the Spatiotemporal Pattern of Sandy Island Ecosystem Health during the Last Decades Based on Remote Sensing

“…Two schemes exist for the threshold selection. Scheme 1: A threshold of 0.7 was used based on the island carrying capacity [122], and the influence coefficients are comparable to those for the rocky islands. Scheme 2:…”