关键词: 生态经济学, 生态足迹, 生物承载力, 经验模态分解, 非线性预测

Abstract: The Ecological Footprint (EF) is a valid method for measuring sustainable development through ecological impact. It has gained much attention in academic, policy-oriented and popular literature since its introduction in the mid-1990s. However, only few studies have addressed the problem of EF in the realm of long time series prediction with nonlinear dynamic model. The fluctuant cycles of China's per capita ecological footprint and biocapacity from 1961 to 2005 are decomposed and picked-up based on the empirical mode decomposition (EMD) method in this paper. Nonlinear dynamic prediction models are presented with the cycles, and per capita EF and BC in China are predicted from 2006 to 2015. This research could be meaningful for predicting regional sustainable development status; at the same time, we hope it would provide new access to effective methodology in predicting and interpreting the EF in long time series.Over last 44 years, the obvious undulation cycles of per capita EF growth in China are 4.3 years, 14.3 years and 17 years. Per capita BC growth in China is 3.5 years, 8.8 years, 17.7 years and 44 years. Per capita EF would decrease from 1.636gha in 2005 to 1.366gha in 2015 and per capita BC in China would increase from 0.925gha in 2005 to 1.108gha in 2015 if their average annual change rates are constant. Per capita ED in China would be 0.258gha in 2015. Therefore, China could denote sustainability at the global level with the growth of economic development, technology advancement, and standard of living enhancement.

Key words: ecological economics, ecological footprint, biocapacity, EMD, nonlinear prediction