在对现行可持续发展水平度量方法进行简要评述的基础上,提出了以能值分析(EMA)为理论支撑的区域性可持续发展评价指数。作为案例研究,计算了中国1978～1998年经济系统的可持续发展指数(ESI)。中国经济系统的ESI从高到低的变化历程表明,以经济系统能值流来衡量,中国经济发展的可持续性处于下降态势,表征为前期下降剧烈,目前趋于平缓。具体表现为对资源特别是能源的过度消耗以及对环境的持续强大压力。

In recent years,many fruitful semi quantitative and quantitative approaches have been used to assess sustainability of economic system,but most of them fail to evaluate the effects of environment and resources on economic processes due to imperfect market and externality.Emergy analysis (EMA),which was developed by H.T.Odum,is a broad reaching attempt to quantify the environment and resources in supporting economic activity.In this paper,indices and ratios based on emergy flows are calculated and employed to evaluate the behavior of economic system.The trends of these indices provide useful information about the dynamics of economic systems within the carrying capacity of the environment in which they develop.A new index,emergy based sustainability index (ESI),of measuring regional sustainability is defined and applied to assess Chinese economy.The result of declining ESI values through the investigation period(1978～1998) indicates that the sustainability of economic system in China has been lowered.