Comprehensive Evaluation of Resource and Environmental Carrying Capacity at a National Scale: A Case Study of Southeast Asia

Xiaowei Zeng, Xiaomei Yang, Shuai Zhong, Zhihua Wang (), Yaxin Ding, Dan Meng and Ku Gao
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Xiaowei Zeng: State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Xiaomei Yang: State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Shuai Zhong: University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
Zhihua Wang: State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Yaxin Ding: State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Dan Meng: State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Ku Gao: State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 7, 1-32

Abstract: Country-level resource and environmental carrying capacity (RECC) assessments can reveal which countries are off-track on ongoing adaptive management towards the sustainability goals. However, fewer effective methods exist to conduct a comprehensive assessment of RECC at the country-level. We implemented the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to comprehensively evaluate the spatial and temporal evolution of RECC from 1990 to 2020, based on the construction of evaluation indicators of regional characteristics derived from remote sensing (RS) and statistical data for 11 Southeast Asian countries. The results show that: (1) In terms of per capita level, most countries in Southeast Asia show a trend of increasing and then decreasing RECC, with lower RECC levels in the east and north, such as Myanmar and Vietnam, and higher levels in the west and south, such as Indonesia and Brunei. (2) In terms of absolute total, most countries in Southeast Asia show a slow increase in RECC, except for Thailand, which slightly decreases, with lower RECC in northern and central counties, such as Laos and Singapore, and higher in other regions, such as Indonesia and the Philippines. Therefore, we recommend that policymakers pay more attention to the control of population size and adhere to a green economic growth model to alleviate the declining trend of recent RECC. This study proposed a comprehensive evaluation method of RECC that address the challenge of assessing different countries with resource and ecological imbalance, which provides potential GIS solutions for in-depth RECC assessment of other countries in the world. Meanwhile, this paper provides insights for Southeast Asian countries to achieve better sustainable development from the perspective of RECC.

Keywords: RECC; analytic hierarchy process; sustainable development; SEA; country-level evaluation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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