Central Asia locates at the core region of the “Silk Road Economic Belt”, while its ecological environment is fragile. Researchers from Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography of Chinese Academy of Sciences quantitatively evaluate the ecological security status of central Asia. 

    Researchers applied improved emerge ecological footprint model to quantitatively study the variations of ecological footprint and ecological carrying capacity, then evaluated the ecological security statuses, predicted the future changes of ecological footprint and ecological carrying capacity in central Asian countries. 

    Results show the ecological footprint per capita in central Asia increased rapidly after 1999, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan had the largest growth rates, with the annual average change rates of 3.93% and 2.77%, respectively. The energy consumption footprints in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan contributed most to their total ecological footprints, the contribution rates were 38.34%, 57.06% and 46.52%, respectively. The ecological carrying capacity per capita in central Asian countries showed decrease trends, among them, Turkmenistan declined greatly with the annual average change rate of -1.93%. The future predication indicated Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan will shift from ecological surpluses to ecological deficits after 2020. Ecological pressures in central Asian countries will persistently increase, especially in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. 

    This research result is published on Journal of Cleaner Production, entitled “Evaluation and analysis of ecological security in arid areas of Central Asia based on the emergy ecological footprint (EEF) model”. 

    Article link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.07.005 

    Contact: LIU Jie, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography 

    E-mail: liujie@ms.xjb.ac.cn