Measuring the Environmental Stress: Indicators and Application

The sustainability of a nation’s social and economic development is fundamentally determined by how much the nation’s environmental system is strained by human activities, which is in turn determined by the pressure/burden created by human activities and the carrying capacity of the nation’s environment. Based on the material flows of an economy’s metabolism and the carrying capacity of the environment, two new aggregate indicators are proposed and formulated, one being the “total domestic environmental loading” which measures the gross environmental burden imposed on the domestic environment by human activities, and the other the “total environmental stress” which measures the intensity of environmental pressure on a nation’s environment. The indicators are applied to six nations, namely, China, Germany, Netherlands, Austria, Japan, and The United States, for a number of years. Results show that, during the years from 1990 to 2002, China’s total environmental stress ranged from 57 to 82 metric tons per global hectare, exhibiting a trend of first rise, then fall and then rise again. The tendency of rebound in China’s total environmental stress after 2000 is a warning sign of further environmental degradation and should be taken seriously. During the comparison period (1993-1996), the ranking of the six nations with respect to total environmental stress, in a descending order, is China, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, The United States, and Austria. The total environmental stress values of the 5 industrial nations either remained relatively stable or declined, indicating that the environmental stress of these nations exhibited various degrees of “decoupling ” from their economic growth. China’s total environmental stress, however, experienced a steady increase in the same period and has a tendency of increase after 2002.