Ecological-environment effect during urban growth in Suzhou, China

It is well known that economy has developed rapidly in Eastern China since the reform and opening up, while the quality of eco-environment is becoming worse and worse. In the presented contribution, the speed and rationality of the urban growth in Suzhou city at various stages were studied, using the data of Landsat TM satellite images in 1995, 2000 and 2005. Moreover, the ecological footprint and the ecological capacity factors were introduced to investigate the relationship between supply and demand of the eco-environment resources in Suzhou city, and the ecological deficit was calculated to evaluate the quality of ecological-environment in Suzhou from 1995 to 2005. The analytical results indicate that the urban growth in Suzhou has a remarkable trend of increase from 2000 to 2005, with a speed nearly four times of that in the stage of 1995 to 2000. Meanwhile, the ecological deficit was increasing during the last decade, representing a continuously degenerated ecoenvironment with the rapid urban growth.