Research on natural resources scarcity and penetration in China

With the rapid growth of China's national economy,natural resources scarcity has become an increasingly serious constraint on the social and economic development.The integrated evaluation on natural resources from multiple perspectives has become a focus in the area of resources utilization.This paper analyses the penetration of natural resources into economic development in China by the induction coefficient calculated using China's input and output data in 1997,2002 and 2007.The results show that the penetration of petroleum and natural gas,cultivated land and coal resources is most powerful.This paper explores whether the natural resources in China are relatively scarce compared with the world level by the relative scarcity index(RSI).Based on the data such as consumption and reserves in both China and the world,this paper calculates the RSI of natural resources in China.The results show that petroleum is the scarcest among energy resources,the sylvine,trona,cobalt,nickel and aluminum are the scarcest among metals and non-metallic mineral resources,all of the renewable resources are relatively scarce,and the degree of cultivated land resource's relative scarcity is more serious.The scatter plot of penetration versus relative scarcity of natural resources illustrates that China is faced with overall scarcity of natural resources,and the energy and cultivated land resources have a higher degree of both penetration and relative scarcity.The diverse energy strategies and the most stringent farmland protection system are imperative.