Abstract:

The city development needs objectively a modest and rational population capacity. The ecological optimum population of a city is decided by ecological capacity and population's need about the ecological resources in the city．Applying the ecological footprint (EF) method and taking the Guiyang city as an example, the author studied its ecological capacity for population scale by calculating ecological footprint and capacity. The results showed that Guiyang city was already in a state of ecological deficit and overpopulation. The contradiction between man and more prominent was obvious, and the current the population scale was very unreasonable．Therefore，the paper suggested that Guiyang city should control population increase firmly, protect arable land strictly, improve energy utilization efficiency and decrease energy consumption in order to enhance ecological capacity, reduce ecological deficit, relieve regional environmental population pressure and promote coordinated development among regional population, resources, environment, economy and society.