Habitat International 46 (2015) 64e71

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Habitat International
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Sustainable urban development: A review on urban carrying capacity

assessment
Yigang Wei a, Cui Huang a, *, Patrick T.I. Lam b, Zhiyang Yuan c
a
School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
b
Department of Building and Real Estate, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China
c
School of Management, Changchun Institute of Technology, Changchun, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Urban carrying capacity (UCC) concept is an important barometer and yardstick of sustainable urban
Available online 18 November 2014 development. There are a substantial number of studies dedicated to the broadest sense of the carrying
capacity concept, and a plethora of underlying theories and evaluation methods have been reported.
Keywords: However, UCC, i.e. study at the urban setting, is a largely different research theme due to the varied
Carrying capacity concept meanings, principles, emphasis, and implications. Studies focused on UCC are still in its nascent period,
Urban carrying capacity
existing in a limited volume of literature, a loosely knitted theoretical basis, with a lack of credible
Knowledge gaps
assessment methods and limited applications. Against this background, this research is aimed at
Approaches to improve UCC
analyzing and summarizing related studies on UCC. Through an extensive literature review, this paper
integrates the existing concepts of UCC, reviews current research status, compares the pros and cons of
related research methods, summarize knowledge gaps, and makes suggestions for planners and urban
managers to ameliorate UCC. It contributes to a better understanding of the UCC concept. The research
findings will inspire researchers to advance from the current status, and also provide clues to city
managers and urban planners for developing appropriate strategies and actions to improve urban
planning and management.
© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction disposal, social conflicts, polarized wealth distribution and com-

There is a well-recognized pattern that developed countries
with affluence are usually associated with high levels of urbani-
zation, for example, the USA's 82% and Japan's 91% (Qi et al., 2013;
Tzoulas et al., 2007). It is estimated that urban population will in-
crease to over 70% of the world's total population by 2050 (Shen
et al., 2011). However, the fast inflows of rural dwellers to the ur-
ban areas inevitably induce numerous challenges to the destination
cities (Abernethy, 2001; Saveriades, 2000). The fast growing re-
quirements on carrying capability in many cities have been a sig-
nificant burden caused by urbanization. Over-carrying capacity in
urban development is perceived as massive and over-concentrated
development beyond its inherent limits (Oh et al., 2005), and leads
to various urban problems, such as traffic congestion, housing
shortage, unaffordable housing prices, crowded streets, degraded
ecosystem, air and water pollution, increasing demands for waste
* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ86 10 62781584.
E-mail addresses: weiyigang@googlemail.com (Y. Wei), cui_huang@163.com
(C. Huang), bsplam@polyu.edu.hk (P.T.I. Lam), yuanzhiyang@126.com (Z. Yuan).
munity severance (Abernethy, 2001; Button, 2002; Heikkila & Xu,
2013; Rengasamy, 2009; Oh et al., 2005; Wang, 2013; Wong,
Tang, & van Horen, 2006). These urban problems of over-UCC
development can be summarized as four areas of unsustain-
ability: meager urban services, environmental degradation, natural
resources shortage and social conflicts.
Nowadays, the issue of over-UCC urban development has
spawned various city typologies (Barrett & Odum, 2000), given the
largely different demographic and socioeconomic conditions across
different cities. It has become a great challenge for urban planners
and city managers “to provide inhabitants with a good quality life
in their cities”(Shen et al., 2011: 17). Since progressing sustain-
ability is an essential responsibility for urban planning and devel-
opment, the importance of UCC has drawn great concerns at the
international level. UCC concept provides an important guidance
for city managers and urban planners to better manage, build, and
distribute urban resources, therefore addressing the huge demands
from the increasing urban population (Rengasamy, 2009).
However, given a plethora of explanations and discussion sur-
rounding this topic, current studies still lack a universally recog-
nized definition on UCC (Sarma et al., 2012) and standardization for

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2014.10.015
0197-3975/© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 Y. Wei et al. / Habitat International 46 (2015) 64e71 65

a systematic assessment (Summers, 2004). The imprecision of the
UCC concept leads to a reconsideration of the concept and its im-
plications. As such, research efforts are needed for clarifying the
meaning and principles of UCC. This paper aims to provide a ho-
listic, organized, and insightful understanding of the UCC research.
This paper initially reviews the general carrying capacity concept.
Then it reviews the links between UCC and urban sustainability.
After clarifying the concept, this paper defines the meanings and
relevance of UCC; compares the pros and cons of existing assess-
ment methods; identifies knowledge gaps in current studies; pre-
dicts the directions of carrying capability research in the future. In
the end, recommendations for improving UCC are made.
An overview of carrying capacity concept
The carrying capacity concept was originally derived from ani-
mal ecology in the logistic growth curve theory by Verhulst in 1838
(Kessler, 1994; Odum, 1971; Yu & Mao, 2002). The term “carrying
capacity” was first formally proposed in 1890s by range managers
who had special concerns on land use for grazing livestock (Liu &
Borthwick, 2011). Based on ecological theories, carrying capacity
refers to the entire amount of a given animal species that the
habitat can sustain without yielding irrecoverable damage on the
ecosphere. In ecology literature, carrying capacity provides guid-
ance on the sustainable size of a population relative to the sup-
porting ecosystem.
Likewise, a maximum or subsistence level for human population
growth may be a useful indicator (Campbell, 1998). Human carrying
capability can be defined as the size of population the world can
support without damaging the “natural, cultural, and social envi-
ronment” and degrading future carrying capabilities (Abernethy,
2001: 9). The concept of human carrying capability was first
coined by Thomas Malthus. Given the concerns on natural limited
factors on earth, Malthus made the cautionary prediction that the
earth can only support a limited human population in perpetuity
(Lane, 2010). Malthus noted that the world's human population
grows exponentially, whereas natural resources grow arithmeti-
cally. Thus, natural resources that support human survival would
become finite. The resource constraints often appear as a conse-
quence of rapid depletions of food resources, fossil fuel and fertil-
izers, fresh water, fertile topsoil, and minerals (Pimentel &
Pimentel, 2004). The world will reach its carrying capacity when
a population exceeds the availability of resources to support its
survival. A number of natural limiting factors, such as disease or
famine, will occur to reduce the human population and drag it
under acceptable limits. Despite some criticisms, Malthus's theory
forms an important basis for the human carrying capacity concepts
(Price, 1999; Seidl & Tisdell, 1999; Yue et al., 2008).
This paper leads to a more explicate and complete definition of
UCC. UCC refers to the limit of urban development from environ-
mental impacts and natural resources, infrastructure and urban
services, public perception, institution setting, and society sup-
porting capacity (see Equation (1)). Symbolically, the above rela-
tionship can be described as shown in Equation (1). UCC generally
consists of two parts, i.e. the natural system and man-made com-
ponents of a given urban area, which should adequately meet the
human demands and retain within a limit for urban development,
beyond which instability, degradation, or irreversible damage may
result (Godschalk & Parker. 1975; Joardar, 1996; Oh et al., 2005).
UCC ¼f ðEnvironmental impacts and natural resources;
Infrastructure and urban services; Public Perception;
Institution Setting; Society Supporting CapacityÞ
(1)
A noteworthy characteristics of UCC is that it is not a static and
fixed value but is a dynamic and improvable, and that UCC can be
changed phenomenally by the reactions between technology uti-
lization, human preferences, investment, productivity, and con-
sumption patterns, etc. (Arrow et al., 1995; Graymore, Sipe, &
Rickson, 2010; Sarma et al.. 2012). Fig. 1 provides a schematic
illustration of the components of UCC and their inter-relationship:
Environmental impacts and natural resources: It refers to the
level of human activity in an urban area where the natural envi-
ronment can adequately assimilate the waste and pollution, and
provide sufficient natural resources without scarifying human's life
quality and the endurance of the environment. The environment is
an envelope around the economy (Abernethy, 2001). The envi-
ronment supplies the essential inputs for economic production and
consumption, and in turn also has to receive the waste generated.
This concept encompasses two components, i.e. assimilative ca-
pacity and resources availability of the natural environment, e.g. Liu
and Borthwick (2011). Assimilative capacity, such as water (Gong &
Jin, 2009) or atmospheric assimilative capacity (Goyal & Chalapati
Rao, 2007), refers to the ability of the environment to carry or
assimilate waste without causing adverse impacts to the environ-
ment (Liu & Borthwick, 2011). For example, at the bio-centric level,
the environmental impacts that endanger the beauty, integrity, and
completeness of the biotic community in an urban area should be
evaluated (Sarma et al., 2012). Resources availability should be
measured with respect to the productivity the urban activities
require or generate, such as the supply of food, clean air and water,
and buildable land, etc. (Aspeslaugh, 1994).
Infrastructure and urban services: It refers to the level of hu-
man activity that infrastructure and urban services can adequately
support in the specified urban area without generating degradation
of life quality. Development of appropriate and adequate

Relevance and meaning of UCC

To address the conceptual elusiveness, an explicate definition of

UCC is made, noting the meaning, relevance, components, as well
as the implication for remediation of urban planning and
management.
By intuition, a higher UCC contributes to “a city that its residents
love to live in and take pride in being part of it”, where clean air and
water, convenient transportations, functional urban services, and
friendly civic environment make its residents feel physically, cul-
tural, and spiritually connected to the city (Wang, 2013: 13).
However, given some initial efforts for clearer definitions, e.g.
Onishi (1994), Joardar (1998), Summers (2004), Oh et al. (2005),
Lane (2010), the UCC concept has yet to be adequately defined
(Sarma et al., 2012; Summers, 2004; Tan, Shi, & Sun, 2008). Fig. 1. The components of UCC and their relationships.
66 Y. Wei et al. / Habitat International 46 (2015) 64e71

infrastructure to satisfy public demands is often the primary these supporting systems can adequately support its population by
concern for city managers (Oh et al., 2005). Based on the supply- supplying necessary resources and services needed in an equitable
demand balance of infrastructure and urban services, if in- manner (Graymore et al., 2010). Yu and Mao (2002) employs a
habitants’ demands exceed supply, the lack of supply becomes multi-vector Euclidian space to introduce the Carrying Capacity
critical. At the infrastructural capacity level, the intensity, effi- Concept, which is a visually effective approach to quantitatively
ciency, and pattern of resource utilization should be evaluated for describe a system's various spatial-temporal states. This study
infrastructure development, such as housing, waste treatment adopts this illustrative approach to describe the UCC concept in
system, sewerage system, urban water supply pipeline, trans- question (Fig. 2). For visual convenience, this study only takes a
portation network, hospital, amenity, etc. (Aspeslaugh, 1994). three-dimensional framework rather than a multi-dimensional
Public Perception: Carrying capacity should include perceptual one, as an illustrative example. Theoretically, the three vectors
carrying capacity (Godschalk & Axler, 1977; Godschalk & Parker, represent the three dimensions of UCC i.e. environmental impacts
1975; Liu & Borthwick, 2011; Oh et al., 2005). This term refers to and natural resources, infrastructure and urban services, and so-
the degree of changes or the amount of works that can be visually ciety supporting capacity. The original point O in Fig. 2 indicates the
or psychologically perceived by the citizens with marked im- initial state without human activity and thus without production,
provements than previously observed (Oh et al., 2005). Public consumption, pollution and demand on the environment. Xmax,
perception is an indispensible element for an appropriate carrying Ymax and Zmax represent the maximal degree of human activity and
capacity assessment. For instance, given the high level of urban associated impacts that each carrying capacity dimension can
facilities and institutional governance in Hong Kong, urbanites’ support within a specific city's inherent limit of sustainable
psychological responses or desires in such a highly dense urban development. Each point indicates a combination of these
area, such as repressive feelings, are important considerations for component factors that support urban development. T shows the
city managers and urban planners. At the perceptual carrying optimal point when the amount of human activities reaches its
capability, the common sense towards the environment as maximum in each dimension and sustainable development is
perceived by the citizens including human attitudes, values, perfectly achieved.
behavior, and explicit anticipation towards monitoring other car-
rying capacity types (Godschalk & Axler, 1977; Oh et al., 2005), are
The links between UCC and sustainable urban development
mainly collected by means of social surveys (Aspeslaugh, 1994).
Institution Setting: Institutions are ubiquitous. Institutions are a
The Carrying Capacity Concept has significant practical impli-
network of regulatory, political, cultural and sociological norms,
cations for a balanced relationship between human development
and also the structure and characteristics of the society, to which
and the environment (Yu & Mao, 2002). Each city has an inherent
the city shapes, abides and operates (Wei, Lam, Chiang, & Leung,
limit for its development, i.e. the UCC. Beyond this limit, the
2014). By constituting “the rules of the game”, an institutional
negative impacts of speedy urbanization emerge, such as urban
environment largely determines the decisions makings on urban
poverty, housing shortage, overcrowded effects, health problems,
planning and city performance through its impacts on transaction
environmental containments, etc. (Rengasamy, 2009). As stated by
costs. For example, the environment conservation provisions,
Onishi (1994: 40), while cities with a symbol of prosperity attract
zoning regulations, land use acts, and building permits, etc. are
the influx of population and human activities, over-density or over-
germane to urban development. Therefore, institution is an
development may “impair the urban sphere” and reduce overall
important component for carrying capacity (Godschalk & Parker,
living quality.
1975). Transparency and cultural elements are the most notice-
Button (2002) summarized a general pattern of urban devel-
able components of institutions.
opment across the world, i.e. urban growth can be viewed as
cyclical developments through a series of different phrases,
 Transparency, e.g. transparent governance, refers to the regular
depending on its UCC conditions (Fig. 3). The urban capacity is
and substantive involvements of urbanites in civil affairs, with
initially built with investment taking place and citizen's confidence
close collaboration between the government, global organiza-
tions, NGOs, other social and economic communities, to deal
with urban challenges (Wang, 2013). Transparency necessitates
an equal and fledged platform where urban residents can
comment, evaluate, and suggest public policies.
 Cultural factor is an important component for carrying capacity
(Daily & Ehrlich, 1996; Gustavson, Lonergan, & Ruitenbeek, 1999;
Lane, 2010; Seidl & Tisdell, 1999; Wong et al., 2006). Cultural
components of a city are often shown as ethnic diversity and
religious diversity (Aspeslaugh, 1994; Gustavson et al., 1999).

Society Supporting Capacity: Society supporting capacity refers

to the ability of the society to improve the carrying capacity by
means of economic growth, technological and financing means (Liu
& Borthwick, 2011). For example, the development of a city's eco-
nomic and fiscal capacity is vitally important to enhance the overall
carrying capacity through direct investment. It largely determines
the other paired variables, and thus is the most proactive and
manageable parameter. These indicators can be roughly repre-
sented by Gross Domestic Product e.g. GDP, proportion of total GDP
invested in environmental protection, employment, etc.
The impacts of human activities must be contained within the Fig. 2. Conceptual Model of UCC.
limits of a city's different carrying capacities thus to make sure that Source: Adapted from Yu and Mao (2002).
 Y. Wei et al. / Habitat International 46 (2015) 64e71
accumulated; then urban growth experiences a takeoff alongside
urban economy acceleration. After a period of urban growth, a
bottleneck of UCC is then encountered, often manifesting as various
urban problems, reduced confidence, and the loss of attraction of
existing urban capacities to new investment in this city. Environ-
mental decay associated with overheated urban development
significantly deteriorates the fabric of the city; and later a new wave
of urban growth emerges by improving UCC. Therefore, for sus-
tainable urban development to be achieved, it is important to
appropriately monitor and evaluate the UCC, and enhance the ca-
pacity in a timely manner.
Implications of UCC
City is often of a high population density, associated with a high
concentration of resources and human activities in an intensively
developed area (Oh et al., 2005). The foremost question for urban
planning is “Can the city expand infinitely?” (Wang, 2013). It is
widely recognized that this is a limit scale for urban development
and indefinite development of the urban area is impossible
(Khanna, Ram Babu, & Suju George, 1999; Onishi, 1994). It is ex-
pected that population growth could not continue without a
degradation in the environment, quality and lifestyle of human
living (Summers, 2004). UCC should be a baseline for city devel-
opment (Graymore et al., 2010; Saveriades, 2000). If the urban
population and economic activities exceed the “the limit of urban
capacity”, urbanites would not perceive prosperity, but instead
blighted by the degraded overall living environment, perceived as
deteriorations in socio-economic and ecological conditions
(Onishi, 1994; Saveriades, 2000). UCC leads to five important im-
plications for sustainable urban planning and management:
 It is an important parameter to determine the optimal popula-
tion size for sustainable development.
 It leads to determining the maximum probable population
which the urban environment can support with respect to the
minimum norms or low-limit standards of urban services.
 It provides an important guide to the service load of the region
which should be maintained above a specified standard
(Summers, 2004).
 More importantly, it can serve as a useful framework to deter-
mine the spatial allocations of resources for urban services and
infrastructure, in a more sustainable and rational pattern. It also
guides planners and city managers in determining an appro-
priate spatial distribution of urban population and the socio-
economic activities (Hardin, 1986).
Fig. 3. The Cyclical nature of urban development.
Source: Adapted from Button (2002)
67
Literature review
Based on different underlying theories and emphasis, carrying
capacity studies have been conducted in five research strands, e.g.
tourism/recreational carrying capacity, safety or disaster carrying
capacity, ecological carrying capacity, human carrying capacity, and
UCC. Integrating all of the above analytical dimensions to formulate
a complete assessment framework and management strategy for
urban planning is important but this has not been adequately
addressed. Currently, only a limited number of studies have been
specialized on theme of UCC. This study collects a sample of 9
research works closely related to UCC, and features are summarized
in Table 1.
In terms of different underlying theories, carrying capacity
assessment literature can generally be classified into three pro-
totypes i.e. societal, environmental and system methods (Lane,
2010). Societal-based models center on the societal configuration
evolving from economic or demographic analysis models, with
only a limited number of environmental parameters into investi-
gation; environmental-based models focus on the natural con-
straints and/or environmental consequences; system-based
models holistically considers a set of interconnected factors for the
carrying capabilities. The prototypes of reviewed studies are
complied in Table 1, providing insightful understandings on the
underpinning theories.
Joardar (1998) developed a set of UCC indictors mainly focused
on water supply, sanitation, and financial capability of social in-
stitutions in India. Based on these evaluation indicators, a con-
ceptual framework base was proposed. However, this conceptual
framework has not been examined in a real case study, leaving its
applicability questionable. Button (2002) also made several
important contributions. First, he pointed out key criteria for the
selection of urban indicators and discussed how urban environ-
mental indicators can serve urban management. With a sustain-
able perspective, he suggested a number of economic and
environmental urban indicators for city management, and a gen-
eral framework is proposed to assist city managers in dealing with
urban affairs. Based on the carrying capacity concept and an
evaluation of carbon emission, Bendewald & Zhai (2013) devel-
oped a computational model to assess the sustainability of a
building project. The method entails an assessment of the carbon
emissions of the whole life cycle of the building from construction
to building operations. By means of surface modeling as the main
research method, Yue et al. (2008) assessed China's food provision
capacities. The research findings identify the unreasonable agri-
cultural structure as the major cause of the present food shortage.
Several suggestions were made to enhance China's carrying ca-
pacity by a more balanced agriculture production structure. After
comparing the effectiveness of various assessment tools,
Graymore et al. (2008) and Graymore et al. (2010) found that the
assessment tools developed for global, national, provincial levels
may not be entirely effective for regional use. Against this back-
ground, Graymore et al. (2010) developed a new analytic tool for
assessing sustainability at the regional level. The so-called sus-
taining human carrying capacity assesses the sustainable level of
human activities by elevating the pressures imposed on the local
ecosystem. The effectiveness is examined in South East Queens-
land as the case study. Oh et al. (2005) developed a framework for
evaluating UCC which can estimate the optimal population density
based on the existing infrastructures and land use. The limitation
is that due to the difficulties of obtaining data, this research fails to
integrate institutional and public perception dimensions into the
investigation. From the perspectives of city managers, Wong et al.
(2006) highlighted a set of important urban problems to be
addressed in city management, using Guangzhou as a case study.
68 Y. Wei et al. / Habitat International 46 (2015) 64e71
Table 1
Summary of the 9 studies.
No. Reference Regions and city populations
1 Onishi, 1994 Tokyo inner city consisting of 23 wards
2 Joardar (1998) India
3 Button (2002) A conceptual model applicable to global cities
4 Oh et al. (2005) Gangnam District of Seoul in Korea, with 39.55 km2
and 550,000 residents in 2000
5 Wong et al. (2006) Guangzhou Development District in China, with
215 km2 and 120,000 population by 2004
6 Yue et al. (2008) China
7 Graymore et al. South East Queensland in Australia, with 246,000,000
(2010) people in 2001
8 Liu (2012) 16 cities of urban agglomeration in the Yangtze River
Delta, China, with 110,800 km2 and 4.3 trillion RMB
GDP in 2008
9 Shi et al. (2013) Shanghai in China, with 23,030,000 people in 2010
The indicators and measurable evaluative criteria proposed are
important for improving urban management capacities. Onishi
(1994) investigated Tokyo inner city's carrying capacity based on
the prerequisite that the urban infrastructure and services can
adequately support comfortable living standards for urbanites. The
quantitative analysis showed that Tokyo's population already
surpassed the inherent limit for sustainability and comfort,
causing traffic congestion, poor waste treatment capacity, and
housing shortage. The results suggest that decentralization pol-
icies and strategies are needed to curtail the massive demands for
urban infrastructures and services. Based on an analytic dimension
of resource supply-demand balance, Liu (2012) developed an
assessment framework and examined its applicability through a
case study of 16 cities of the urban agglomeration in the Yangtze
River Delta, China. The 12 representative indicators mainly focus
on physical and ecological variables with no consideration on
economic, perceptual, and institutional aspects. By integrating
Geographic Information System e.g. GIS technique and land use
classification method, Shi, Wang, and Yin (2013) developed a new
analytical model for static UCC assessment.
UCC assessment models
There is a well-recognized belief that carrying capability
assessment has immense implications for sustainability, e.g. (Lane,
2010). However, existing UCC research still lacks a strong
Features of study Type of models
 Identifying the major areas, indicators, and criteria Environmental-based
of urban facilities and services determining
comfortable urban lives.
 Focusing on basic sustainable infrastructure Environmental-based
provisions with a system of 25 indicators based
on four themes.
 The applicability of these proposed indicators has
yet been examined in real-life case studies.
 Establishing conceptual framework with the System-based
integration of economic and environmental
considerations at the urban level.
 Providing conceptual criteria/guidelines for UCC
indicator selections.
 Geographic Information Systems (GIS), was Environmental-based
adopted for accurate assessment for spatial
planning.
 Identifying the spatial locations of the overload
urban services.
 A holistic integration of economic, System-based
environmental, social, cultural, institutional
indicators based on city manager's consideration
are recommended and compared with related
criteria in real-life case.
 Basing on food provision capacities of China's Environmental-based
productive land and aquatic ecosystems, this
study estimated the probable maximum size
of population in China.
 The study main focused on physical and Environmental-based
ecological aspects of regional sustainability,
leaving other dimensions absent.
 With an insight of resource demand and supply Environmental-based
balance, this study development an evolution
framework, and potential factors were
condensed a limited number of representative
indicators.
 The use of time-series global factor analysis is
a capable tool to measure the dynamic changes
of UCC in different years.
 With the use of GIS, this study estimate the Environmental-based
limit of Shanghai population basing on spatial
classification and spatial grading of land use.
theoretical basis and reliable estimating methods (Shi et al., 2013).
There are several numerical analysis techniques for capacity
assessment, which are relevant for assessing carrying capacity at
the urban level. The following section expounds on the principles of
each technique, together with the merits and limitations (Table 2):
Energy Analysis: Based on the thermodynamics and general
systems theory, this method incorporates ecological and economic
factors into assessment (Campbell, 1998; Odum, 1983, 1994). It
addresses the finite nature of energy. By exploring how much en-
ergy loss can be tolerated to support a sustainable scale of eco-
nomic activities, this approach infers the maximum amount of
human activity in a specific region. As a tool to determine the
relative importance of economic-environmental requirements ‘on
the macroeconomic scale’, it is an important environmental ac-
counting method for public policy making.
IPAT Equation: IPAT literally represents impacts on the envi-
ronment by “I”, human population by “P”, affluence of human life by
“A”, technology of production and consumption by “T”. The equa-
tion is represented as I ¼ P*A*T (Chertow, 2000). This formula has
been widely used as a starting point for studies on interactions of
economic development, population, and technology advancement.
The equation can be treated as a multi-constraint model which
considers various factors in assessing the carrying capability (Sarma
et al., 2012). This model is originally used to assess the impacts of
population growth on the environment. Now it has become a
conventional reference for population policy design. Therefore, this
 Y. Wei et al. / Habitat International 46 (2015) 64e71
Table 2
Typical carrying capacity assessment methods.
Method Merits
Energy analysis  Holistically quantifying the contribution of natural capitals and
ecological process to human activities.
IPAT equation  A general and simplified calculation of human activity impacts
on the environment
Graphical model  An effective way to visually describe the trend and conditions
of carrying capacity.
Ecological Footprint  An initiative-appeal and standardized model to quantify
model demand and supply on the world's ecosystem.
PSR and DPSIR model  An effective framework to choose and organize indicators
 A flexible model which can be adopted for high details, different
purposes, and specific features
IndicatoreBenchmark  The logic of the estimation procedure is easy to understand.
Comparison
model can evaluate the combined effects of population size, pro-
duction and consumption patterns, and the technology of resource
usage. It provides a useful framework to calculate the carrying
capability. See (Wetzel & Wetzel, 1995).
Graphical Model: This type of model uses a graphical repre-
sentation to plot the human population growth against time. There
are two types of growth patterns i.e., exponential and logistic
(Sarma et al., 2012). Without environmental resistance, the expo-
nential growth of human beings will eventually lead to over-
population problems and ecological imbalance. However, when
the carrying capability is overshot, environmental resistance will
take effect and impede the unlimited population expansion to
stabilize at an equilibrium, i.e. logistic growth curve.
Ecological Footprint Model: Rees and Wackernagel proposed
this model in the 1990s as the traditional technique for environ-
mental modeling. It has been the most widely used model for
assessing the carrying capability at regional level (Lane, 2010;
Sarma et al., 2012). This method assesses the amount of land area
needed to sustain a region including resource consumption re-
quirements and pollution assimilation, and compares it to the
availability of ecological productive land. Land use consists of six
major categories i.e. gardens, fossil energy use, built environment,
pasture, crop and forest (Graymore, Sipe, & Rickson, 2008). Data is
compiled on the land use by food, transportation, housing, house-
hold consumption and government expenditure. Ecological foot-
note is measured by the same unit with the carrying capability
assessment by the so called “global hectare” e.g. gha, which facili-
tates comparisons (Sarma et al., 2012). The ecological footprint per
capita can be used to assess the conditions of sustainability.
“Ecological remainder” refers to the case that the ecological foot-
note of a location is lower than its carrying capability. Conversely, if
the ecological footnote outstrips the carrying capability, i.e. local
inhabitants have to use resources from outsides its boundaries, this
location will suffer an “ecological deficit”.
Pressure-State-Response (i.e. PSR Model): PSR model helps to
tackle the issue of insufficient and obscure physic links between
69
Limitations
 Strong data requirements
 Weak and unclear links with relevant concepts in other subjects
 Inadequate details on the underlying method
 Lack of evidence for generalizations
 The simplistic prerequisite of a multiplicative relationship among
the determining factors may lead to inaccurate calculation. For a
better quantitative assessment, it is important to designate
different weights to each factor.
 Another limitation is that this equation does aid the
understanding of directional impacts of each factor i.e. whether
increase or decrease the environmental impacts. However, it
cannot help to determine the sustainability limits/threshold of
each determining factor.
 This type of models is largely for illustrative purposes. It is
impossible to derive an accurate value for carrying capacity.
 The method is more applicable at the global level, but not for
population concentrated areas, (Fiala, 2008; Gordon &
Richardson, 1998).
 This method underestimates the human activity impacts on
the environment, since it exclusively focuses on the renewable
resources and leaves other non-renewable resources out of
consideration.
 The model focuses on the interactions between the
environment and the economy, whilst other links such as links
between the environment and the society are not adequately
addressed.
 Assessment results are subjective to the selection of indicators
and evaluation criteria.
society and nature. Championed by the Organization for Economic
Co-operation and Development i.e. OECD, 1999, it provides a so-
cioeconomic framework to track the causality process of envi-
ronmental degradation. The origin and consequence of
environmental problems are as follows: human activities generate
negative “pressures” on the environment such as environmental
contamination and depletions of resources (the “state”). The
environmental problems, damaging human health and life quality
would lead to the “responses” of human to prevent or alleviate the
environmental, social, and economic problems. See (Spiegel et al.,
2001). This technique emphasizes the causeeeffect relations
existing among the ecological, physical, economic and other is-
sues. The practical meaning is that it provides a useful framework
to identify and organize respective indicators, with an assurance
that no important factors would be neglected. The model of DPSIR
(Drivers- Pressures-State of the Environment-Impacts-Responses)
proposed by Smeets et al. (1999) is an extension of the basic
PSR model and has been employed by many environmental
organizations.
IndicatoreBenchmark Comparison: This method is the con-
ventional procedure of many UCC assessment models, e.g. (Clarke,
1996; Graymore et al., 2010; Liu, 2012; Oh et al., 2005; Shi et al.,
2013; Yu & Mao, 2002). In practice, carrying capacities values are
compared with the threshold, acceptable, minimum, or recom-
mended standards of UCC (Joardar, 1998; Liu & Borthwick, 2011).
Initially, a set of indicators for measuring sustainability is identified.
The sustainability standard for each indicator is established. Then,
each determining factor is evaluated for carrying capacity assess-
ment, by comparing human activity impacts to thresholds or tar-
gets (Graymore et al., 2010). The relations and relative weights
between different determining variables can be established. Be-
sides assessment on individual indicators, a composite index for the
overall carrying capacity can also be derived with an aggregating
method for each dimension.
The pros and cons of each method are summarized in Table 2. All
the traditional methods have inherent weaknesses, and more
70 Y. Wei et al. / Habitat International 46 (2015) 64e71
reliable methods are expected. This study proposes three general
principles for developing an effective UCC assessment model:
1. This model should carry complete and holistic information
about an urban system and its overall sustainability without
losing key information about subsystems (Bossel, 2000;
Graymore et al., 2010)
2. The estimated findings should be easy for urban planners and
managers to apply in routine urban management. Ideally, a
desirable assessment framework should establish quantifiable
criteria for urban actors to monitor and evaluate (Lee, 2006).
3. The assessment results should be easy for understanding and
communicating among academia, officials, professionals, and
other stakeholders.
Knowledge gap
To a limited extent, current studies are successful. However,
some issues are barely mentioned. This research helps organize
current understanding and thus leads to new research questions for
future study.
1. Future UCC assessment should highlight trans-boundary impacts,
inter-relation and independence (Blowers, 1992; Button, 2002).
First, because a city is a node of the spatial human network, the
inherent inter-urban linkages between spatial regions are inevi-
table (Button, 2002). Second, the open trend of economic devel-
opment, migration growth alongside urbanization, and
transferability of negative environmental impacts across spatial
regions add to the difficulties of measuring CCA at the urban level
(Button, 2002). Third, a specific urban area is usually associated
with an “appropriate carrying capacity”, i.e. to import substantial
resources from distant regions to sustain the functioning of the
city. Such reliance on distant location's resources is recognized as
an important approach for UCC building (Joardar,1998). Therefore,
urban issues and reactive plans usually need to be analyzed in a
broader context of their impacts and consequences (Button, 2002;
Cappello, Nijkamp, & Pepping, 1999).
2. Little research has made reference to “cultural habits and life-
style choices” of the population (Lane, 2010: 1039). The UCC of a
given area is largely determined by the life standard and lifestyle
of the people residing there (Campbell, 1998; Lane, 2010; Sarma
et al., 2012; Summers, 2004). A desired model needs to consider
the possible future lifestyle and to suggest the sustainable and
secure human population thresholds, which serves the future
land-use planning. It is noticeable that the complexity of mod-
ern lifestyle increases the difficulties of calculating carrying
capability, since nowadays human production, consumption and
waste treatment are occurring simultaneously across different
regions and countries which have vastly varying demographic
and socioeconomic landscape.
3. The dynamic characteristics of carrying capacity are seldom
addressed. The internal flows of information and resources, as
well as technology advancement lead to cities' dynamic nature,
and thus this continuous change and evolution of a city's
structure questions the static analysis (Arrow et al., 1995;
Button, 2002; Graymore et al., 2010; Sarma et al., 2012; Shi
et al., 2013). Static evaluations are not able to address the
changing urban socioeconomic and environmental attributes.
Static UCC assessment is deficient in timely identifying urban
problems for formulating reactive plans (Button, 2002).
4. Socioeconomic institutions and ecosystem functioning are
inextricably linked (Abernethy, 2001). It is important to fully
appreciate the institutional context where urban indicators are
taking shapes and evolving (Button, 2002). Existing studies have
paid much attention on environmental and social aspects,
however important parallels in institution analysis are some-
times forgotten (Seidl & Tisdell, 1999).
5. The carrying capacity concept should be assessed in two di-
mensions, which contains both density and per capita and in-
tensity impact on environmental and ecosystem aspects (Barrett
& Odum, 2000; Ehrlich & Holdren, 1971) The inclusion of the
density dimension is easy to understand. However, just
addressing density is not sufficient for a systemic assessment
since there are significant differences in the intensity of in-
dividuals' impacts on the environment. For example, the energy
consumptions by urban dwellers are on average three to five
times more than those by rural residents (Qi et al., 2013). Taking
another example, citizens in developed countries generally
consume much more resources than their counterparts in
developing countries. The more affluent the human society
becomes, the less population the fixed natural resources can
cater for, since the changing lifestyle requires more to sustain.
6. With the advancement of technology, some studies have
attempted to use computer simulation, remote sensing (RS) or
geographical information systems (GIS) to assess the population
carrying capability in a specified locality, e.g. (Khanna et al.,
1999; Oh et al., 2005; Shi et al., 2013). Compared with the
conventional evaluation indicator system, these spatial analysis
models are superior in terms of “scientificity, intuition and
management” (Shi et al., 2013: 28). These techniques are
recognized as promising and powerful tools to assist planners
and city managers in assessing city management performance
and formulating better urban development policy (Oh et al.,
2005). Acquiring sufficient data is the major impediment for
its wider applications (Shi et al., 2013).
The studies have identified several important knowledge gaps.
Research efforts are needed to fill these gaps.
Conclusion and recommendations
UCC studies have important implications for sustainable urban
development. For city managers, careful assessments on the pre-
sent carrying capability provide indications on the sectoral and
spatial distributions of population and urban services towards their
capacity improvement, for maintaining the living quality, and for
meeting the growing demand on the urban areas. This research
helps to clarify the concepts of UCC, understand the current
research status, and inspire ideas for future studies. In terms of the
mounting pressures on UCC, several remedial solutions are rec-
ommended for urban planners and city managers to improve UCC.
First, to obtain sustainable urban development, it is important to
decrease the “carrying capacity differentials” in urban services and
infrastructure stocks. A city's UCC can be enhanced by means of
either supply or demand sides, such as increasing the investment
on urban facilities, reducing demand by decentralization policy,
controlling population size in sufficient lead time. In addition,
pricing of urban services is also an important approach to maintain
the supply-demand balance. Among these measures, decentral-
ization policy is the most feasible solution. Decentralization stra-
tegies can be implemented by distributing the functions from the
metropolis to the outlying regions.
Second, changing present resource-intensive lifestyle to a more
sustainable one is important to mitigate the environmental impact
and to perpetuate the adequate regeneration of natural resources. It
is feasible for human to maintain their living standards, by means of
the higher resource utilization efficiency and the reduced use of
non-renewable resources. Therefore, it is the responsibility of
 Y. Wei et al. / Habitat International 46 (2015) 64e71
governments to attract public participation and cultivate a common
adoption of sustainable lifestyle.
Third, while governments are increasingly seeking ways to
improve urban management performance, legislation is recognized
as the one of the most effective approaches to improve urban
management. Regulations with enforceability and meaningful de-
terrents for trespassing are also instrumental. Many urban man-
agement regulations are not properly implemented. There is a
common phenomenon in developing countries that soft infra-
structure, i.e. management and maintenance, significantly lags
behind the physical infrastructure. The lack of maintenance and
management results in the quick degradation of newly built
infrastructure. Hence, UCC is an area entailing multi-prong strate-
gies, which have to be developed with advancing research.
Acknowledgements
The first author wish to thank the China Postdoctoral Science
Foundation (Grant No.:2014m550755) for the financial support.
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