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Boulding's 1966 paper on the economics of spaceship Earth established the framework for ecological economics and an understanding of economic growth. In ecological economics, economies are conceptualized as open subsystems of the closed biosphere and are subject to biophysical laws and constraints. Economic growth measured as an increase in real gross domestic product (GDP) has generally been associated with increases in the use of energy and materials and the generation of wastes. Scale, composition, and technology are the proximate determinants of environmental impacts. They are often reduced to two: scale (GDP) and intensity (impact per unit GDP). New work described in this paper defines “green” growth as intensity that declines faster than scale increases. Similarly, “brown” growth occurs when intensity declines more slowly than increases in scale, and “black” growth happens when both scale and intensity increase. These concepts are then related to the environmental Kuznets curve, which can be understood as a transition from brown to green growth. Ecological economics provides a macroperspective on economic growth. It offers broad policy principles, and it challenges the primacy of economic growth as a policy objective, but many important questions remain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of land use/cover change (LUCC) and its impact on sediment retention services (SRS) can provide references for governments to aid them in identifying priorities for conservation or development. We analysed the LUCC characteristics of the Three Gorges Reservoir area (TGRA) and their impact on SRS for the period from the end of the 1970s to 2015 using the Sediment Delivery Ratio model of the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs, and we further explored the relationship between SRS and economic growth. Our major findings were as follows. (a) Expansion of construction land and waterbodies with gross rates of 9.245% and 0.950%, respectively, and conversion from cropland to forestland/grassland with an area of 41,379 ha constitute the three main LUCC characteristics in the TGRA. (b) The amount of sediment retention was stable at about 1.42 × 106 t ha−1yr−1 from the end of the 1970s to 2015, with a decrease of <1%. Spatially, ecological programmes resulted in an increase in SRS in the central areas of the TGRA, and urbanization undermined the capacity of SRS supply in the Chongqing urban centres. (c) SRS was concentrated in regions with an altitude of 500–2,200 m. As the slope increased, the percentage of grids with high SRS increased dramatically. (d) Stable SRS and rapid economic growth co‐occurred in TGRA from the end of the 1970s to 2015, which offers a positive reference for achieving sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]