The paper used TM and MODIS data to acquire ecosystem types and quality condition parameters. The process involved the following steps: 1) TM images were used to classify the land use/land cover of Huzhou; 2) A method was developed to decompose MODIS NDVI pixels (500 m×500 m) into the same resolution scale of classified TM image, and the observed weather data were combined to compute theNPP (Net primary productivity) of different ecosystems; 3) According to NPP and statistical data, ecological capital of different ecosystems was computed and applied into local socio-economic analysis.

The results showed that 1) the area of woodland, paddy field, shrub and bare land was about 87% of the total area of Huzhou on average in the past four years, and the proportion of grassland, water/wetland and dry land was about 13%. The area of woodland has been continuously decreasing. Bare land, shrub land, grassland and dry land have been steadily increasing, and the paddy land has been increasing in fluctuation. Water/wetland has been decreasing in fluctuation. 2) The average ecological capital of Huzhou in the past four years was 203.33 million RMB·a^-1, in which woodland made the main contribution at a rate of 73.22%. Ecological capital of different counties (districts) was ordered as: Anji County (91.76 million RMB·a^-1) > Changxing County (41.33 million RMB·a ^-1) > Wuxing District (29.31 million RMB·a ^-1) > Deqing County (28.27 million RMB·a ^-1) > Nanxun District (12.66 million RMB·a ^-1). 3) The percentages of ecological capital to GDP from 2001 to 2004 were ranked as Anji County >Changxing County>Deqing County>Municipal Districts, and such percentages showed a decreasing trend in general (only the percentage in Municipal Districts in 2002 was slightly higher than that in 2001, but it has generally been decreasing in the four years). Ecological capital per capita and per area during the four years were ranked as Anji County>Deqing County>Changxing County>Municipal Districts, and it showed a contrary trend of change compared to that ofGDP. That is, the regions with higher-speed economic development usually had relatively fewer ecological resources per capita and per area, and relatively low proportion of ecological capital in GDP, but the pollution level per capita and per area was relatively high. The regions with relatively lower-speed economic development were just contrary to that of the higher ones. All these observations reflected a pervasive problem of the current mode of economic development in Huzhou, that is, higher-speed development of economics has caused serious environmental problems.