Abstract:Successful and sustainable ecological rehabilitation activities depend heavily on ecological-economic coupling, since these activities are not only a natural and technical process, but an economic process. Evolvement and characteristics of the ecological-economic system of Xiannangou Catchment in the Loess Hilly Region were analyzed with attempt to explore mechanisms for sustainable development by synthetically using economics, emergy and ecological footprint tools. The results showed as follows: over the period 2000-2005, the structure and diversity of the catchment’s industries were notably improved，and also its productivity was significantly enhanced, exceeding low-level towards high-level phase. Based on emergy accounting, the result of ecological-economic coupling analysis suggested that environmental loading ratio (ELR) decreased, meanwhile emergy-based sustainability index (ESI) increased during the period 2002-2005. The result of ecological footprint accounting indicated that, in 2000 and 2005, Xiannangou Catchment displayed 0.03 hectare and 0.239 hectare of ecological surplus respectively, in the meantime a new indicator-ecological footprint per 10000＄ was 53.5 and 33.6 hectare and its ecological footprint pressure index (EFPI) was 0.980 and 0.838 respectively, which showed a weak sustainability of this catchment. Results presented above suggest that ecological rehabilitation contributes to the improvement of resource use and conversion efficiency, as well as to the decreases in environmental loading ratio, the appropriation of biological productive area for economic activities and the increase in sustainability of the catchment. This study suggests that ecological restoration is an essential pathway to the ecological and economic coupling and harmonization in the Loess Hilly Region.