An Assessment of the Security of China’s Natural Gas Supply System Using Two Network Models

摘要: In the context of climate change, natural gas is becoming increasingly important for low-carbon development in China. The gap between demand and supply gas, domestically, China’s high dependence on foreign sources, highlights importance ensuring a secure system supplying country. This study applied ecological network analysis, powerful systems-oriented method, to simulate interactions different nodes evaluate system’s security level. Two models were constructed at regional national layers, respectively, by dividing external suppliers into multiple regions countries. These used overall level related characteristics from 2000 2012. results showed stable improvement during this period. With exceptions some specific indicators (e.g., mutualism index (MI)), analyses information structure yielded mostly similar two models. conclusion, layer (RL) model considered more economical than (NL) evaluating system, especially when available data are limited.