Take Yan'an city which is in the Loess Plateau as sample, the changes of ecological footprint and ecological carrying capacity were measured and analyzed from 2005 to 2014 by ecological footprint model after those policies that Landscape Beautification Project and Conversion of Cropland to Forest Policy. The economic and social factors which driven the changes of ecological footprint 10 years were analyzed by Partial Least Squares. The result shows, ecological footprint per capita increased from 1.874hm2 to 2.976hm2, ecological carrying capacity per capita waved about 1.6hm2, and contribution rate of energy resource account to the growth of ecological footprint is highest, attain 89.8%. The average annual growth rates of footprint depth per capita and footprint size per capita are 3.3% and 1.9% respectively. On the basis of PLS result, the significant factors which effect ecological footprint are primary industry output value, per capita disposable income, tertiary industry output value, and population quantity. The conclusion indicated, the implementation of ecological projects made a remarkable effect, and caused the growth speed of the ecological footprint per capita is stable. Then, footprint depth and footprint size growth changes in the same direction and slowly, the resource utilization tends more effective. Finally, unreasonable industrial structure, increasing population, and greater consumption of resources lead to the rise of ecological footprint, and the determine factors are energy industries such as petroleum industry and coal industry. Hereby, the policy suggestions on adjusting industrial structure, reconstructing high energy consumption enterprise, supporting new energy and energy saving products, and making residents consuming behavior a turn for the better are put forward.
