Abstract: Rural ecological environment is evolving with the eco-social transformation in Wuxi, and some correlations could be found between the two. Based on the theory of elasticity and GRAP, modeling of response of rural ecological environment to eco-social transformation was completed for analysis of processes of the response and coupling relationship between the two. Results show that the rural ecological environment responded negatively to the eco-social transformation during 1978-2010, and strength of the response displayed a curve of inverted parabola’ pattern, namely rising first and then falling. Non-agriculturalization of the economy was the primary factor influencing the rural ecological environment. The influences of the social urbanization that started in the 1990s and the export-oriented economy that began in 2002 on the rural ecological environment have been growing steadily. And meanwhile, the changing rural ecological environment in turn affected the eco-social transformation. The decrease in ecological land and the deterioration of the environmental quality are the significant factors limiting the eco-social transformation.

Key words: eco-social transformation, rural ecological environment, response, Wuxi