Study on the urban state carrying capacity for unbalanced sustainable development regions: Evidence from the Yangtze River Economic Belt. (June 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Sun, Chuanwang; Chen, Litai; Tian, Yuan
• Is Part Of: Ecological indicators. Volume 89(2018)
• Page Start: 150
• Page End: 158
• Publication Date: 2018-06
• Subjects: Urban state carrying capacity -- Temporal and spatial differentiation -- Unbalanced sustainable development -- The Yangtze River Economic Belt; Environmental monitoring -- Periodicals; Environmental management -- Periodicals; Environmental impact analysis -- Periodicals; Environmental risk assessment -- Periodicals; Sustainable development -- Periodicals; 333.71405
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2018.02.011
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1470-160X

Abstract

Highlights: The urban carrying capacity in YREB is assessed by USCC. USCC can be directly to assess for the unbalanced development UA. The temporal evolution and spatial differentiation are analyzed to reveal the unbalance. USCC is consisted of four subsystems from different perspectives. Abstract: The Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) is the prior region for achieving China's strategic development with both economic and ecological goals. Since YREB covers more than 500 million people within a large area, the unbalanced urban sustainable development cannot be neglected. Different from the previous studies, this paper adopts an index of urban state carrying capacity (USCC) to assess the sustainable development in YREB. USCC can reflect the positive effects clearly, and evaluate the carrying capacity without the distortion from the opposite side. The assessment method combines the framework of Indicator-Benchmark Comparison (IBC) and the method of Analytical hieratical process (AHP), and sets up the indicator system for USCC from four perspectives. Based on the panel data for the years 2006–2014 in three scale levels, the analyses of temporal and spatial differentiation are conducted to discuss the unbalanced development in YREB. The results present that the eastern sub-UAs have much higher USCC values than the western ones significantly. The provincial cities and municipalities with higher USCC have strong impacts on their neighborhood cities around them. Further policies are suggested to support for other unbalanced sustainable development urban agglomerations like YREB.