A Four-Dimensional Evaluation of the Urban Comprehensive Carrying Capacity of the Yangtze River Delta, China

Abstract

The evaluation of urban comprehensive carrying capacity (UCC) is of great importance in maintaining urban socio-economic sustainable development. However, UCC is still in its nascent period with limited applications and a lack of credible assessment methods. To enrich this field, this study constructed an objective scientific index to evaluate the UCC of the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region from a four-dimensional perspective, examining economy, society, environmental, and transportation subsystems. The improved entropy method based on 18 weighted indicators was used to measure the UCC of the 26 cities of the YRD for the period 1990-2018. Results indicate that nine cities were overloaded in 2018, meaning comprehensive carrying capacity demand exceeds supply, and the other seventeen were in loadable condition, meaning such demand did not exceed supply; the social and transportation subsystems are the most important because their index weights and UCC levels are higher than the other two subsystems; the overall UCC for all cities in the YRD is at a medium level, and there are large disparities between the various cities. The empirical results imply that the government should take effective measures to improve UCC in these cities, combining cities' specific advantages to enhance the efficiency of resource allocation and utilization and improve carrying capacities, and changing the mode of economic development. Based on UCC levels, it is also important to improve environmental conditions and coordination and integration in the development of urbanization. Policy implications on improving UCC have been highlighted in the final section.

What Factors Affect the Level of Green Urbanization in the Yellow River Basin in the Context of New-Type Urbanization?

“…Compared with the SYS-GMM, the DIF-GMM has a significantly higher second-order lag term. That is why the DIF-GMM model is more reasonable and can more accurately reflect the dynamic regression relationship between the level of green urbanization and various indexes [30].…”

Evaluation and Forewarning Management of Regional Resources and Environment Carrying Capacity: A Case Study of Hefei City, Anhui Province, China

“…In the 21st century, the research on RECC has developed as comprehensive research integrating resources, the environment, ecology, and RECC from single research on land resource carrying capacity and water resource carrying capacity to gradually realizing the transition from classified, static, qualitative, and basic research to comprehensive, dynamic, quantitative, and practical research. However, the threshold definition and key parameter calibration, standardized evaluation and comprehensive measurement of RECC are still the difficult points for comprehensive research [10], which can be reflected by more extensive contents contained in the index system of comprehensive RECC research [5]. According to the different carrying objects, researchers have set different object levels or element levels from the aspects of the economy, society, the environment and resource conditions.…”

“…The concept "resources and environment carrying capacity (RECC)" covers the connotation of multiple dimensions, including resource, environment, ecology, disaster, society, and economy. In terms of the resource dimension, carrying capacity refers to the capacity of resources to supply the environmental system and human needs [6][7][8][9][10]; in terms of the environment dimension, carrying capacity refers to the maintenance function of good environmental quality with the dilution and self-purification of pollution; in terms of the ecology dimension, carrying capacity refers to the capacity to provide supply, adjustment, culture, and support for the existence of humans [11][12][13][14]; in terms of the social and economic dimension, carrying capacity refers to the intensity, scope, and relevant threshold of natural resources and environment to carry humans and social and economic activities of humans and, within the threshold system, the resource and environment system will not sustain obvious degeneration or collapse [14][15][16][17]. In addition, from the perspective of disaster response, there is the concept of disaster carrying capacity which refers to the overall resistance capacity of disaster carrying systems, including resources and the environment, to natural disasters [18,19].…”

Influencing factors on ecological efficiency: Based on 11 cities in Zhejiang Province, China

“…Therefore, high dependence on foreign trade is considered to effectively improve the output of ecological efficiency. The level of public logistics (highway transportation mileage) passed the 5% significance test and had a strong negative correlation with eco‐efficiency. Although transportation has a driving effect on regional economic growth, in general, the increase in transportation mileage will also generate more energy consumption and increase the environmental carrying capacity (Shao et al, 2019). The increase in public transportation services causes greater resource consumption and environmental damage, which negatively affects the improvement of eco‐efficiency. The level of urbanization did not pass the 5% significance test, but passed the 10% significant test with a negative correlation coefficient, indicating that there is some negative correlation between the level of urbanization and eco‐efficiency, but this negative correlation needs more verification.…”