Using eco-efficiency as an indicator for sustainable urban development: A case study of Chinese provincial capital cities

Abstract

a b s t r a c tUrbanisation in China has resulted in an increased consumption of resources, energy and materials and led to negative environmental effects. All of these factors have motivated the widely discussed topic of urban sustainable development in China. The core of this discussion is how to quantitatively measure urban sustainable development. This research uses eco-efficiency as an indicator to measure urban sustainable development. A data envelopment analysis model was applied to eco-efficiency analysis using environmental pollution as an undesirable output, and a super-efficiency model was modified for ranking. Using real datum for 30 Chinese provincial capital cities, an empirical study was employed to describe their eco-efficiency. The results show that: almost half of the cities are fairly eco-efficient. The inefficient cities are mainly located in the southwest and northwest of China, which are the undeveloped economic zones, while some of the eco-efficient cities have more environmental pollution and consume more land, energy and water. When ranking cities using a modified model, it was found that Haikou, Fuzhou and Beijing were the top three most eco-efficient cities, while Yinchuan, Lanzhou, Guiyang were the bottom three. When exploring the driving force of eco-efficiency, this paper proposes changing the GDP-oriented growth model and appraisal system, continuously transforming and upgrading the industrial structure and stopping the migration of heavy industry from east to west, south to north and city to countryside.

Application of Environmental Change Efficiency to the Sustainability of Urban Development at the Neighborhood Level

“…The results of a literature review reveal that policies that may be relevant to the efficiency of environmental change in urban land development include traditional zoning systems for land use, urban design regulations, and practices adopted by smart growth management [50][51][52][53][54]. These urban development policies influence the current state of urban land use and socio-economic development, thereby affecting the efficiency of the eventual changes to the environment.…”

“…The common methods of efficiency assessment include ratio analysis, regression analysis, and DEA [69]. One characteristic of DEA is that no prior knowledge of the production function between the input and output attribute data is required; similarly, no relative weight needs to be set for the attribute data [54,[60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72]. Therefore, DEA is useful for comprehensively assessing the indicators of different types and data patterns; it is widely used in economic science, agricultural economics, public economics, financial economics, and economic policy.…”

“…Efficient urban spatial units improve the management of the urban natural environment and create a competitive advantage by reducing the depletion of natural environmental resources and improving ecological protection. Environmental change efficiency has three characteristics based on the DPSIP model, the theory of efficiency and other studies [17,18,25,54,55]: a simultaneous improvement in the effectiveness of the economy and the natural environment; an increase in the value of urban development with a small environmental impact; and the promotion of urban economic growth with a reduction in the use of natural resources.…”

“…To select the indicators, we began with a literature review [11,13,25,39,54,57] focusing on the indicators suitable for monitoring and measuring environmental impacts and urban sustainability at the neighborhood level; we selected indicators based on DPSIP and the primary aspects of sustainable development.…”

“…Therefore, DEA is useful for comprehensively assessing the indicators of different types and data patterns; it is widely used in economic science, agricultural economics, public economics, financial economics, and economic policy. Additionally, DEA is considered an appropriate analysis method for many studies related to eco-efficiency or environmental efficiency [21][22][23][24]54,[73][74][75][76][77].…”