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The coordination of urbanization with the ecological environment has become a significant sustainable urban development problem given the current acceleration in China's urbanization. The existing research lacks in-depth discussion on the coordination relationship between urbanization and energy eco-environment from the perspective of urban agglomeration. This paper takes the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration as its research area. The combination of CRITIC and entropy weight methods is used to measure the comprehensive urbanization level (CUL) from the four dimensions of population, economy, land, and society, and the SBM-Undesirable model is used to measure the energy eco-efficiency (EE). The spatiotemporal pattern and dynamic evolution law of the coupling coordination degree (CCD) between CUL and EE are analyzed using the coupling coordination model and the spatial Markov chain. The research results reveal that (1) from the comprehensive development level standpoint, both CUL and EE are on the rise from 2010 to 2021; however, a problem of unbalanced development is observed. (2) The overall CCD displays an upward trend and evinces significant spatial differentiation characteristics from the coordinated development level viewpoint. (3) The CCD transition state is not isolated to certain geographic spaces: adjacent cities will impact changes in the coupling coordination types of an urban center. Therefore, we propose strategies to improve the CCD between CUL and EE to offer theoretical and policy inferences for the formulation of sustainable urban development strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A high-speed urban expansion in China over the past two decades has been accompanied by a great leap forward for energy consumption. However, such a significant socio-economic transition may increase the potential risk of energy inequality, which deserves special attention. Using China's provincial panel data covering the periods of 1997–2020, this paper mainly studies the impact of urbanization on urban-rural electricity consumption inequality with a modified STRIPAT model. The results of the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimation show that there is a significant U-shaped relationship between urbanization and urban-rural electricity consumption inequality. The estimated short-run turning point arrives at the urbanization level of around 63.54% and 61.18% for the long-run estimates. We further carry out a regional heterogeneity analysis and then have two interesting findings: firstly, the colder northern region's turning point (70.95%) arrives later than the south (57.69%). Secondly, the baseline U-shaped relationship remains for developed eastern regions and the estimated turning point is 57.91%, while for the undeveloped midwestern regions, the relationship is not nonlinear but linearly negative. As an extension, we lastly explore the mechanism underlying the U-shaped relationship, and find that the interaction of urbanization's scale and efficiency effect determines the U-shaped relationship. Our findings remind policymakers that, to narrow the urban-rural development gap, the future preference of energy policy should be dynamically adaptive to varied regions and development stages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the steady increase in urbanization that has occurred, China has begun to suffer from serious urban sprawl. Both the increase in urbanization and the subsequent urban sprawl have led to major changes in CO2 emissions. In this paper, we expand the STIRPAT model to empirically analyse the effects of China's urbanization and urban sprawl on CO2 emissions from 1997 to 2018, with regression results showing that both urbanization and urban sprawl have increased CO2 emissions. Further analyses of the mechanisms indicate that urbanization can increase overall CO2 emissions by not only increasing industrial CO2 emissions, but also by increasing construction CO2 emissions and residential consumption CO2 emissions as well. Urban sprawl can increase overall carbon emissions by increasing CO2 emissions from transport, construction and industry. We then make specific suggestions for China's carbon reduction and low-carbon development based on these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the background that the country is vigorously promoting the construction of new urbanization and seeking green development, this paper takes 31 provinces of China as the research object. It constructs a comprehensive evaluation system that integrates new urbanization and green economy into the same research framework, analyzes the evolution characteristics of new urbanization and green economy from the scale analysis of time and space, and, through the relative development model, coupling coordination model, and the random panel Tobit model, further explores the relative development and coupling coordination relationship between the two, deconstructing the internal driving factors. Research shows that the regional differences in the development level of new urbanization are decreasing year by year, while the efficiency of the green economy is increasing yearly. The relative development types of the two have obvious regional distribution characteristics. The level of coupling coordination gradually increases over time. The impact of economic development and growth, urban construction, regional opening up, urban expansion, government investment, industrialization level, and industrial structure on the coupling coordination degree of new urbanization and green economy is inconsistent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The act of balancing simultaneous rapid development of urbanization and ecological environmental protection is an increasingly important strategic agenda of national importance. While focusing on the principle of sustainable development, this paper calculates and analyzes the extent of coupling coordination degree (CCD) between the new urbanization quality (NUQ) and eco-environmental carrying capacity (EECC) of 246 prefecture level and above cities in China. The gravity center moving trajectory, Moran's I and LISA are employed to perform exploratory spatial analysis, and the differences among cities are analyzed by variation coefficient (CV) method. Based on simulation by the NUQ and CCD, results obtained show a continuous growth trend at similar rate among the cities. Meanwhile, the mean value of EECC showed a fluctuating growth trend. The coordinated development type cities were largely concentrated in the coastal areas of the east. In comparison, other areas are dominated by disorders recession type cities and the coordination transition type cities. The center of gravity CCD was found moving from the northeast to the southwest. The situation of HH (CDD main city—high, CDD surrounding cities—high) and LL (CDD main city—low, CDD surrounding cities—low) always accounted for more than seventy percent. The cluster locations of HH and LH (CDD main city—low, CDD surrounding cities—high) are largely concentrated around mega-urban agglomerations comprising the following three major urban agglomerations, i.e., (i) the Yangtze River Delta; (ii) the Pearl River Delta; and (iii) the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei. CV of CCD shows that the gap among cities is gradually narrowing. In summary, the results conclude that most of the evaluated cities have not achieved coordinated development. As such, enhancing ecological environment protection awareness, improving the utilization effectiveness of natural resources and gradual elimination of regional differences should be the way forward in facilitating the process of new urban construction. The significance of this research not only helps increase the focus on ecological environmental governance, but also enrich the theoretical system of urbanization, both of which have important theoretical significance and application values in the building of an ecological civilization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the relationships between urban expansion and social/environmental features is fundamental to managing watershed and urban expansion. However, such relationships remain unclear, especially across multiple scales of watersheds. Here, we quantified the correlation between urban expansion measures and 255 socioenvironmental indicators across three scales of watersheds running through China (20, 103, and 349 watersheds) during 1992–2016 and analyzed their scaling relations. The results showed that the number of indicators showing a significant correlation with the area and speed of urban expansion increased from 132 and 153 to 234 and 237, respectively, from level 1 to level 3 watersheds. Among these indicators, urban expansion was significantly correlated with indicators of climate and anthropogenic impact. From a large scale (level 1 watershed) to a small scale (level 3 watershed), 104 and 84 socioenvironmental indicators shifted from uncorrelated to significantly correlated with urban expansion area and speed. The constraint line analysis further confirmed that some relationships were nonlinear, which suggested that the drivers and impacts of urban expansion have scaling effects. We argue that it is crucial to consider the scaling effects of urban expansion when we formulate urban or watershed management plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban soil organic carbon (SOC) plays an important role in urban ecosystem services. Rapid urbanization and anthropogenic disturbances have created complex and dynamic land-use patterns and heterogeneous urban landscapes, however, the impact of these patterns on the spatial distribution of soil organic carbon density (DSOC) remains unclear. This study investigated SOC using a spatial sampling method from 213 sites in Xi'an City Ring Expressway, China. The results showed that the DSOC ranged from 1.79 to 4.93 kg m−2, with a mean of 3.31 kg m−2, and the value of Dsoc was decreased from city center toward suburb with a significant spatial heterogeneity. The DSOC varied with land-use types, being higher in parks, transportation, commercial, and public lands than in industrial, agricultural, parking, and construction lands. The Dsoc was positively related to population density, normalized difference impervious surface index, road density, and landscape shape index, while negatively to aggregation index and patch richness density. Overall, the urbanization of Xi'an City has strongly affected the soil C stocks, and the capacity of urban soils to store C was sustainable. These findings lays a scientific foundation for future soil carbon management in urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid urbanization has produced many metropolitan areas in China, resulting in regional human-land-ecological environment contradiction phenomenon. In recent years, Chinese government has launched a series of new national ecological civilization construction and ecological protection projects. Monitoring the changes in land-use/land cove (LULC) and exploring its impact on net primary productivity (NPP) is a key hot issue to support sustainable development. This study took Wuhan metropolitan area as the research area to monitor the distribution and relationship between LULC and vegetation NPP changes is helpful to strengthen carbon balance and improve the quality of human settlements. The results showed that, from 2000 to 2020, land use types in the study area changed dramatically, mainly cultivated land, urban land, and other construction land. The vegetation NPP showed a continuous growth trend in time and space, with growth rate of 114.48%. With the passage of time, LULC spatial distribution had significant effects on NPP and chaotic urban sprawl has seriously affected NPP losses, while the ecological forest and grassland in remote areas can significantly increase NPP yield. This study also revealed the correlation between LULC and NPP, and opened up research approaches for land-use optimization and vegetation NPP based on different scenarios in the future. Our analysis not only contributes urban land-use planners, but also provides important insights into improving the competitiveness of green development among urban agglomeration systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid urbanization process has led to a high concentration of population and economic activities in urban space, thus leading to severe environmental pollution. The concept of new-type urbanization has been proposed in China to combat the pollution associated with urbanization. This study analyzes the interaction effect of new-type urbanization with land, industry, and technology on haze pollution, using Chinese provincial-level panel data, and employs a STIRPAT model with interaction terms for empirical testing. The results find that new-type urbanization can significantly reduce the national haze pollution level; meanwhile, the optimization of intensive urban land use level, industrial structure, and technological innovation can interact with it to promote haze reduction, and there is regional heterogeneity. The improvement of intensive urban land use and industrial structure in the central region will significantly enhance the haze reduction effect of new-type urbanization, while the improvement of technological innovation in the west will instead weaken its haze reduction effect, and the interaction in the eastern region is not significant. This research provides a theoretical basis for better implementation of new-type urbanization construction and effective promotion of green and sustainable urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sustainability of land conversion to urban use is an important factor that promotes sustainable urbanization. However, China's local governments have relied too much on the land finance model for urbanization, which has led to disordered growth of urban land, ultimately posing a threat to ecosystem security and socioeconomic development. Effectively evaluating the factors that influence the growth of urban land is critical to improving the sustainability of urban land use. In this study, we explored the factors that affect the growth in the area of urban land using spatial analysis models based on panel data for Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2007 to 2019. We found that fiscal decentralization, infrastructure, industrialization, and industrial upgrading were the main factors responsible for the growth of urban land, but that their degrees of influence differed between regions. Our findings identify the necessity for local governments to design urban land-use policies and perform strategic planning for urban land use to improve sustainability based on the main factors that influenced the growth of urban land in each region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By constructing the two evaluation systems of urban tourism development (TD) and habitat environment (HE), the dynamic response relationship between the two systems in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration from 2001 to 2020 is explored by using panel vector autoregression (PVAR) model and coupled coordination degree model. The study unearthed four intriguing findings: (1) the level of TD in the study area has been continuously rising from 2001 to 2020, with an initial slow growth rate and then fast. The level of HE is increasing steadily at an average annual rate of 7.05%. There exists a reciprocal response relationship between the two systems, with a strong shock effect in the short term and a synergistic evolution in the long term. (2) The coupling degree between the urban TD and HE has an increasing trend, and the coupling coordination degree of the two systems has an average annual rate of 4.165%, implying the interaction and promotion effect between the two systems is improving. (3) Most of the cities in the Yangtze River Delta gradually realize the evolution from dysfunctional type to coordinated type, but the overall coordination intensity is low. (4) The barrier degrees of TD system indicators show a small annual increasing trend, while the barrier degrees of HE system indicators show a substantial and continuous decreasing trend. In terms of the barrier degree factors, some important factors that restrict the coupled and coordinated development of the two systems are also reported. This research can provide a useful reference for the synergistic improvement of urban tourism economy and habitat environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban agglomeration will be the main mode of future urbanization in China, greatly influencing social and economic development and ecosystem protection at the whole city cluster scale. It is important to analyze the impacts of large-scale, scattered land use and cover change (LUCC) consisting of one-pole-multi-point urbanization in city clusters on regional ecosystem services (ESs), so as to increase ecological security and maintain ES levels. Using the urban–rural gradient analysis method (UGAM), this study examined driver-response mechanisms of large-scale, scattered agglomeration urbanization on ESs along an urban–rural gradient and at a regional scale. This was done by simulating and analyzing tempo-spatial variations in ES characteristics along concentric ring gradients in the Central Yunnan City Cluster (CYCC) under its present urbanization path. The results showed that rapid urban sprawl is the main driver affecting the integral value of ESs in CYCC and that ES trade-offs (through LUCC caused by urbanization) between adjacent zones along the urban–rural gradient will particularly exacerbate the degradation of integral ES levels. Hence, CYCC should follow a sustainable, eco-friendly urbanization path and consider ecological principles and the impact of LUCC on regional ESs along the urban–rural gradient in top-level design and decision-making on urban planning and strategic land use management. Differentiated regional development policies should be formulated for each area, the urban–rural development pattern and layout optimized, the scale of construction land rationally controlled, and the overall efficiency of land use improved. Ecological buffers should be set up around areas with sharp and obvious changes in land use, to alleviate the negative impact of large-scale, decentralized city cluster urbanization on regional ESs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The strategy of the Silk Road Economic Belt in China has promoted the urban development of the backward regions in the west, but it might also cause serious eco-environmental concerns. Studying the coupling relationship between urbanization and the eco-environment (UEE) is essential to promote the sustainable development in backward regions. This study developed a combined method of coupling coordination degree (CCD) model, linear regression, and gray relational analysis (GRA) model to investigate the spatio-temporal coupling relationship and the influencing factors between UEE in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (NHAR), a typical backward region along the Silk Road Economic Belt. Results show that (1) the economic urbanization and eco-environmental pressure made the largest contribution to the system of urbanization and eco-environment, respectively. (2) The overall CCD in NHAR showed a linear upward trend from 2001 to 2018, while the CCD of each district presented significant spatial difference. The CCDs in the more developed northern regions were generally higher than those in southern mountainous regions. (3) Furthermore, population factors were the main mechanism imposing stress on the eco-environment, and the factors of eco-environmental status had higher restrictive effect on urban development in NHAR. This study could provide theoretical basis for investigating the interaction between UEE in backward regions, which might enable policymakers to formulate targeted sustainable development plans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the effects of land use/cover (LULC) change induced by urbanization and greenhouse gases (GHGs) concentration on future climate over the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region in China under Representative Concentration Pathways 4.5 (RCP4.5) scenario are investigated. The Weather Research and Forecasting model is used to downscale and predict the future climate state using the RCP4.5 simulations from the Community Earth System Model. Results show that large-scale general atmospheric circulation and GHGs are the two dominate factors for the future climate over the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region in the next 10–20 years under the RCP4.5 scenario. Urbanization over a small-scale region and scattered areas has a slight effect on the regional future climate. On the urban local scale, the LULC change in the urban area has a relatively obvious impact on the local climate of the city through altering the land–atmosphere interaction within the urban region accompanied with seasonal dependence. The annual mean surface air temperature (SAT) of urban area is projected to be 0.44 °C (2020), 0.87 °C (2030), and 1.48 °C (2040) higher than the climatology under different climate scenarios in the future resulting from integrated urbanization and GHGs forcing effects. The annual mean SAT of urban area changed by the GHGs forcing will increase by 0.35 °C (2020), 1.00 °C (2030), and 1.66 °C (2040), and the urbanization forcing will increase the annual mean SAT by 0.09 °C (2020), − 0.13 °C (2030), and − 0.18 °C (2040) in the urban area, respectively. The effects of urban expansion on the seasonal mean SAT are different during different the warm and cold periods of a year. The expanded urban area will increase the SAT during the warm period of a year (from March to September), and will decrease the SAT during the cold period of a year (from October to February of next year). The effects of scattered urbanization process and large-scale urban agglomeration on regional and local climate have strong spatial and temporal scale dependence. GHGs are the most important factor for dominating the future climate of this region. Meanwhile, due to the important impact of urbanization on the urban local scale, we strongly suggest that urbanization process should be considered in climate modeling system since it can provide a more realistic and reliable scenario of the future climate in the urban area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The degradation of water environment (WE) has constrained the sustainable development of cities, while the rapid urbanization also exacerbates water environment change. However, the complicated relationship between urbanization and WE is far from clearly understood. In this study, a comprehensive index system for urbanization and WE was applied along with the System Index Evaluation Model (SIEM) and a Coupling Coordination Degree Model (CCDM) to analyze the coupling between urbanization and WE in Nanjing, East China, from 1990 to 2018. The comprehensive index of urbanization increased from 0.0392 in 1990 to 0.9890 in 2018, showing a clear increasing trend. Demographic and spatial urbanization made the largest contribution to urbanization development from 1990 to 2010, while economic urbanization became the largest contributor to urbanization development between 2011 and 2018. Under the combined effects of pressure, state, and response subsystems, the comprehensive WE index showed an upward trend with some fluctuations from 1990 to 2018. The degree of coupling coordination between urbanization and WE displayed an overall upward tendency, growing from 0.18 in 1990 to 0.95 in 2018. The coupling coordination state transitioned from a serious imbalance during the low coupling period (1990–1992) into the superior coordination of the highly coupled period (2011–2018). With the continuous urbanization in the future, in addition to ensuring the optimal management of surface water, protection of groundwater should be reinforced. The results advance our understanding of the dynamic relationship between urbanization and WE and provide important implications for urban planning and water resource protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid urbanization leads to dramatic changes in land use patterns, and the land use/cover change (LUCC) can reflect the spatial impact of urbanization on the ecological environment. Simulating the process of LUCC and predicting the ecological risk future changes can provide supports for urban ecological management. Taking the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration (YRDUA), China as the study area, four developmental scenarios were set on the basis of the land use data from 2005 to 2015. The temporal land use changes were predicted by the integration of the system dynamic and the future land use simulation (SD-FLUS) model, and the geographically weighted regression (GWR) model was used to identify the spatial heterogeneity and evolution characteristics between ecological risk index (ERI) and socio-economic driving forces. Results showed that: 1) From 2005 to 2015, the expansion of construction land (7670.24 km2) mainly came from the occupation of cultivated land (7854.22 km2). The Kappa coefficient of the SD-FLUS model was 0.886, indicating that this model could be used to predict the future land use changes in the YRDUA. 2) Gross domestic production (GDP) and population density (POP) showed a positive effect on the ERI, and the impact of POP exceeded that of GDP. The ERI showed the characteristics of zonal diffusion and a slight upward trend, and the high ecological risk region increased by 6.09%, with the largest increase. 3) Under different developmental scenarios, the land use and ecological risk patterns varied. The construction land is increased by 5.76%, 7.41%, 5.25% and 6.06%, respectively. And the high ecological risk region accounted for 12.71%, 15.06%, 11.89%, and 12.94%, correspondingly. In Scenario D, the structure of land use and ecological risk pattern was better compared with other scenarios considering the needs of rapid economic and ecological protection. This study is helpful to understand the spatio-temporal pattern and demand of land use types, grasp the ecological security pattern of large-scale areas, and provide scientific basis for the territory development of urban agglomeration in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]