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Urbanization becomes the primary source of carbon emissions and energy demand growth in China with industrialization entering the middle-later stages. With the current highconsumption and high-emission urban development model, the resulting resource consumption and carbon emissions become a major environmental issue and a sustainability problem. Based on the panel data of the bay area economic zone of Zhejiang province from 2003 to 2017, this paper analyzed the overall spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of carbon emissions of the economic zone. The main sources of carbon emissions will be studied in detail by incorporating the urbanization level, energy consumption structure, land use, economic development level, industrial structure, population agglomeration, openness, and technological progress into the STIRPAT (the Stochastic Impacts by Regression on Population, Affluence, and Technology) extended model. We further investigated the driving mechanism of carbon emissions and spatial and temporal heterogeneity of carbon emissions from the perspective of urbanization using the geographically and temporally weighted regression (GTWR). The results showed that: (1) The scale of carbon emissions has increased with time, but the growth rate has not been large with a decreasing growth rate. Carbon emissions in different regions are significantly different. The carbon emission is less intense through the years with a spatial distribution pattern of increasing from the southwest to the northeast. (2) The level of economic development and the degree of openness to the outside world are the dominant factors that affect the carbon emission level, followed by energy consumption structure, technological progress, and urbanization. (3) These influencing factors show substantial spatiotemporal heterogeneity that the direction and intensity of the fluctuations of various driving factors vary from time to time and region to region. This paper analyzed the impact of the driving factors of carbon emissions in the economic zone of Zhejiang Bay Area explicitly, providing scientific support for the implementation of regionally differentiated carbon emission reduction strategies. It is necessary to fully examine the actual development of each region to formulate a differentiated carbon emission reduction regulation strategy. In particular, these measures should be taken into consideration for reducing carbon emissions in the area: enhancing the efficiency of comprehensive utilization of resources by accelerating the construction of science and technology innovation corridors, and promoting the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries by fully introducing modern service industries and high-end manufacturing based on information technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To understand the agricultural production dynamics and sustainability in the hilly areas of southeast China, this paper took Dehua county, a typical mountainous area in Fujian province, as an example to quantitatively analyze the changes of input, output, environmental load and sustainability of farmland-livestock systems from 2007 to 2016, and constructed the indicators of waste emergy ratio and environmental pollution emergy negative output. The results showed that the input of the farmland- livestock system in the study area was mainly based on the purchasing emergy, accounting for 68%-79% of the total emergy input, and the emergy of water resources accounted for 21%-31%. The emergy output of livestock systems accounted for more than 72% of the total output. And the emergy density fluctuated between 2.68×1012 and 3.33×1012 sej·m-2, and emergy per person increased from 1.23×1016 sej to 1.72× 1016 sej. The net emergy yield ratio decreased by 40%, and the environmental load increased significantly, which could have been maintained since 2015. The emergy sustainability index fell rapidly from 1.14 to 0.42 after a brief rise in 2007-2010. From the indicators of construction, the proportion of system waste emergy decreased, and environmental pollution emergy output decreased by about 22%. In terms of comprehensive economic benefits and waste utilization, the sustainable development of Dehua county has gradually improved in recent years. Dehua county is currently adjusting its output structure of farmland- livestock system. It should increase the amount of feedback emergy in the system, control fertilizer and feed input, and improve waste utilization to achieve sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maintaining the magnitude and intensity of human activities within the carrying capacity of resources and the environment is the core of the sustainable development theory. Therefore, how to assess the carrying capacity in a scientific way receives top priority among sustainability development strategies. The Planetary Boundaries Framework (PBF) that takes into account the Earth system as a whole provides new insights into assessing the carrying capacity of resources and the environment. The PBF has attracted considerable attentions and discussions within the sustainability science since its first appearance in the literature. However, the opportunities and challenges facing the PBF remain largely unexplored by the scientific community. This paper aims to fill in this gap by elaborating on the theoretical basis of the PBF and its conceptual evolution, revisiting the development and applications of the framework at the national, provincial, urban and organizational scales, identifying the challenges that the framework is facing and the solutions, and comparing the framework with the traditional paradigm for assessing the carrying capacity of resources and the environment. As a combination of historical experiences and scientific studies based on the theory of stable states and catastrophe in complex systems, the PBF serves as a useful supplement to the present assessments of carrying capacity. Primarily the downscaling of PBF to sub-global scales can be achieved through either top- down allocation or bottom- up integration. A systematic understanding of the linkages between these two pathways and their potential synergies would be of crucial significance to the development of the framework. However, we observe that there is a lack of clarity and transparency in the PBF regarding the scaling properties and interactions between various biophysical processes, leading to arguments over variables selection and boundaries setting. Besides, methodological challenges appear when we integrate PBF with tools for environmental impact assessment, such as environmental footprints and life cycle assessment, and extending the framework to socioeconomic dimensions. Therefore, there is a need for a deeper understanding of the PBF with respect to its theoretical basis, technical approaches and practical applications, so as to enhance the policy- guiding value of the framework as an approach to address the world's major public issues such as achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assessment of sustainability is an important part of sustainable scientific research. Based on HDI and HSDI, this paper constructed the weak Human Sustainable Development Index (HSDI) and strong HSDI assessment indexes with different emphases on environmental factors. Taking the Bohai Rim region in China as an example, we studied the basic state and change process of the regional sustainability from 2000 to 2015. The results are shown as follows. From the point of basic state, the hierarchy of the sustainability in the Bohai Rim was imbalanced. The level of weak HSDI and strong HSDI were both in a spindle-shaped structure with small proportions at both ends and a large proportion in the middle. The numbers of cities with weak HSDI and strong HSDI at middle level account for 59.09% and 43.18% , respectively. However, the hierarchy of weak HSDI was more imbalanced than that of strong HSDI, and the regional differences of weak and strong HSDI were obvious. In terms of the change process, the paces of the sustainable development in different cities were inconsistent. Although both the weak and strong HSDI presented a significant growth trend, the weak HSDI mainly showed medium-high speed growth, while the strong HSDI mainly showed mediumlow speed growth. The coincidence rate of weak HSDI and strong HSDI growth areas is as high as 71.79% , but there is obvious spatial dislocation in the growth rate. Based on the assessment results, cities can be classified into sustainable development state and process matrix. The cities in the four state matrices (I, II, III and IV) of sustainability were suitable for "incentive", "propelled", "control- oriented" and "supportive" sustainable development strategies successively. And the cities in the four process matrices (1, 2, 3, and 4) were suitable for sustainable development strategies of "stabilizing growth and optimizing environment", "conquering emphasis and promoting coordination", "adjusting structure and preventing risks" and "promoting reform, seeking development" successively. This study can provide decisionmaking reference for promoting regional sustainable development by proposing targeted diversification strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]