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Coupling development between university science and technology (S&T) innovation and economy is an objective requirement for achieving sustainable economic and social development. The main goal of this paper is to explore the situation of the coupling coordination relationship between the two systems, i.e., university S&T innovation and sustainable economic development in China. It also hopes to provide a reference for promoting the coordinated development between the two. This paper constructs the evaluation index system of university S&T innovation and sustainable economic development separately and evaluates the indicators of university S&T innovation and sustainable economic development in 30 provincial regions in China from 2011 to 2020. On this basis, a coupling coordination degree model is constructed to evaluate the coupling coordination degree of university S&T innovation and sustainable economic development. Accordingly, this paper puts forward suggestions for promoting the coordinated development between university S&T innovation and sustainable economic development.

In order to promote the coordinated development of the sports and pension industries, it is of great significance to apply the theory of industrial integration to the study of the interaction mechanism of the sports and pension industries, but there is a lack of research in this area at present. This paper firstly constructs the evaluation system of the coupling and coordination development of the sports and pension industries. Secondly, based on the panel data of 11 provinces and cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt in 2013&ndash, 2017, this paper analyzes the coupling and coordination relationship between the sports and pension industries by using the entropy method and the coupling coordination model. Finally, the coupling coordination relationship between the two industries in the region in the next five years is predicted using the grey model (1.1), i.e. GM (1.1) model. The results show the following: (1) The development level of the two major industries in 11 provinces and cities of the Yangtze River Economic Belt is generally on the rise, and they have a high correlation. (2) The sports industry is more volatile than the pension industry, and the sports industry has become an effective path dependence to narrow the regional development differences. The sports industry has a weak driving role in the pension industry, while the pension industry has a greater role in promoting the sports industry. (3) There is a large spatial difference in the coupling coordination degree of the sports and pension industries in 11 provinces and cities of the Yangtze River Economic Belt, which will remain in the next five years, though the evolution and upgrading speed of the coupling coordination level will be significantly accelerated.

With digital technologies injecting a strong impetus into China’s sustainable agricultural development, the digital village is a new path for Chinese agricultural development. This paper focuses on digital village and sustainable agricultural development, in which the situation of digital village and green and high-quality agricultural development in China from 2010 to 2019 is measured based on the entropy weight–TOPSIS method and coupling coordination model and further explores the spatiotemporal evolution of their coupling coordination. In addition, it studies the factors which influence the coupling coordination of digital village and green and high-quality agricultural development using a geographical detector. The study shows that both digital villages and green and high-quality agricultural development in China show good momentum. In terms of the spatial pattern, cities on the southeast coast witness better development of digital villages, and the southern regions enjoy a higher degree of green and high-quality development in agriculture. The coupling coordination between digital villages and green and high-quality agricultural development shows a fluctuating upward trend in the eastern regions. Some of the influence factors play a significant role in the coupling coordination of digital villages and green and high-quality agricultural development, such as e-commerce, per capita income, innovation, and levels of income and education. On this basis, we suggest that the government should continuously promote the development of digital villages and improve rural governance to bridge the digital divide. In this case, policies to promote green and high-quality agricultural development through digitalization can be introduced according to local conditions, thus enabling sustainable agricultural development with the empowerment of digitalization.

A suitable living environment is the common aspiration of city residents and the inherent requirement of sustainable development. This paper takes 114 resource-based cities in China as the research objects, constructs a pseudo human settlement environment (PSH) system based on network data, and constructs a real human settlement environment (RSH) system based on traditional data, measures the coupling coordination degree of the pseudo and real human settlement environment, and uses Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to analyze its improvement path. The conclusions are as follows: (1) The evaluation index of real human settlements in China’s resource-based cities continues to grow, and the evaluation index of pseudo human settlements increases first and then decreases. (2) The coupling coordination degree between the resource-based pseudo city and the real human settlement environment presents an inverted U-shaped change trend, and the overall distribution presents a three-level ladder-like distribution of east-central-west. (3) A single condition has a weak ability to explain the coupling coordination degree of human settlements; the coupling coordination degree of resource-based cities has formed three improvement paths: opening + finance driven model, opening + education + finance driven model, and education + finance driven model.

Under the strategy of digital technology development and rural revitalisation, the digital economy has gradually become a powerful engine for rural revitalisation and development. Based on the coupling coordination mechanism of digital economy and rural revitalisation, this paper constructs the index evaluation system of digital economy and rural revitalisation and empirically studies the development characteristics of digital economy and rural revitalisation by using the coupling coordination degree and grey relation model. The results show that during 2016–2020, the overall development level of digital economy and rural revitalisation in China is high in the East and low in the West. The coupling coordination between digital economy and rural revitalisation has significant regional differences and a downward trend, and the coupling coordination degree is positively correlated. The empirical results of the grey correlation model show that the number of postal employees and per capital grain production are the most important potential factors affecting digital economy and rural revitalisation, respectively. Finally, it is suggested that the government should continue to increase investment in science, technology, and agriculture, accelerate the project of cultivating high-level scientific and technological innovation and rural management talents, and strengthen regional cooperation and collaboration.

The coupled and coordinated development of urban resilience and new urbanization is an important guarantee for the realization of urban security and sustainable development. This paper first constructs an evaluation index of urban resilience and new urbanization and uses the entropy method to clarify the weights. Second, the coupling coordination degree model is used to measure the spatiotemporal differentiation characteristics of the coupling coordinated development of urban resilience and new urbanization in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2005 to 2019. The key influencing factors of the coupling coordination are analyzed using geodetectors. The results show the following. (1) The urban resilience of the Yangtze River Economic Belt has continued to improve, showing a stepwise distribution pattern of “high in the east and low in the west” in space. The overall development of new urbanization is at a medium–high level, with high levels concentrated in the eastern coastal cities. (2) The degree of spatial coupling and coordination between urban resilience and new urbanization is increasing year by year, and there is significant spatial heterogeneity, showing the pattern of “high in the east and low in the west, high in the center and low in the surrounding areas”, and the type of lag is mostly urban resilience lag in new urbanization. (3) Endogenous power, external power, government power and market power interact to jointly promote the development of coupling coordination. The comprehensive effect of government power and other driving forces is the key mechanism for improving spatial coupling coordination.

The coupling coordination between industrial water use (IWU) and industrial green development (IGD) systems is crucial for achieving sustainable development goals. This paper measures the coupling coordination degree between IWU and IGD systems, and the spatial–temporal evolution characteristics of the degree are discussed. Here, the IWU system is assessed by adopting a dynamic slacks-based measure model, and the IGD system’s performance is evaluated using an entropy-weighted TOPSIS model. The results showed that: (1) The provincial IWU efficiency showed a rising trend from 2009 to 2018 in general, while its spatial dimension showed a distribution of high in the eastern region and low in the western region. (2) The IGD performance in the eastern region was better than that in the central and western regions; the gap in industrial innovation and industrial resources was the main factor. (3) The spatial structure of the coupling coordination degree between IWU and IGD systems was gradually stable. It also had a strong spatial dependence and its evolution volatility has been enhanced. (4) The coupling coordination was improving but exhibited a dynamic local spatial dependence and volatile process, and its spatial agglomeration had a relatively higher path dependence and locked spatial features.

Driven by a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, the interactive and integrated development of the digital economy and the sports industry has become the objective demand of current economic development. In order to explore the coupling coordination relationship between the digital economy and the sports industry, this paper uses the coupling coordination degree model and exploratory spatial data analysis method to analyze the coupling coordination degree and spatial correlation of the integrated development of China’s digital economy and its sports industry. It does this by taking the statistical data of 30 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities in China from 2015 to 2019 as observation samples. The results show that the coupling coordination degree of China’s digital economy and sports industry is low, showing an unbalanced development trend of “low in the west, high in the east, low in the north and high in the south”. There is a significant positive clustering in spatial integration of the two, and the degree of clustering increases year by year. It is necessary to establish a regional coordinated development mechanism, define the stage of regional integration, optimize the spatial pattern of coupled development, and promote the balanced development of digital economy and sports industry.

China’s long-standing urban-rural dichotomy has led to a widening gap between urban and rural areas, posing a huge challenge to the sustainable development of Chinese society. This paper adopted the subjective-objective weighting method, coupled coordination degree model, and geographically weighted regression model to conduct urban-rural sustainable development research on 31 provincial administrative regions in China and discussed their spatial-temporal divergence and driving mechanisms during 2007–2018. The results showed that (1) the quality of both rural revitalization and new urbanization improved during the study period, and the gap between them showed a trend of increasing after fluctuations. Both of them had significant spatial and temporal divergence characteristics. (2) The urban-rural coupling coordination degree in China continued to increase during the study period and showed an overall pattern of “high in the east-west and low in the north and southwest”. The changes of relative development type indicated that new urbanization had far surpassed rural revitalization during the study period. (3) The coefficients of driving factors varied significantly in space, showing a hierarchical band distribution. Seven of the eight driving factors showed a strong positive correlation in the vast majority of regions. The results and suggestions of this research can further promote the organic combination of rural revitalization and new urbanization strategy, which is of great practical significance for narrowing the urban-rural gap and realizing sustainable urban-rural development. Likewise, it can be a reference for other developing countries around the world.

Green innovation exchanges low emissions, low pollution and low output for economic development. At the same time, economic development can provide important economic support for green innovation, and managing the connection between green innovation and economic development is significant for the balanced development of a region. There is no unified definition of green innovation efficiency in academic circles, but the definitions can be divided into three types: innovation aimed at minimizing environmental damage; innovation of environmental performance; and innovation for environmental development or environmental improvement. Based on relevant data from 30 provinces and cities in China from 2008 to 2019, this paper uses the coupling coordination model and spatial autocorrelation analysis to investigate the coordination status of green innovation efficiency (GIE), the economic development standard, and their evolution over time and space. We also use the Tobit model to analyze influential factors in coupling coordination. The results show that the overall development trend of coupling coordination is rising, and the gap between the coordination standard between the east and west is obvious. Considering the spatial correlation pattern, the high innovation area is mainly centered in the east. It is empirically demonstrated through the Tobit model that patented technology facilitates the balanced development of regional GIE and economic development. These conclusions provide a new viewpoint for the projection of green innovation policies, help to combine green innovation with economic development, and afford an academic foundation for the government to mark out future development directions and policies.

Urban resilience, as an important ability to deal with disasters in the process of urbanization, has been paid more and more attention as the result of the increasing risks that are caused by rapid urbanization. China is taking the county level as the basic unit to promote new-type urbanization and constructing resilient cities has become one of the development strategies. However, to achieve this strategy researchers need to analyze the interaction between county urbanization and urban resilience and its driving mechanism, which have been paid little attention. Therefore, this paper selected 167 counties in Hebei Province as the investigation subject. Based on the statistical data from 2010 to 2020, a comprehensive index system was developed to quantify the degree of coupling coordination between urbanization and urban resilience, and the spatial Durbin model was used to analyze the driving mechanism of it. The study shows that: Firstly, the urbanization level of counties rose year after year, with there being a geographical distribution that was “lower from southeast to northwest”. The level of urban resilience increased year after year, showing a geographical distribution that was “higher from south to north” and a “core-edge” feature that was localized. Secondly, the coupling coordination degree increased steadily, and the overall level changed from a basic imbalance to a mild imbalance. In space, it is bounded by “Pingquan City—Pingshan County”, which showed the distribution of “high in the east and low in the west, high in the center and low on the outskirts”. Thirdly, the coupling coordination degree has spatial spillover effect. Government financial expenditure, innovation level, industrial upgrading level and urban shape index all influence the coupling coordination degree positively, with a successively decreasing impact, while the urban compactness has significant negative impacts. This study indicates that the regional differences exist in the coupling coordination degree, and the counties in different development stages need to adopt different strategies to promote the coordinated development of urbanized and resilient cities. Inter-regional support is also necessary in this process. Meanwhile, it is necessary for the government to govern various urban elements, especially in terms of their urban form.

Based on the “double carbon” goal, this paper constructs an evaluation index system for the coordinated development of the urban and ecological environments, using the entropy method and coupling coordination degree model to analyze the spatio-temporal differentiation characteristics of the degree of coupling coordination of urbanization and ecological environment in 16 cities in Anhui Province from 2010 to 2020 and uses ArcGIS software to draw the spatial distribution of the coupling coordination relationship between urbanization and ecological environment in these cities. The results show that in terms of time, the coupling and coordination relationship between urban development and the ecological environment in Anhui Province showed a continuous improvement from 2010 to 2020. The coupling degree showed a stable trend, and the coupling and coordination level changed from mild imbalance to a high-quality coordination stage. Spatially, the coupling and coordinated development of 16 cities in Anhui Province in 2020 involves three types: mild imbalance, imminent imbalance and reluctantly coordinated, indicating that there is still a gap between this cities. Therefore, it is proposed to improve the comprehensive level of the ecological environment system, promote the coordinated symbiosis between urban development and the ecological environment and reduce the developmental differences of cities within the region.

The utilization of renewable energy (RE) is a meaningful way to realize the low-carbon transformation of energy systems. However, due to the imbalance of resources, economy, technology, society, and environment among regions, the coordinated development of regional RE may be restricted by different factors, which brings challenges to the formulation of relevant development policies. This paper focuses on the development of RE in 30 provinces in China from 2011 to 2019. It uses the AHP-EM integrated evaluation model to evaluate the constructed multilayer indicator system for the comprehensive development of RE. The characteristics of the coupling and coordination relationship between indicators are explored, and the critical driving factors affecting the coordinated development and change in RE in different regions are quantitatively identified through the logarithmic mean Divisia index method. The results show that the comprehensive development level of RE in each province is relatively low, and the relatively high-level areas gradually move eastward in terms of spatial distribution. The degree of coupling and coordination between indicators is still in a low-level coupling stage, and RE in each region has not achieved coordinated development. In addition, the comprehensive development of regional RE is consistent with the spatial evolution characteristics of the degree of coordination among indicators, emphasizing the importance of coordinated development among indicators for RE. These findings will provide broader insights for improving the comprehensive development level of regional RE and formulating differentiated policies.

Based on the coupling coordination model, this paper intends to use the panel data of 31 provinces in China from 2000 to 2019, analyze the coupling and coupling coordination relationship between environmental regulation and green water resource efficiency (GWRE), and explore the space-time pattern of coupling coordination. The results show that: (1) The overall level of environmental regulation in China is showing increasingly stringent characteristics, and the overall GWRE is showing an upward trend. Both show spatial differences, and there is a strong correlation between the spatial spillover of environmental regulation and the improvement of GWRE. (2) The environmental regulation and GWRE in China have not yet achieved the benign resonance goal of high coupling. It is overall manifested as a medium-coupled run-in and a medium-coupled coordination. (3) The space-time evolution characteristics are prominent, and the coupling coordination degree of different provinces (regions) shows a more significant difference, showing the spatial pattern of higher in the eastern region and lower in the west region. Therefore, some policy suggestions are put forward on how to break through the bottleneck of environmental regulation for the improvement of GWRE and how to optimize the external environment in which the government optimizes environmental regulation to inhibit the efficiency of green water resources.

Promoting the coordinated development of population health and the economy is an important part of building a “Healthy China” and promoting high-quality economic development. Based on the systematic construction of the population health and economic development evaluation index system, this paper uses the coupled coordination model, geodetector, and geographically weighted regression (GWR) to comprehensively measure the population health level and economic development level at the provincial scale in China in 2000 and 2015, and reveals the spatial and temporal evolution characteristics of the coupled coordination relationship between the population health level and economic development level at the provincial scale in China from 2000 to 2015 and its driving factors. The results show the following: (1) China’s population health and economic development are in a high-level coupling stage, and the coupling level increases slightly with time; spatially, two types of running-in coupling and high-level coupling coexist; the coupling degree in the eastern and central regions tends to increase, while the coupling degree in the western region tends to weaken. (2) China’s population health and economic development are in a good coupling coordination stage as a whole, and the coupling coordination degree has an increasing trend; spatially, the coupling coordination degree shows high spatial differentiation characteristics in the east and low in the west; the good and high-quality coupling coordination type area tends to expand to the west, while the moderate coupling coordination type area tends to shrink to the west; there is also positive spatial agglomeration of coupling coordination degree, and the spatial agglomeration is gradually enhanced. (3) The coupling coordination of China’s population health and economic development is driven by multiple factors such as natural conditions, health resources, culture quality, and urbanization level; the interaction between factors is stronger than that of a single factor, and the driving effect of each factor also shows significant spatial heterogeneity. This study is intended to provide a scientific basis for promoting harmonious population health and economic development.

In line with the pressures of energy shortage and economic development, Chinese government has adopted a series of measures and policies to promote the exploitation and utilization efficiency of electric power. China is urgently reconsidering its electric power development level and coordinating between power supply and demand sides. Therefore, in this paper, Chinese industrial structure of electric power was constructed according to its production process from resource, production and consumption sides. With the constructed industrial structure, the influencing factors on each side were selected to build a measurable evaluation system. Thirty-one Chinese provinces were chosen to explore their development coordination level based on the projection pursuit model and coupling coordination model. By the projection pursuit model, improved projection directions and best projection vectors of each province were found to describe the development level of each side. The coupling coordination model was adopted to explore the provincial supply and demand relations between electric power industry side via the indexes of coupling degree, coordination degree and relative development degree. By using ArcGIS mapping analysis, the results show the changes in Chinese provincial coupling and coordination development levels from 2011 to 2014. Finally, using the evaluation results, optimal strategies were discussed for improving the coordination of Chinese electric power development from different aspects, such as technical support, project approval and supervision, and demand side management. The findings prove that projection pursuit model and coupling coordination model can evaluate the electric power development level and describe their dynamic changing coordination relations effectively.

The research on the coupling coordination of regional urbanization is of great significance for achieving sustainable urbanization. Based on the theories of coordinated development, this paper constructs an index system for comprehensive evaluation of the three sub-systems of urbanization (population, economy and land urbanization). Then, the entropy method, coupling coordination degree model and spatial autocorrelation analysis are used to explore the spatiotemporal characteristics of overall and pairwise coordination among population, land and economy urbanization. Finally, the geographic detector model is used to analyze the influencing factors in the urbanization process. The results show that: (1) the levels of population, land and economy urbanization in the Yangtze River Delta have been improved from 2001 to 2016. The overall and pairwise coupling coordination degrees among them also continue to improve and the stage characteristics are presented. (2) The spatial distribution of low-level and high-level coupling coordination cities shows a certain spatial dependence and a Z-shaped pattern, respectively. The spatiotemporal characteristics of pairwise coupling coordination indicate regional imbalance of the urbanization. (3) The overall coupling coordination degree of urbanization has an apparent spatial autocorrelation, with its local spatial correlation patterns dominated by the High&ndash, High and Low&ndash, Low type agglomeration. Significant differences in local spatial correlation patterns of the pairwise coupling coordination suggest that regional synergy should not be neglected. (4) The economic development level is the main factor influencing the spatiotemporal differentiation of the coupling coordination of urbanization. Location traffic conditions and population agglomeration effect are the second most influencing factors. The evolution mechanisms of coupling coordination of urbanization are affected by factors in change. The findings highlight the importance of dealing with the relationship among population, land and economy in the process of regional urbanization and have implications for promoting the integration of urban agglomerations.