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Resource-based cities (RBCs) in the Yellow River Basin (YRB) account for over half of the cities in the basin and constitute the main base for the basin' s sound and sustainable development. As ecological protection and high-quality development in the YRB become a national development strategy, it is currently part of the government' s agenda to scientifically evaluate RBCs' performance in industrial green transformation and identify weaknesses and key difficulties in their development and, in turn, the foundational consolidation of the development. Taking 41 RBCs in the YRB as research units, this article constructed an industrial green transformation evaluation index system along the dimension of development status and transformation and adopted the SBM-Undesirable model and Malmquist-Luenberger model to give a quantitative evaluation of the transforming performance of 41 RBCs from 2013 to 2019. It also made a comparison of the transforming performance among different types of cities and further classified the 41 RBCs into different types. The results showed that: 1 The industrial green development trend of RBCs in the YRB was far from effective, and large-scale agglomeration was an important guarantee for industrial green transformation. In terms of urban types, mature and oil-gas cities had better development trends. Moran' s I index results showed that there was a relatively obvious spatial dependency between the industrial green development of the cities, and that there were obvious signs of local spatial agglomeration. 2 The scope of the industrial green transformation of RBCs in the YRB was relatively large, and its improvement was mainly guaranteed by technological progress. Considering city types, recessional and oil-gas cities had significantly larger scopes of transformation than other types. The results under Moran' s I index showed that the scope of the industrial transformation had an arbitrary spatial distribution. 3 The performance of RBCs in the YRB tended to be different, and the difference in the development situation of RBCs was the main culprit. The RBCs could be further categorized into four types of areas: the industrial green transformation area, the development situation lag area, the transformation amplitude lag area, and the industrial green transformation lag area. Finally, some suggestions are brought up for RBCs in the YRB on their promotion of industrial green transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Yellow River Basin is an important strategic area for consolidating China' s success in building a moderately prosper⁃ ous society. The high-quality development of resource-based cities in the Yellow River Basin will help improve the economic strength of the basin and implement the strategy of coordinated regional development. This study first measured the quality development level of re⁃ source-based cities with the improved CRITIC weighting method. Then, a spatio-temporal analysis of high-quality development levels was performed by the equilibrium entropy model, Gini coefficient, and kernel density estimation. Based on this analysis, we used the ob⁃ stacle degree model to analyze its impact factors. The results showed that: ① The high-quality development level of the cities showed a stable and fluctuating development trend on the whole, and there were relatively obvious spatial and temporal differences in the equilib⁃ rium entropy between them. ② The overall difference in the high-quality development of these cities was declining year by year. The contribution rates of the differences within specific river reaches were relatively stable; the differences between river reaches were de⁃ creasing; and the contribution rate of hypervariable density was increasing. ③ The overall density function of resource-based cities in the Yellow River Basin changed little during the study period. The trailing curve of it was not obvious. The high-quality development was in a unimodal form as the peak value increased, and the polarization phenomenon was gradually enhanced. ④ The top five most in⁃ fluential barriers to the high-quality development of the cities changed over time. There were significant differences in the obstacles to the high-quality development of the cities in the three dimensions of economic, social, and ecological development, among which ecolog⁃ ical development had the least obstacle to the overall high-quality development of the cities. Based on the research conclusions, we make the following suggestions: ① We should strengthen the top-level design of the Yellow River Basin and straighten out the relation⁃ ship between economic development and ecological protection. We should carry out regional environmental protection, industrial optimi⁃ zation and transformation, effective utilization of resources, pollution prevention and control, and cultural inheritance and protection at the national level. ② In order to formulate a macro-governance pattern for the Yellow River Basin, we need to pay attention to the re⁃ gional development strategy of linking the eastern and western regions, promote regional development from point to area, and break through the original economic and geographical patterns. ③ We should explore the potential of the Yellow River Basin, work together to tackle the existing development problems, and enhance the comprehensive competitiveness and regional radiation power of resourcebased cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the gradual implementation of strategies to achieve the goals of reaching peak carbon emissions and carbon neutrality, the heterogeneous performance of low-carbon technological progress driving carbon emission reduction in different situations has become an important basis for targeted technological carbon reduction. As an important special subject of national energy resource security and carbon emission reduction, whether resource-based cities can reach peak carbon emissions simultaneously is a key to the achievement of the ' dual carbon' goals. This paper reviewed the theoretical literature on low-carbon technology progress and carbon emissions in resource-based cities, and extracted the their driving mechanisms. Based on the panel data of 116 prefecture-level resource-based cities in China from 2005 to 2019, this paper innovatively considered six undesirable outputs with resource-based city characteristics to define the low-carbon technological progress of such cities, and used the DEA-Malmquist index model, STIRPAT model, and threshold model to clarify the current situation of low-carbon technological progress and carbon emissions in resource-based cities. The study also carried out a deep analysis of the driving relationship and threshold effect between low-carbon technological progress and carbon emission reduction, and compared and analyzed their multiple heterogeneity. The study found that during the sample period, the low-carbon technology progress of these 116 prefecture-level resource-based cities showed a phased upward trend, and that carbon emissions had obvious regional heterogeneity and type heterogeneity. The progress of low-carbon technology in resource-based cities had a certain inhibitory effect on carbon emissions and presented type heterogeneity, regional heterogeneity, and a double threshold effect. In different threshold ranges, the driving effects of low-carbon technology on carbon emission reduction effect and carbon emission reduction rebound effect were different. The driving effects of other seven control variables, such as gross domestic product, command-based environmental regulation, market-based environmental regulation, voluntary environmental regulation, industrial structure, energy consumption structure, and foreign direct investment, on carbon emissions were also different. Finally, based on the research conclusions, regarding different regional resource-based cities, different types of resource-based cities, and different levels of low-carbon technology progress in resource-based cities, policy recommendations related to low-carbon technology progress and carbon emission reduction are proposed in a targeted manner, aiming to promote the improvement of low-carbon technology progress in resource-based cities and the simultaneous achievement of carbon emission reduction targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promoting the industrial transformation and upgrading of resource-based cities is an important condition for solving the dilemma of widening economic development differences and serious destruction of ecological resources between regions, and to achieve regional coordinated development strategy. From the new perspective of factor mismatch, this article discussed the economic transformation of resource-based cities. In theory, a growth model describing the factor input of resource-based cities was constructed, and the influence mechanism of factor mismatch on urban output efficiency, environmental efficiency and energy efficiency was investigated. In the empirical aspect, based on the panel data from 2005 to 2018 and using the improved Directional Distance Function (DDF), this article calculated the transformation efficiency of 114 resource-based cities in China from the five dimensions of labor, capital and energy input, expected output and non-expected output, and then tested the exact impact of factor mismatch on the transformation of resource-based cities. The results showed that whether it was over-allocation or under-allocation, factor mismatch had a significant inhibitory effect on the economic transformation efficiency of resource-based cities, and the inhibitory effect of labor mismatch was particularly obvious; after dealing with endogenous problems, changing analysis samples, replacing explained variables, and changing regression methods, the research conclusions still had strong robustness. Transformation efficiency was further decomposed in the three directions of output growth, energy consumption and environmental friendliness. It was found that the mismatch of various factors would hinder the improvement of energy efficiency and environmental efficiency, but different from labor mismatch and energy mismatch, the negative impact of capital mismatch on output efficiency was insignificant. According to the classification of resource-based cities in different geographical regions, it was found that the impact of factor mismatch on transformation efficiency would be significantly different in different geographic regions. Based on the problems in the transformation of resource-based cities, this article puts forward policy suggestions from the three levels of country, city and industry, and emphasizes the importance of improving the allocation efficiency of labor factor. This paper not only provides a new insight into the explanation of the transformation dilemma faced by resource-based cities, but also provides useful reference for strategy formulation and policy adjustment to promote the high-quality development of resource-based cities in the new era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has become a global consensus to advance the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and cities are an essential and significant part for achieving these goals. There are more than 200 resource-dependent cities in China. With the gradual depletion of resources, cities are generally confronted with problems such as single industrial and energy structure, lagging development of alternative industries, low capacity for innovation, and destruction of the ecological environment, and are faced with various challenges of achieving sustainable development. This paper constructed a comprehensive evaluation model, clarified the multiple feedback and interactive relationship between these cities' driver-pressure-state-impact-response (DPSIR)' system, established a comprehensive index system of sustainability evaluation and the DPSIR model, and used the 'Taiyuan Innovation Demonstration Zone for National Sustainable Development Agenda' as a case for verification. The research conclusions could drive the comprehensive transformation and upgrading of the economy, society and environment of resource-dependent cities through innovations in development concepts, key technologies, and policy and service systems. This paper put forward the sustainable development pathway of a five-dimensional resource-dependent city, i. e., 'growth, ecology, low carbon, livability, happiness', and used the 'Taiyuan Innovation Demonstration Zone for National Sustainable Development Agenda' as a case to verify the validity of the sustainable development model for resource-based cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]