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The interaction between regional energy, economy and ecology system has the characteristics of high correlation and complexity. In-depth study of the relationship between the three systems is of great significance for regional sustainable development. In this paper, DPSIR (driving forces, pressures, states, impacts and responses) theory is innovatively introduced to analyze the coupling coordination mechanism among systems. On this basis, an evaluation system for the coupling coordination development of regional energy-economy-ecology system is proposed. A coupling coordination degree (CCD) evaluation model optimized by information entropy is further constructed, and the panel data of 11 provinces along the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) from 2008 to 2017 are used for empirical analysis of this region. The results show that the development of the energy and economy systems in the YREB has strong similarities, while the evaluation values of ecology systems in the provinces mainly fluctuate or first descend then rise. The development of the ecology system is influenced by the development of energy system and economy system on the one hand, and also by regional policies on the other hand. The CCD on the time dimension is given priority to with fluctuations rise development momentum, on the spatial dimension is roughly east high and west low development pattern. And the main factors restricting the coupling coordinated development of the YREB are different in the east, central and west. The three eastern provinces all belong to the type of ecology lag, while the four provinces in the central region belong to economy lagged. The development of energy and economy systems in the four western provinces lags behind their ecology systems. In addition, this paper proposes optimal strategies for the provinces, in which the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River should reduce energy consumption per unit of GDP and accelerate the transformation from traditional economy to green economy. The downstream region should improve the ecological carrying capacity of the resources and environment, and promote the economic conversion rate of scientific and technological achievements. The research process and results show that the combination of DPSIR theory and CCD model can provide a general tool for determining the coupling coordinated effect between subsystems.

Data have changed the characteristics of the global value chain in the context of digital economy. Standards and innovation are the key facilitators of digital economy. Considering the collaborative development of innovation and standardization, this paper constructs a theoretical model of the impact of innovation and standardization levels on company competitiveness. Furthermore, the moderating effect of the coupling coordination of innovation and standardization was analyzed for both factors. In total, 171 listed companies in the field of digital economy were selected as the research. The results indicated that a company’s level of innovation and standardization influences company competitiveness. Moreover, the relationship between innovation and standardization was found to be a coordinating development relationship and not a conventional promotion or hindrance. This article also proposed some pertinent suggestions for companies involved in the global value chain competition.

As the world’s largest developing country, China first proposed the construction of a Beautiful China initiative in 2012, with the aim of exploring Chinese solutions for sustainable regional development. The construction of a beautiful China is based on the guiding ideology of the Five-sphere Integrated Plan in China, that is, the overall plan for building socialism with Chinese characteristics, including economic construction, political construction, cultural construction, social construction and ecological civilization construction. This paper aims to understand the coupling relationship, as well as the spatial and temporal changes, between China’s sustainable development under the Beautiful China initiative and tourism. Using data from the China Statistical Yearbook database, we constructed an evaluation index system to measure both the construction of beautiful China and tourism development using a literature review, statistical analysis, the entropy method and GIS-based spatial analysis methods. Furthermore, using the 31 Chinese provinces as the research subject, we further analyzed the state of Beautiful China construction and tourism development, as well as their coupling relationships of the two systems. Our results show that firstly, the economic “hard power” plays the most prominent role in the process of building a beautiful China under the sustainable development regime, while the status of cultural “soft power” has also been well reflected. Secondly, the weight ranking of tourism evaluation indicators and the spatial distribution of tourism development levels both reflect the central and fundamental role of tourism market demand in tourism development. Third, the weight ranking of tourism evaluation indicators ranks the highest in the mean value of the coupling coordination degree of society, ecology and tourism in the Beautiful China subsystem, which reflects the harmony between society and ecology and the significant livelihood function of tourism as a happiness industry in the new era. Fourth, the spatial and temporal relationship between the coupled and coordinated development of the Beautiful China and tourism systems varies, indicating that there is a regional imbalance in China’s sustainable development. This further indicates the need to adapt to local conditions, and to build on strengths and avoid weaknesses to achieve regional sustainable development. The study highlights China’s contribution to global sustainable development. It also provides theoretical and practical guidance for the promotion of the coordinated development of both Beautiful China and tourism.

The study of the coupling coordinated relationship between urbanization and the eco-environment is important to promote regional high-quality development. This paper measured the coupling coordination degree between urbanization and the eco-environment from 2008 to 2020, using the coupling coordination model, depicted its spatiotemporal characteristics with ArcGIS, and explored its driving factors and impacts of the interaction between pairwise factors on it with geo-detection methods. The results show that the coupling coordination level becomes increasingly improved, but there exist widening spatial disparities, and in 2020, its spatial distribution presents characteristics of “decreasing from north to south” and “increasing from west to east”. According to their evolutionary characteristics of coupling coordination categories, cities can be classified into four types: “transition from basic misalignment to primary coordination”, “transition from primary coordination to intermediate coordination”, “transition from primary coordination to senior coordination”, “no hierarchical transition”. Currently, driving factors of industrial structure, opening to the outside world and technological innovation significantly affect the coupling coordination degree, and the interaction between pairwise factors is enhanced. Policies should be implemented in categories to improve the coupling coordination level. Regional cooperation, exchanges, and interconnection of resources and factors should be strengthened to jointly build a coordinated regional development pattern.

Carbon peaking, carbon neutrality goals and food security are the basis of sustainable development, and exploring the coordination relationship between China’s agricultural eco-efficiency and food security system has a major significance for the implementation of relevant strategies. This paper is based on collaboration research on the synergistic relationship between agricultural eco-efficiency and food security systems using methods such as entropy weight method, coupling coordination model, spatial autocorrelation model, etc., revealing the evolution-driven mechanism of the coupling coordination degree. This study found that a higher level of coupling coordination always occurs in those areas with high standard farmland construction and large grain production scale, while economically developed areas appear to have a lower overall coordination level limited by endowment constraints and division of labor in development planning. It shows a positive spatial correlation in terms of geographical distance between agricultural eco-efficiency and food security, and the positive spillover effect gradually increases but is not strong overall. China should combine regional resource endowment and development planning, pay attention to the improvement of large-scale and standardized agricultural production, continue to strengthen the development of clean agricultural production, and achieve food security under the constraints of the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals.

The coupling coordination between the digital economy and industrial green high-quality development has become an inevitable choice to promote economic high-quality development in China. This paper conducts an empirical analysis of the coupling coordination degree between the digital economy and industrial green high-quality development via the entropy evaluation method, coupling coordination model, Dagum Gini coefficient and its decomposition, and β spatial convergence model, based on the spatial data of 31 provinces in China for a time period ranging from 2008 to 2020. The major research findings of this study are as follows: (1) the coupling coordination between the digital economy and industrial green high-quality development represents a whole steady-upward trend in China, with large regional differences. (2) There is a gradual decrease in the overall spatial difference of the coupling coordination, with the largest intra-regional difference in the eastern region, and significant inter-regional differences in the east-west, east-northeast, and east-central regions. Moreover, the hypervariable density serves as the major source of the regional differences. (3) There exists β Convergence for coupling coordination degrees of the whole country and the four regions. However, the spatial effects are different in different regions due to different influencing factors. Therefore, sufficient attention should be paid to the dynamic trend, the difference, and the imbalance of the coupling coordination degree between the digital economy and industrial green high-quality development. The research is of great significance for accurately implementing policies according to different levels of local resource endowments and economic development, and narrowing the regional differences of the coupling coordination between the digital economy and industrial green high-quality development.

To clarify the evolution of “production-living-ecological” function coupling in the Yellow River Basin, coordinating the spatial allocation of resources, development management and layout optimization, is an important means for achieving ecological protection and high-quality development in the region. In this paper, we conducted an empirical analysis and ARIMA prediction of the coupled production-living-ecological function coordination level in the Yellow River Basin of China from 2008 to 2018, and found that: (1) In terms of temporal evolution, the production-living-ecological function and coupling coordination level of each province and region in the Yellow River Basin generally shows a sharp and then slow upward trend, with the living functions changing more than the production and ecological functions; (2) in terms of spatial pattern, the production and living functions of each province and region show the trend of functional level increasing from east to west over time; the ecological functions, contrary to production and living functions, show a “high-low” aggregation, midstream shows “low-low” aggregation, and downstream shows “low-high” aggregation; (3) According to the regression results of the spatial Dubin model, the environmental governance level, technological research and development level, and social security level and resource dependence degree have positive promoting and spillover effects on the coupling coordination level of the “production-living-ecological” function in the region. However, population density and carbon emission intensity will hinder the development of regional coupling coordination level; (4) from the ARIMA prediction, the coupling coordination level of “production-living-ecological” in the Yellow River Basin continues the development trend of 2008–2018 in the short term, the overall coordination level is at a high level, and the variability of coupling coordination level among provinces and regions is further reduced. Finally, corresponding development countermeasures and suggestions are given to different provinces and regions based on the spatial and temporal evolution characteristics, influencing factors and development trend of the “production-living-ecological” function in the Yellow River basin.

Rural revitalization, as a major strategy with the goal of realizing the overall development of strong agriculture industries, beautiful rural areas, and rich farmers, is an effective way of alleviating the loss of talent, land, capital, and other elements in rural areas and a possible cure for “rural diseases”. However, “rural diseases” faced by villages are very different, and thus exploring suitable strategies for rural revitalization is beneficial to the implementation of rural revitalization strategies and the promotion of urban–rural integration. Based on location theory, this paper constructs a point–axis–domain three-dimensional spatial location theory model that integrates market location, traffic location, and natural location and combines the coupling coordination model to comprehensively study the vitality and development directions of Qingdao’s rural areas. Results found that Qingdao’s high-level and medium–high-level coupling coordination areas are the main types of coupling coordination, accounting for 45.19% and 47.48%, respectively. Based on the development status of Qingdao, this study explores development directions for rural revitalization poles as well as high-level, medium–high-level, and medium-level coupling coordination areas and suggests the following: rural revitalization poles should play a demonstration role in rural revitalization in terms of industrial development, rural civilization, social governance, public service construction, etc.; high-level coupling coordination areas should focus on building modern hi-tech agriculture and rural marine tourism industries; medium–high-level coupling coordination areas should strengthen the building of satellite towns and promote industrial transformation and upgrading; medium-level coupling coordination areas should actively develop ecological environment conservation models and establish a characteristic mountainous eco-tourism industry. Thus, the findings provide important scientific reference for the implementation of rural revitalization.

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.

Although the literature has studied the direction and extent of the effect of green finance on industrial-structure optimization, quantitative analysis of the coupling coordination and spatial–temporal differences between green finance and industrial structure is relatively scarce. Therefore, in this paper, we built the theoretical framework of the coupling coordination relationship between green finance and industrial-structure optimization, and then we used the coupling coordination degree and geographic detector model to investigate the spatial–temporal evolution characteristics and influencing factors of the coupling coordination between the two based on the panel data of 31 provinces from 2012 to 2019. The results show that China’s green finance and industrial-structure optimization have basically reached the primary coupling, and the coupling coordination degree is from 0.40 to 0.43, which shows a “W”-type fluctuation trend of recovery. The regional gap of the coupling coordination degree firstly decreased and then increased, showing a change law of “agglomeration, equilibrium and agglomeration”. In the spatial dimension, the high-level coordination region showed an increasing trend of “fragmentation” fluctuation, while the low-level coordination region concentrated in the central and western regions with a tendency of “low value locking”. The trend surface showed a spatial characteristic of “high in the north and low in the south–high in the east and west and low in the middle”. We also found that the dependence of foreign trade and technological innovation are the main factors affecting the coupling coordination degree, and the interaction between government support and human capital synergistic is the crucial channel for the coevolution of green finance and industrial structure to promote green and low-carbon development.

Understanding the causes of poverty and identifying the transformation characteristics of poverty is the basis for achieving poverty eradication. In order to clarify the availability of construction land for poverty assessment, this paper explores the spatio-temporal synergy between urban built-up areas and poverty transformation in Tibet. The following conclusions are drawn: (1) the built-up areas in Tibetan counties have been growing from 2013 to 2019; (2) the proportion of counties with very low and low levels of relative poverty have decreased significantly, and the overall spatial characteristics of poverty are “high in the center and low in the surroundings”; (3) the overall coupling-coordination level between the built-up areas and the relative poverty level is gradually improving from the initial antagonism, and the relative-poverty index shows a significant negative correlation with coupling coordination (correlation coefficient of −0.63); and (4) the built-up area has a strong explanatory power for the spatial distribution of regional relative-poverty transfer compared to temperature, precipitation, elevation, and slope. The results of the study prove that the built-up area cannot be directly used as an indicator factor when constructing the multidimensional relative-poverty model and, instead, should use urban built-up areas by region to participate in poverty-estimation models based on regional economic development.

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.

Tourism flow is an important monitoring indicator for the industrial operation of ecotourism destinations, crucial in its planning, development, and marketing. Based on the travel journal data of popular tourism websites, this paper analyzed the spatial and temporal distribution, network structure, and the coupling characteristics between ecotourism flow and traffic accessibility in Zhangjiajie using standard deviation ellipse, social network analysis, kernel density estimation, and a spatial coupling model. The main results are as follows: (1) In terms of time distribution, the ecotourism flow in Zhangjiajie is mainly short-term tourism, with significant seasonal differences. (2) In terms of spatial structure, the ecotourism flow in Zhangjiajie presents a polygonal distribution of “core-edge”, forming a dense distribution area of Wulingyuan–Tianmen Mountain–Huanglongdong ecotourism flow. (3) In terms of spatial and temporal distribution, the connection intensity between the core area of ecotourism flow in Zhangjiajie and other scenic spots increases as the tourism length of stay increases. However, the radiation scope is mainly in the surrounding ecotourism scenic spots. (4) The coupling degree of ecotourism flow and traffic accessibility in Zhangjiajie is high, but the coupling coordination degree remains low on the whole. In addition, there is a serious mismatch between ecotourism flow and traffic accessibility in Zhangjiajie.

The coordinated development of the territorial spatial pattern and its function is an important prerequisite for the realization of regional high-quality development. This paper aims to reveal the evolutionary characteristics of the spatial–temporal pattern and the coupling coordination level of the “production-living-ecological” spaces (PLES) in Jilin Province from 1998 to 2018 by using the entropy method, a coupling coordination model and spatial analysis methods, and proposes the optimization paths for the four regions of the province. The results indicate that the scale of the ecological space was the largest, mainly concentrated in the eastern region. The production space was mainly concentrated in the central and western regions, and the scale of the living space was the smallest, but increased slightly, mainly concentrated in the central regions. The PLE functions in every county and city are at the coupling coordination levels of mild and moderate imbalance. Eastern Jilin should take the ecological function as the lead, and should improve the production and living functions; Central Jilin should maintain the production and living functions and improve the ecological function; Western Jilin should strengthen ecological restoration and accelerate the transformation and development of the green production function. This study can provide references for the optimization of the provincial territorial space layout in order to improve the regional territorial space coordination and sustainable development.

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.

The Grain for Green Project (GGP) was implemented over 20 years ago as one of six major forestry projects in China, and its scope of implementation is still expanding. However, it is still unclear how many ecosystem services (ESs) the project will produce in the future. The GGP’s large-scale ecological monitoring officially started in 2015 and there is a lack of early monitoring data, making it challenging to predict the future ecological benefits. Therefore, this paper proposes a method to predict future ESs by using ecological monitoring data. First, a new ensemble learning system, auto-XGBoost-ET-DT, is developed based on ensemble learning theory. Using the GGP’s known ESs in 2015, 2017, and 2019, the missing ESs of the past decade have been evaluated via reverse regression. Data from 2020 to 2022 within a convolution neural network and the coupling coordination degree model have been used to analyze the coupling between the prediction results and economic development. The results show that the growth distributions of ESs in three years were as follows: soil consolidation, 3.70–6.34%; forest nutrient retention, 2.72–.71%; water conservation, 2.52–6.09%; carbon fixation and oxygen release, 3.00–4.64%; and dust retention, 3.82–5.75%. The coupling coordination degree of the ESs and economic development has been improved in 97% of counties in 2020 compared with 2019. The results verify a feasible ES prediction method and provide a basis for the progressive implementation of the GGP.

This paper selects the index data of population, economy and space from 2000 to 2019, establishes an evaluation index system for the level of new urbanization and environmental quality in Qinghai Province, studies the coordination between new urbanization and environmental quality in Qinghai Province by establishing a coupling coordination model, and puts forward countermeasures and suggestions for the coordinated development of new urbanization and environmental quality in Qinghai Province.

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.