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• Investigating the coupling coordination of social economy–water environmental quality. • Improved CCD model, scissors difference were developed. • Spatiotemporal distribution and dynamic mechanism in CCD were discussed in detail. • Subsystem development modes and suggestions were proposed to promote CCD. Investigating the coordinated development between social economy and water environmental quality is an important basis for promoting the protection of water ecological environment. In this paper, a comprehensive index system was built to estimate the coupling coordination between social economy and water environmental quality subsystems in Nansi Lake catchment, China. Improved coupling coordination degree (CCD) model, scissors difference and projection pursuit model based on genetic algorithm were developed to investigate the spatiotemporal distribution and dynamic evolution mechanism of coupling coordination in social economy–water environment system. Results showed that: (1) Comprehensive level of two subsystems showed an overall uptrend, water environmental quality in the catchment was improved gradually with socio-economic development. (2) The status of coupling coordination between two subsystems had transformed from moderately unbalanced development (CCD of 0.265 in 2001) to favorably balanced development (CCD of 0.667 in 2017). The relatively low CCD in Heze generated the biggest restriction on the coordinated development between two subsystems, compared to Zaozhuang and Jining. (3) The speed difference between two subsystems showed a downward trend, the scissor difference was controlled effectively. And the social economy–water environmental quality system gradually tended to the coordinated development. Overall, the improved CCD model and scissors difference analysis in this paper may provide a new approach for empirical research on environment–economy nexus. We hope this study can help decision makers formulate measures to promote the coordinated development between social economy and water environmental quality subsystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to promote the coordinated and sustainable development of China′s logistics industry and marine industry, the paper comprehensively used neutral cross efficiency model, entropy method, coupling evaluation model and gravity center migration model, selected multi-level evaluation indicators including location entropy, systematically evaluated the logistics efficiency and marine industry agglomeration level of 11 coastal areas in China from 2008 to 2018, analyzed the spatial and temporal pattern characteristics of the coordination relationship between the two and put forward development suggestions. The results showed that from 2008 to 2018, the logistics efficiency and the level of marine industry agglomeration in China′s coastal areas showed an increasing trend, but there was still a large development space and there were large regional differences. The overall coupling coordination degree of logistics efficiency and marine industry agglomeration level had been continuously improved and had developed from primary coordination to intermediate coordination. The coupling coordination level of various coastal areas had varied from near-disorder to good coordination and the center of coupling coordination degree basically showed a NE-SW migration trend. To improve the coordination between logistics efficiency and the level of marine industry agglomeration, the construction of logistics infrastructure should be strengthened and adhered to the two-way linkage between land and sea, and promote the flow of resource elements.

Green and high-quality development has become an important development path for the global response to climate change. Eco-efficiency and innovation, as important indicator and core driver of green and high-quality development respectively, have attracted wide attention. However, the research on the relationship between innovation and eco-efficiency is mostly qualitative research, and the index selection of technological innovation and eco-efficiency is single. Therefore, this paper from the perspective of quantitative research based on the industrial enterprise data of 30 provinces from 2006 to 2019 to explore the mechanism between innovation network and eco-efficiency by constructing a three-stage evaluation model. The first step is to build the network SBM model to measure the innovation network efficiency, and decomposing it to explore the internal development and change rules of the innovation. And the SBM with undesirable output model is employed to evaluate the eco-efficiency and analyze the regional heterogeneity. Second, the coupling coordination model is constructed to quantitatively study the coupling coordination degree between innovation network efficiency and eco-efficiency. Finally, the influencing factors of coupling coordinated degree are discussed. The result shows that the innovation network comprehensive efficiency is lower than that of scientific and technological innovation efficiency and transformation of scientific and technological achievement efficiency, and the eco-efficiency of eastern China develops stably and is higher than that of the other three economic zones. Scientific technological innovation and the eco-efficiency of coupling coordination degree is higher than the transformation technological achievement and eco-efficiency of coupling coordination degree. Information and communication technology plays an important role in promoting innovation network comprehensive efficiency and eco-efficiency at different systems. • Decompose the efficiency of innovation network, and make the internal evolution law of innovation "white box" • Coupling coordination model is introduced to explore the dynamic interaction mechanism between innovation and eco-efficiency • To explore the ICT impact on innovation and ecological efficiency coupling coordination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the digital era, the contradiction between regional urban development and land ecological protection is still prominent. Clarifying the relationship and internal interaction logic among digital economy (DE), new-type urbanization (NU), and land ecology (LE) is of great significance to the region's sustainable development. Based on theoretical analysis, this study examines the relationship among DE, NU, and LE in the Yangtze River Delta through spatial analysis and empirical test with the city data from 2011 to 2020. The study found that: (1) The overall development level of DE–NU–LE in the Yangtze River Delta shows a steady upward trend, the development level of DE and NU lags behind LE, and the convergence trend among them gradually strengthened. (2) The DE-NE-LE and the coupling coordination have different and complex spatial and temporal dynamic evolution characteristics. The ability for coordinated development is enhanced continuously, which presents a typical pattern of "high in the east and low in the west". (3) The DE has a lasting role in promoting the development of the NU and LE, while the support and stimulation of NU and LE for DE needs to be strengthened. The relationship between the NU and LE shows a mutually restricted trend. (4) The DE has a significant "siphon effect". While NU and LE both have significant positive spatial spillover effects, which can promote the coordinated development of surrounding cities. This study deepens the understanding of DE–NU–LE coordinated development, and provides a new perspective for sustainable urban development and alleviating land conflicts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Promoting the coupled and coordinated development of China's tourism industry and urbanization is of great significance for its marginal and less developed regions. Taking a typical marginal and less developed region, the mountainous border areas of Western Yunnan as the research object, this study analyzed the spatial and temporal characteristics of the coupling coordination degree of the tourism industry and urbanization, as well as their influencing factors, in this region from 2010 to 2019 using the coupling coordination model, spatial gravity model, and panel Tobit model. The study results show the following. (1) The development level of the tourism industry and urbanization in the study region had significantly increased, but there was an obvious polarization phenomenon in its spatial distribution. (2) The coupling coordination degree of the tourism industry and urbanization showed a good development trend of steady growth, and the areas were ranked according to the average annual growth rate as follows: West Yunnan > Southwest Yunnan > Northwest Yunnan. (3) The regional differences in the coupling coordination degree had expanded, reflecting an "agglomeration phenomenon" and "distance decay effect", and the tourism industry lagging (obstructed) subtype was dominant. (4) The industrial structure, transportation accessibility, capital effect, consumption capacity, and talent support had significant positive effects on the coupling coordination degree, but the role of openness to the outside world was not obvious. This study can provide a useful reference for further studies on the marginal and less developed regions of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationships between urbanization and tourism have been explored in many studies. However, there is a lack of research on the relationships between urbanization, tourism development and ecosystem services in the cities of Xinjiang. To investigate these relationships, this research takes 2000–2020 as the research period, considers 14 major cities in Xinjiang, and applies the entropy approach to build assessment indicator systems of tourism and urbanization development. The service value of the ecosystem (ESV) is calculated using the improved equivalent factor. The changing attributions of tourism, urbanization development, and the ESV are discussed. The coupling coordination degree (CCD) approach is employed to analyze the connected collaboration of tourism, urbanization, and the ESV. The results show that the tourism and urbanization level of cities in Xinjiang has increased rapidly from 2000 to 2020. The total ESV has increased with a small rate. The CCD among tourism, urbanization, and ESV in Xinjiang has been relatively low, and it is in a state of moderate disorder, but it exhibits a trend of coordinated development. The CCD of ESV and tourism are lower than those of urbanization and ESV. Economic urbanization and tourism are highly coupled. From the perspective of the development trend, the level of economic urbanization is improving, and its CCD with the tourism subsystem is increasing. At the same time, the CCD between tourism and ESV is also on the rise. The tourism development level, urbanization level, and ESV, as well as the CCD among these indicators, show spatial differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With rapid urbanization and increasingly prominent environmental issues, objective evaluation of the quality of the ecological environment is crucial for environmental protection and sustainable development. Most remote sensing ecological indices (RSEI) used for ecological environmental quality evaluation include only four indicators (greenness, humidity, heat, and dryness), and many studies have ignored the impact of air quality on urban ecological environmental quality in arid areas. This study used the urban agglomeration on the northern slope of the Tianshan Mountains (UANSTM), China, as the research area based on the Google Earth Engine platform via Landsat remote sensing images and NPP/VIIRS data to establish a new remote sensing ecological index (RSEInew) and compounded night light index of urbanization level. The coupling coordination degree model was used to quantitatively analyze the characteristics of the coordinated development of the ecological environment and urbanization in UANSTM and major cities from 2015 to 2020. The results showed that: (1) compared to RSEI, RSEInew is more suitable for assessing the ecological quality of arid zones because it accounts for air quality; (2) the RSEInew value for the eco-environmental quality of UANSTM from 2015 to 2020 improved and then deteriorated with an overall declining trend. The variation in the RSEInew rating was between "strongly bad" and "neutral," and there were differences in the quality of the ecological environments among cities; (3) the level of urbanization in the economic zone of UANSTM from 2015 to 2020 increased significantly, and the degree of coordination between urbanization and ecological environmental quality coupling steadily increased but remained moderately imbalanced. The results of this study provide a scientific reference for the economic development and ecological environmental protection of the study area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stable and sustainable food production is an important guarantee for national security and social stability. The uneven distribution of cultivated land and water resources will threaten national food security. In this study, we adopt the Gini coefficient and water–land matching coefficient for exploring the water–land nexus in the main grain-producing areas of North China Plain (NCP) from 2000 to 2020. The water–land–food nexus considering grain crop production structure is further explored from spatial and temporal multi-scales. The results show the following: (1) The Gini coefficient presents an increasing trend in the NCP, indicating an increasing imbalance in the water–land matching degree among inter-regions. (2) There are significant differences in the WL nexus and WLF nexus among regions, showing a spatial pattern of "worse in the north and better in the south". (3) The cities which belonged to the low WL-low WLF and high WL-low WLF should be considered as key targets when formulating policies. (4) Adjusting the wheat–maize biannual system, optimizing the grain cultivation structure, promoting semi-dryland farming, and developing low water-consuming and high-yielding crop varieties are essential measures for these regions. The research results provide significant reference for the optimal management and sustainable agricultural development of agricultural land and water resources in NCP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The water quality of a basin is pronouncedly affected by the surrounding types of land use. Analyzing the impact of LULC and landscape patterns on water quality is critical for identifying potential drivers. To further study how LUCC affects the water quality in a typical plateau lake basin, this study investigated the impacts of land-use types on water quality in the Dianchi Lake Basin in Southwest China. We analyzed changes in land-use types and the landscape pattern of the Dianchi basin, calculated the CWQI (Canadian Water Quality Index) value based on the water quality indexes (PH, total phosphorus (TP), total nitrogen (TN), chemical oxygen demand (COD), dissolved oxygen (DO), permanganate index (CODMn), five-day biochemical ox-ygen demand (BOD5), ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N), turbitidy, and chlorophyll-a (Chla)), used the RDA (Redundancy Analysis) and SMLR (Stepwise multiple linear regression) methods, the coupling degree, coupling coordination degree, and the geographical detector model to explore the relationship between water quality and changes in the land-use type. The results show that (1) changes in the land-use types were obvious: the majority of the land, which was originally forest land, became built land in 2020 and farmland in 1990 (except for the Dianchi water). Landscape pattern indexes indicated that almost all land-use types were first scattered, then gathered from 1990 to 2020. (2) Changes in the water quality of Dianchi Lake lagged behind the changes in land-use types, and the variation trends were similar to the landscape pattern variation trends. The CWQI value decreased in a nearly linear fashion from 1990 to 1998, exhibited a slight change from 1999 to 2013, and quickly increased from 2013. (3) Land-use types demonstrated a tight correlation with the Dianchi water quality, and LPI was the most dominant factor in both Caohai Lake and Waihai Lake. (4) There were different indexes affecting the coupling coordination degrees of Caohai Lake and Waihai Lake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coupling of and coordination between science and technology innovation (STI) and sustainable development (SD) is a basic requirement for Anhui Province's economic high-quality development. According to panel data of 16 prefecture-level cities in Anhui Province from 2010 to 2021, the entropy method was applied to quantify the comprehensive development level of the two systems. The models of coupling coordination degree, grey GM (1, 1), and ARIMA prediction were constructed to analyze the spatiotemporal dynamic evolution features of the two systems' coupling coordination. In the time series, the two systems' comprehensive development showed a steady increase, a high level of coupling, and an increasing overall trend of coupling coordination. Moreover, the two systems' coupling and coordination levels show the gradient spatial differentiation characteristics of "central > east > west." The prediction shows that the two systems' coupling coordination degree exhibits a monotonic increasing trend and reaches the optimal coupling coordination state around 2030. This study provides a decision-making reference for the implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy of Anhui Province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Enhancing the level of coupling coordination between the digital economy and low-carbon development is not only an inevitable choice for implementing the strategy of ecological protection and high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin, but also a key path to achieve China's "Double Carbon" goal. The level of coupling coordination between the digital economy and low-carbon development in 78 cities in the Yellow River Basin from 2011 to 2020 is measured by a coupling coordination model, and the spatial-temporal characteristics and driving factors are analysed using the Dagum Gini coefficient, spatial autocorrelation model and geographic detector. This study found the following: (1) Rapid growth of the digital economy, with the slow growth of low-carbon development. The degree of coupling coordination of the two systems steadily improved and moved from a stage of near-disorder to primary coordination. (2) The degree of coupling coordination is spatially characterised by lower reaches > middle reaches > upper reaches, and provincial capitals and some coastal cities have a higher level of coupling coordination. Spatial differences in coupling coordination tend to widen, with inter-regional differences being the main source of overall differences. (3) There was a significant positive spatial correlation in the degree of coupling coordination. Local spatial clustering characteristics were dominated by High-High (H-H) clustering areas in Shandong and Low-Low (L-L) clustering areas in south-eastern Gansu. (4) The degree of coupling coordination was driven by both internal and external factors of the two systems, with internet penetration and the size of the telecommunications industry within the digital economy system as the most important factors driving the coupling coordination, and the interactions between the different drivers were all enhanced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of rapid urbanization, urban resilience, as a new way of thinking to seek solutions to urban risk crises, has become an important direction and a new development trend in the continued acceleration of urbanization. This study takes the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) as the study object, establishes a comprehensive evaluation index system of urbanization and urban resilience from a multi-dimensional perspective based on the improved entropy value method, and uses the coupling coordination degree (CCD) model, the kernel density estimation method, and the exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) method to investigate the spatio-temporal evolution trends of the CCD level of urbanization and urban resilience. Further, the dynamic response relationship of the coupling between the two systems is revealed by the PVAR model. The study results are shown as follows: (1) The urbanization level and the urban resilience level show a box-shaped clustering of overall urbanization values and urban resilience values, with a widening absolute gap between extreme value cities. (2) The kernel density estimates of CCD values for urbanization and urban resilience show an upward trend in the overall level of CCD, with regional integration replacing multi-level differentiation. (3) The level of CCD shows a continuous upward trend in terms of the spatial distribution characteristics of CCD, and the high-class area shows regional integration. (4) The spatial agglomeration trend of CCD continues to develop, reaching a region-wide hot spot agglomeration. (5) The PVAR model indicates that there is a dynamic response relationship between the urbanization system and the urban resilience system. Finally, based on the above research results, this study gives policy recommendations for the coordination and sustainable development of the urbanization system and the urban resilience system, providing some academic references for the relevant departments in the YRD to accelerate urbanization, enhance the urban resilience level, and promote regional integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction of the Sichuan–Chongqing double-city economic circle represents a critical measure for high-quality development in China. The coordinated development of industry and economy is conducive to high-quality regional economic growth and the construction of a high-standard market system. This study selects 19 data indexes of the tourism industry and regional economy in the Sichuan–Chongqing region from 2000 to 2020 and analyzes the coupling coordination degree of them through a coupling coordination model. Such being the case, the gray correlation analysis method is used to explore the key factors affecting the coupling difference. It is found that the comprehensive development index of the tourism industry system and regional economic system of the Sichuan–Chongqing region witnesses a steady growth, but the overall performance of the regional economic system lags behind that of the tourism industry system. From the perspective of coupling coordination degree, the coupling coordination between the tourism industry and regional economy in the Sichuan–Chongqing region is increasingly strengthened, with the whole system being in the stage of running-in and high-level coupling. It has achieved the leap from unbalanced development to well-coordinated development. From the perspective of gray correlation analysis, the per capita consumption level of residents and regional GDP are the key factors affecting the coupling and coordination differences of the Sichuan–Chongqing circle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid urbanization has resulted in a series of problems, such as single-type land use, low efficiency, traffic congestion, and environmental degradation. The compact city, a concept that advocates the intensive and efficient use of land, may be considered when planning urban stocks. Grounded in the evaluation of the coordination degree in the coupling between spatial compactness and mixed land use based on compact city theory, this study aimed to provide scientific guidance for sustainability measures to renew the compact urban form. To this end, it analysed an area of 3972 hectares on both sides of the Hunhe River in Shenyang City, identified spatial problems, and put forward governance suggestions through case study methods. In spatiotemporal terms, the distribution characteristics of the coordination between the northern (old district) and southern (new district) banks were significantly different, with the former being better than the latter. In terms of land use type, higher coordination may be implemented in small blocks with predominantly residential functions and central areas for mixed use. The identification results clearly revealed the patches that need to be treated, thereby facilitating the delineation of urban renewal units. Differentiated design and governance measures are needed to address the imbalanced patches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

“Double circulation” is an important strategic choice under the development of the new situation. The transformation of university scientific and technological achievements and the coordinated development of regional economy are of great significance to the construction and development of the new paradigm. In this paper, DEA method is used to measure the transformation efficiency of scientific and technological achievements of universities in 31 provinces and autonomous regions (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan), and the entropy weight-Topsis model is used to evaluate the quality of regional economic development. The comprehensive scores of the two systems are coupled and coordinated finally. It is found that the transformation efficiency of scientific and technological achievements of universities in 31 provinces and autonomous regions (excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) is mostly DEA effective, and the transformation ability of scientific and technological achievements of universities is strong in the regions where university resources are concentrated and the economically developed regions, meanwhile there is a big gap between regions. The transformation ability of scientific and technological achievements in the central and western regions has a big room for improvement. The transformation level of scientific and technological achievements of universities in most provinces is still at a middle level of coordination with the level of regional economic development. In view of the above research conclusions, some countermeasures and suggestions are put forward in order to promote the transformation of scientific and technological achievements and regional economic development can be more coordinated.

The coordination relationship between urban resilience and high-quality development is of paramount importance for improving disaster-alleviated resilient governance and sustainable development in response to the globalized crisis. However, few studies have investigated the coupling between urban resilience and high-quality development. Therefore, based on the analysis of the coupling and coordination mechanism between urban resilience and high-quality development, this paper innovatively calculates the indicators of urban resilience and high-quality development of 41 cities in the Yangtze River Delta Area (YRDA) from 2005 to 2020. Moreover, we explore the spatiotemporal patterns, evolution characteristics of the coupling coordination degree (CCD) between urban resilience and high-quality development using the entropy method, coupling coordination model, kernel density estimation curve, and further analyze the influence factors with the spatial econometric models. The results revealed that urban resilience maintained a steady growth, while high-quality development displayed a trend of an initial increase and a subsequent decline. The coupling coordination degree continued to rise and the regional difference decreased conspicuously, manifesting a robust developing trend. From the perspective of spatial patterns, the coupling coordination degree, which was characterized by “being high in the east and low in the west, tended to be balanced in the north and south and was prominent in the middle of the distribution.” Furthermore, economic strength, industrial structure, transportation facilities, and government intervention exerted a dominant influence on the development of coupling coordination degree, resulting in the spatial spillover effects as well. This study can reveal the interactive relationship between urban resilience and high-quality development can as well as help Yangtze River Delta Area provide a benchmark for promoting economic and social development while focusing on prevention and control of risk.

Based on data from 30 provinces in China, this paper builds a coordination degree model and a coupling coordination degree model (CCDM) for a carbon emission-urbanization system (CUS) that explores how to achieve low-carbon development during a rapid urbanization phase. Scenario analyses and case study were applied to illustrate the results, which show five basic conclusions. 1) Low-carbon development doesn't require eliminating energy consumption completely during urbanization 2) The average level of urbanization is relatively low owing to the large disparities among provinces and the provinces’ economic development. Though the development of low-carbon in the 30 provinces is generally rapid, the gap between the highest provinces and the lowest provinces is relatively large because of their different socio-economic features. 3) Much more attention should be paid to CO2 emissions per capita. The quality of public social service,the basic and medical insurance coverage for the elderly, the community service coverage in infrastructure and the green design during urban construction should be improved. 4) The coordination of CUS is closely related to the different development stages and geographic locations of each province. 5) For different types of provinces with different degrees of coupling coordination,there is a need to explore different development directions.

Based on data from 30 provinces in China, this paper builds a coordination degree model and a coupling coordination degree model (CCDM) for a carbon emission-urbanization system (CUS) that explores how to achieve low-carbon development during a rapid urbanization phase. Scenario analyses and case study were applied to illustrate the results, which show five basic conclusions. 1) Low-carbon development doesn't require eliminating energy consumption completely during urbanization 2) The average level of urbanization is relatively low owing to the large disparities among provinces and the provinces’ economic development. Though the development of low-carbon in the 30 provinces is generally rapid, the gap between the highest provinces and the lowest provinces is relatively large because of their different socio-economic features. 3) Much more attention should be paid to CO2 emissions per capita. The quality of public social service,the basic and medical insurance coverage for the elderly, the community service coverage in infrastructure and the green design during urban construction should be improved. 4) The coordination of CUS is closely related to the different development stages and geographic locations of each province. 5) For different types of provinces with different degrees of coupling coordination,there is a need to explore different development directions.

Rapid urbanization and exacerbated natural hazards, for example, floods, have been the big challenges for the sustainable development of many countries. Understanding the coupling coordination between urbanization and flood is important for promoting the sustainable development. However, there are few quantitative studies on the interaction between these two in China which is experiencing accelerated urbanization and climate change. In this paper, we developed an improved coupling coordination degree (CCD) model, applied Moran's I and projection pursuit model based on genetic algorithm to analyze the spatiotemporal distribution and spatial clustering effects of coupling coordination in urbanization–flood disasters system under the context of China's Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development. Our results showed an upward trend of the comprehensive level of urbanization subsystem and a decreasing first and rising later trend of flood disaster subsystem in China from 2001 to 2018. There was a U-shaped relationship between the two subsystems during the research period. From 2001 to 2018, provinces with the moderate and slight uncoordinated development decreased by 9.68% and 16.13%, respectively, while provinces with the barely coordinated development increased by 16.21%. Spatially, there was a remarkable spatial dependency on CCD. The CCD between two subsystems in Northwestern China was higher than that in Southeastern China. Due to the effects of geographic position, rainfall, human activities, and economic development, the low-low (L-L) clusters concentrated in Southeastern China, and the high-high (H–H) clusters appeared in Northwestern China. Our results show that the improved CCD model, along with Moran's I analysis, can provide theoretical basis for policy makers to formulate reasonable measures for promoting the coupling coordination between urbanization and flood disasters. • Spatiotemporal distribution and dynamic evolution of nexus between urbanization and flood disasters were investigated. • Improved CCD model, Moran's I and projection pursuit model based on genetic algorithm were developed. • There was a U-shaped relationship in comprehensive level between urbanization and flood disasters. • CCD between two subsystems in Northwestern China was higher than that in Southeastern China. • There was a remarkable spatial clustering effects in CCD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Presents a data-driven measurement, evaluation, and identification method. • Uses a coupling coordination degree model for three regional agriculture subsystems. • Suggests ways to reduce costs, increase social support, and enhance competitiveness. This study aims to evaluate the relationship between the agriculture economy environment, and society from the perspective of system theory and then put forward targeted suggestions for sustainable development of Anhui's agriculture in China. Based on the collection of relevant data and the objective weighting of indicators, the entropy weight method is used to measure the comprehensive development level of regional agriculture. The coupling coordination degree model is employed to evaluate the coupling coordination level among the three subsystems of regional agriculture. The obstacle degree model is used to identify the key obstacle factors. The case study results show that the main obstacles of the coordination system are the use of pesticides, the number of agricultural scientific and technological achievements, the application of agricultural plastic film, the number of farmers' technical training schools, and the proportion of animal husbandry. Accordingly, the paper posits suggestions, such as reducing the input of pesticides and agricultural plastic films in agricultural production, improving the social support level of agricultural science, technology, and education, and enhancing the competitiveness of animal husbandry in the Anhui Province. This study provides theoretical and methodological support for the coupled and coordinated development of regional agricultural economy, ecology and society(EES). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The marine environment is the material basis for the survival and development of fishery resources, and changes in the marine environment affect the fishery economy. Therefore, against the background of sustainability and environmental uncertainty, it is important to investigate the development of the marine environment and the marine fishery economy to improve the quality of both. Taking the panel data for 11 coastal cities in China from 2011 to 2020, we use several methods, including the entropy method, a coupling harmonious degree model, and a Tobit model, to measure the marine-environment quality and marine-fishery-economy quality, their coordination, and the factors affecting that coordination. We find that (1) the marine-environment quality and marine-fishery economy quality show a significant upward trend over time, but they are spatially unbalanced, with obvious interprovincial differences. (2) Coordination between the marine-environment quality and marine-fishery-economy quality has risen steadily, but the level of coordination is still low, remaining at the primary level in most areas. (3) The important factors affecting coordination between the marine-environment quality and marine-fishery-economy quality include the strength of the marine fishery industry, scale of the marine fishery economy, production capacity of marine fisheries, marine-environment quality, and quality of the marine environment and its resources. In light of these findings, we should increase the coordination between the marine-environment quality and marine-fishery-economy quality by upgrading the marine fishery industry, modernizing marine fisheries, linking the environmental governance of marine and land areas, and strengthening the ecological construction of the marine environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the associated network of passenger and freight transport in the New Western Land-Sea Corridor, the structure and characteristics of passenger and freight transport network in different years are analyzed using passenger volume and freight volume, and the resilience of the network is analyzed using the disturbance model. Finally, the coordinated development of passenger transport and logistics is discussed by applying a coupling coordination model. The results show that, from 2000 to 2018, the New Western Land-Sea Corridor has realized the evolution of the spatial pattern of passenger transport network from "two center and numerous branches" to "three centers and three auxiliaries". Moreover, the evolution of the spatial pattern of the freight transport network changed from "two centers and one auxiliary" to "one center and multiple auxiliaries". In terms of network tenacity, the disturbance strategy based on node degree value has the strongest damage to the performance of passenger and freight transport networks. The coupling coordination value is gradually rising from a low level and finally develops to an ordered trend. Therefore, it is proposed that passenger transport development could be supported from the "growth pole" and "zone" development modes, while the logistics development would adopt the "axis" development pattern and focus on the protection of the vital city nodes in the corresponding network. In this way, it can realize the effective connection of multiple paths, improve the tenacity of network and boost hub economy, consummate the regional coordination mechanism, and finally promote the advancement of the New Western Land-Sea Corridor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The systems of cultural heritage protection and tourism development are intertwined, so enhancing the coupling coordination status between them is beneficial to stimulate their growth. This study first constructs the theoretical coupling coordination mechanism and explores the assessment structure with detailed indicators to explore their coordinated interactions. Moreover, it selects the provincial regions of China as the case study to compare the temporal and spatial variations of both systems' growth statuses and their coupling coordination status. Moreover, it provides beneficial insights for different regions to enhance cultural heritage protection and tourism development with coordinated and differentiated approaches based on dynamic predictions. We find that for the coupling coordination status, the temporal fluctuations of the regions were mild and aggregated, and it is rare to find obvious exceptions. Moreover, the spatial distributions exhibit apparent geographical correlations, with distributions being "higher in the coastal, central, and southwestern areas". This study boasts several novelties. First, we select multiple regions for comparison, which offsets previous research gaps focusing only on individual regions. What is more, we construct the coupling coordination mechanism with an assessment structure and indicators, which theoretically explains their interactive correlations and explores the evaluation approaches. Moreover, we predict the temporal and spatial changes of the coupling coordination status and provide differentiated suggestions, which could contribute to the future coordinated development of different regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainable livelihood of farmers is the key to rural revitalization. The purpose of this study was to establish livelihood capital cultivation models suitable for farmers in different agricultural regions and to enhance the sustainability of farmers’ livelihoods by selecting four agricultural regions (suburban agriculture, intensive agriculture, plain field agriculture, and mountain agriculture) and 1025 rural households and employing Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) to systematically analyze the characteristics of livelihood capital and livelihood stability of farmers in different agricultural regions and the coupling coordination relationship between them based on a Sustainable Livelihood Framework (SLF). The results show that: (1) The average household livelihood capital is highest in intensive agricultural regions and lowest in mountain agricultural regions. (2) Farmers in suburban agricultural regions have a variety of sources of income; thus, the livelihood stability is the highest. while it is lowest in intensive agricultural regions. (3) The coupling coordination degree of livelihood capital and livelihood stability in suburban agricultural regions and plain field agricultural regions is primary coordination, while in intensive agricultural regions and mountain agricultural regions, livelihood capital and stability are slightly out of balance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern agriculture contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. How to reduce such emissions without sacrificing agricultural development is a common issue concerning most developing countries. In China, a rural revitalization strategy proposed in 2018 aims to achieve agricultural modernization by 2050, while reaching a carbon emission peak by 2030 and neutrality by 2060. However, China's progress towards these goals is largely unknown. This study evaluates the coupling coordination and spatiotemporal dynamic evolution between agricultural carbon emissions and agricultural modernization in China from 2010 to 2020 through a joint employment of spatial autocorrelation and coupling coordination degree modeling. The results show that from 2010 to 2020, the agricultural modernization level increased from 0.155 to 0.272, and the agricultural carbon emission intensity decreased from 4.9 tons per 10 thousand CNY to 2.43 tons. Agricultural carbon emissions and the agricultural modernization level manifest significant spatially agglomerative patterns with noticeable discrepancies across different regions. Moreover, the coupling coordination degree between agricultural carbon emissions and agricultural modernization has increased every year, but disparities among provinces continued to widen. Specifically, coupling coordination in northern China is significantly higher than that in the south, and its spatial distribution exhibits a positive correlation and increasing levels of clustering. These results point to the continued need for sustainable agricultural development efforts, such as strengthening rural infrastructure and diffusing green technologies in achieving China's dual carbon emission and agricultural modernization goals. This study also examines the sustainable agricultural development issue from a new perspective, and the findings can provide policy references for sustainable agricultural development policies in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Coordinating regional innovation–economy–ecology (IEE) systems is an important prerequisite for overall continuous regional development. To fully understand the coordination relationship among the three, this study builds a data-driven multimodel decision approach to calculate, assess, diagnose, and improve the regional IEE system. First, the assessment indicator system of the regional IEE system is established. Secondly, the range method, entropy weight method, and weighted summation method are employed to calculate the synthetic developmental level. Thirdly, a multimodel decision approach including the coupling degree model, the coordination degree model, and the obstacle degree model is constructed to assess the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics of the regional IEE system coupling coordination and diagnose the main obstacles hindering its development. Finally, the approach is tested using Anhui Province as a case study. The results show that the coupling coordination degree of the Anhui IEE system presents a stable growth trend, but the coupling degree is always higher than the coordination degree. The main obstacle affecting its development has changed from the original innovation subsystem to the current ecology subsystem. Based on this, some countermeasures are put forward. This study, therefore, offers decision support methods to aid in evaluating and improving the regional IEE system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid incremental urbanization in China has resulted in an incomplete modern infrastructure system and multiple point-like flaws. This is due to a lack of funding and poor scientific construction concepts and procedures. This also contributes to the infrastructure system's low disaster-adapted resilience and insufficient coupling coordination of production-oriented and service-oriented infrastructure subsystems. Based on the "Robustness-Rapidity-Redundancy-Resourcefulness-Durability" (4R-D) frameworks, this study screens 53 indicators across three tiers of "production-oriented, service-oriented, intelligent" infrastructure subsystems to establish a modern infrastructure resilience evaluation system. We examined the overall infrastructure resilience and coupling coordination development among subsystems in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area (TGRA) from 2009 to 2020 using a coupling coordination degree model (CCDM). Grey relational analysis (GRA) was used to analyze the significant control aspects of infrastructure resilience and coupling coordination degree based on grey system theory. The findings show the following: (1) at the macro level the overall resilience, resilience of each subsystem, and coupling coordination among subsystems in the research region show an upward trend from 2009 to 2020, with the rise from 2018 to 2020 being the most significant; (2) at the micro level, from 2010 to 2013, there was no obvious spatial divergence and from 2014 to 2020, driven by the radiation of the two major urban agglomerations, the resilience and coupling coordination of Yiling and Wanzhou both show a trend of more substantial increase, while the rest of the counties have a small increase; and (3) at the meso level, seven factors have a more significant impact on the coupled and coordinated development of urban infrastructure than other indicators, including urbanization rate, average annual rainfall, the number of health technicians per 10,000 people, and the percentage of GDP in the tertiary industrial sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An important manifestation of high-quality regional development is the coordination of economic development and the ecological environment. We used night light data and the net primary productivity (NPP) of vegetation to quantitatively analyze the economic development and ecological environment of nine provinces (regions) in the Yellow River Basin in 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2020, and explored the coupling coordination relationship between the two from temporal and spatial scales. The analysis results showed that: (1) The ecological value of the Yellow River Basin showed a declining–rising trend. In 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2020, the ecological value of the Yellow River Basin was 2290.67 billion yuan, 2140.11 billion yuan, 2304.49 billion yuan and 2387.55 billion yuan. (2) The light density was related to the economic development of the city, and the light density showed a steady increase. The light index increased from 0.0001–1.6534 in 2005 to 0.0029–5.055 in 2020. The hot spots of light density were concentrated in the capital cities of the provinces with relatively good economic development and were concentrated in the east; the cold spots were mainly concentrated in the relatively slow economic development areas in the west. (3) The degree of coordination between economy and ecology in the Yellow River Basin increased from 0.1757 in 2005 to 0.2529 in 2020. However, the coordination degree of the ecological economy in the basin has been in an unbalanced state for a long time, with huge development potential. (4) There was a huge gap in the degree of ecological coordination in the basin. In 2020, the most coordinated ecological economy was 0.519 in Chengdu, and the most unbalanced was 0.053 in the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quantitative evaluation of the coupling coordination degree (CCD) between regional haze the disaster risk index (HRI) and urbanization development index level (UDI) is of great significance for the realization of regional sustainable development goals. Given the lack of the combination of remote sensing and statistical data to evaluate the CCD between two systems, the Chinese mainland's 31 provinces and autonomous regions were taken to evaluate their HRI and UDI by building index systems. Then, an entropy method and one improved coupling coordination model were used to calculate and analyze the spatiotemporal characteristics of CCD between HRI and UDI during 2000–2020. The results showed that: (1) From 2000 to 2020, the value of HRI in China showed a "W" type change trend with its value increased from 0.7041 in 2000 to 0.8859 in 2020, indicating that haze pollution level showed a fluctuating downward trend; (2) From 2000 to 2020, China's UDI values showed a gradual upward trend with its value increased from 0.1647 in 2000 to 0.4640 in 2020, with an average annual growth rate of 8.63%; (3) From 2000 to 2020, CCD values between HRI and UDI showed a fluctuating upward trend with its value increased from 0.5374 in 2000 to 0.7781 in 2020, with an average annual growth rate of 2.13%; the overall level of China's CCD had raised from low coordination to moderate coordination, and eastern coastal provinces had higher CCD values, while those of central and western provinces had lower CCD values; (4) HRI, UDI and CCD could be well fitted with the R2 of 0.9869. Specifically, UDI had a higher contribution to improving the CCD than the HRI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper constructs an evaluation index system for high-quality development of coal industry from six dimensions: economic benefits, innovative development, intensive development, safe development, green development and efficient development.The high-quality development of China's coal industry from 2000 to 2019 is measured and analyzed in depth by entropy method, TOPSIS method and coupling coordination model.The results show that the high-quality development of the coal industry has achieved significant achievement, but the industrial scale is obviously out of sync with the high-quality development level.The main motivation and "short board" of high-quality development of the coal industry is significantly different in different stages of development.The six dimensions of high-quality development of the coal industry have been improved to varying degrees during the research period, but the speed of green development and high-efficiency development is relatively low.The coupling and coordination degree of the six-dimensional development of the coal industry has steadily increased, but has not yet entered the stage of "high-quality coordinated development"and the level of coordinated development needs to be improved.

It is of great significance to analyze coupling coordination feature between urban spatial functional division (USFD) and green economic development for the realization of regional high-quality sustainable development. However, few studies have investigated the coupling between USFD and green economic development. Therefore, based on the analysis of the coupling and coordination mechanism between USFD and green development, this paper innovatively calculates the indicators of USFD and green economic development of 108 cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) from 2009 to 2019. Moreover, we explore the spatiotemporal patterns, evolution characteristics of the coupling degree between the USFD and green economic development using the improved entropy method, coupling model, kernel density estimation and spatial autocorrelation method, and further analyzes the influence factors with the Tobit regression method. The study found that: 1) During the study period, the development level of USFD and green economy in the YREB showed a fluctuating upward trend, but the development level was still low and there was a large space for improvement. 2) During the study period, the coupling coordination degree of USFD and green economy development in the YREB shows a favorable development trend of fluctuating growth, but it is still in the stage of moderate coupling and coordination development. The coupling degree shows a trend of polarization and the phenomenon of “high-value difference and low-value convergence” over time. 3) The spatial distribution of coupling coordination degree in each region is obviously different, and the middle and lower reaches are significantly higher than the upper reaches, and there are “club convergence” phenomenon and obvious H-H and L-L spatial agglomeration characteristics. 4) Technological innovation, industrial structure and physical capital have a significant positive impact on the coupling degree of the two systems, while human capital has a restraining effect on the growth of the coupling degree. There is heterogeneity in the extent and direction of the influence of each factor on the degree of coupling between the three agglomerations. These findings have significant policy implications for the region to facilitate rational division of labor and coordinated development of the green economy.

This study aims to evaluate the relationship between the agriculture economy environment, and society from the perspective of system theory and then put forward targeted suggestions for sustainable development of Anhui's agriculture in China. Based on the collection of relevant data and the objective weighting of indicators, the entropy weight method is used to measure the comprehensive development level of regional agriculture. The coupling coordination degree model is employed to evaluate the coupling coordination level among the three subsystems of regional agriculture. The obstacle degree model is used to identify the key obstacle factors. The case study results show that the main obstacles of the coordination system are the use of pesticides, the number of agricultural scientific and technological achievements, the application of agricultural plastic film, the number of farmers' technical training schools, and the proportion of animal husbandry. Accordingly, the paper posits suggestions, such as reducing the input of pesticides and agricultural plastic films in agricultural production, improving the social support level of agricultural science, technology, and education, and enhancing the competitiveness of animal husbandry in the Anhui Province. This study provides theoretical and methodological support for the coupled and coordinated development of regional agricultural economy, ecology and society(EES).

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–High and Low–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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a complete organic ecosystem restoration in mining areas, soil and vegetation complement and influence each other. It is of great significance to evaluate the ecological restoration effect on and ecosystem stability of the mining area, with the coupling and coordinating relationship between herb community and soil physicochemical properties after land reclamation. Therefore, this study takes Juxinlong Coal Mine in Dongsheng District of Ordos City, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region as the study area. The understory herbaceous plant community and soil factors with restoration time of 3 to 7 years were selected as the research objects. In addition, artificial grassland and natural restoration grassland were used as controls to investigate the species composition of herbaceous communities and soil physicochemical properties in different sites. The grey relational coupling model was adopted not only to study the relationship between herb community and soil factors but also to explore the coupling mechanism between herb community and soils' physicochemical properties. The results included: (1) 51 herbaceous plants were investigated in the study area, among which Gramineae, Compositae, Leguminosae, and Chenopodiaceae were the primary ones, accounting for 70% of the total. (2) With the increase of restoration years, the diversity indices of understory herbaceous plants generally showed an increasing trend, but the diversity indices of understory herbaceous plants with different restoration years was smaller than that of artificial grassland. (3) The results of grey correlation analysis showed that the diversity of herbaceous plant community in the study area was closely related to soils' available nitrogen and water content. (4) The degree of coupling and coordinating between the diversity of herbaceous plants and soils in the study area presented a trend of first increasing then decreasing during the accumulating restoration years. Among them, the degree of coupling between the diversity of understory herbaceous plants and soil system in the 5-year restoration's sample plot (0.73) was found to be the highest, which was classified as medium coordination. The lowest coupling degree of herb diversity and soils was identified in the artificial grassland (0.51), which was light incoordination. Therefore, it is suggested that the control of water and nitrogen resources should be strengthened, the herbaceous vegetation should be reasonably selected, and the artificial tending should be carried out in the later stage of understory herbaceous vegetation construction in the study area to better promote the vegetation construction in the mining area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The synergistic development of economic construction and low-carbon transformation of energy systems must be promoted for building a green, low-carbon, and cyclic economic system and achieving the "double carbon" goal in China. Based on the panel data of 30 provincial-level administrative regions in China from 2015 to 2019, the global entropy method, coupling coordination degree model, and spatial statistical analysis methods are applied to analyse the factors affecting the coupling effect. The coordination degree increased in the study period, with Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang being the regions with the highest values. The spatial distribution of the coupling coordination degree is strongly positively correlated with the eastern provincial-level administrative regions located in the high–high concentration area of the Moran scatterplot and western provincial-level administrative regions concentrated in the low–low concentration area. The spatial association pattern is stable in the study period, with only two provinces exhibiting a transition: Shandong province made the transition to high–high agglomeration areas, and Liaoning province made the transition to low–low agglomeration areas. The level of regional economy, urbanization process, energy consumption structure, and level of investment in science and innovation enhance the coupling coordination degree, whereas the industrial structure deteriorates this degree. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integrated study of the tourism-economy-ecosystem plays a significant role in regional high-quality development. In this study, methods including the Spatial Mismatch Hypothesis (SMH), coupling coordination degree and a gravity model are adopted in combination to explore the evolution characteristics of the Tourism-Economy-Ecology (TEE) systems in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) from 2009 to 2019 from four perspectives: development level, spatial mismatch, coupling coordination and spatial mismatch-coupling coordination. The research results are presented as follows. Firstly, the overall development level of the three subsystems shows improvement, the overall pattern of tourism and economic development levels shows similarity, the polarization of tourism development reaches a relatively significant level, and the changes in the ecological subsystem are more significant than those in other subsystems. Secondly, the spatial mismatch direction and level of cities are relatively stable, and the mismatch index of high-grade cities varies considerably, while the tourism subsystem contributes significantly to the occurrence of spatial mismatch in the regional system. Thirdly, the coupling and coordination level of the system in the east is higher than in the west, with a vast majority of them in the state of near-mismatch, while the coupling and coordination state is more stable in most cities and tends to be coordinated. Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Foshan represent the crucial nodes of regional system coupling and coordination. The opening of high-speed railway lines enhances the connection between cities, and it remains necessary to enhance the coupling and coordination across various economic circles. Lastly, according to the comparison of spatial mismatch-coupling coordination linkage, these cities can be classified into three categories: prominent core cities, coordinating sub-cities, and potential peripheral cities. To be specific, Guangzhou and Shenzhen represent prominent core cities, Dongguan, Foshan and Huizhou represent coordinated secondary cities, and Zhuhai, Zhongshan, Jiangmen and Zhaoqing represent potential peripheral cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 trade-off and coordinated development of the “production-living-ecological” functions (PLEFs) of an area is an important basis for the optimization of the spatial pattern of the land, and helps to promote the harmonious symbiotic relationship between human beings and nature. This paper combines ecological niche theory, a coupling coordination model, and a trade-off synergy model to construct an evaluation index system for Chinese county PLEFs. Quantitative methods were used to measure spatiotemporal evolution characteristics, trade-off synergy of PLEFs in 38 counties in Chongqing, China, and the coupling coordination degree between PLEFs. The results showed that the ecological niche width of the “production-ecological” function revealed an overall growth trend. However, there was a mismatch in regional development of the “production-ecological” function, showing dislocation characteristics of “high in the west and low in the east” and “high in the east and low in the west.” The niche width of the life function is similar to the comprehensive niche width of PLEFs, showing the characteristics of fluctuation and partition change. PLEFs and both the aforementioned functions showed distribution characteristics of “high in the west and low in the east,” with the whole moving towards the stage of coordinated coupling, of which the “production-living” function has the highest coupling level. The functional coupling coordination degree of “production-living-ecological” is generally manifested as “high in the west and low in the east,” and changing from the primary stage of imbalance to well-coordinated development. The “production-ecological” and “living-ecological” functions are in low-level imbalance in the primary and moderate coordination stages. Additionally, the evolution trend of the “production-ecological” and the “living-ecological” functions are similar, showing alternating and fluctuating development characteristics. Overall, in the past 20 years, Chongqing’s “living-production” function has changed from a trade-off model to a collaborative development relationship, and the “living-ecological” function is generally based on a collaborative development relationship. The “ecological function” is manifested as a trade-off constraint relationship. Moreover, the coordinated development level of “living-production,” “living-ecological,” and “production-ecological” functions in the central urban area has been greatly improved, while counties have gradually shown different degrees of trade-offs.

Global urbanization and post-industrialization have resulted in the emergence of a large number of brownfields. The integration of brownfields into green infrastructure (GI) has been widely recognized as a sustainable development strategy in metropolitan areas. It is important to spatially prioritize brownfields catering for GI, which can enable the greatest enhancement of urban functions. Various studies have assessed brownfield site attributes or urban demands to define the priority of brownfields transformed into GI, but it is key to consider the coupling coordination between urban demands and site attributes in order to achieve more accurate matches. In this paper, an approach is proposed for assessing the priority of brownfields catering for GI in Xuzhou, China; this involved calculating the coupling coordination degree between site attributes and urban function demands, including heat island mediation, stormwater regulation, disaster prevention, landscape aesthetics improvement, and leisure and recreation increments. The results showed that 42.52% of the brownfields have a high degree of coupling coordination (“good coordination” and “primary coordination”) between site attributes and urban demands. Furthermore, 40.82% of the brownfields (120 plots) were selected to be integrated into urban GI; these are not only located in high urban functional demand areas, but also have a high coupling coordination degree. These brownfields were divided into three priority levels, and 4.42% and 17.69% of the total brownfields are of very high and high priority. Our proposed approach offers an accurate decision-making tool for urban GI optimization in high-density built-up metropolitan areas, and offers guidance for brownfield redevelopment.

Promoting coupling coordination between marine scientific and technological (S&T) innovation and the high-quality development of the marine economy is an important measure to realizing sustainable marine development. Based on the complex adaptive systems theory, sustainable development theory and regional coordinated development theory, this study analyzed the coupling coordination and its influencing factors between marine S&T innovation and the high-quality development of the marine economy with China's coastal provinces as study areas. The result showed that: (1) The coupling coordination fluctuated upward, changing from on the verge of dissonance to well-coordinated. (2) There was an agglomeration of high-level coupling coordination in central and eastern coastal provinces while the polarization between high-level and low-level coupling coordination was significant. (3) The improvement of coupling coordination mainly depended on the consumption expansion demand, multidimensional spatial integrated development, and industrial improvement demand. Regional heterogeneity of influencing factors existed in southern and northern coastal regions. (4) To improve coupling coordination, we should establish a demand-oriented mechanism for coordinated development between marine S&T innovation and the marine economy, and strengthen the multi-dimensional spatial planning and the guidance and guarantee functions of coastal governments, in particular to introduce and implement policies that suit local conditions. This research may supplement and improve the theoretical discussion and practical experience concerning sustainable marine development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study discussed the interaction mechanism of new-type urbanization and ecological environment, and then relevant data of the nine cities in Wanjiang Demonstration Area in 2016 was gotten. With the entropy weight method, the coupling coordination degree model and the exploratory spatial data analysis method, the coupling coordination degree and spatial agglomeration characteristics of new-type urbanization and ecological environment in Wanjiang Demonstration Area were analyzed. The results show that: Firstly, the comprehensive development index of the new-type urbanization and the ecological environment shows obvious positive correlation, and it appears a higher internal consistency through the whole development stage. The coupling degree of the nine cities is in a relatively balanced situation, Hefei and Ma'anshan are in the high level coupling stage, Xuancheng is in the antagonistic stage, and the other six cities are all in the stage of grinding. Secondly, the coupling coordination degree of new-type urbanization and ecological environment shows a weak positive correlation in space, and the degree of spatial agglomeration is not very significant. Except for Hefei with the over harmonization condition, the other eight cities are in the situation of maladjustment. Thirdly, according to the spatial agglomeration analysis, the local spatial autocorrelation of the coupling coordination degree is obvious. Although the different agglomeration regions show some expansion or contraction in the spatial evolution, cities with high degree of coupling coordination are clustered, while cities with low degree of coupling coordination are dispersed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese economy has entered the phase of high-quality development. Urbanization is an important driving factor in promoting the domestic economic cycle, while tourism is an emerging force in the development of urbanization. The convergence of these two factors will contribute to the high-quality development of regional economies. By constructing an evaluation index system of tourism development and urbanization level, 26 cities in the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration have been identified as the study area. The study has adopted the entropy method and the coupling coordination model to analyze the comprehensive development level of tourism and urbanization and the coupling coordination relationship between them from 2008 to 2018. The results show that the Yangtze River Delta presents a spatial pattern of orderly changes in the development of tourism, forming a spatial structure of "one pole and many centers", with Shanghai as the core. In terms of spatial distribution, it generally presents the spatial trend characteristics of "high in the east and low in the west" in the east–west direction, and "protruding in the middle and lower at both ends" in the south–north direction. Coordination and interaction are steadily developing to a high level, with significant spatial dependence and spillover effects. Based on the research results, the study applies a new development vision to explore the coupling coordination high-quality development mechanism of tourism and urbanization in the Yangtze River Delta region; the corresponding policy recommendations are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rapid urbanization of the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration has led to the convergence of population, land and capital. The coordination between land development intensity and urban resilience has become a key issue in the post-urbanization period. From the perspective of regional overall and coordinated development, we constructed an evaluation index system of land development intensity and urban resilience. Then, the comprehensive evaluation model, coupling coordination degree model and panel Tobit regression model were adopted to systematically study the temporal and spatial differentiation of and influencing factors on the coupling coordination degree between land development intensity and urban resilience in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration from 2009 to 2019. The results show that from 2009 to 2019, the land development intensity exhibited a slow and fluctuating increase, while the urban resilience displayed continuous growth, and the level of land development intensity generally lagged behind that of urban resilience. From 2009 to 2019, the average coupling coordination degree between land development intensity and urban resilience in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration increased from 0.5177 to 0.6626, which generally changed from bare coordination to moderate coordination. In terms of spatial distribution, the coastal cities and cities along the Yangtze River were characterized by high coupling coordination degrees, which formed a "T" shape distribution pattern. In addition, the coupling coordination types showed certain spatio-temporal heterogeneity among cities. Finally, land economic benefit, green industrial development, scientific and technological innovation, social management and infrastructure all had significant impacts on the coupling and coordination between land development intensity and urban resilience in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We established a structural finite element model based on a four-tower partially cable-stayed bridge. We performed a study to determine the appropriate settings of several main parameters of the four-tower partially cable-stayed bridge. Given changes in the stiffness of the main girder, stayed cable and length of cable-free zones in the span, a three-parameter coupling coordination model was constructed. The coupling degree and coordination degree between different parameters are calculated and compared, the primary and secondary parameters affecting the structural performance of some cable-stayed bridges are determined, and a more suitable parameter composition interval is proposed. The sensitivity analysis of the main structural parameters of the four-tower partial cable-stayed bridge has not been published in the literature, and there is no coupling study on the length of the cable-free zone and the stiffness of the main girder and stay cable. The overall structural stiffness was improved by increasing the main girder’s stiffness and stayed cable, with the main girder stiffness being the primary parameter. The increase in uncoupled zone length in the span improved the utilization rate of the line within a specific range; however, too long a length led to a reduction in overall structural stiffness. The main girder stiffness was set between EG′IG/EGIG = 1~3, while stayed cable stiffness was set between ECAC′/ECAC = 0.8~1.4. The length of the cable-free zone in the span was set between l1/l0 = 0.08~0.15, while the coupling coordination degree was medium to high coordination. The structural performance of the background engineering bridge was improved. However, the conclusion of this paper is more applicable to low-pylon cable-stayed bridges, and it has not been verified whether it applies to traditional cable-stayed bridges.

This paper takes the level of high-quality agricultural development and ecological construction in 31 provinces of China from 2011 to 2021 as the research object. The coupling coordination degree model and Moran index are used to explore the coupling coordination stage, types and spatiotemporal evolution trend of agricultural high-quality development and ecological construction in China. The obstacle model is used to determine the key obstacle factors influencing the coupling development of high-quality agricultural and ecological construction in China. The results are as follows: from 2011 to 2021, high-quality agricultural development and ecological construction in 31 provinces maintained a relatively stable growth trend. However, the coupling coordination level between the two is low, and thus such level belongs to the high-quality development lag type of primary coordination agriculture. The agricultural externality index, land yield rate and per capita rural power generation are the biggest obstacles to the coordinated development of high-quality agricultural development and ecological construction in China.

The article aims to study the coupling coordination and spatial correlation effects of green finance (GF) and high-quality economic development (HQED) in 30 Chinese provinces. The index system of GF and HQED is constructed by selecting relevant index data from 2007 to 2017. The index of GF and HQED is measured by the entropy value method. Next, the coupling coordination degree (CCD) and spatial association strength are calculated based on the index using the coupling coordination degree model and the gravity model. Then the driving factors of the CCD between GF and HQED are analyzed by using geographic detectors. Finally, the spatial association network is constructed and its robustness is studied. The research results show that the coupling coordination degree between GF and HQED in each province is generally low, with strong regional heterogeneity, and the coupling coordination degree shows a trend of decay from the eastern region to the western region, but the western region has more room for development. Green credit, green, coordination, and sharing are the strong driving factors of the CCD between GF and HQED. The network of spatial association between GF and HQED in each province is gradually tightened, making the western peripheral provinces more closely connected with the eastern provinces through the intermediate node provinces. The network robustness of GF and HQED is more influenced by provinces with higher node degree values. Accordingly, the article proposes that China should continuously improve relevant GF policies, environmental disclosure systems, enhance green innovation technology and guide private capital to enter the GF market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]