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Challenges to social, economic, and environmental sustainability are global in scale, yet sustainable development policies must be implemented locally. There has been a tendency for sustainable urbanism projects to engage in the conspicuous sustainability of spatially bounded and highly visible sustainability achievements, rather than spatially expansive, long-term achievements. China's complex system of multilevel governance encourages policy experimentation, but it is also frequently productive of entrepreneurial urbanism and intercity competition. This paper analyses spatial planning documents concerning Hengqin (Zhuhai Municipality, Guangdong Province), an island adjacent to Macao SAR, to show how the ambitions for a new-build district's contributions to sustainable development have become more spatially expansive and ambitious over time. This has occurred alongside changes in project leadership (from city, to provincial, to central government leadership) as well as a deepening awareness of the Greater Bay Area as a region for crossborder policymaking. The paper argues that crossborder perspectives are vital for genuine sustainable development but face certain obstacles in relation to the sites at which policy decisions are made. • Policymakers often prefer conspicuous sustainability to long-term achievements. • Innovative urban entrepreneurialism is common in China's multilevel governance. • Hengqin's spatial planning initially prioritised immediate, localised results. • Centralised leadership and regional awareness can raise sustainability ambitions. • Crossborder perspectives better reflect sustainable development needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A novel spatial general equilibrium model was constructed and the impact of air pollution on urban residents' welfare in China was studied. • Empirical study shows air pollution significantly reduces urban residents' welfare and migration cost reduces the negative impact of air pollution on the welfare of urban residents. • Policy suggestions suggested that air pollution should be balanced against the welfare of residents, and should not be cleaned up by "one size fits all" in the early stages of economic development. Air pollution and its effects are important issues of human society. However, few literatures on the effect of air pollution on urban residents' welfare considered the cost of migration. This paper constructs a novel spatial general equilibrium model and studies the impact of air pollution on urban residents' welfare in 274 cities at and above the prefectural level in China from 2007 to 2017, and investigates the role of migration costs. The theoretical analysis and empirical research show that air pollution has a significant negative impact on the welfare of residents. Further, the simulation results indicate that the reduction of migration cost and the improvement of air quality accounts for roughly 24.65% improvement of resident's welfare from 2007 to 2017 in China. Another conclusion is that there is an inverted U-shaped relationship between resident's welfare and air pollution. On another side, migration costs play a moderating role in the impact path of air pollution on residents' welfare. When the migration costs fall, it will help residents to move out of cities with poor air quality and improve the resident's welfare. The policy suggestions are as follows: (1) In the process of sustainable development, local governments need to coordinate the phased characteristics between air pollution and residents' welfare, effectively improve the livable degree of city and urban economic sustainability, and prevent the brain drain caused by excessive migration of residents. (2) Local governments should lower the migration costs between cities by deepening the reform of the household registration system, so as to promote the free flow of labor and ultimately improve the welfare of residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reforms in China began in the late 1970s. In the last four decades, the country has witnessed phenomenal economic growth, making it a world economic power. But environmental and social costs have not been sufficiently mitigated. This appears to be changing. China seeks continued economic growth, reduced environmental degradation and assured social well-being for all. The paper attempts to survey China's efforts in the last two decades to combat environmental degradation while ensuring the momentum of economic and social development, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rational assessment of the regional sustainable development level is an important prerequisite for formulating development strategies and achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Currently, little literature provides nuanced understanding for national sustainable development from the perspective of county sustainability. Such studies can provide more accurate regional heterogeneity characteristics and policy decision support. Thus, this paper applies the entropy weight method and Chinese county data from 2000 to 2017 to reassess the sustainability of Chinese counties. The results show that China's county sustainability (Sustainable Development Index, SDI) is slowly improving. County sustainability performance is poorer in ethnic minority agglomerations, poor counties, old revolutionary counties, and central and western regions, better in county-level cities and eastern regions. The decomposition results show that economic sustainability and environmental sustainability are the main supporters of SDI growth, and livelihood sustainability is in urgent need of improvement. The regional inequality of SDI in Chinese counties gradually decreases, and inter-group differences are the main contributors to regional inequality in SDI. This paper provides support for China to develop county-level sustainable development measures and practice the SDGs. The findings could be useful for policymakers. [Display omitted] • Based on the entropy weight method and the Chinese county data, the sustainable development levels of 1533 counties in China from 2000 to 2017 are estimated. • Analyses of spatial-temporal dynamic heterogeneity, Linear decomposition, and Dagum decomposition are conducted to study the features of sustainable development in Chinese counties. •The influence of natural features and national concern preferences on county sustainable development are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's rapid urbanization growth during the past decades which has highly promoted its affluence has induced various challenges for the countryside. The problem of rural decline of quite many villages which are suffering depopulation in turn challenges the urbanization sustainability in China. By way of in-depth historical and literature review, the paper finds distorted urban-rural relationship and the tendency of village decline owing to China's long time urban biased policy. By further investigating China's new-type urbanization strategy, the paper draws concerns about future rural development which is less mentioned in the plan. It calls for ruralization and actions to revitalize the countryside so as to be adapted to China's new-type urbanization plan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bicycles are a desirable form of transportation for many reasons, including the fact that taking a bicycle is environmentally-friendly, economically cost-effective, a way to keep fit and healthy and, on occasions, an enjoyable social activity. This paper explores the characteristics and commonalities between particular bike-sharing systems in urban areas, with a view to deriving influences on the sustainability of such systems. The empirical study is China and the paper analyses bike-sharing systems in five Chinese cities. China is suffering from the severe negative consequences of high private vehicle usage in large and densely populated cities. Nevertheless a long history of bicycle usage in the country provides great potential for such a green form of travel to be part of public and private transportation. The findings show that bike-sharing systems have varying degrees of success. The configurations which seem the most sustainable consider and integrate elements relating to transport planning, system design and choice of business model. Key conclusions are that those responsible for developing policy and practices in relation to bike-sharing systems need to understand the diverse aspects of value for the stakeholders wishing to engage with such a system. Public bicycle sharing, as a Product Service System, needs to be carefully developed to appreciate the quality and timely interplay between the physical design of the system and the provision of services being offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the constraints to achieving optimal infrastructure sustainability for mountainous townships in Southwest China. Although such townships are relatively less developed, it is well recognized that investment in infrastructure projects in less developed townships plays a vital role in China's sustainable development mission. While the benefits of infrastructure investments are usually measured by means of economic performance, their long-term sustainability performance is largely overlooked. It is therefore imperative to understand the constraints that impede infrastructure sustainability and what corrective actions can be taken. The constraints are identified in this study via exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. Twenty-one townships in the mountainous regions of Southwest China were investigated by means of a questionnaire survey. The study reveals that the major constraints include four dimensions: “Economic Capacity”, “Governance and Management”, “Policy Instrument and Public Participation”, and “Local Geographic Characteristics”. Identification of these constraints provides a valuable reference for local governments to take adequate measures to ensure that their infrastructure sustainability can be improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Construction industries have significant impacts on the economy, society and environment. To transform construction industry towards sustainability, construction enterprises' perceptions and performance on sustainability needs to be understood and evaluated, which has not be fully explored by existing studies. This paper holistically examines the Chinese construction enterprises’ attitude towards and performance on various aspects of sustainability (e.g. the economic, social and environmental aspects) in order to identify those aspects the firms perceive to be the most and least important and those aspects the firms perform best and worst on. The associations among the sustainability attitude, sustainability performance, and firm size are also explored. The findings show that quality management and customer service are perceived as the most important as well as the best-performed aspects by the firms while supporting community development is the least important and worst-performed aspect. Sustainability attitude is positively correlated with performance, and larger firms tend to have better sustainability performance than that of small ones. However, larger construction firms do not necessarily perceive sustainability more important. This study provides a useful reference for policy makers and researchers to understand how sustainability is perceived and implemented by the Chinese construction firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past decade, the concept of sustainable development has gained increasing importance within China's urban development. Urban(ising) China not only catalyses many of the country' sustainability issues, but also constitutes the locus where novel institutional arrangements for sustainable development are tested and implemented. This paper explores new paradigms of integrated territorial management unfolding in areas where concerns of water pollution intersect with objectives of urban renewal. The analysis focuses on the case of the Lihu Lake basin, located in the city of Wuxi (Jiangsu Province), considered by many observers to be at the forefront in China's quest for sustainable urban development. In Lihu the integration of environmental management with urban planning has led to the creation of a new organisational field, revolving around the issue of sustainable development of urban areas, with distinctive regulatory, normative, and cognitive aspects. While epitomising a case of integrated territorial management, the experience of Lihu Lake basin highlights the challenge of fostering inclusive social development in urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China’s energy consumption structure, which relies heavily on fossil fuels, has, on the one hand, weakened environmental sustainability at the national level, and also intensified the problem of climate change at the global level, on the other hand. It is therefore essential for policy-makers to adopt immediate measures to transfer to a trajectory of sustainable energy development with low carbon emissions. Using a decoupling index that describes the difference between energy consumption and economic development, this paper studied the process of decoupling in each province in China. Results showed that there was a phenomenon of weak decoupling in China as a whole, while North, Northeast, and East China have experienced rapid economic development and improved energy utilization efficiency, leading to a high level of decoupling. Neimenggu (Inner Mongolia) Province experienced both the highest energy consumption and economic growth, while Beijing and Guizhou Province showed the strongest decoupling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last couple of decades, urban areas around the world have been engaged in increasing initiatives, practices and experiments with a view to achieving social, economic and environmental sustainability. Echoing these movements, sustainable urbanization has entered many policy agendas. In practice, various aspects including eco-environmental protection, land development, housing, policy, population growth and migration and energy utilization have been noted and discussed by different scholars. In the context of China, these terms/keywords are found in studies across different scales and types of cities, each of which would have implications for our understanding of theory relating to sustainable urbanization. In response, this paper reports on a comprehensive literature review of these studies of sustainable urbanization, and further explores three key areas including evaluation, innovative solutions and engagement of all stakeholders that will move forward sustainable urbanization process across cities in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The imperatives of sustainability, and the challenges for sustainable development, are especially pronounced in China due to the sheer size of the population and the economy, and the fast pace of change in social and economic dimensions. Small scale studies can contribute to the building up of a better understanding of the form and function of sustainability priorities and initiatives and in turn inform practice and research into alternative strategies and outcomes. The objective of this paper is to provide a modest contribution to the body of knowledge about sentiment and practice in China around sustainability by exploring and comparing contemporary views of commentators and managers about the state of play of sustainable development priorities and initiatives. Contemporary views of commentators in the mass media and other literature are examined in order to gain some current examples of opinions and activities around sustainability in China. These views are compared to perceptions of managers about sustainability that are discerned from a questionnaire administered to a group of senior managers from China as they visited Australia on a fact finding tour about balancing economic, environmental, and social performance - and the study reports on similarities and differences and notes some avenues for research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid urbanization and industrialization in China have seriously threatened the ecosystem and urban sustainability. This paper estimated the dynamic variations of ecosystem service value (ESV) in response to changes of land use/land cover (LULC) under rapid urbanization, and it analyzed their impacts on sustainability of urban system. Tianjin, the largest coastal city in China, was selected as the study area. The total ESV of Tianjin was approximately 8791.86 million Yuan in 2003, 7948.04 million Yuan in 2007, and 8378.53 million Yuan in 2011. By taking the total dynamic ESV as one of the key factors, we calculated the indexes of urban sustainability from 2003 to 2011. It was found that the dynamic variations of ESV in response to LULC changes had significant impacts on the sustainability of urban system. Therefore, in order to increase the capacity for urban sustainable development, there is an urgent need to lighten the heavy burden on the ecosystem through rational land use management during rapid urbanization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the great successes in improving rural electrification and reducing poverty, China's small hydropower (SHP) development is expected to provide a good example for other developing countries. However, recently, nearly all new SHP development plans have been halted, and many plants have been urged to shut down or even be removed. The SHP industry in China is now in a dilemma. This paper presents a review of the status of SHP development in China and explores the challenges troubling this industry. It was revealed that SHP resources in many provinces have been intensively exploited, with an exploration rate over 0.80, while untapped resources are primarily located in remote western provinces, such as ecologically fragile Tibet. This intensive and disordered SHP development has caused serious dewatering of rivers and affected local agricultural and household water access, which arouses fierce controversy. Moreover, the role of SHP has been gradually weakened by the extension of power grids and diversified electricity sources. Therefore, the transition and upgrade of the SHP industry has become critical to enhance its sustainable development and to provide a solid example for the world. A divergence management strategy for SHP should be adopted to achieve low-impact development, as opposed to blind large-scale development or rigidly discontinuing all projects. Future transition strategies are proposed in this paper that include delicate management of existing plants and construction of new plants with higher standards, as well as pathways for the development benefits to be shared by a wider range of local residents. • This study investigated the history and status quo of SHP development in China. • SHP resources in most provinces are intensively developed except some western areas. • Growing challenges that trouble the SHP industry in China were identified. • Future transition strategies for the SHP industry in China were proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China has made remarkable progress in poverty alleviation. However, the key to consolidating the existing poverty alleviation achievements is how to prevent rural households out of poverty from regressing back poverty; in other words, how they can maintain livelihood sustainability? According to a theoretical analysis of livelihood sustainability, based on the "whole process" of the livelihood development of rural households out of poverty in China, this article puts forward three determinants of livelihood sustainability – livelihood basis, livelihood acceleration and livelihood environment, establishes the dynamic mechanism framework from the perspective of the "acting force" and a corresponding evaluation indicator system. Taking Hua County of Henan Province, one of the first poverty alleviation counties in China, as an example, according to the questionnaire of rural households out of poverty, this paper analyzes the current static livelihood characteristics of rural households out of poverty and the dynamic mechanisms of livelihood sustainability in the process of poverty alleviation on the basis of the quantitative measurement of livelihood sustainability. The main conclusions are as follows: (i) Livelihood basis, livelihood acceleration, livelihood environment and livelihood sustainability of rural households out of poverty in Hua County are at the medium level as a whole. (ii) Livelihood resources, especially labor resources, and the initiative of rural households to develop their livelihood, have important influences on sustainability; rural households that lifted themselves out of poverty earlier, are located in characteristic industrial zones or modern industrial zones, or adopt diversified or non-agricultural production modes, have a higher level of livelihood sustainability. (iii) The sustainable livelihood development of rural households out of poverty needs to stimulate the endogenous power of rural households to generate positive livelihood acceleration on the premise of securing a livelihood basis, supplemented by suitable livelihood environment support. In the process of poverty alleviation, the livelihood basis, livelihood acceleration and livelihood environment play the roles of the "starting force", "driving force" and "supporting force" respectively in order to jointly affect the livelihood behavior of rural households, form different levels of livelihood performance, and present different dynamic processes of livelihood sustainability. These findings are of great value for other developing countries' improving livelihood sustainability of rural households. • We put forward three determinants that promote sustainable livelihood development by adopting the metaphor of acceleration in kinematics and establish a dynamic mechanism framework from the perspective of the "acting force". • The sustainable livelihood development of rural households out of poverty needs to stimulate the endogenous power of rural households to generate positive livelihood acceleration on the premise of securing a livelihood basis, supplemented by suitable livelihood environment support. • Livelihood resources, livelihood structures, industry types and the initiative of rural households to develop their livelihood, have important influences on sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]