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Industrialization in China has faced severe problems such as resource depletion and environmental degradation. The Yangtze River economic belt (YREB) strategy is one of the essential strategies for the sustainable development of the Chinese economy. Maximizing economic benefits while using the least resources and the least pollution to the environment is critical for China's sustainable development strategy. This paper proposed the DEA to measure industrial eco-efficiency in the YREB from 2009 to 2018. It analyzed its temporal evolution and spatial differentiation and adopted a spatial econometric model to study how interference in influencing factors affects industrial eco-efficiency. The results revealed that (1) the eastern area of YREB has the highest industrial eco-efficiency compared with the other regions. (2) The industrial total factor productivity in the YREB has been rising over the years, and its change trend shows an inverted "W" pattern of first rising, then falling, then rising, then falling. (3) By further analysis, we observed a statistically significant spatial difference in the Industrial eco-efficiency among the areas in YREB, which suggests that the change scale presents the rule of "downstream bigger than Midstream region and midstream region bigger than "upstream region." (4) The level of economic development, science and technology innovation, and human resources have significantly positive effects on industrial eco-efficiency, and the effect of economic development is of most significant importance. The industrial agglomeration demoted the efficiency of industrial ecology; Science and technology innovations, on the other hand, had a positive spillover effect, while the industrial concentration had a negative spillover effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigating the characteristics of urban expansion is helpful in managing the relationship between urbanization and the ecological and environmental issues related to sustainable development. The Defense Meteorological Satellite Program/Operational Line-scan System (DMSP/OLS) collects visible and near-infrared light fromthe Earth's surface at nightwithoutmoonlight. It generates effective time series data for mapping the dynamics of urban expansion. As a major urban agglomeration in the world, the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration (YRDUA) is an important intersection zone of both the "Belt and Road Initiative" and the "Yangtze River Economic Belt" in China. Therefore, this paper analyses urban expansion characteristics of the YRDUA for 1993-2012 from urban extents extracted from the DMSP/OLS for 1993, 1997, 2002, 2007, and 2012. First, calibration procedures are applied to DMSP/OLS data, including intercalibration, intra-annual composition, and inter-annual series correction procedures. Spatial extents are then extracted from the corrected DMSP/OLS data, and a threshold is determined via the spatial comparison method. Finally, three models are used to explore urban expansion characteristics of the YRDUA from expansion rates, expansion spatial patterns, and expansion evaluations. The results show that the urban expansion of the YRDUA occurred at an increasing rate from 1993-2007 and then declined after 2007 with the onset of the global financial crisis. The Suxichang and Ningbo metropolitan circles were seriously affected by the financial crisis, while the Hefei metropolitan circle was not. The urban expansion of the YRDUA moved from the northeast to the southwest over the 20-year period. Urban expansion involved internal infilling over the first 15 years and then evolved into external sprawl and suburbanization after 2007. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) is one of four major national development strategies in China, accomplishing the balance between protection and development of YREB has long-term and comprehensive significance to the implementation of China's green development concept. This paper aims to have a more comprehensive understanding of the green development level of 126 cities in YREB from 2008 to 2017 by constructing an innovative evaluation system of "capacity level-coordination level-comprehensive level". And on this basis, further analysis is carried out to check whether there is spatial effect in green development by means of the Markov chain. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) Urban green development comprehensive level in YREB is characterized by convergence, and the convergence phenomenon is more prominent in high-level cities; (2) In general, the distribution of high-value cities is decreasing from east to west; (3) The transition of club convergence is significantly influenced by neighbor background. Overall, the YREB is undergoing a transformation to step into the greener development path, still needs to take a series of synergistic guidance strategies to solve the problem of unbalanced regional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the background of vigorously promoting the construction of ecological civilization, the importance of constructing the "non-waste cities" becomes increasingly prominent. Taking 39 cities in the Yangtze River Economic Zone as the research objects, this paper establishes a new evaluation index system for "non-waste cities," and proposes a multi-source, heterogeneous and multi-attribute decision-making method for the comprehensive evaluation of "non-waste cities." Specifically, the evaluation index system of "non-waste cities" is constructed from four aspects: economic level, environmental pollution, resource consumption, and waste utilization. Considering that there is the characteristic of multi-source heterogeneity for the attribute values (that is, real numbers, interval numbers, and fuzzy linguistic variables coexist), the multi-source heterogeneous data are uniformly converted into two-tuples, and then a new two-tuple entropy weight method is proposed to determine the weights of evaluation attributes. Moreover, combining the traditional grey relational analysis method with TOPSIS, a multi-source, heterogeneous and multi-attribute decision-making method based on two-tuple mixed correlation degree (TTMCD-MSHMADM) is proposed to evaluate the "non-waste cities," and an empirical analysis is made for the 39 cities in the Yangtze River Economic Zone. The result gives a theoretical basis for the formulation of sustainable economic development policies in the Yangtze River Economic Zone, and provides a decision reference for selecting the demonstration cities of "non-waste cities." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The green development of Chongqing municipality is crucial in establishing a major ecological shield in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. By developing a Super-SBM model and using the Malmquist index to analyze and calculate the green development efficiency and its influencing factors in Chongqing from 2011 to 2021, this study reveals an accelerating trend in the overall green development efficiency in Chongqing. The significant enhancement of green development efficiency in Chongqing is primarily attributed to changes in returns to scale. Pure technical efficiency and technological advancements have a considerable potential impact on improving green development efficiency in Chongqing. Furthermore, there are discernible disparities in green development efficiency among districts and counties in Chongqing, with different factors influencing these variations. Chongqing is suggested to promote clean and efficient energy utilization, bolster the application and commercialization of scientific and technological advancements, consistently advance ecological restoration and management, and elevate the quality of green development to a higher level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China is entering a critical and accelerating phase of urbanization. As one of the most urbanized regions in China, the Changjiang (Yangtze) River Delta has experienced dramatic urbanization and urban transformation. However, in the recent years, many changes have taken place in this region and there is limited attention to the regional urbanization path evolution, its problems and the way to solve these problems. Therefore, we should revisit the urbanization process in the Changjiang River Delta again. In this paper, we revisited urbanization paths of the Changjiang River Delta by data analysis, influence factors of urbanization by the Gray Relational Analysis, and major challenges to urbanization of the Changjiang River Delta by theoretical considerations. We found that the urbanization of the Changjiang River Delta had experienced several stages of large-scale spatial and urban system restructuring. Within the Changjiang River Delta, Shanghai, Zhejiang and Jiangshu had experienced different urbanization path with local characteristics. But with their development model gradually converging, their urbanization model is also converging. We also found that the major influence factors affecting the Changjiang River Delta urbanization were dynamic change and urbanization was driven by different key factors in different socio-economic development stages. Meanwhile, the Changjiang River Delta urbanization is facing many problems such as existing institutional arrangements, including the hukou (household registration) system and others which can not meet the needs of current socio-economic development and urbanization. Therefore, it is imperative to promote institutional innovation and adopt a new urbanization development strategy for the sake of the orderly and sustainable urbanization development in the Changjiang River Delta. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shortage and uneven distribution of water resources in China is becoming a serious constraint of sustainable development of the society and its economy. Being based on the systems theory, this paper discusses the coordinated relationship between the social-economic development, the ecological environment and the water resources of China. A special evaluation model has been developed and applied in order to compute the comprehensive evaluation index of water resource carrying capacity on the basis of selecting available annual data for each province of China, describe the water resource carrying capacity for each province, and, next, evaluate the total resource carrying capacity for China. As obvious from the results, the water resources do not match with the distribution of the population and with the state of economy. Chinese southwestern provinces have a relatively large potential of water carrying capacity. The Yangtze River basin, the Pearl River basin and the eastern coastal areas no longer possess an advantage in the water carrying capacity. Some regions, such as the North China Plain, and Northwestern China, e.g. Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, and Gansu Province experience severe shortage of water resources, since the water supply system is overloaded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper develops a new paradigm to analyze the eco-efficiency of Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) in China and makes a first empirical attempt at examining whether the eco-efficiency in urban agglomerations (UA-s) outperform Non-urban agglomerations (Non-UA-s), or driving the Non-UA-s in promoting eco-efficiency using a dataset of 108 prefectural-level cities during 2003–2014. The main findings are as follows. First, the eco-efficiency of YREB gradually increases during the study period. Cities in UA-s with higher eco-efficiency experience an increasing spatial agglomeration while those in Non-UA-s show a slight downward shift. Second, in terms of eco-efficiency, both statistical test and econometrical test confirm that cities in UA-s outperform those in Non-UA-s. Third, the global and club convergence of eco-efficiency in YREB is ascertained. Forth, the eco-efficiency of UA-s exerts backwash effects on those in Non-UA-s, along with decreasing the convergence speed of eco-efficiency. Special issues are briefly discussed, lastly. Highlights • A new analysis paradigm is developed to explore the YREB's eco-efficiency. • Temporal-spatial evolution and empirical tests are conducted, indicating a proof that eco-efficiency in urban agglomerations outperform that in Non-urban agglomerations. • Urban agglomerations have backwash effects and slight constraints to Non-urban agglomerations in terms of eco-efficiency. • Some special issues are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sustainable development of a city should occur via the harmonious development of the urban comprehensive carrying capacity (UCC) and economic growth. To study the 84 cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) from 2006 to 2014, this paper uses a spatial econometrics model to evaluate the relationship between the UCC and economic growth, and explore the sustainability of urban development. The results infer some novel findings. First, the impact of economic growth on the UCC has inverted “U”-type characteristics. The economic growth pattern of the urban agglomeration weakens the UCC. Second, the impact of the UCC on economic growth has “U”-type characteristics. The development of the UCC plays a significant supporting role in the economic growth of the YREB. In 2014, 84 cities stayed in the descending phase of the inverted “U” curve, and approximately 50 cities of them lied on the rising segment of the “U” curve. Therefore, reconstructing economic growth models to enhance the UCC represents an important method of realizing a city's sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the demographic impacts of the implementation of the "Grand Development in West China" policies and environmental rehabilitation projects in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. It analyses the interaction between the environmental reconstruction and environment-related migration in this region. The intertwined nature of environmental, ethnic, and poverty problems not only bears negatively upon the "alleviation of poverty conducing to the accruement of wealth" of the poverty-stricken population, but also hinders the rehabilitation of the environment. It brings forth some opinions regarding improving the capacity of regional sustainable development through environmental migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) is the prior region for achieving China’s strategic development with both economic and ecological goals. Since YREB covers more than 500 million people within a large area, the unbalanced urban sustainable development cannot be neglected. Different from the previous studies, this paper adopts an index of urban state carrying capacity (USCC) to assess the sustainable development in YREB. USCC can reflect the positive effects clearly, and evaluate the carrying capacity without the distortion from the opposite side. The assessment method combines the framework of Indicator-Benchmark Comparison (IBC) and the method of Analytical hieratical process (AHP), and sets up the indicator system for USCC from four perspectives. Based on the panel data for the years 2006–2014 in three scale levels, the analyses of temporal and spatial differentiation are conducted to discuss the unbalanced development in YREB. The results present that the eastern sub-UAs have much higher USCC values than the western ones significantly. The provincial cities and municipalities with higher USCC have strong impacts on their neighborhood cities around them. Further policies are suggested to support for other unbalanced sustainable development urban agglomerations like YREB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global urbanization and urban sprawl have made urban land efficiency (ULE) a significant issue for sustainable development. The Yangtze River Delta (YRD), the largest globalizing city region in China, has experienced dramatic urbanization, and land for future development has become a scarce commodity. This paper explores the spatial patterns and underlying determinants of ULE in the YRD, focusing on accessibility and economic transition. We find that the spatial agglomeration effect of ULE has intensified with the development of transportation accessibility and has mainly spread from southern Jiangsu to other areas. The integrated transportation and spatial autoregressive (TSAR) model suggests that accessibility and globalization play a significantly positive role in ULE, and that marketization as well as decentralization also have significant effects. Furthermore, a geographically weighted regression (GWR) shows that the drivers of ULE vary across the YRD. ULE in northern Zhejiang is more sensitive to foreign direct investment (FDI) and tertiary industry development, while ULE in southern and central Jiangsu are more likely to be associated with globalization and labor-intensive manufacturing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientific understanding of the evolution law of territorial space patterns and the ability to reveal the formation mechanism hold great significance for the sustainable utilization of territorial resources and the high-quality green development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB). In this study, we used the spatial chord diagram, landscape pattern index, and geographical probe to explore the evolution characteristics and formation mechanism of the territorial space pattern of the YREB from 2000 to 2020. The results showed the following: (1) The territorial space showed obvious geographical hierarchical distribution characteristics in the topographic gradient. Production and living space was dominant throughout the low and middle terrain region. Ecological space was dominant throughout the high-terrain regions. With the increase of altitude and slope, production and living space contracted, whereas ecological space areas expanded. (2) Since 2000, the territorial space has changed more dramatically. Over time, living space tended to increase, and production and ecological space tended to decrease, but ecological space was always dominant. In space, the geographical differentiation of territorial space was more obvious, and the pattern was relatively stable, with production space distributed primarily in the middle and lower reaches, living space distributed primarily in the lower reaches, and ecological space distributed primarily in the middle and upper reaches. The inter-transformation between territorial spaces was more frequent, and the transformation trajectory was diversified. (3) The fragmentation, heterogeneity, and dispersion of territorial space landscape patches throughout the whole region increased, and the balance and diversity of territorial space utilization improved. (4) Natural factors have continued to weaken the intensity of their effect on territorial space. Human factors gradually increased the extent of their interference in the territorial space. There are significant differences in the extent of the role of these different factors on the territorial space of the whole region and each basin. Natural and human factors jointly promoted the formation and development of the territorial space pattern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a comprehensive capacity of nature, society and humans, integrated carrying capacity (ICC) is the driving force of regional socioeconomic development. Only when an ecosystem is under-loaded can socioeconomic development be sustainable. ICC is an accumulative total value of each indicator's carrying capacity, which reflects a static status. The ICC prediction analysis is one prerequisite to making economic development plans. In this paper, a dynamic prediction model is developed by using the model of set pair analysis (SPA) to predict the growth tendency of ICC. The model is tested in a case comprising eight coastal cities in Yangtze. (1) The average error rate of this prediction model is merely 0.38%, and the lowest error rate is 0.01%. The SPA model is better to predict ICC tendencies. (2) According to the national development plan, the eight cities' ICC is predicted in 2015. (3) The prediction model is a multiple method that can contain all indicators of ICC. This model can estimate the maximal carrying capacity of a natural ecosystem to make the most suitable economic development policy. The socioeconomic development must comply with the under-loaded capacity to maintain sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to quantify the socioeconomic impacts of hydropower development to reflect its positive functions from multiple perspectives and dimensions. By applying the multi-regional Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model to a case study of the Yibin–Chongqing section along the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, the analysis shows that hydropower development has outstanding benefits for the regional economy and livelihood improvement, as proved by various indicators including consumption, investment, GDP, employment, and income. Meanwhile, application of the CGE model provides an effective way to quantitatively assess the socioeconomic impact of hydropower and other clean energy development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As China experienced rapid economic growth, non-agricultural land, particularly industrial land, expanded significantly within its peri-urban areas. This paper takes two typical peri-urban areas: Jiangyin in the Yangtze River Delta and Shunde in the Pearl River Delta, as cases, and applies landscape ecology indices to analyze land use dynamics through overlay of their land use maps from 2001 to 2010. This research reveals that local cadres such as township governments and village collectives utilize land finance as a strategy to contest the reshuffling of central-local power brought about by the 1994 tax-sharing scheme. Meanwhile, under the stringent land quota system, local cadres allocated most quotas to the industrial sector in order to encourage economic growth. However, the fragmented governance regime, including county/city, township to administrative village and natural village, led to land fragmentation, which had adverse impacts on sustainable development. In general, the research on land use of peri-urban areas requires a comprehensive perspective of social, economic and institutional aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the comprehensive evaluation method, a comprehensive urban ecological carrying capacity (UECC) evaluation system is established. It includes ecological support, ecological resilience, and ecological pressure. Multiscale geographically weighted regression (MGWR) was used to conduct a thorough examination of the spatial and temporal patterns, and the factors that influenced the UECC of 286 prefecture-level cities in China from 2010 to 2019. The results show that (1) China's UECC index ranges from 0.0233 to 0.2811 in 2019, which is still at a low level. (2) The spatial distribution is relatively stable: high-value agglomerations of UECC are distributed primarily in the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta, while low-value agglomerations are primarily distributed in the regions in the Central Plains. (3) All influencing factors have a positive effect on the improvement of UECC and are heterogeneous in spatial distribution. Lastly, this paper gives corresponding suggestions, so that governments can formulate differentiated policies and effectively improve UECC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Suzhou is located at the lower reaches of the Yangtze River in southeastern Jiangsu, China. It is part of the Su-Xi-Chang area including Suzhou, Wuxi and Changzhou. As one of the most developed areas in China, this region has suffered from severe land subsidence caused by extensive groundwater exploitation since 1980s. The land subsidence was controlled by prohibition of groundwater exploration in the past several years. However, the surface water pollution prompted a new task of how to sustainably utilize the groundwater resource, especially to satisfy the emergency demands of water supply. In this paper, we took Suzhou as a representative case to discuss how to develop groundwater resources while controlling the land subsidence. The relationship between the deformation and the groundwater level was analyzed, with focus on the deformation features after the period of groundwater exploitation ban. The results confirmed the conclusion by Shi et al. (2007, 2008a): even in the period of rising groundwater level, same units may manifest different deformation characteristics, such as elasticity, elasto-plasticity, and visco-elasto-plasticity, at different locations of the cone of depression. A land subsidence model that couples a 3-D groundwater model and a 1-D deformation model was developed to simulate the groundwater level and deformation. A high-resolution local grid (child model) for Suzhou was built based on the regional land subsidence model of Su-Xi-Chang area by Wu et al. (2009). The model was used for a number of predictive scenarios up to the year of 2012 to examine how to develop sustainable use of groundwater resources under the conditions of land subsidence control. Our results indicated that about 3.08×107 m3/a groundwater could be provided as emergency and standby water source while meeting the land subsidence control target of 10mm/a. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The identification of regional production-living-ecological space (PLES) is the basic work for the optimization of territorial space, which can point to the direction for the protection, utilization and restoration of regional territorial space. Identification and optimization of PLES in an ecological foundation area in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River is of great significance for ensuring national ecological security and promoting sustainable social development. In this study, Jiangjin District, located at the tail of the Three Gorges Reservoir area, was selected as a case study. Moreover, based on the land use data of the study area in 2018, the coordination among production, living and ecological functions are analyzed, and the PLES is identified by using the evaluation method of land production-living-ecological function (PLEF) and the coupling coordination degree model. Then, we formulated an optimized zoning scheme of the PLES according to the principles of ecological priority, area advantage and coordinated development. The results show that (1) The living function and production function presented obvious spatial consistency in the study area, while the spatial distribution of ecological function and production function presented significant spatial complementarity. (2) Four categories of spatial combinations can be identified in the study area. Overall, the study area presented a national spatial pattern with production-living-ecological balanced space (PLEBS) and ecological space (ES) as the main body. (3) The PLES in the study area can be divided into four categories. The ecological function should be determined by the ecological conservation area as the primary responsibility, and the comprehensive improvement zone should further improve the coupling and coordination relationship among the PLEF. Moreover, the main production-living and ecological improvement zone and the main production-ecological and living improvement zone should realize the coordinated development of the PLES on the basis of strengthening the leading function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Li, W.; Liu, W.; Wang, L., and Wen, J., 2018. Competitiveness evaluation of Shanghai ports based on niche theory. In: Ashraf, M.A. and Chowdhury, A.J.K. (eds.), Coastal Ecosystem Responses to Human and Climatic Changes throughout Asia. As a distributing center of the trade and transportation network, ports play an important role in the development of the national economy. However, many ports have common economic backgrounds, and competitions such as price wars have intensified, which inhibits the sustainable development of ports. With this background, the niche theory of ports was constructed based on the biological niche theory, and basic competitive strategies for ports also are put forward using the trend and position of niche theory and the niche overlap theory. Five main ports in the Yangtze River Delta are chosen as research objects. Then the competition relationships among the five ports are analyzed in detail. Based on that, a development strategy for Shanghai Ports is put forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the basis of monthly runoff series obtained in 1950–2013 and annual sediment load measured in 1956–-2013 at five key hydrological stations in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River basin, this study used the Mann-Kendall methods to identify trend and abrupt changes of runoff and sediment load in relation to human activities. The results were as follows: (1) The annual and flood season runoffs showed significant decreasing trends at Yichang station, and showed slight downward trends at Hankou and Datong stations, while the abrupt changes of dry season runoff at Yichang, Hankou and Datong stations occurred in about 2007 and the change points were followed by significant increasing trends. The construction of the Three Gorges Dam, which began to operate in 2003, influenced the variations of runoff in the mainstream of Yangtze River, but the effect weakened with the distance along the downstream direction from TGD. (2) Since the 1990s, annual sediment loads at Yichang, Hankou, and Datong stations have been decreasing significantly, and after 2002, the annual sediment load at Yichang dropped below that of Hankou and Datong. The dams and deforestation/forestation contributed to the significant decreasing trend of the sediment load. In addition, the Three Gorges Dam aggravated the downward trend and caused the erosion of the riverbed and riverbanks in the middle and lower reaches. (3) The runoff and sediment load flowing from Dongting Lake into the mainstream of the Yangtze River showed significant decreasing trends at Chenglingji station after 1970s, and in contrast, slight increase in the sediment flow from Poyang Lake to the mainstream of the Yangtze River at Hukou station were detected over the post-TGD period (2003–2013). The result of the study will be an important foundation for watershed sustainable development of the Yangtze River under the human activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]