Is China’s Urbanization Quality and Ecosystem Health Developing Harmoniously? An Empirical Analysis from Jiangsu, China

Coupling coordination of new urbanization in Chinese urban agglomeration-characteristics and driving factors

The coordinated development of new urbanization (NU) in urban agglomerations (UAs) is key for promoting sustainable urban development and the way to achieve Chinese-style modernization. Based on the mechanisms of coupling and coordination of NU, the internal subsystem coupling coordination of NU was deconstructed into five dimensions-economic, population, land, social, and ecological. Using 200 cities in 19 Chinese UAs areas, the spatio-temporal evolution characteristics of the coupling coordination degree of NU (CCDNU) were analyzed, and the driving factors were analyzed from both spatial spillover effect and stratification heterogeneity. The results are as follows: (1) CCDNU has increased from moderate disorder to barely coordinated, exhibiting a spatial distribution of a higher CCDNU in the east and lower CCDNU in the west with a positive global spatial autocorrelation feature; (2) economic drive, population concentration, spatial carrying capacity, and environmental quality play facilitating roles in the CCDNU of the study region, while the spatial carrying capacity, quality of life, and environmental quality inhibit the CCDNU of neighboring regions. From the decomposition of long- and short-term effects, both direct and indirect effects of driving factors were found to accumulate significantly over time. In addition, the model results were robust after replacing the geographic distance weight matrix and excluding the extreme values; (3) the spatial carrying capacity, population concentration, and economic drive are the dominant factors affecting the CCDNU in China. The dominant driving factors of are different in different regions. Meanwhile, the interaction detection shows that the interaction of each driver exhibits a two-factor enhancement or non-linear enhancement. Based on these results, corresponding policies are recommended.

Land Use Change and Ecosystem Health Assessment on Shanghai–Hangzhou Bay, Eastern China

Reasonable quantitative assessment on urban ecosystem health is conducive to the sustainable development of the economy and human society. This paper quantitatively evaluated the impact of land use change on ecosystem services and ecosystem health by building a comprehensive evaluation system (vigor–organization–resilience–ecosystem services), and then analyzed the spatial-temporal pattern, evolution characteristics, and driving factors in the Shanghai–Hangzhou Bay area (SHB) over the 2000–2015 period. The results show that: the area of cropland and forest accounted for more than 65% and was mainly converted into built-up land in the past 15 years. The overall ESV showed a trend of first increasing and then decreasing. Forest accounted for the largest proportion of the total ESV, more than 60% in each year. The ecosystem health value of SBH decreased from 2000 to 2015. At the city scale, the ecosystem health was significantly deteriorated. All cities reached the lowest value by 2015. At the districts/counties scale, the number with the relatively well or well level decreased from 32 in 2000 to 20 in 2015 by 24.64% of the total area. Overall, inland regions of SBH had better ecosystem health situation than coastal areas. The rapid urbanization of population and economy were driving factors for the decline of the ecosystem health. The indicator system of integrating the vigor, organization, resilience, and ecosystem service for ecosystem health assessment is a potential method which could provide a quantitative and comprehensive way for evaluating ecological and environmental effects in the future.

Exploring the Interactive Coercing Relationship between Urban Rail Transit and the Ecological Environment

The Chinese environment is experiencing the “U-Type” course from sharp deterioration to significant improvement. In order to achieve the fundamental improvement of the ecological environment, China has implemented several relevant policies and strategies. Among them, the development of urban rail transit, as an essential measure to improve the ecological environment in China, has attracted more and more attention, but the research on the interactive coercion relationship between rail transit and the ecological environment is minimal. Therefore, this study selected ten cities opening urban rail transit before 2005 in mainland China as research objects and established an urban rail transit and ecological environment comprehensive evaluation index system. Then, the interactive coercing model and coupling coordination model were used, and the dynamic relationship between urban rail transit and the ecological environment was explored. The research results in this study showed that (1) there is an apparent interactive coercion relationship between urban rail transit and the ecological environment, and the evolution trajectory conforms to a double exponential curve. (2) From 2006 to 2019, Wuhan’s ecological environment pressure index showed a continuous downward trend. The ecological environment improved the fastest. The rest of the cities showed a trend of first rising and then falling. (3) The type of coupling coordination degree of urban rail transit and ecological environment showed a changing coordination trend from severe incoordination—slight to incoordination—basic to coordination—good. Beijing has the highest degree of overall coordinated development in urban rail transit and the ecological environment. The results of this study can provide a theoretical reference for the realisation of the virtuous circle development of rail transit and the ecological environment.