Abstract
Green development is not only important for realizing a sustainable development strategy, but also a key approach for constructing an ecological civilization and transforming economic development. On the basis the development concept of a coordinated human–earth relationship and the paradigm of the process–pattern mechanism, this research adopted the drivers, pressures, state, impact, and response (DPSIR) model to build a green development level indicator system. The established indicator system is then applied to explore the spatial-temporal patterns and obstacles in the green development of 34 prefectural cities in Northeast China from 2008 to 2017 by the use of the entropy weight TOPSIS model, the obstacle model and the GIS spatial visualization method. There are three main findings. First, during the research period, the spatial evolution of the green development level of cities in Northeast China has gradually shifted from a small gap at an overall low level to a large gap at an overall high level; the spatial pattern of the green development level in these cities is characterized by a decrease from north to south and obvious spatial agglomeration effects. Second, specific findings in this research fail to indicate that the correlation between the economic development level and green development level of cities in Northeast China is entirely positive. That is, cities with higher economic development levels do not necessarily have higher green development levels, while some cities with lower economic development levels did present higher green development levels, which may be related to each region’s resources and environmental carrying capacity. Third, the mechanisms influencing spatial-temporal variation in the green development level of cities in Northeast China are not identical. Among them, resource endowment conditions, economic development status and government investment scale are playing a vital role in changes in the regional green development level, and they are also behind the diverse evolutionary characteristics presented in the different stages of regional green development. For the cities in Northeast China, in the process of promoting green development and to consolidate their existing green development level, efforts should be made to overcome inefficiencies in socioeconomic growth and to continuously enhance ecological protection and environmental governance. Moreover, it is essential to promote incremental increases in the green development level on the basis of the local conditions through the ingestion, absorption and combination of each city’s own characteristics with lessons from the successful experience of different types of cities. In the future, our research should fully consider the role of urbanization, industrial structure, population density, institutional mechanisms, environmental protection supervision, scientific and technological progress and other factors on the green development level in Northeast China and seek an important entry point to achieve regional human–earth coordination.
Highlights
Since the industrial revolution, the traditional development concept of pursuing high economic growth and maximum output has held a dominant position among human societies, and the world economy has entered a golden period of prosperity and development
Local governments are under pressure to maintain growth, so they are beginning to increase investment in resource- and energy-intensive industries and ignoring the potential problems that will stem from sacrificing resources and the environment in exchange for economic growth
The driving force index rose from 0.2305 in 2008 to 0.3119 in 2017, the pressure index rose from 0.7133 in 2008 to 0.8643 in 2017, the state index rose from 0.1449 in 2008 to 0.1880 in 2017, the response index rose from 0.2805 in 2008 to 0.3368 in 2017, and the average annual growth rates for these indexes were 3.42%, 2.16%, 2.94% and 2.05%, respectively. These results clearly demonstrate that ignoring resource and environmental protection ensures long-term and stable economic growth in Northeast China, which further threatens the sustainable and healthy development of the social economy and the improvement and promotion of human wellbeing
Summary
The traditional development concept of pursuing high economic growth and maximum output has held a dominant position among human societies, and the world economy has entered a golden period of prosperity and development. The limited supply and limited ability of natural resources and ecosystems to restore themselves mean that the traditional economic growth model is creating various problems worldwide, including ecological imbalances, environmental damage, an abnormal climate, land quality decline, resource depletion, and species extinction; these problems are gradually creating a dilemma for human society by oppressing both resources and the environment, such as photochemical smog incidents in Los Angeles, smoke incidents in London, Minamata disease events in Japan, Chernobyl nuclear leakage incidents in Ukraine, etc Against this background, countries worldwide have begun to re-examine the relationship between humans and nature and decide how to explore the path of sustainable development. Reviewing domestic and foreign theoretical explorations and the evolution of practice over nearly half a century, it can be seen that green development is gradually transitioning from a single dimension concept to one with multiple dimensions, from simplicity to complexity, and from its initial stage to a mature stage [12,13]; Sustainability 2020, 12, 10190 these trends provide a useful exploration of the theory and practice of regional sustainable development and a deep reflection on the development and survival of human society
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