An Integrated Approach to Modelling the Economy-Society-Ecology System in Urbanization Process

Yunqiang Liu,Jiuping Xu,Huawei Luo

doi:10.3390/su6041946

Abstract

Urbanization has become a key part of social and economic progress in the 21st Century, but achieving healthy and safe urban development has a long way to go for many developed and developing countries. Urbanization has been recognized as a complex ecosystem which is affected by economic, social, and ecological factors. With this in mind, this paper looks at many factors to first evaluate based on the matter-element (ME) method and then model an Economy-Society-Ecology (ESE) subsystem using a hybrid method by a fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (FAHP), and then by using the entropy method (EM) to determine the relevant index weights. To avoid subjectivity when defining the model’s boundaries, the technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS) is introduced. Then, a coupling coordination degree model focusing on the degree of coordination in the ESE subsystem is established. Panel data collected from 2003 to 2012 for Chengdu, China, is then simulated to analyze the development process. The results show that: (1) The quality of urbanization continues to improve and the phasic features are presented; (2) The sensitivity analysis of subsystem weight shown that it had less effect on the coupling coordinated system; (3) The coordination in the ESE subsystem has also improved. However, the development rate of the economic subsystem is greater than that of the societal and ecological subsystem. The approach used here therefore, is shown to provide a promising basis for policy-making to support healthy urban development.

Highlights

Urbanization, which refers to the increasing amount of people that live in urban areas, is a key index to measure the modernization, industrialization and sociological processes in a country [1]
The aim of this paper is to propose a comprehensive assessment model using a fuzzy-element method (FEM) and a hybrid weights algorithm to evaluate the level of urban health development
Based on the statistical data from 2003–2012, we simulated the development of Chengdu from three perspectives as described in Figures 6–8: the ESE subsystem comprehensive level trends

Summary

Introduction

Urbanization, which refers to the increasing amount of people that live in urban areas, is a key index to measure the modernization, industrialization and sociological processes in a country [1]. There are, many definitions for urbanization [2,3,4]. The urbanization that is currently taking place in. For instance, is classified as accelerated development [5]. The number and scale of cities has dramatically increased in China, an event which is unprecedented in human history [6]. The central government has taken urbanization as a key strategy for the country’s development in the Eleventh and Twelfth five-year plans [7]. With the rapid development of industrialization and urbanization, it will be in terms of resource consumption and environmental degradation. The evaluation of urban development quality can be helpful in city development planning, which has been found to an appropriate way to reduce the environmental impact

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion