Assessing resilience of sustainability to climate change in China's cities

Abstract

Achieving sustainability and coping with climate change are the greatest challenges to human survival and harmonious human-nature relationship. However, there is a lack of research on quantifying the resilience of sustainability to climate change over space and time. Here, a quantification method was developed to evaluate resilient performance of sustainability (includes economic, social, and environmental sub-resilient performance and resilient performance index) to climate change, and performed the first demonstration in China's 280 cities. It was found that resilient performance index of China's sustainability to climate change improved from 2005 to 2017, especially in Southwest China, but 6.8 % of cities showed a decreasing trend. With the improvement of the resilient performance index, the synergy degree among economic, social, and environmental sub-resilient performance scores increased. Economic development and sustainability improvement related to a higher but more disparity of the resilient performance index. This study encourages researchers and policymakers worldwide to focus on resilience of sustainability to climate change to help achieve sustained development and prosperity under climate change.