Abstract
Sustainability assessment can analyze the challenges of regional development from societal, economic, and environmental dimensions and provide an important baseline for regional planning. Recently, the rapid socio-economic development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) urban agglomeration has inflicted great pressure on the regional environment. Therefore, this paper evaluated the sustainability dynamics of the BTH urban agglomeration from 2000 to 2015 at the city scale using the Human Sustainable Development Index (HSDI) and discussed the major drivers of the changes in regional sustainability. The results showed that the overall sustainability of the BTH urban agglomeration increased from 2000 to 2015, with the HSDI increasing by 10%. Among the three dimensions, the economic sustainability indicators grew the fastest, with a growth rate of 42%, while the environmental sustainability indicators declined by 8%. The decline of environmental sustainability played an important role in limiting regional sustainable development. Specifically, the optimization of the energy structure in six cities, e.g., Tangshan, Langfang and Cangzhou, was relatively weaker than that in the remaining seven cities. In the future, the BTH urban agglomeration must further optimize the energy structure to build a resource-saving and environmentally friendly society.
Highlights
The quantitative assessment of regional sustainability can evaluate the sustainability of complex nature-society systems at a variety of temporal and spatial scales [1,2]
There was a large disparity in the Human Sustainable Development Index (HSDI) among the Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei provinces, and smaller differences were found among prefecture-level cities in Hebei Province
From 2000 to 2015, the overall sustainability of the BTH urban agglomeration showed an increasing trend, with an HSDI growth rate of 10%
Summary
The quantitative assessment of regional sustainability can evaluate the sustainability of complex nature-society systems at a variety of temporal and spatial scales [1,2] These assessments can help policymakers to understand the complex relationship among various components of regional sustainable development and provide effective guidance for policy-making [3,4]. Strong sustainability assumes that socioeconomic development (or human-made capital) and environmental integrity (or natural capital) are not alternative [9]. Weak sustainability assumes that human-made capital and natural capital can be substituted, which supports the idea that economic development at the cost of environmental degradation is sustainable [9,11]. Weak sustainability is unsustainable in the long term [2,6]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
