Comparative analysis on the evolution of ecological carrying capacity between provinces during urbanization process in China

Abstract

Abstract Effective ecological carrying capacity (ECC) is the precondition for implementing sustainable urbanization in China. However, different regions in a big country such as China have different ecological conditions and different development modes. Therefore, the evolution of ECC is different between different regions during the urbanization process in China. This study presents a comparative analysis on the evolution of ecological carrying capacity between provinces in the context of China. The ECC indicators in this study are classified into four dimensions, namely, water carrying capacity, land carrying capacity, environment carrying capacity and energy carrying capacity. Indicator data used for analysis are collected from 30 provinces in China. The entropy method is adopted to analyze the ECC performance during the years of 2006–2017. The ECC evolution is described into stable, fluctuated, declined and improved. This study shows that the evolution of ECC performance varies significantly between different provinces. The findings of this study help the Chinese government understand the different ECC evolution between provinces and provide policy-makers with valuable reference for formulating effective measures with considering different ecological conditions in different provinces, to improve the ECC performance across the country in China.