Comprehensive Evaluation and Comparative Analysis of the Green Development Level of Provinces in Eastern and Western China

Abstract

Considering the green development initiatives vigorously promoted by China, this paper constructs an evaluation index system that covers six areas, including resource utilization, pollution control, living environment, ecological protection, circular economy, and quality of economic growth. This paper also establishes an improved comprehensive evaluation model by using the method of Vertical Projection Distance-Set Pair Analysis in order to optimize the traditional method of Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution. Based on the official data released by China, this paper quantitatively analyzes the green development level of 21 provinces in eastern and western China in the aforementioned six areas from 2005 to 2020, and makes a regional comparison between eastern and western China. The results show that the level of green development in eastern China is significantly higher than that in western China. In 2020, when the research period ends, the comprehensive evaluation values of green development in all the eastern provinces, except Hebei, are higher than 4.0; meanwhile, no province in the western region has a comprehensive evaluation value exceeding 4.0 in 2020, and there is a large gap between the eastern region and the western region in areas such as economic growth quality and pollution control. On this basis, this paper puts forward relevant suggestions in terms of the coordinated green development of the eastern and western regions of China in the future.