"Dark under the lamp": ecological equity of urban agglomeration from the perspective of natural capital in China.

Abstract

Although equity is an important aspect of sustainable development, equity research has mainly focused on income and economics while paying insufficient attention to ecological equity. Therefore, aiming to improve our understanding of equity and promote environmental protection, this study introduced natural capital to measure regional ecological equity and analyze its driving factors. Based on ecological footprint (EF) and ecosystem service value (ESV), we constructed evaluation indexes and drew an "ecological Lorentz curve bundle" to analyze ecological equity in the Jing-Jin-Ji urban agglomeration (JUA) from 2009 to 2020. The results showed that economic development in JUA resulted in the severe depletion of natural capital, especially biological and energy resources, and the supply and demand of natural capital was in a low-level equilibrium state. Based on JUA's population base, natural capital utilization in the region had exceeded ecological equity, and the Gini coefficient of EF based on population was close to the international warning value of 0.4. Although economic development in JUA has promoted economic equity, it has also led to environmental inequity. Large cities such as Beijing and Tianjin, as well as industrial cities such as Tangshan and Handan, have had the greatest effects on ecological equity. Moreover, the excessive consumption of natural capital stock and energy-dependent industrial structures threaten ecological equity.