Spatial-temporal evolution law analysis of resource and environment carrying capacity based on game theory combination weighting and GMD-GRA-TOPSIS model. Evidence from 18 cities in Henan Province, China

Abstract

In the backdrop of the high-quality growth of China's Yellow River Basin (YRB), Henan Province as a significant resource, population, economic, and grain-producing province, the contradiction between the finite availability of natural resource supply and ecological environmental capacity and the socioeconomic development has become more and more prominent, which significantly restricts the healthy sustainable development of Henan Province. Thus, it is essential to precisely assess the Resource and Environmental Carrying Capacity (RECC) for Henan Province and control the scale of cities within the regulating capacity of the ecological and resource system. Therefore, based on the evaluation system composed of natural resources, ecological environment and socioeconomic subsystems, the method of substitutability of indicator information is applied to screen the indicator system. Determine the integrated weight value of each indicator based on the Ordinal Relationship-Entropy Weight-Game Theory model. To identify the spatial-temporal progression law of RECC in 18 cities in the province of Henan from 2005 to 2020 and to forecast the development trend of RECC in each city from 2021 to 2026, the GMD-GRA-TOPSIS-Holt model was constructed. The research findings show that (1) the development of RECC in Henan Province is divided into two periods: the period of slow development (2005–2011) and the period of rapid enhancement (2012–2020). Shangqiu (SQ) and Puyang (PY) were the two cities with the largest and smallest increases in the province, with a difference of up to 51.59%. (2) There are significant regional differences in the RECC and the subsystem carrying capacity in Henan Province. Except for the resource subsystem, the carrying capacity levels of the remaining three systems are improving, and the differences among cities are gradually decreasing. (3) The vitality and strength of the future development of RECC in Henan Province will continue to increase, characterised by “accelerated advancement in the early stage and steady improvement in the later stage.” Overall, this paper provides a theoretical basis for the scientific understanding of RECC in the cities of Henan Province and a scientific basis for optimising the allocation of resources and environmental capacity. Furthermore, the evaluation model constructed in this paper expands the space of theoretical application and has a popularisation value.