Spatio-Temporal Analysis about Resource and Environmental Carrying Capacity (RECC) of Mining Cities in Coal-Concentrated Areas: A Case Study of Huaihai Economic Zone in China

Abstract

The over-exploitation and utilization of natural resources in mining cities has caused sharp contradictions between urban development and ecological protection. In addition, dynamic changes in resources and environmental carrying capacity (RECC) will be changed by the different ways and degrees of the specific utilization of natural resources. In order to better study the dynamic trends and reasons of the RECC in mining cities, so as to provide methods and suggestions for the mining cities to save resources, improve the ecology, and adjust the industrial structure, this article will construct an evaluation index for the RECC of mining cities. Taking Huaihai Economic Zone as the research object, we used the entropy method to determine the index weight. Then, the TOPSIS model was used to analyze the spatial and temporal characteristics of the development of the RECC of mining cities in coal-concentrated areas during 2012–2018. After the analysis, the study found five results. (1) Except Zaozhuang, the RECC of the six mining cities in the Huaihai Economic Zone showed a steady upward trend during 2012–2018; (2) among the three subsystems, natural resources have the greatest impact on the RECC; (3) in terms of space, the carrying capacity in this region gradually has a polarization phenomenon centered on Xuzhou and Jining, and will continue to increase in the future; (4) the types of mining cities will have an impact on the change characteristics of the RECC; and (5) most cities improve the level of ecological carrying capacity (ECC) and social economic carrying capacity (SECC) at the cost of the decline of resources carrying capacity (RCC). Based on the results, the research can provide optimized reference strategies for the transformation and development of mining cities to ecological cities in Huaihai Economic Zone.