Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Population-Land-Economic Urbanization and Its Impact on Urban Carbon Emissions in Shandong Province, China

Kui Liu,Kai Du,Jian Wang,Jingming Liu,Zheyi Xia,Xiang Kang,Xuexin Zhu

doi:10.3390/land11020266

Abstract

New-type urbanization is a dynamic process composed of numerous elements and multiple subsystems. Coordination and coherence of various subsystems are critical for promoting urban-rural integration and regional synergistic development and will have a complicated impact on sustainable development in the trade-off between socioeconomic growth and environmental conservation. This paper theorized the interconnected and mutually influential coupling coordination relationship between population-land-economic urbanization (PLEU) and the mechanism by which this relationship affects urban carbon emissions. The Wavelet Neural Network (WNN), Coupling Coordination Degree model, and econometric model were used to reveal this relationship and mechanism. A total of 17 cities in Shandong Province, China, were used as study subjects for empirical examination. The results show that the level of PLEU in Shandong was significantly improved from 2007 to 2016, but the gap between cities tended to further expand. The 17 cities gradually got rid of the antagonistic disorder issue of the coupling coordination relationship of PLEU from 2007 to 2016, spatially showing the agglomeration characteristics with Qingdao and Jinan as the core, respectively. The influence of the coupling coordination degree of PLEU on urban carbon emissions presents an inverted, U-shaped characteristic, that is, the total urban carbon emissions will first increase and then decrease as the improvement of the coupling coordination relationship of PLEU. China’s new-type urbanization has provided an efficient solution to sustainable development, namely planning and designing at the highest strategic level to establish scientific goals. This new-type urbanization strategy could provide an effective alternative for other emerging countries worldwide, for addressing the challenges to sustainable development.

Highlights

This paper aims to analyze the relationship between different subsystems of population-land-economic urbanization (PLEU) and to investigate its impact on urban carbon emissions
All other variables except the coupling coordination degree of PLEU and Energy Consumption Added of Industrial (ECAI) are logarithmically handled in the econometric model to narrow the absolute value of variables and eliminate heteroscedasticity between variables as much as possible
By the results of Wavelet Neural Network (WNN), the weights of PLEU were determined objectively based on the Entropy Weighting Method [33] as

Summary

Introduction

Urbanization has crowded out enormous amounts of arable land, leading to changes in soil carbon stocks, which has an impact on global warming [5] This prompted policymakers and scholars to consider the following themes: How do the population, land, and economy interact in the urbanization process?. New-type urbanization refers to a human-oriented urbanization pattern that emphasizes the orderly coordination of population, land, and economic subsystems and achieves low-carbon transformation through the interaction of industrial upgrading, employment transfer, and population agglomeration, to meet sustainable development challenges [12].

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