Spatiotemporal changes of poverty based on the perspective of ecological poverty reduction: evidence from guangdong province, China

Abstract

To explore the evolving trends of ecological poverty reduction in impoverished counties within Guangdong Province, this study adopts the Driver-State-Response (DSR) model. We establish an ecological poverty evaluation index system, predict the poverty reduction index using a neural network, analyze the developmental relationship between the ecological environment and socio-economy within Guangdong’s impoverished counties utilizing an improved decoupling index, and finally employ a heatmap to dissect the spatiotemporal distribution features of poverty alleviation pressure. The main findings are as follows: (1) Fewer poor counties in Guangdong Province decouple natural ecology and social economy between 2013 and 2021, but overall poverty pressure is declining; (2) The pressure to reduce poverty and its changes vary greatly across different regions, with the pressure being concentrated in the north and less in the center and east. The essay makes appropriate policy recommendations for reducing poverty in various Guangdong Province regions based on the aforementioned findings.