The coordination between maritime economies and marine carrying capacity and their spatiotemporal evolution in the cities of the bohai rim in china

Abstract

This study investigated the coordination between maritime economies and marine carrying capacity, a prerequisite for high-quality sustainable development, in 17 cities of the Bohai Rim in China. Metric systems were constructed to evaluate the capacity and efficiency of the coordinated development of the maritime economy and the marine carrying capacity of these cities. Spatiotemporal weighting matrices, the coupling-coordination-relative development (CCRD) model, and the slacks-based measure (SBM) model were used to evaluate each city in terms of its degree of coordination and development efficiency. Additionally, the spatiotemporal evolution of the cities’ coordination capacities was assessed using a grey forecasting model, GM(1,1) estimated in MATLAB based on a spatial gravity model. The results indicate that: (1) The capacity of the 17 cities in the Bohai Rim to coordinate their maritime economy and marine carrying capacity generally increased throughout the 2007–2016 period. However, their coordination capacities varied significantly as the spatial distribution of coordination capacity was dispersed over a wide area but concentrated in a few small zones. (2) The efficiency of coordinated development in the Bohai Rim generally increased over time, although small fluctuations were observed. The maximum increase in average coordination capacity was observed in the central cities, followed by the southern cities, and finally the northern cities. (3) The lines of maximum gravitation between these cities form a gravity circle that wraps around the Bohai Rim, thus generating a multi-region development network around it. The connections between the northern, central, and southern cities strengthened over time, thus causing these cities to become more integrated. The coordination-capacity prediction curve for 2017–2026 indicates that all the cities will improve their coordination capacities over time, albeit with significant intercity differences, since the development of the Bohai Rim is still in a ‘run-in’ period.