Abstract
This study analyzes and evaluates the status and long-term trend of regional economic sustainability in eastern Anhui Province, China. Based on the triangle model and the definition of economic sustainable development, this study evaluates the interrelationship among regional economic development, resource-energy consumption, environmental pollution, and ecological performance. The sustainable and comprehensive utilization situation in the study region from 1975–2012 is examined. The results show that in 2012, the comprehensive development in the study region had a general status in terms of sustainability. The sustainable development trend of the seven administrative subunits inside the region had a weak and general status in terms of sustainability, while the status of sustainability in the southeastern part of the region was better than that in the northwest. During the period from 1975–1998, the study region’s comprehensive development presented a trend of general sustainability. In the period from 1998–2012, the region experienced a trend of very strong sustainability in its development. These statuses and trends have a certain relationship with the study region’s strong economic development and environmental protection over the past 37 years. The triangle method, as an intuitive platform for illustrating sustainability status and trends in economic development, seems to hold promise as an analytical management tool given its simplicity, ease of use, and flexibility.
Highlights
The term sustainable development was introduced in the 1980s as a new development concept and mode based upon comprehensive summaries of the development process and on a re-examination of the social economic behavior
The aim of sustainable development is to meet the demands of contemporary people without endangering future generations [4,5]. Achieving this goal will require that economic and ecological systems of human society operate within limits that the earth’s ecological system can tolerate [6,7]. It requires that social development yields a relatively high economic income and a good ecological performance [8], which refer to comparatively low resource-energy consumption and environmental pollution [9,10,11]
EDI: economic development index; resource-energy consumption index (RECI): resource and energy consumption index; EPI: environmental pollution index; “↑”: increasing; “↓”: decreasing; and “–”: no change; b If economic growth was observed, resource and energy consumption as well as environmental pollution were increased or decreased simultaneously at the same rate and the relative percentage for EDI, RECI, and EPI was left unchanged, ecological performances were bad, indicating weak sustainability; and c If economic growth, resource-energy consumption, and environmental pollution did not change for the same period of time, the ecological performance and sustainability status were maintained as previously
Summary
The term sustainable development was introduced in the 1980s as a new development concept and mode based upon comprehensive summaries of the development process and on a re-examination of the social economic behavior. The evaluated objectives and targets are divided into several different parts and sides, and gradually subdivide the parts and sides (form subsystems at all levels) until each can be described by a specific statistical index This method subdivides the study targets into different aspects so as to determine their sustainable development with a relatively comprehensive consideration [31]. The aforementioned methods, which are usually utilized comprehensively [32], will be used to conduct determination and crossing analyses on study targets [33]. These achievements and methods provide the reference and practical application value for this article. This study has a practical value for the settlement of problems in current regional economic development and in the methodological significance of regional economic sustainability and comprehensive utilization
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