Abstract
Promoting the comprehensive resources and environmental efficiency (CREE) in urban agglomerations (UAs) is of great practical significance for China’s sustainable development. However, CREE in UAs of underdeveloped regions has not received enough attention. Under this background, we constructed a systematic and coherent framework to study CREE and took the five UAs of Northwest China as a case. The super epsilon-based measure (EBM) model was performed to quantify CREE during 2000–2017. Subsequently, we analyzed the spatio-temporal patterns in detail. Through the Super-EBM and GTWR (geographically and temporally weighted regression) model, the endogenous components and exogenous determinants of CREE were examined. The results indicated that the CREE in the five UAs of Northwest China underwent a slight decrease as a whole, and showed an intensified spatial divergence. It exhibited an obvious discontinuity and path bifurcation while being negatively correlated with spatial imbalance across the UAs. The CREE of different UAs showed various spatial distribution characteristics. Regarding the endogenous mechanism, the UAs had certain commonalities and characteristics. The exogenous mechanism manifested certain spatial heterogeneity across UAs while it was generally consistent within each single UA. These results could provide insightful recommendations for the resources and environmental governance in the study area and other similar regions.
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