Degree Of Coordination Research Articles

Spatiotemporal differentiation of the ecosystem service value and its coupling relationship with urbanization: A case study of the Lanzhou-Xining urban agglomeration

Urbanization is a key factor that threatens the stability of ecosystem services (ESs), which are crucial for maintaining ecological security and enhancing human quality of life. Gaining insight into the spatiotemporal differentiation of the ecosystem service value (ESV) and its coupling relationship with urbanization is a key issue in promoting sustainable regional development. We employed various algorithms, including the improved equivalence factor method, random forest model, mixed geographically and temporally weighted regression model, and coupling coordination degree (CCD) model, to reveal the spatiotemporal evolution of the ESV and its driving mechanisms in the Lanzhou-Xining urban agglomeration (LXUA) from 1980 to 2020. In addition, we explored the coupling relationship between ESV and the combined urbanization index (CUI). The results showed the following: (1) From 1980 to 2020, the interannual variation in ESV first decreased and then increased, with an increase of 230 million yuan/annum in 2020 compared to that of 1980. Spatially, the ESV exhibits a distribution pattern of high in the south and low in the north, and high in the west and low in the east. (2) Land use intensity (LUI) and elevation contributed degree values exceeding 20% to the ESV and were the most important drivers of the ESV. (3) From 1980 to 2020, the average CCD values of the ESV and CUI transitioned from being severely unbalanced (0.19) to being slightly balanced (0.42). There was a negative spatial correlation between the ESV and CUI, with each cluster type was distributed discretely in space. Our study emphasizes that in areas characterized by robust ecosystem integrity and a high ESV, the increase in LUI was constitutes the main reason for the decline in the ESV. The findings of this study can provide a scientific basis for the coordinated development of ESVs and urbanization in the LXUA and other cities.

Evaluation of Low-Carbon Economic Efficiency under Industrial Clustering and Study of Regional Differences, Taking Xinjiang as an Example

As a major resource region, Xinjiang is both China’s energy security base and an important hub connecting Asia and Europe. Following the country’s call for carbon emission reduction, the Xinjiang government proposes to accelerate the construction of eight major industrial clusters in 2023. The concept of sustainable development is also reflected in the industrial clusters in areas such as new energy. In this study, we combined panel data from 14 regions and cities in Xinjiang from 2006 to 2020 and analyzed the synergy between the development of industrial clusters, carbon emissions, and economic growth using a coupling coordination degree model. Subsequently, we used the super-efficiency slack-based measure (SE-SBM) and Dagum’s Gini coefficient to analyze the spatial disequilibrium of efficiency measures and efficiency cases. The results show the following: (1) Overall, the industrial clusters, carbon emissions, and economic growth in the 14 regions and cities of Xinjiang are not well coordinated. The best reported level has been medium coordination, but there exists a certain degree of correlation among the three. (2) Low-carbon economic efficiency under the influence of industrial clusters in the 14 regions and cities shows significant regional differences. The regions and cities with low-carbon economic efficiency greater than 0.8, which is significantly better than the other regions in terms of efficiency, are all located in northern Xinjiang. (3) During the study period, the overall regional difference in low-carbon economic efficiency under industrial clusters in Xinjiang decreased from 0.183 to 0.17. However, the regional differences were still large. The conclusions indicate that policies for industrial clusters in Xinjiang can promote industrial development, and there may be a correlation between them and the low-carbon economy. This will effectively contribute to local sustainable development. However, overall regional differences are significant, and the degree of coordination is low. Therefore, we suggest that the government can share the advantages of development by constructing cross-regional cooperation platforms. At the same time, the Xinjiang government should make full use of the rich local wind and solar energy resources and explore a low-carbon path toward transforming the traditional energy industry. It can also be seen that industrial clusters in Xinjiang can effectively promote local sustainable development.

Study on the pattern evolution and reasons of the coordination between digital economy and green development

The Recommendations on the Fourteenth Five-Year Plan and the Vision and Goals for 2035 suggest that the digital economy and green development have risen to the level of a national strategy, and that the study of their coupling and coordination and their spatial relevance can serve as a strong theoretical support for major national strategies. Based on the connotation of digital economy and green development, this study analyses the evolution of the temporal and spatial patterns of digital economy and green development by plotting the temporal change of the coupling coordination degree and the kernel density estimation of the whole country and each region, respectively. Finally, based on the findings of this study, policy recommendations are made for China's digital economy and green development and the synergistic development of the two.

Exploring the Coordinated Development of Smart-City Clusters in China: A Case Study of Jiangsu Province

As urbanization has accelerated, China has started to build smart cities, which have formed smart-city clusters. It is critical to coordinate development within smart-city clusters to enhance the efficiency of city-cluster construction. From the perspective of demographic economics, this study innovatively constructed an evaluation system for the coordinated development of smart-city clusters and utilized the coupled coordination degree model to conduct an in-depth study of smart-city clusters in Jiangsu Province. The results show that there are clear differences in the development between the three regions of Jiangsu Province: Southern Jiangsu, Central Jiangsu, and Northern Jiangsu. The development within Jiangsu Province is imbalanced, where the overall development trend is high in the southern region and low in the northern region. The main driving factors include geography, the Matthew effect, game thinking, and industrial structure. Accordingly, the results suggest the following recommendations for the coordinated development of smart-city clusters: strengthening cross-regional cooperation, promoting data sharing and interoperability, deepening synergistic industrial development, and expanding innovation capacity.

Fluorescence turn off-on continuous response of dual lanthanide metal organic frameworks for selective detecting fluoroquinolone antibiotics

Eu3+ and Tb3+ as central ions and 1,4-phthalic acid (H2BDC) as ligand, a dual lanthanide metal-organic framework, Eu-Tb(BDC), was synthesized by co-precipitation method. The products performed stable crystal structure and adjustable fluorescence color. Eu0.15Tb2.85 (BDC) 3.0 was selected as an optimized probe to detect norfloxacin (NFX) in urine, and the fluorescence color was found to transfer from bright yellow to dark cyan and then to strong green with increasing NFX concentration. Mechanism analysis revealed that NFX with low concentration (10−6-10−3 M) stimulated light competition with BDC ligand due to internal filtration effect (IFE), resulting in the gradual fluorescence shutdown of Eu3+and Tb3+. While further increasing concentration of NFX to 10−3-10−2 M, the antibiotic molecules coordinated with lanthanide ions and transitioned their role from competitor to assistant. Where the energy transfer due to antenna effect overwhelmed IFE, the exciting light energy were retransferred to Eu3+ or Tb3+, and the probe's fluorescence restored. Generally, the Eu-Tb(BDC) probe performed fluorescence turn off-on response to norfloxacin with continuous concentration changing. Additionally, when detecting other fluoroquinolone antibiotics, the fluorescence of Eu0.15Tb2.85(BDC)3.0 changed from bright yellow to bright blue and eventually to dark red, which was attributed to the different coordination degrees of various antibiotic molecule with Tb3+ and Eu3+. It can be used to distinguish norfloxacin from other fluoroquinolone antibiotics.

Alleviating environmental pressure from livestock production: A “livestock-resource environmental carrying capacity” perspective in China

Scientific assessment of the relationships and influencing factors between livestock and resource-environmental carrying capacity (LS-RECC) is essential for alleviating environmental pressure. The crop-livestock balance method was used to measure China’s livestock production potential from 2005 to 2020. The improved coupling coordination degree model (I-CCDM) and exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) were used to analyze the spatial-temporal coordinated development characteristics of the LS-RECC. Furthermore, geographically and temporally weighted regression (GTWR) was used to identify the factors influencing the coordination development of the LS-RECC. The findings showed that (1) From 2005 to 2020, the nutrient demand for crop cultivation in China increased, and, the crop system nutrient demand exceeded the livestock nutrient supply in 2007 to 190 ×104 tons, reaching a maximum of 925 ×104 tons in 2019. However, the production potential of livestock in Ningxia, Tibet, Guizhou, Gansu, Yunnan, and Qinghai was severely overloaded. (2) The coupling coordination degree (CCD) of the LS-RECC showed a progressively increasing trend, which indicates that the sustainable development ability of China's livestock industry is constantly increasing. However, compared with that in eastern and central China, the coordinated development level of the LS-RECC in western China was lower, further indicating excessive livestock industry development in western China. (3) Environmental regulation had the strongest effect on the regional coordinated development of the LS-RECC, with obvious spatial differences. The economic development level had a positive effect, but urbanization and Engel's coefficients had the opposite effect. These results provide not only references for reducing environmental pressure on the livestock industry in China but also guidance for the sustainable development of the livestock industry in other large livestock production countries.

How population aging promotes carbon emission reduction in Chinese cities: The chain mediating role of industrial upgrading and energy conservation

High carbon emissions and population aging are two obstacles to China's development as an emerging economy. It is urgent to scientifically examine the impacts of population aging on carbon emissions to discover new pathways for urban carbon emission reduction. However, existing studies face challenges in terms of focusing on and methodology for accurately capturing the role of industrial production and energy consumption in the environmental effects of population aging. This paper constructs a chain mediation analytical framework and systematically examines the intrinsic linkages between population aging and carbon emissions in Chinese cities from 2000 to 2020 using a two-way fixed effects model. This paper has three main findings. (1) The positive correlation between urban population aging and carbon emissions development is generally low, with coupling coordination degree values of 0.4233, 0.4458, 0.4220, 0.4715, and 0.4665 for each yearly cross-section. (2) For every 1% increase in the population aging rate, carbon emissions decrease by 0.3478% on average. The carbon reduction effect of population aging is significantly greater in low-emissions cities and high-income cities than in other cities. (3) The industrial upgrading (IU) path, energy conservation (EC) path and chain mediation (CM) path account for 72.43%, 7.23% and 20.34%, respectively, of the indirect effects. If the causal link between IU and EC is not considered, the EC effect will be overestimated by 281.16%. The results of the study suggest that properly coping with population aging and reducing carbon emissions are not completely opposed to each other, a conclusion that passes both endogeneity exclusion and robustness check. This paper advocates replacing the one-size-fits-all approach in carbon emissions management and investing more in policy preferences to support carbon emission reduction in both high-emissions and low-income cities.

Assessment of low-carbon tourism development from multi-aspect analysis: a case study of the Yellow River Basin, China

Climate change has become an unavoidable problem in achieving sustainable development. As one of the major industries worldwide, tourism can make a significant contribution to mitigating climate change. The main objective of the paper is to assess the development level of low-carbon tourism from multi-aspect, using the Yellow River Basin as an example. Firstly, this study quantified tourism carbon dioxide emissions and tourism economy, and analyzed their evolution characteristics. The interaction and coordination degree between tourism carbon dioxide emissions and tourism economy were then analyzed using the improved coupling coordination degree model. Finally, this study analyzed the change in total factor productivity of low-carbon tourism by calculating the Malmquist–Luenberger productivity index. The results showed that: (1) the tourism industry in the Yellow River Basin has the characteristics of the initial environmental Kuznets curve. (2) There was a strong interaction between tourism carbon dioxide emissions and tourism economy, which was manifested as mutual promotion. (3) The total factor productivity of low-carbon tourism was increasing. Based on the above results, it could be concluded that the development level of low-carbon tourism in the Yellow River Basin has been continuously improved from 2000 to 2019, but it is still in the early development stage with the continuous growth of carbon dioxide emissions.

Study on the Coupling Coordination Development between the Digital Economy and Innovation Efficiency: Evidence from the Urban Agglomeration in the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River

The urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River holds a crucial strategic position in China’s economic and social development landscape. Exploring the coordinated development effects within the digital economy and innovation in this area is conducive to promoting the development of the central region of China and the Yangtze River Economic Belt. This paper uses the 28 sample cities in urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River as the study sample, and constructs a digital economy indicator system and an urban innovation efficiency indicator system. Based on the coupling coordination degree model, we use kernel density estimation, the Markov chain algorithm, and the Dagum Gini coefficient decomposition method to empirically investigate the dynamic trends in coupling coordination development between the digital economy and urban innovation efficiency from 2012 to 2021. The research results reveal an overall upward trend in the digital economy, innovation efficiency, and coupling coordination development stages. However, the upward trend is accompanied by the risk of recession. Moreover, there are significant differences between cities, as highlighted by the differences between Wuhan and other cities. In the light of the findings, it is recommended that government departments take measures, including being alert to the risk of regressive development, developing cities in a realistic manner, and drawing on the experiences of outstanding cities in development. This research can provide new insights and empirical references for government entities to take measures for a more coordinated development of the digital economy and innovation efficiency in the urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.

Spatiotemporal Patterns and Coupling Coordination Analysis of Multiscale Social–Economic–Ecological Effects in Ecologically Vulnerable Areas Based on Multi-Source Data: A Case Study of the Tuha Region, Xinjiang Province

Ecologically fragile areas are confronted with the contradiction between economic development and ecological protection, especially in the Tuha region (Turpan and Hami), where the extremely vulnerable ecological environment limits local sustainable development. To address this, this study utilizes POI (Point of Interest) data, land use, and socioeconomic statistical data to achieve spatial quantification of indicators on a kilometer grid scale, constructing a multi-factor, multi-dimensional evaluation system for the socioeconomic and ecological effects of sustainable development based on SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals). The entropy method, comprehensive evaluation method, coupling coordination degree model, and geographical detector method are used to analyze the coupling relationships between systems at different scales and the factors influencing the system’s coupling coordination degree. The results indicate that from 2010 to 2020, the economic, social, and ecological systems of the Tuha region, as well as their comprehensive scores, exhibited spatial similarity. The economic system showed an upward trend, the social system displayed an inverted U-shaped trend of rising then declining, while the ecological system presented a U-shaped trend of declining then increasing. At the county scale, the coupling coordination degree closely approximates the trend of the comprehensive coordination index, showing a continuous upward trajectory. Compared with Turpan city, Hami city, especially Yizhou district, exhibits the best development in coupling coordination degree, while the growth in coupling coordination degree is most significant in Gaochang district. The main factors influencing the degree of coupling coordination are grain production and GDP (gross domestic product). This study provides a new perspective on the quantification of sustainable development indicators, which is of great significance for balancing economic and social development with ecological protection and promoting the coupled and coordinated development of society, economy, and ecology in ecologically fragile areas.

Construction of coordination evaluation system of Economy-Tourism-Ecological environment coupling based on entropy method——Taking three cities in the Dongting Lake Eco-economic Zone as an example

Dongting Lake Ecological Economic Zone is an emerging development group, among which Yueyang, Changde, and Yiyang have similarities in climate, environment, history, culture, and basic industries. This paper used the entropy method to construct the evaluation system of the coupling coordination degree of the three indexes of economy, tourism, and ecological environment in Yueyang, Changde, and Yiyang, calculated Yueyang, Changde, and Yiyang’s coupling coordination degree, studied and analyzed the relationship of its three subsystems in 2009, 2012, 2015 and 2018 of Yueyang, Changde and Yiyang, and analyzed their coupling coordination level. The results show: (1) the three major system evaluation indexes were generally on the rise, except for the Yiyang tourism evaluation index, which declined from 2012 to 2015; (2) These three systems’ coupling degrees were maintained at a very high level, and the development correlation is strong; (3) Some of Yiyang's data fluctuated in some years. By 2018, all the cities had reached the verge of imbalance from the extreme imbalance in 2009; The imbalance had greatly improved.

Impact of the coupling relationship between marine industry and regional development on the marine economy

To investigate the relationship between the marine industry and regional development, and assess its impact on the marine economy. The study creates an evaluation index system for the coupling relationship between the marine economy and regional development. It applies coupling theory and combines the hierarchical analysis method with the entropy weight method to determine the weight of each index. By constructing the coupling degree and coupling coordination degree model, this paper quantitatively analyzes the coupling relationship and applies the coefficient of variation to assess the coordinated development differences between different regions. The study utilized data from the official China Marine Statistical Yearbook. The analysis revealed an upward trend in the coupling degree of the marine economy and regional development during the study period, increasing from 0.58 to 0.72. This indicated a significant strengthening of the interaction and synergistic development between the two. In typical coastal areas, the coupling degree increased from 0.62 to 0.78, indicating the significant contribution of the marine industry to the region's comprehensive economic development. The study proposes policy recommendations to enhance the adjustment of the marine industrial structure and technological innovation, promote inter-regional cooperation and resource sharing, and strengthen marine environmental protection and sustainable resource utilization. These measures aim to promote the development of the marine economy while safeguarding marine resources.

Study on the coupling coordination effect and dynamic relationship between tourism development and the ecological environment: a case study of Hainan Island

As a Free Trade Port in China, the protection of ecological environment and high-quality tourism development on Hainan Island have become a national strategy. Exploring the coupling relationship of the two subsystems holds great practical significance for promoting the island’s international demonstration area and high-quality development. Based on the characteristics of international islands, a comprehensive index system is established to explore the coupling coordination evolutionary process and interactive stress relationship of tourism development and the ecological environment in Hainan Island from 2005 to 2020. The results show: (1) From 2005 to 2019, the comprehensive evaluation index of the two subsystems of Hainan Island generally showed a continuous growth trend. (2) From 2005 to 2019, the coupling degree of the two subsystems of Hainan Island strengthened continuously, the coupling coordination degree increased steadily from a moderate imbalance to good coordination, and tourism development and the ecological environment entered a stage of parallel and benign interactive development. (3) In 2020, affected by COVID-19, the tourism development indicators declined rapidly, while the ecological environment still maintained a rising trend. (4) Based on the inverted U-shaped curve model, when the tourism development index reaches 0.7269, the ecological environment quality reaches the maximum value of 0.7956, which is the best state between the two subsystems. The ecological environment and tourism development of Hainan Island are generally in a benign interaction, but there are signs of interactive stress starting in 2017. In the future, the pressure on the ecological environment of Hainan Island will increase.

The relationship between digital economy and industrial green innovation efficiency – based on the perspective of external knowledge sources

PurposeDriven by the development of the global digital economy, knowledge management in industrial enterprises offers more possibilities for green innovation. Based on the perspective of external knowledge sources, this study aims to construct a panel regression model to explore the relationship between digital economy and industrial green innovation efficiency.Design/methodology/approachPanel data from 30 regions in China from 2011 to 2020 were selected as research samples. All data are obtained from national and provincial statistical yearbooks. Coupling coordination degree analysis, entropy method, panel regression analysis, robustness test and threshold effect test by Stata 16.0 were used to test the hypotheses.FindingsThe empirical results demonstrate the hypotheses and reveal the following findings: the digital economy is positively related to industrial green innovation efficiency and external knowledge sources, and external knowledge sources mediate the relationship between them. Moreover, based on the threshold test results, the digital economy has a double-threshold effect on industrial green innovation efficiency.Originality/valueBased on the perspective of external knowledge sources, the proposed mediating mechanism between the digital economy and industrial green innovation efficiency has not been established previously, further enriching the research on the antecedents and outcomes of external knowledge sources. Moreover, this study estimated the direct influence mechanism and double-threshold effect of the digital economy on industrial green innovation efficiency from theoretical and empirical analysis, thus responding to the call of scholars and adding to existing research on how the digital economy affects the green transformation of industrial enterprises.

Coupling coordination relationship of water resources, eco-environment and socio-economy in the water-receiving area of the Lower Yellow River

Fully understanding the interrelationship and the coordinated development level of water resources (WR), eco-environment (EE) and socio-economy (SE) is an essential precondition for regional sustainable development. We constructed a complex analytical framework consisting of WR, EE and SE subsystems in the water-receiving area of the Lower Yellow River, and quantitatively investigated the coupling coordination relationship among them. An improved obstacle degree model was developed to analyze the level and the major obstacles of coordinated development from 2001 to 2020, together with the coupling coordination degree model. A prediction model combined by the autoregressive integrated moving average model, the gray model and the artificial neural network model was built to explore the development trend from 2021 to 2025. It was found that (1) the coordinated development level showed a continuous growth from reluctant coordination in 2001–2002 to high coordination in 2015–2020. Spatially, Shandong province was slightly more coordinated than that of Henan province on the whole. (2) With sustained rapid SE development and growing pressure on water supply and environmental capacity, the major obstacles for coordinated development changed from SE factors to WR and EE factors before and after 2010. (3) The coordinated development level will continue to increase in 2021–2025, especially in the “promote WR and EE protection” scenario. In the future, water scarcity will become the key problems for coordinated development. Taking account of the available water diversion from the Yellow River, local government should put more effort into water use efficiency improvement. These results offer an important reference for decision-making and management of regional sustainable development.

Spatial and temporal distribution characteristics and influencing factors of tourism eco-efficiency in the Yellow River Basin based on the geographical and temporal weighted regression model.

With economic progression in China, Yellow River Basin serves as a critical economic belt, which has also been recognized as a cradle of Chinese culture. A watershed is a complex structure of social, economic, and natural factors, and the diversity of its components determines its complexity. Studies on the spatiotemporal distribution characteristics and factors influencing the tourism eco-efficiency at the watershed scale are crucial for the sustainable regional socio-economic development, maintaining a virtuous cycle of various ecosystems, and comprehensively considering the utilization and coordinated development of various elements. Based on tourism eco-efficiency, the coordination degree of regional human-land system and the sustainable development levels can be accurately measured. With the tourism eco-efficiency in the Yellow River Basin from 2009 to 2019, the present study considers 63 cities in the Yellow River Basin as the research area by adopting the super-efficiency slacks-based measure (Super-SBM) model. Methods such as trend surface analysis, spatial autocorrelation analysis, elliptic standard deviation analysis, and hot spot analysis were used to explore their spatiotemporal distribution and evolution characteristics. The geographical and temporal weighted regression (GTWR) model was used to determine the factors influencing the tourism eco-efficiency value. The findings are as follows: ①The level of tourism eco-efficiency in the Yellow River Basin is not high, exhibiting a fluctuating upward trend. ②The tourism eco-efficiency in the Yellow River Basin shows significant spatial interdependence and agglomeration. Furthermore, the track of the center of gravity moves from northeast to southwest. ③ The tourism eco-efficiency in the Yellow River Basin is affected by various factors, with the economic development level having the greatest influence.

Spatial coupling coordination and interactive response between green finance and green total factor productivity: geographical analysis based on Chinese provinces, 2010-2020.

Based on the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2010 to 2020, this study uses the coupling coordination degree model (CCDM), spatial autocorrelation analysis, and the panel vector autoregression (PVAR) model to quantitatively examine the dynamic coordination and interactive response of green finance (GF) and green total factor productivity (GTFP). The results show that the coupling coordination degree (CCD) between GF and GTFP during the study period shows an overall increasing trend and significant regional differentiation and remains at the medium level, indicating large room for improvement. The CCDs of provinces fluctuate between the low and high types. The distribution gradually shifts from a "high in the south and low in the north" pattern to a "high in the east and low in the west" configuration. The spatial difference of coupling development continues to expand and presents a significant spatial positive correlation. In addition, GF and GTFP in China exhibit significant self-reinforcing characteristics, but the reinforcing effect gradually decreases. There is only a unidirectional interaction relationship between GF and GTFP, which is GF actively fosters the advancement of GTFP, while the influence of GTFP on GF appears less pronounced. This research provides comprehensive insights into the dynamic interaction between GF and GTFP.

Coupling coordination and driving mechanisms of water resources carrying capacity under the dynamic interaction of the water-social-economic-ecological environment system

The water resources carrying capacity (WRCC) is a complex and comprehensive system that is jointly influenced by water resources, society, the economy and the ecological environment. Previous WRCC studies have primarily focused on estimating the overall level of regional WRCC. Few studies have explored the interactions among the various elements in the WRCC system and their influence on the WRCC evolution. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is, on the one hand, to explore the dynamic interactive relationships within the WRCC system from the perspectives of water resources, society, the economy and the ecological environment using a coupling coordination degree model and a panel vector autoregressive (PVAR) model, and on the other hand, to determine the evolutionary driving mechanism of the WRCC using the geographically and temporally weighted regression (GTWR) model to improve the regional WRCC. Taking 21 cities in Guangdong Province as an example, the results show that (1) the coupling coordination degree among the four WRCC subsystems in Guangdong Province shows an overall upward trend from 2009 to 2020, and the coordination between water resources utilization and other subsystems needs to be further strengthened. (2) The economic subsystem is the core of the WRCC system with reinforcing effects on both water resources and social subsystems but significant inhibitory effects on the ecological environment subsystem. Notably, the development of the ecological environment plays a crucial role in promoting social and economic development. (3) From 2009 to 2020, the development of the WRCC in Guangdong Province is initially driven by social and economic development, followed by economic development and ecological environmental protection, and then mainly by ecological environmental protection, which gradually becomes the primary driving force. This study provides a new entry point for studying the regional WRCC and formulating targeted measures for enhancing the regional WRCC.

Construction and evolutionary pattern of the coupling relationship network of regional sustainable development in China

Climate change poses a serious threat to the survival and development of humankind. Accordingly, sustainable socioeconomic transformation has become a major global concern. This study quantitatively assesses the process and speed of regional-level sustainable development in China, as well as the degree of coupling and the degree of coupling coordination among Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To this end, based on regional development and data monitoring in China, we construct a regional sustainable development assessment system containing 111 indicators, which combines existing sustainable development assessment indicators with the indicators of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. On that basis, using network topology construction and modal transformation, we propose a framework for analyzing the coupling relationships and evolutionary patterns of regional sustainable development. The study found that the score for SDGs at the national level increased from 50.80 in 2010 to 60.86 in 2020, showing a good development trend and the differences between provinces and regions was gradually reduced. The development speed of regional sustainable transformation shows a change from decreasing to increasing. In recent years, there is a significant change in the acceleration of regional sustainable development in China, with the vast majority of provinces having positive acceleration and only three provinces having negative acceleration. China's regional sustainable development shows that mutual coordination and promotion among provinces was higher in the eastern area than in the central region, which was higher than in the western area. The sustainable processes of each region and the coordination of sustainable development steadily increased toward a high level of coupling, all achieving coordinated development. The degree of coupling coordination and the SDG scores in each region were positively correlated with economic development, reflecting the role of economic development in the promotion of sustainability. However, this positive correlation showed a tendency of strengthening and then weakening. The correlation of the evolution patterns in the eastern–central, eastern–western, and central–western regions over time presented a trend of first weakening, then strengthening, and then weakening. Although the process of promoting sustainable development in western and central regions over time is weak synergistic consistency with that in eastern regions, overall, China's regional sustainable development presents a development model of multi-province linkage and multi-goal coordination.

Discussion on the coupling relationship between flood risk and population vulnerability from climate justice

Abstract Facing the increasingly uncertain climate change, people are paying more and more attention to climate justice in urbanization. Climate change has intensified the vulnerability of cities and may have a greater impact on vulnerable groups. Therefore, this research constructed a framework to explore the coupling relationship between flood risk and population vulnerability from the perspective of climate justice. In this framework, the indicators of population vulnerability and population resilience were built. Then, the flood risk was identified through the relationship of inundation potential. Furthermore, the coupling coordination degree model was used to calculate the coupling between population vulnerability and flood risk, and the coupling between population resilience and flood risk. Finally, the driving factors of urbanization contributing to such coupling were analyzed through the Tobit model. The specific conclusions are (i) the study area shows vulnerable groups more likely to live in areas with high flood risk, and (ii) vulnerable groups are susceptible to the impact of population density and development intensity, while relatively wealthy groups are susceptible to the impact of the level of economic development and urban built environment. The results contribute to a better understanding of spatial inequalities in flood risk and population vulnerability, and climate injustice.