Assessment of coordinated development between social economy and ecological environment: Case study of resource-based cities in Northeastern China

With the rapid development of economy, the contradiction between social economy and ecological environment is increasingly prominent for most resource-based cities in China. Coordinated development between social economy and ecological environment is very important for the sustainable development of resource-based cities. This paper evaluated the coordinated development between social economy and ecological environment of 19 resource-based cities in Northeastern China using the coupling coordination degree model. The deviation maximization method was extended to dynamic situation to calculate indicator weights with the purpose of widening the overall difference of the development of the cities. The results show that the coordinated development of the cities was not ideal. Eleven cities (accounting for 57.9%) showed primary and tiny coordination. Nine cities (accounting for 47.4%) presented a downward trend on the coupling coordination degree. The coordinated development of the other cities showed a small increase, with the maximum annual growth rate of 2.38%. The main reason for the low coordination is that the development of social economy was far behind that of ecological environment. Based on this, the primary causes of social economy backwardness were analyzed, and some specific suggestions were provided.