Spatiotemporal and driving forces of Ecological Carrying Capacity for high-quality development of 286 cities in China

As an important measuring of social sustainable development, Ecological Carrying Capacity (ECC) has a pivotal role in the high-quality development of economy and society. It has great scientific and practical significance to evaluate ECC of cities. Based on component elements and structural characteristics of urban ecosystem, we use Geographically and Temporally Weighted Regression (GTWR) to analyze spatial and temporal pattern and influencing factors of ECC of 286 cities in China during 2008e2017. The results are: (1) Areas with high ECC are mainly concentrated in the provincial capital cities, showing a diffusion trend of from central to periphery, (2) The medium-level cities show a spreading trend of from east to west; (3) The number of cities in low-level areas is steadily decreasing, showing a gradual upward trend of ECC; (4) Factors such as population density, GDP, unemployment, wage, education expenditure, harmless disposal rate of household waste, industrial structure, have significant impacts on the spatial pattern of urban ECC, with different impact intensity. The novelty of this paper lies in: (1) this paper comprehensive evaluation of ECC index by multi-dimensional and diversified evaluation; (2) this paper discusses the influencing factors of ECC from three aspects of nature, society and economy, and explains the change trend of each variable from two dimensions of time and space based on GTWR model. (c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study analyzed the spatial and temporal pattern of ECC in 286 cities in China from 2008 to 2017 using GTWR model. The results showed that areas with high ECC are mainly concentrated in provincial capital cities, medium-level cities spread from east to west, and low-level areas are gradually improving. Factors such as population density, GDP, unemployment rate, wage, etc., have significant impacts on the spatial pattern of urban ECC.