Impacts of changing urban form on ecological efficiency in China: a comparison between urban agglomerations and administrative areas

This paper explored the impacts of the changing urban form on the ecological efficiency of administrative areas and urban agglomerations in China under different regional scales using the slack-based measure of efficiency model. It also measured the morphological characteristics of cities across several regions using the Largest Patch Index (LPI), Patch Density (PD), and Fractal Dimension (FD). Using the threshold regression model, the impact mechanism of urban form on ecological efficiency was examined. Results show that the ecological efficiency of the regions show an N type change over time. LPI and PD show a significant impact in promoting ecological efficiency while FD inhibits ecological efficiency but is not significant until the regional scale reaches 1,352 km(2). We conclude that the development of urban agglomeration is more conducive to improving regional ecological efficiency, which will give policymakers some inspiration in developing a regional development strategy.