Investigating the coordination between ecological and economic systems in China?s green development process: a place-based interdisciplinary evaluation
March 1, 2023 - Liu, Kai-di; Xiong, Xi; Xiang, Wenjing; Wu, Shuyao; Shi, Dongsheng; Zhang, Wentao; Zhang, Linbo
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EmailJournal or Book Title: ECOLOGY AND SOCIETY
Abstract: Harmonizing human activities with the natural environment has received much attention as a development goal and is a longstanding pursuit of human society. In this study, we investigated the sustainability of green development from the perspective of the coordination between economic and environmental subsystems at the place-based scale, with 290 cities in China as research objects. An interdisciplinary method combining an improved data envelopment analysis model and Lotka-Volterra model was conducted to examine the two subsystems' development efficiency and their correlation (i.e., mutualism, commensalism, amensalism, sacrifice, competition, independence). The results indicate that one-third of the cities' economic and environmental subsystems are in a mutualistic state, with a relatively stable social-ecological system. However, the two subsystems are in a state of competition in one-fourth of the cities, with rather intense vulnerability, where the harmonious coexistence of humans and nature is facing more significant challenges. In addition, vulnerability of the social-ecological system in economically developed cities shows substantial polarization. The two subsystems in most of these cities are in mutualism or amensalism relations, whereas the social-ecological system in economically underdeveloped cities shows even greater vulnerability.
Type of Publication: Article
