Ecological Indicators (Apr 2022)
The coupling coordination degree between urbanization and air environment in the Beijing(Jing)-Tianjin(Jin)-Hebei(Ji) urban agglomeration
Abstract
Urban agglomeration is an important geospatial unit for achieving SDGs. At the same time, air environment is the key to ensure the healthy life and safe production of mankind. Despite growing concern over the sustainable development in urban agglomeration, there is still little discussion on the coordination between air environment and urbanization within urban agglomeration. Here, the coupling evaluation index system was constructed from four urbanization aspects and three air environment aspects. Based on the real nonlinear internal relationship, the CG-GSO model was used to quantify the urbanization development level in the Beijing(Jing)-Tianjin(Jin)-Hebei(Ji) urban agglomeration from 2003 to 2017. It showed that social urbanization and economic urbanization were mainly the driving factors in single regions, and the urbanization development levels were rising steadily in single regions and urban agglomeration. In the air environment subsystem, the driving factors mainly existed in the air environment pressure and control, while the dynamic trends were fluctuating upward. On urbanization, urban agglomeration was conductive to the realization of regional sustainable development; but on air environment, the result was the opposite. In addition, the dynamic trend of the coupling coordination degree was far worse in urban agglomeration than in single regions. The scenarios were predicted and analyzed on barely and superiorly balanced development during different periods, and strong national pollution control policy was the key to promote the coordinated development between urbanization and air environment in the Beijing(Jing)-Tianjin(Jin)-Hebei(Ji) urban agglomeration. This study provides reference for sustainable development in urban agglomerations.
