Comprehensive simulation of resources and environment carrying capacity for urban agglomeration: A system dynamics approach

Abstract

Resources and environment carrying capacity (RECC) is an important concept for regional and urban sustainable development. This study constructs a comprehensive RECC indicator and a system dynamics (SD) model to simulate its historical conditions and future scenarios, stressing the nexus between the socio-economic and eco-environmental factors. This methodology is applied to Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei urban agglomeration (BTH) for the period of 2000–2030. The results show that, in the business-as-usual scenario, BTH’s RECC will present an “S” curve and increase from 100.26 million in 2000 to 129.65 million in 2030. Although it is greatly improved, the risk of population overload will increase, especially in Beijing, Baoding and Langfang city. Moreover, water resources carrying capacity will be the key constraining factor of RECC for BTH and its most cities. Compared with the economic-oriented and ecological-oriented development mode, to maintain the “business-as-usual” development mode is recommended for the whole BTH. However, the south-central cities should take the ecological-oriented development mode to overcome population overload. This research presents a framework to assess RECC under different scenarios for urban agglomeration. The results might provide an important guidance for sustainable urban planning and coupled human-environment system analysis.

Keywords

• Resources and environment carrying capacity (RECC)
• Population threshold
• System dynamics (SD) model
• Scenario simulation
• Sustainable urban development