Assessment of Urban Ecological Resilience Based on PSR Framework in the Pearl River Delta Urban Agglomeration, China

Abstract

Studying resilience provides an opportunity to address a range of urban environmental problems. However, existing studies pay little attention to urban ecological resilience (UER), and the system of assessing urban resilience pays little attention to the process attribute of resilience. This study focuses on UER and constructs an evaluation framework based on the pressure _state _response (PSR) framework. The ‘pressure’ indicator morphological resilience (MR) is evaluated using source _sink landscape theory. The ‘state’ indicator density resilience (DR) is evaluated using the ratio of ecological carrying capacity to ecological footprint. The ‘response’ indicator uses indicators of economic structure, vitality, and innovation for evaluation. We found that the MR and DR of the study area in 2020 showed a spatial layout of low in the central area and high in the peripheral areas, while the high-value ER area was in the central part. The average district and county MR was 1.44, DR was between 0.003 and 1.975, and ER was 0.32; overall, ER and MR are better in the study area, but DR is worse. The spatial layout of comprehensive UER was found to be low in the middle and high in the periphery of the study area. Some areas with low MR and DR have high UER, which verifies the compensation effect of ER on urban ecology. This study provides a new method for assessing UER, and the findings can provide useful information for urban planning.

Keywords

• PSR
• urban ecological resilience
• MR
• DR
• ER
• Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration