Study On Ecological Efficiency Evaluation And Influencing Factors Of Urban Agglomeration In The Middle Reaches Of The Yangtze River

As an inevitable product of the advanced stages of national industrialization and urbanization,urban agglomerations have become an important carrier of China’s population and industrial agglomeration and a core growth pole for regional economic development.As an important support for the Yangtze River Economic Belt,the city cluster in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River is not only a breakthrough in the strategy of promoting the rise of the central region,but also an inland economic highland that promotes the convergence and linkage of the "One Belt One Road" initiative.However,while economic and social development is advancing vigorously,problems such as tightening of resource and environmental constraints and insufficient development of the urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River have gradually become prominent.At the same time,its subordinate urban agglomerations have significant spatial heterogeneity in terms of factor endowments,resource consumption,technological progress,environmental pollution,etc.,which making the coordinated development prospects of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River facing severe challenges.In this context,how to coordinate the relationship between resource conservation,economic development,and environmental protection to achieve a coordinated improvement in ecological efficiency is not only essential for the green and high-quality development of the urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.It is also conducive to perfecting the strategic layout of my country’s regional coordinated development,and has far-reaching strategic significance to plan from the overall situation and serve the overall situation with one domain.The research content of this article includes the following four aspects: First,based on the connotation of ecological efficiency,scientific models and methods are used to evaluate the ecological efficiency of the urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.Secondly,from the perspectives of spatial distribution,sources of difference,dynamic evolution of distribution,long-term trend prediction,etc.,a comprehensive description of the temporal and spatial evolution of the ecological efficiency of the urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.Thirdly,explain the choice of factors affecting ecological efficiency and theoretical hypotheses,and use inefficiency decomposition and quantile regression methods to analyze the internal and external factors that affect the ecological efficiency of the urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.Finally,comprehensively explore the ecological efficiency improvement path of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and propose countermeasures.The research conclusions show that:(1)The eco-efficiency of the urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River shows a fluctuating upward trend,but most cities need to further improve the coordination relationship between economic benefits and the ecological environment.Among them,the ecological efficiency of the Wuhan urban agglomeration and the Changsha-Zhutan urban agglomeration is significantly higher than that of the Poyang Lake urban agglomeration,and the former two are on the rise.(2)The eco-efficiency of the urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River has significant spatial imbalance.The regional difference in eco-efficiency between the Wuhan urban agglomeration and the urban agglomeration around Poyang Lake is the main source of the difference in the eco-efficiency of the urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.According to nuclear density analysis,there is a right-tailing phenomenon in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and the three major urban agglomerations,and there is a polarization trend in some areas.From the perspective of long-term transfer trends,there is a phenomenon of "club convergence" in the ecological efficiency of the urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River,and this process is accompanied by obvious "low-level traps" and "high-level monopoly."(3)From the perspective of internal factors,low utilization of input factors and low pollution emission efficiency are the main reasons for the ecological inefficiency of the urban agglomerations in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River.Among them,the redundancy of pollution emissions ranks first,and the inefficiency of energy,water resources,labor,and capital investment decreases sequentially.From the perspective of external factors,population size and technological progress can promote the improvement of the ecological efficiency of the middle reaches of the Yangtze River,while opening to the outside world and industrial structure have obvious hindrances.On the basis of the previous research,this article puts forward relevant research enlightenments to promote the improvement of the ecological efficiency of the urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River from the aspects of institutional reconstruction,innovation drive,green finance,environmental regulation and spatial linkage.This will provide decision-making support to promote the formation of a new pattern of green development in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and achieve high-quality development.