| The quantitative evaluation on regional sustainable development has been a focal point and frontier of sustainability science study in recent years. Due to the pressing need of theoretical and empirical study of regional sustainable development, this study specially studied and discussed the regional sustainable development assessment, and constructed all the models of the core issues of regional sustainable development evaluation. On basis of such this, this paper focused on regional sustainable development issues, which provided important guidance for policy and strategy research of regional sustainable development and its management at each level, so it has important theoretical and practical significance.The current status and evolution trend of regional sustainable development compound system and the relationship among the society, economy and environment subsystems, initially, are explored by comprehensive assessment results. We also need judge whether the regional development meets the sustainable development requirements. Meanwhile, the eco-support capability and development status of the complex regional sustainable development system are also considered. Additionally, the structure, function and dynamics have been analyzed once an ecosystem is used as an analogy of the regional sustainable development system. Finally, two key hot issues in the process of transition to sustainable development have been probed.The Bohai Rim region(containing two municipalities and three provinces), is one of the three leading economic zones in China, has achieved a relatively high urbanization level and economic development degree. During the past decades, the region is the political, economic and cultural center, relied heavily on the important basis of energy and heavy chemical industry, harboring profound conflict between economic growth and environment pollution. There are growing resource consumption and increasing population in the region, thereby, the locality has been over capacity state of resources and environment, and what is more serious is that resource shortage(such as water shortage) interwoven with environmental pollution(such as air pollution), restraining the whole regional sustainable development tremendously. Therefore, this paper thoroughly dissected regional sustainable development issues as an example of Bohai Rim region, and made a deep and systematic quantitative research with the aid of multi-discipline theory from multiple perspectives, including multidisciplinary knowledge of Ecology, Environment, Geography, Systematics, Management science, Applied statistics, and Econometric, and so on. Among which, the comparative study of regional sustainable development in Bohai Rim and Yangtze River regions from novel perspective are involved, striving for an opportunity between ecological environment and socioeconomic development when seeking regional sustainable development.In order to enrich the regional sustainable development research and assess sustainable development of Bohai Rim region objectively and comprehensively, the regional sustainable development modeling and assessment research have been made from the four perspectives of Indicators, Eco-support, Ecosystem and Hot issues. We designed the corresponding regional sustainable development assessment index system and the four research frameworks of four perspectives, and thus thoroughly analyzed sustainable development issues of the Bohai Rim region. In the whole process, various models were established specifically from various perspectives, and a thorough exploration was made of regional sustainable development assessment methods. Meanwhile, we also qualified these facets of regional sustainable development system: the relationship among the society, economy and environment subsystems, the sustainability and development status, structure, function and dynamics, various interaction characteristics and disparity, and it also covered the analysis and predication of current and future status of two specific hot issues. The research content of this paper mainly includes the following aspects:(1) Research status at home and abroad and literature review;(2) Index system establishment of sustainable development assessment of the Bohai Rim region;(3) Regional sustainable development modeling and assessment research from the perspective of Indicators;(4) Regional sustainable development modeling and assessment research from the perspective of Eco-support;(5) Regional sustainable development modeling and assessment research from the perspective of Ecosystem;(6) Regional sustainable development modeling and assessment research from the perspective of Hot issues;(7) Conclusions and outlook.The main research results and conclusion are following:(1)We summarized the theoretical basis of regional sustainable development assessment and reviewed the assessment methods. The change and development of regional sustainable development assessment and application researches were dissected from the aspects of assessment methods, indicators field and study area, and the limitations of the assessment research were analyzed and the prospect for future.(2) We detailed the general situations and development status of the Bohai Rim region and analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of current regional development. On the basis of actual situation analysis of study area, the regional sustainable development evaluation index system establishment, which aimed at the research study area, was presented and detailed from various perspectives.(3)The regional sustainable development hierarchy was simulated according to the established index system, and the coupling analysis was proposed on the basis of principle component analysis(PCA) and vector auto-regression(VAR). We explored and modified sustainable development assessment method based on index system, proposed a coupled model by coupling nonlinear principal component analysis(NLPCA) and Gram Schmidt orthogonalization(GSO) to improve comprehensive sustainable development assessment after finishing the PCA for each subsystem, and subsequently the sustainability of regional development and system coordination models were established to reflect the evolution trend and change process of whole regional sustainable development system during the study period. In conclusion, PCA–VAR model could effectively present the interaction and relation of social, economic and environmental changes, and subsequently the scenarios analysis based on the modeling and simulation can provided advices about what we will do, which is benefit to the regional sustainable development in the real sense. Meanwhile, the coupling method of NLPCA-GSO tremendously could perfect and improve the regional sustainable development assessment, and the sustainability of regional development and system coordination models could also enrich quantitative evaluation theory and method of regional sustainable development. Therefore, the study from the perspective of Indicators could provide guidance and advance for regional sustainable development management of the Bohai Rim region.(4)The regional sustainability was presented by energy ecological footprint and emergy energy footprint, and the regional development level was evaluated by human development index. On one hand, the EEF-HDI model was constructed to analyze the driving factors of energy footprint by combining with STIRPAT model. On other hand, EMEF-HDI-DEA model was constructed to assess regional sustainable development by the results of EMEF and HDI. Afterwards, the comprehensive efficiency assessment of regional sustainable development was obtained by the econometric model when regarding the related indicators from the above results as input or output factors. It was feasible employing the emergy energy footprint model, integrated with the analysis idea of human development index, could provide route and direction in assessing regional sustainable development on basis of eco-support, and then the comprehensive efficiency assessment consolidated and extended the results in time series. The study from the perspective of Eco-support showed that the social, economic and environmental system developed in development model of unsustainable energy utilization and a series of ecological environment damage, while there is still serious crisis of regional development in spite of continuous optimization level.(5) Exploring the structure, function and dynamics of regional sustainability system(as ecosystem) can help providing insights into the importance of the ways how the sustainability management answered to particular policies in decision-making process. Firstly, we made the modeling of regional radiation capability and coordination index from keystone perspective, relied on how regional center(keystone species) influences other locations(other species), to analyze the structure, function and dynamics of the regional sustainability system. The proposed regional sustainability disparity model was highlighted in exploring the essence of regional equity for the integration of the region. Secondly, we made the dynamics analysis of interaction characteristics among the components of regional sustainable development, and constructed green development index to explore regional development pattern, which also consolidated regional sustainable development analysis. Overall, this study from the perspective of Ecosystem provided a new trial idea and approach, which emphasized that the distribution situation of radiation capabilities from regional center to the neighboring provinces from society, economy, environment, sustainable development dimensions, and subsequently constructed the coordination index model, which can reflect the connectivity and stability of regional sustainable development system and can present the sustainability of Bohai Rim region, Yangtze River region and their society, economy and environment subsystems. Finally, in accordance with the interactive change between human and nature system and the coordination level among the three pillars of regional sustainable development system, the real regional development pattern and regional equal development degree were revealed, which help achieve regional comprehensive evaluation and can provide the powerful direction for the policy maker of regional management.(6) The two currently faced hot issues of regional sustainable development were selected to analyze for specially solving the confronted problems. Initially, investigating the dynamic interaction between urbanization and eco-environment dimensions could help providing insights into the judgment of health degree. We made the empirical research of the interaction between urbanization and eco-environment of the Bohai Rim region, including the novel index system construction, and focused on their interrelationship to track how spatial radiation change and integrated with the urbanization and eco-environment interaction model to explore how they interact at the provincial and whole regional scales. Additionally, for the CO2 emissions, we proposed the estimation and explanation models of sectors-energy-CO2 emissions and presented the novel scenario design, which were originally applied to estimate and explain the CO2 emissions, and performed a scenario analysis, involving CO2 emission, energy consumption and economic growth planning for BHR region, which can help forecast the emissions to make the future choices, along with showing whether achieve the warming commitment of these emissions. |
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