Integrating Sustainability Assessment into Decoupling Analysis: A Focus on the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomerations

Yijia Huang, Jiaqi Zhang and Jinqun Wu
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Yijia Huang: School of Public Affairs, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
Jiaqi Zhang: School of Public Affairs, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
Jinqun Wu: School of Public Affairs, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 19, 1-20

Abstract: Rapid urbanization has led to a growing number of environmental challenges in large parts of China, where the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) urban agglomerations serve as a typical example. To evaluate the relationship between environmental sustainability gaps and urbanization in 26 cities of the YRD, this study revisited the environmental sustainability assessment (ESA) by combining the metrics of environmental footprints and planetary boundaries at the city level, and then integrated the footprint-boundary ESA framework into decoupling analysis. The results demonstrated considerable spatiotemporal heterogeneity in the environmental sustainability of water use, land use, carbon emissions, nitrogen emissions, phosphorus emissions and PM 2.5 emissions across the YRD cities during the study period 2007–2017. Decoupling analysis revealed a positive sign that more than half of the 26 cities had achieved the decoupling of each category of environmental sustainability gaps from urbanization since 2014, especially for nitrogen and phosphorus emissions. On the basis of ESA and decoupling analysis, all the cities were categorized into six patterns, for which the optimal pathways towards sustainable development were discussed in depth. Our study will assist policy makers in formulating more tangible and differentiated policies to achieve decoupling between environmental sustainability gaps and urbanization.

Keywords: urbanization; decoupling; environmental sustainability; footprint; boundary; the Yangtze River Delta (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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