Research on the Sustainable Development of Natural-Social-Economic Systems Based on the Emergy Accounting Method—A Case Study of Liyang in China

Yuan Gao (), Li Tian, An Huang, Huan Zhang, Jianghao Yu, Yu Pan, Yuankang Wang and Binzhuo Gou
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Yuan Gao: Department of Urban and Rural Planning, School of Landscape Architecture, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
Li Tian: Department of Urban Planning, School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
An Huang: School of Public Administration, Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology, Xi’an 710055, China
Huan Zhang: School of Urban Construction, Beijing City University, Beijing 101309, China
Jianghao Yu: Department of Urban Planning, School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Yu Pan: Department of Urban and Rural Planning, School of Landscape Architecture, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
Yuankang Wang: Department of Urban and Rural Planning, School of Landscape Architecture, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
Binzhuo Gou: Department of Urban and Rural Planning, School of Landscape Architecture, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China

Land, 2023, vol. 12, issue 7, 1-20

Abstract: Coordinating the relationship between resources, environmental protection, and economic development is essential for regional sustainable development. Various frameworks and models for quantifying the sustainable development of regional natural–social–economic systems have been produced. This paper focused on measuring regional sustainable development from the perspective of sustainable consumption and production. The study improved the emergy sustainable indices and the evaluation system commonly used in the method of emergy accounting by introducing input and output emergy into the emergy flows. Then, we proposed new subsystem sustainable indexes for evaluating and analyzing the sustainable development trend of the complex natural–social–economic system in Liyang from 2005 to 2020 by adopting the entropy weight method. The results showed that Liyang was generally in a state of sustainable development, with good social sustainability. The economic and natural sustainability indexes were low, which might cause unsustainable risks in the future. From the input structure and production efficiency perspective, the secondary industry with the highest emergy output has a meager net output rate. In contrast, the tertiary industry has a higher net output rate (NOR) and better output efficiency, which should be the core industry in the region’s future development. From the perspective of environmental impact and resource and environmental carrying capacity, the natural contribution rate and environmental carrying rate should be improved and the waste emergy rate necessary to be reduced. This study hopes to provide implications for formulating regional land use, industrial planning, and sustainable development policies.

Keywords: sustainable development; emergy accounting; entropy weighting method; input structure; production efficiency; resource and environmental carrying capacity (RECC); Liyang (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:12:y:2023:i:7:p:1362-:d:1189028

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