Optimizing Cross-Regional Mobility Contributes to the Metacoupling Between Urbanization and the Environment for Regional Sustainability

Ying Huang, Lan Ye, Qingyang Jiang, Yufeng Wang, Guo Wan (), Peiyun He and Bo Zhou
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Ying Huang: School of Fine Arts and Design, Art College of Chinese & Asean Arts, Chengdu University, Chengdu 610106, China
Lan Ye: School of Fine Arts and Design, Art College of Chinese & Asean Arts, Chengdu University, Chengdu 610106, China
Qingyang Jiang: School of Design, Smart Urban and Rural Environmental Sustainability Research Institute, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 611756, China
Yufeng Wang: State Key Laboratory of Clean and Efficient Coal Utilization, Taiyuan University of Technology, Taiyuan 030024, China
Guo Wan: School of Fine Arts and Design, Art College of Chinese & Asean Arts, Chengdu University, Chengdu 610106, China
Peiyun He: School of Design, Smart Urban and Rural Environmental Sustainability Research Institute, Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu 611756, China
Bo Zhou: College of Architecture and Environment, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610064, China

Land, 2025, vol. 14, issue 8, 1-21

Abstract: As a result of rapid urbanization, ecological and environmental problems have become increasingly severe. Sustainable regional development requires a balance between urbanization and the environment. With the intensification of economic globalization and technological innovation, the flow of various elements such as population, capital, information, and resources has gradually blurred administrative boundaries, leading to new cross-scale evolutionary characteristics in this relationship. However, existing studies have primarily been conducted at the local scale and have failed to capture the impact of cross-regional element flows on the relationship between urbanization and the environment. Under the metacoupling framework, this study improves the existing methodological framework by integrating the flows of production factors and ecosystem service (ES) to characterize the metacoupling between urbanization and the environment in the Chengdu-Chongqing urban agglomeration (CCUA). A new comprehensive index system for urbanization and environment was constructed, considering the cross-regional flow of multiple factors. The Coupling Coordination Degree model was employed to calculate the degree of intracoupling, pericoupling, and telecoupling between urbanization and the environment. The Geodetector model was used to determine the effects of local, adjacent, and distant flows of production and ES factors on these degrees. The results show that the intracoupling between urbanization and the environment was low, while the pericoupling and telecoupling increased from local to distant scales. Production factor and ES flows were the common factors affecting the metacoupling between urbanization and the environment, but population flows and capital flows were more strongly explained at the local scale, and ES flow was more strongly explained at the adjacent and distant scales. Based on these results, a systematic understanding of the complex relationship between urbanization and environment is provided, which in turn provides a basis for decision making regarding the coordinated and sustainable development of urban and ecological management in the CCUA as well as other urban agglomerations.

Keywords: urbanization; environment; metacoupling; cross-regional mobility; regional sustainability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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