Niche-Driven Socio-Environmental Linkages and Regional Sustainable Development

Dandan Liu, Anmin Huang, Dewei Yang, Jianyi Lin and Jiahui Liu
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Dandan Liu: College of Tourism, Huaqiao University, Quanzhou 362021, China
Anmin Huang: College of Tourism, Huaqiao University, Quanzhou 362021, China
Dewei Yang: School of Geographical Sciences, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China
Jianyi Lin: Key Lab of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen 361021, China
Jiahui Liu: Key Lab of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen 361021, China

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 3, 1-17

Abstract: The changes in niche roles and functions caused by competition for survival resources have implications in various domains, with natural science and social science standing out. Currently, expanding the ecological niche concept and its practical interpretation in the fields of social ecology, geography and sustainable science is becoming a crucial challenge. This paper is based on niche theory to observe niche evolution and resulting socio-ecological effects of 1186 towns in 19 prefecture cities in Yangtze River delta. The results indicate that: Towns around the Taihu Lake displayed obvious spatial agglomeration, which was leading the development of the entire region. The town niche shows obvious characteristics of north-south differences and hierarchy distribution. The niche coordination degree of Jiangsu Province was higher than that of Zhejiang Province. The higher the subsystem coordination degree, the better the town development. Towns with poor ecological conditions are often subject to competition, while towns with better ecological conditions often benefit from cooperative development. The niche separation and collaboration could enhance niche competition of towns and cities in the region. The proposed framework can facilitate interdisciplinary exchanges among geography, sociology, landscape ecology and regional planning and provide insights for understanding regional co-opetition relationship and regional sustainable development.

Keywords: niche; spatial pattern; co-opetition relationship; regional regulation; towns (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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