Vulnerability Assessment of Ecological–Economic–Social Systems in Urban Agglomerations in Arid Regions—A Case Study of Urumqi–Changji–Shihezi Urban Agglomeration

Xiaofen Zhang, Zibibula Simayi (), Shengtian Yang, Yusuyunjiang Mamitimin, Fang Shen and Yunyi Zhang
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Xiaofen Zhang: College of Geography and Remote Sensing Sciences, Xinjiang University, Urumqi 830046, China
Zibibula Simayi: College of Geography and Remote Sensing Sciences, Xinjiang University, Urumqi 830046, China
Shengtian Yang: Institute of Water Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Yusuyunjiang Mamitimin: College of Geography and Remote Sensing Sciences, Xinjiang University, Urumqi 830046, China
Fang Shen: College of Geography and Remote Sensing Sciences, Xinjiang University, Urumqi 830046, China
Yunyi Zhang: College of Geography and Remote Sensing Sciences, Xinjiang University, Urumqi 830046, China

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 6, 1-17

Abstract: This study aims to clarify the vulnerability characteristics of the ecological–economic–social system of oasis city clusters in arid zones, promote the deepening of research on the sustainable development of urban clusters, and provide crucial practical reference significance for solving the series of problems brought about by urbanization. This article takes the arid zone oasis city cluster, the Urumqi–Changji–Shihezi urban agglomeration, as the research object and constructs an indicator system from three dimensions of ecological environment, regional economic, and social development, and adopts the comprehensive index method, GeoDetector, the GM(1, 1) gray prediction model, and other methods to study the vulnerability pattern and spatial and temporal changes of the urban cluster from 2009 to 2018. The results show that (1) from 2009 to 2018, the change in the integrated ecological–economic–social system vulnerability index of the Urumqi–Changji–Shihezi urban agglomeration shows a general downward trend, followed by significant differences in the vulnerability of each dimension, with an average vulnerability index of 1.8846, 1.6377, and 0.9831 for the social vulnerability, regional economic, and ecological environment dimensions, respectively; (2) the evolution of the spatial pattern of changes in the vulnerability index of different systems in each region of the Urumqi–Changji–Shihezi urban agglomeration tends to change from large to slight spatial differences, in which the social and ecological environmental vulnerability changes are more prominent in addition to the vulnerability changes of the regional economy; (3) parkland area per capita, arable land area per capita, GDP per capita, social fixed asset investment, population density, and urban road area per capita are the main drivers of decreasing vulnerability of ecological–economic–social systems in urban agglomerations; (4) by predicting and calculating the vulnerability index of each region of the ecological–economic–social system of urban agglomerations, it is found that the vulnerability index of urban agglomerations will show a decreasing trend from 2009 to 2018, and the difference of the vulnerability index between systems will narrow; (5) finally, targeted countermeasures and suggestions to reduce the vulnerability of ecological–economic–social systems are proposed to provide scientific references for the sustainable development of arid oasis cities.

Keywords: vulnerability assessment; oasis urban agglomerations in arid zones; trend prediction; evaluation indicator system; Urumqi–Changji–Shihezi urban agglomeration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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