ANALYSIS ON THE COUPLING
CHARACTERISTICS OF URBAN
ECOLOGICAL STRUCTURE AND LOCAL
ECONOMY IN THE YELLOW RIVER BASIN
Yunchao Wu*
School of Tourism Management, Guizhou Business School, Guiyang, Guizhou,
550014, China.
wuyunchaols@163.com
Reception: 15/02/2023 Acceptance: 08/04/2023 Publication: 28/06/2023
Suggested citation:
Wu, Y. (2023). Analysis on the coupling characteristics of urban ecological
structure and local economy in the Yellow River Basin. 3C Empresa.
Investigación y pensamiento crítico, 12(2), 73-90. https://doi.org/
10.17993/3cemp.2023.120252.73-90
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ABSTRACT
The Yellow River Basin is an important part of China's ecological protection areas, but
the stable development of the Yellow River Basin cannot be guaranteed due to the
unreasonable setting of the local ecological structure and the slow pace of economic
development. Many scholars at home and abroad have researched the ecological
structure and urbanization level of the Yellow River Basin, but there is still a lack of
work to analyze the coupling characteristics of the two. In this paper, the entropy
weight method is used to study the coupling characteristics of economic development
and ecological structure in the Yellow River Basin. The ecological environment,
urbanization evaluation system and the ecological environment and urbanization
coupling coordination characteristic evaluation system are constructed. The results
show that the comprehensive evaluation coefficient of urbanization has increased by
276.2% from 2011 to 2020. The annual average increase of the comprehensive
evaluation index of the ecological environment is over 35%. The degree of matching
between the level of urban modernization and the ecological environment is basically
above 95%.
KEYWORDS
Yellow River Basin; ecological architecture; urbanization; economic development;
coupled and coordinated characteristics
INDEX
ABSTRACT
KEYWORDS
1. INTRODUCTION
2. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
2.1. Entropy method
2.2. Physical model of coherence
3. ANALYSIS OF RESULTS
3.1. Comprehensive evaluation index analysis of town ecological environment and
local economy
3.1.1. Comprehensive index analysis of the urban ecological environment
3.1.2. Comprehensive urbanization index analysis
3.2. Analysis of the coupling and coordination characteristics of town
modernization and ecological environment
4. DISCUSSION
REFERENCES
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1. INTRODUCTION
China's economic development has accelerated the process of urbanization, which
is the most important way to achieve industrialization and modernization and is given
great attention by governments everywhere. From the birth of New China in 1949 to
the period of reform and opening up in 1978, the level of urbanization in China has
increased by about 50% [1-3]. After entering the 21st century, China's urbanization
rate ranks relatively high in the world. Among them, the Yellow River Basin, as an
ecological reserve in China, plays an important role in ensuring national ecological
security and promoting economic development [4-6]. Before 1949, due to the conflict
between natural resource development and economic development, the ecological
structure of the Yellow River Basin could not be kept in balance. After that, the state
intensified efforts to control the ecological environment in the Yellow River region, and
the ecological structure was improved to a certain extent. Despite the obvious effect,
the stable and sustainable economic development of the Yellow River Basin is still
constrained by the ecological structure and economic scale. [7-11]. Therefore, it is
necessary to adjust the ecological structure of the Yellow River Basin to promote the
economic development of the Yellow River Basin.
In 2020, China proposed the key task of integrating new urbanization construction
and urban and rural development, which clearly proposed to promote a high-quality
new urbanization development strategy. As an important ecological sphere in China,
improving the level of urbanization in the Yellow River Basin is an important means to
ensure high-quality economic development [12-14]. One of the important factors
affecting the economic development of cities in the Yellow River Basin cities is the
ecological architecture of urbanization. The destruction of natural resources and their
unbalanced use has led to the ecological structure of urbanization in an unstable
state. The instability of the ecological structure of urbanization will in turn lead to an
uncoordinated rate of economic development, which will result in lagging
development. There are many advanced technologies available for surveying the
distribution and exploitation of natural resources in the Yellow River Basin, which can
help workers to obtain timely information data and take political measures [15-22].
The relationship between the level of urbanization and the regional economy is closely
related, and there are many studies on the relationship between the two at home and
abroad. The main focus is on the following three aspects. The first is the study of
basic theory. The theoretical research mainly focuses on the complex model of urban
ecological structure and economic development from the perspective of the "human-
land" relationship. The second is the evolution pattern of the ecological structure of
urbanization, exploring the dynamic pattern between the level of economic
development and the ecological structure of urbanization. The third is to construct a
coupled coordination model between urbanization ecological structure and economic
development and analyze the influence of urbanization ecological factors on the
speed and scale of economic development. The third type of these studies is a more
intuitive way to grasp the coordinated development relationship between the two, and
a number of scholars have conducted related studies [23-25].
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Li et al [26] evaluated the coupled coordination degree (CCD) of PLES using
temporal and spatial models and found that elevation, temperature, economy, and
population were the main factors affecting CCD. By regulating these factors, land use
can be effectively optimized and further ecological deterioration can be mitigated. Ma
et al [27] constructed a long-term and short-term memory neural network model to
explore the relationship between economic development and development intensity
affecting the upper, middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River basin. The results
showed that a 6.5% economic growth rate is more conducive to environmental
protection compared to 7% and 6% economic growth rate development patterns, then
the balance between ecological structure and economic development reaches the
ideal state. Shi et al [28] used Graphab software to construct a holistic landscape
heterogeneity analysis ecological network to analyze the ecological situation of the
Yellow River basin, in which morphological spatial pattern analysis (MSPA) and
structural equation modeling (SEM) ) were used to identify ecological source areas
and determine the resistance surface. The results indicate that the rational use of
highly heterogeneous areas is an effective way to maintain the long-term stable
development of the ecological structure of the Yellow River basin. Shi et al. [29]
constructed a dynamic panel and a systematic generalized method of moments to
predict the influencing factors of the urbanization level in the Yellow River Basin. The
results show that while the urbanization of the Yellow River Basin is improving, the
unreasonable economic development and urban scale layout still have an impact on
the further development of urbanization. Wei et al [30] used an efficient data envelope
method to determine the relationship between water use efficiency and urbanization
level in the Yangtze River basin over a decade. The results showed that the level of
economic development and the proportion of water resources can enhance water use
efficiency. Chai [31] et al. used social network analysis to analyze the structure of the
Yellow River basin based on a two-way "time distance" modified gravity model
between cities. The results show that the relative strength of the linkages between
cities in the Yellow River basin constrains economic development to some extent. It is
possible to build a chain of urban centers by strengthening the linkages between
subgroups to enhance economic exchange. Gong [32] constructed a spatial lag model
and an error model with the objective of promoting high-quality development in the
Yellow River basin. The relationship between economic growth, industrial structure
and urbanization level and ecological structure layout of the Yellow River basin was
analyzed. The results show that carbon emissions and economic growth rate in the
Yellow River Basin show a "U" shaped KFC curve, and carbon emissions affect
economic growth. Rong et al [33] investigated the relationship between economic
index (EC) and environmental carbon emissions by analyzing the ecological structure
and using the (STIRPAT) model. The results suggest that the ecological structure
between Zhengzhou, Jinan, Zhoukou and Shangqiu is not reasonably coordinated,
thus affecting the further development of the ecological economy.Solarin, SA [34]
applied a new type of dynamic regression distribution lag model was used to predict,
in which carbon dioxide emissions were selected as the research variable. The results
show that the relationship between economic development and ecological structure is
relatively complex. Economic growth will lead to environmental deterioration in a short
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period, but the development of urbanization will be less affected. From the perspective
of development, promoting economic development can improve environmental quality
after a certain period. As a whole the current research on economic development and
ecological structure of towns by domestic and foreign scholars is multi-faceted. The
content is relatively rich, but there is a lack of more systematic research. Moreover,
most of the previous research work focused on the relationship between the economic
development of the Yellow River Basin and various environmental factors and did not
give the specific characteristics of the coupling between the economy and the
environment. Moreover, the previous studies were relatively simple and did not
discuss the relationship between the environment and the economy from multiple
perspectives. The economic and environmental factors are interrelated and affect
each other. Economic regression will lead to the decline of all aspects of the
ecological environment, and eventually imbalance. The destruction of the ecological
balance and the fragmentation of these ecological factors will lead to poor
connections between various links of economic development and ultimately affect
economic development. The analysis of the coupling characteristics helps to
understand the development law between the two and has theoretical guidance for
further economic improvement.
To sum up, this paper aims to promote the economic development of the Yellow
River region and balance the ecological environment. Taking the evaluation of the
relationship between the urbanization level and the ecological structure as the starting
point, three evaluation indicators are constructed, which are the evaluation index of
the ecological environment of the Yellow River Basin, the evaluation index of the local
economy, and the evaluation index of the urbanization level and the coupling
coordination characteristics of the regional economy. The coupled coordination
relationship between urbanization and ecological environment subsystems in the
Yellow River Basin is compared from two dimensions of time and space, and the
economic development level of the Yellow River Basin is measured.
2. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
2.1. ENTROPY METHOD
This paper chooses 2011-2020 as the time point to enumerate the ecological
structure of urbanization in the Yellow River Basin as well as the economic
development. The comprehensive ecological and environmental index, the
urbanization index of the Yellow River basin and the analysis of the coupling and
coordination characteristics of urbanization and environment are analyzed. Firstly,
population, economic and urbanization indexes are selected to constitute a
comprehensive evaluation system. Several indicators are selected to measure the
interaction between the economy and the environment and the current situation of the
ecological environment, and the weight of the indicators is determined by the entropy
value method.
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The entropy method used in this paper is relatively scientific and reasonable
compared with the hierarchical analysis method and subjective assignment method,
and it has been applied more often in academic research, especially in research
related to regional economic development strategies. The entropy method was
constructed in this paper to assign weights to the indicators of the factors influencing
the level of urbanization development in the Yellow River Basin. In the analysis of the
entropy method, it is necessary to have a clear understanding of the research object.
How many indicators are in the urbanization index system constructed in this paper,
how many of them are positive indicators and how many are negative indicators?
Then the data needed for the study are dimensionless using the normalization method
commonly used in mathematics. It is worth noting that zero values may appear in the
process of dimensionless processing. At this point, the zero values are to be
processed by shifting all the data to the right by one unit. The treatment of negative
indicators is simply a matter of changing the sign in the numerator. The specific
equation is shown below:
(1)
where denotes the dimensionless parameter, denotes the
indicator.
(2)
represents the weight of the data in the index. The entropy value of the
indicator is expressed as follows, where denotes the number of samples.
(3)
The weights of each indicator are calculated as shown below, where denotes the
weight of each indicator.
(4)
Then a comprehensive evaluation index was constructed, and the expression of
the evaluation index is shown below.
(5)
(6)
x
i=
x
i
−min {x
1
, …, x
n
}
max {
x
1, …,
x
n}−min {
x
1, …,
x
n}
x1, …, xn
1st,…,n
pi=
x′
i
∑x′
i
Pi
i
i
n
e
j=−
1
ln(n)
∑Pi×ln
(
Pi
)
G
W
j=
G
j
∑
G
j
,j= 1,2,……,
m
U
1=
n
∑
i=1
wiyi
j
U
2=
n
∑
i=1
wjyi
j
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Where denotes the weight of the index, and denotes the standardized index.
denotes the comprehensive evaluation index of urbanization, and denotes the
index of ecological environment structure.
2.2. PHYSICAL MODEL OF COHERENCE
Then a physical model of the degree of coordination between urbanization and
ecological coupling is constructed. Coupling represents the phenomenon of
interaction or interrelationship within a large system and between the system and the
outside. The concept is often used in describing the relationship between variables.
The Acuity Coordination Degree describes the degree of coupling between the level of
urbanization in the Yellow River Basin and the relationship between local economic
development. The formula for the degree of coupling is shown below.
(7)
(8)
is a dimensionless number representing the degree of interaction between the
level of urbanization and the level of economic development in the Yellow River Basin
and takes a value between 0 and 1. The larger the value of , the more obvious the
interaction between the two. indicates the comprehensive evaluation index of
urbanization level and economic development. ,
denotes the uncertainty
coefficient. According to the index system constructed above, the results shown in
Table 1 and Table 2 can be obtained. denotes the comprehensive evaluation index
of urbanization, and denotes the index of ecological environment structure.
Wij
yij
U1
U2
C
= 2 ×U1×U2
(U1+U2)2
0.5
D=C×T,T=αU1+βU2
C
C
T
α
β
U1
U2
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Table 1. Evaluation index system of urbanization in the Yellow River Basin
Table 2. Ecological environment evaluation index system of the Yellow River basin
Target layer
Criterion
layer
Indicator layer
Attribu
tes
Weig
hts
Urbanization
level
Population
Population density + 56
Population urbanization rate + 75
Population growth rate + 183
Unemployment rate - 39
Economy
GDP per capita + 68
Proportion of output value + 44
Total social consumption per capita + 81
GDP growth + 72
Society
Occupancy rate + 46
Urban per capita disposable income + 75
social security spending ratio + 62
Urban traffic level + 78
Integration
Ratio of urban and rural per capita
disposable income
- 77
Urban and rural per capita consumption
expenditure ratio
- 65
Target
layer
Criterion
layer Indicator layer Attribute
s
Weight
s
Ecosystem
Pressure
GDP energy consumption growth rate - 105
Industrial wastewater discharge per
capita - 146
per capita sulfur dioxide emissions - 179
Tobacco powder emissions per capita - 112
State
Green coverage + 58
Per capita water resources + 142
Green area per capita + 69
Response
Sewage treatment rate + 44
Pollution-free treatment rate of
garbage + 57
Green planting area + 69
Industrial waste utilization + 55
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In the constructed index evaluation system, ecological environment and
urbanization are viewed as having consistent importance. Therefore, the values of the
uncertainty parameter α, β
uncertainty parameter in this paper are taken as 0.5.
According to the relationship between urbanization and economic development level,
the paper classifies the coupled coordination degree of urbanization level and
ecological environment in the Yellow River Basin into four categories, as shown in
Table 3.
Table 3. Classification of types of coordinated development of ecological environment and
town modernization in the Yellow River Basin
Development
stage
Degree of
coordination Subclass Comparison
between U1 and U2
Basic type
Coordinated
development [0.6,1.0]
Coordinat
ed
developm
ent（IV)
U1-U2>0.1
Coordinated development
- ecological environment
lagging type（IV-1）
|U1-U2|≥0.1
Coordinated
Development –
Synchronized
（IV-2）
U2-U1>0.1
Coordinated
Development - Lagging
Type of Urban
Modernization
（
IV-3
）
Transitional
phase
[0.5,0.6)
Barely
coordinat
ed
developm
ent（III）
U1-U2>0.1
Barely coordinated -
ecological environment
lagging type（III-1）
|U1-U2|≥0.1
Barely coordinated-
synchronized
（III-2）
U2-U1>0.1
Barely coordinated -
lagging urban
modernization
（III-3）
[0.4,0.5)
On the
verge of
deficient
decline
（II）
U1-U2>0.1
On the verge of disorder -
ecological environment
lagging type（II-1）
|U1-U2|≥0.1
Near-disorder-
synchronized（II-2）
U2-U1>0.1
On the verge of
dissonance - lagging type
of urban modernization
（II-3）
Dissonance
stage [0.0.4)
Dissonan
ce
Decline
（I)
U1-U2>0.1
Dissonance Decline -
Ecological Lag Type
（I-1）
|U1-U2|≥0.1
Detuned decay-
synchronized
（
I-2
）
U2-U1>0.1
Unbalanced Decline-
Lagging Type of Urban
Modernization
（
I-3
）
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3. ANALYSIS OF RESULTS
The Yellow River Basin covers nine provinces and regions of Qinghai, Sichuan,
Gansu, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, and Shandong, and is an
important economic belt in central and western China. This puts forward higher
requirements for the protection and management of the ecological environment, so it
is necessary to do a good job of ecological protection in the Yellow River Basin. While
promoting high-quality economic development, we must also take into account the
balance between the economy and the environment. To this end, this section
evaluates the ecological construction and economic construction of the Yellow River
Basin and proposes the comprehensive evaluation indicators of the two and the
coupling characteristics of comprehensive analysis.
3.1. COMPREHENSIVE EVALUATION INDEX ANALYSIS OF
TOWN ECOLOGICAL ENVIRONMENT AND LOCAL
ECONOMY
Urban ecological environment and local economic development are closely related,
and it is necessary to study the combined index of both. On this basis, the coupling
and coordination characteristics between the two can be better described. The
following will be a specific analysis of the town's ecological environment and the
degree of regional urbanization construction respectively.
3.1.1. COMPREHENSIVE INDEX ANALYSIS OF THE
URBAN ECOLOGICAL ENVIRONMENT
From 2011 to 2020, with the promulgation of national policies and the vigorous
propaganda of local governments, the concept of "green water and green mountains
are the silver mountain of gold" has become more and more popular. The overall
ecological environment level of the Yellow River Basin towns shows a fluctuating
upward trend, as shown in Figure 1. It can be broken down into the following three
trends.
2011-2014, the stable development phase. In these four years, the development
rate was the fastest in 2011, while the development leveled off in the following two
years. the development rate between 2013 and 2014 was the same as that in 2012.
The main reason is that the provinces, cities and towns in the Yellow River Basin have
caused greater damage to the ecological environment in the past due to their
transitional dependence on the exploitation of local natural resources. Take Shanxi
Province as an example, as a typical resource-based province and city. The long-
standing reliance on coal and other non-renewable energy sources and a single
industrial production method has led to serious ecological and environmental
problems. Since the government's intervention during the 11th Five-Year Plan, many
provinces and cities in the Yellow River Basin have been implementing pollution
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reduction and building "blue sky and blue water projects", and ecological
environmental protection work has begun to change.
From 2015 to 2017, the fluctuating development stage. This phase shows a specific
trend of rising and then declining, with the ecological environment construction
efficiency rising in 2015-2016. 2016 was the year with the highest level of regional
ecological environment construction in this period. In this period, all regions of the
Yellow River Basin took active and effective measures for ecological management,
however, pure ecological prevention and control cannot solve the fundamental
problems. The ecological environment is a protracted war, purely under prevention
and control due to the lack of effective treatment measures, no publicity on the
importance of anti-pollution and there is situation of pollution while treatment. There
was even a time when the degree of pollution was higher than the degree of
ecological environment treatment, exposing the contradictory relationship between
ecological environment construction and economic and social development. Thus,
there was a decline in the degree of ecological environment in 2016-2017.
Figure 1. Evaluation of the comprehensive index of modernization and ecological
environment of towns in the Yellow River Basin
2018-2020, the rapid development phase. During these three years, the
comprehensive evaluation index of ecological and environmental management in
each region of the Yellow River Basin shows a historical spike. This is mainly because
the regions actively explore industrial transformation and development within this
phase, and set clear standards for the pollution emissions of factory enterprises. In
particular, in 2019, Secretary Xi Jinping said at the Symposium on Ecological
Protection and High-Quality Development in the Yellow River Basin, "The Yellow River
Basin is an important ecological reserve in China and plays a very important role in
my country's economic and social development". This has placed higher demands on
ecological management in the Yellow River Basin regions and has yielded immediate
results. In 2019, the negative indicators of industrial wastewater, dioxide, and
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industrial waste gas smoke particles all showed significant reductions compared to
2017. Emissions of industrial wastewater decreased by 39.6%, emissions of SO2
decreased by 62. 7% and emissions of industrial exhaust smoke particles decreased
by 73.5%.
3.1.2. COMPREHENSIVE URBANIZATION INDEX
ANALYSIS
During the nearly ten years from 2011 to 2020, the level of urbanization in the
Yellow River Basin regions is generally on an upward trend, with slower development
in the first two years. The main reason for this is that since the impact of the global
financial crisis in 2008, the prices of abundant coal resources and other resources in
the Yellow River Basin have dropped significantly. Therefore, there is a serious
overcapacity, which has impacted the development of coal companies. Especially for
the central and western regions, such as Gansu Province, where most of the youths
with low education have become more difficult to be employed. In addition, in the
Sichuan basin, due to the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008, the modernization of towns
in the local region was slow in the post-earthquake home reconstruction and recovery
phase. After rebuilding homes, reshaping industrial chains and local governments
stepping up investment and paying attention to education development, there was a
period of growth between 2012 and 2013.
During 2013-2014, the growth rate development was leveled off. During this period,
the government began to increase its efforts to build local infrastructure, provide more
convenient and efficient transportation, establish stronger healthcare measures, and
continuously improve the level of social and public services. At the same time, the
government began to gradually reduce the level of capacity intervention, focusing on
cultivating the local people's self-development ability, training employment knowledge,
increasing employment opportunities, and providing strong support for people to
escape from poverty and become well-off. The year 2014 was also the year when the
degree of ecological environment construction and the degree of urban modernization
were the closest, indicating that the governments in the Yellow River Basin paid
attention to the protection and construction of the ecological environment along with
economic construction during the year.
Table 4. Comparison of government economic interventions in the Yellow River Basin,
2011-2014
Indicator name
Estimated year
2011 2012 2013 2014
The level of economic development 842 875 926 917
Percentage of infrastructure 367 384 413 457
Government intervention 865 914 907 896
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The year 2020 is the decisive year in the battle against poverty and the year when
the whole country will achieve prosperity. It can be seen that this year, the
modernization of towns in the Yellow River Basin reaches its peak. This is mainly due
to the effective implementation of a series of anti-poverty policies introduced by the
central government and the strong support provided by local governments in terms of
resources, education and employment. The development of each region has entered
a reasonable range since 2014, and the primary, secondary and tertiary industries
have achieved good results in a smooth transition. The economic structure shows
positive changes, with the output value ratio of primary, secondary and tertiary
industries at 5.2:49.4:58.5. New production capacities such as tourism and the
Internet economy have played a significant role in leading innovation, resulting in a
significant increase in the overall evaluation index of the modernization of towns.
The higher the coincidence of the two curves shown in Figure 1, the closer the
environmental and economic development rates are, but it is not that this is better, for
example, the higher the overlap of the two, the development of both may be relatively
slow, 2011-2012 The deviation is significantly due to the slower economic
development than the construction of the ecological environment, 2017-2018 The
deviation between the years is significantly due to the government's economic policies
to stimulate the process of urban modernization so that economic development began
to catch up with the construction of the ecological environment.
3.2. ANALYSIS OF THE COUPLING AND COORDINATION
CHARACTERISTICS OF TOWN MODERNIZATION AND
ECOLOGICAL ENVIRONMENT
The general situation of each region in the Yellow River Basin is analyzed. The
coupling degree and coupling coordination degree of urbanization and ecological
environment is calculated through the comprehensive evaluation index of the two. The
result is shown in Figure 2. It can be seen from the figure that the coupling degree
between urban modernization and the ecological environment of the whole Yellow
River Basin region is above 0.95 in the decade of 2011-2020, except for 2012. The
high level of coupling between urban modernization and the ecological environment
indicates that the interaction between economic and ecological systems in the Yellow
River Basin is high, and the low coupling degree in 2012 is mainly due to the
economic downturn and slow development in that year. This led to the degree of
modernization of towns and cities lagging behind the construction of the ecological
environment, while the comprehensive ecological environment evaluation index
increased steadily during the year.
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Figure 2. Coupling degree and coupling coordination degree of urban modernization and
ecological environment in the Yellow River Basin
Although the coupling degree can reflect a certain extent the degree of interaction
between the modernization of towns and the construction of an ecological
environment, it does not reflect whether they promote each other at a high level or
constrain each other at a low level. For this reason, this paper calculates the coupling
coordination degree according to the relative situation of different development levels
between the two systems. The categories of mutual influence between urban
modernization and the ecological environment are identified, and the results are
shown in Table 5.
Table 5. Basic types of coupling and coordination between urban modernization and
ecological environment
It can be seen that the situation of coordination between urban modernization and
the ecological environment in the Yellow River Basin has been improving in the last
decade. From 2011 to 2012, it is a barely coordinated and lagging type of urban
modernization, and from 2013 to 2020, it is a coordinated development type. In 2013,
as the economy recovered, the ecological protection of the environment also
progressed steadily. Thus a period of synchronous development between the two
systems was ushered in, but synchronous development only means that the gap
between the two became smaller. This does not mean that the pace of development
will be the same, for example, in the period 2013-2014 the modernization of towns will
Year 2011-2012 2013-2016 2017-2018 2019-2020
Type
Barely
coordinated -
backward type
of urban
modernization
（
II-3)
Coordinated
development -
synchronous
type（IV-2)
Coordinated
development -
ecological
environment
lagging type
（
IV-1)
Coordinated
Development -
Lagging Type of
Urban
Modernization
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be slightly faster than the ecological construction. It also does not mean that a higher
level of growth is ushered in, but rather that it is in constant development. After 2017,
there was a small slowdown in ecological construction in the Yellow River Basin,
mainly due to a decrease in precipitation across several provinces and cities in the
Yellow River Basin during this period. the total average precipitation decreased by
9.4% and 11.5%, respectively, between 2017 and 2018, and also the recycling rate of
industrial solid discharges, etc., decreased by about 6.8%. In 2019, ecological
protection also reached a new climax as General Secretary Xi introduced the concept
of the Yellow River Basin as an important ecological barrier and an important
economic zone for China. The year 2020 is a decisive year for poverty alleviation and
economic development, and the construction of the ecological barrier will be further
improved to ensure that poverty is not returned. The construction of urban
modernization will be slightly behind the construction of an ecological environment.
4. DISCUSSION
This paper takes each region of the Yellow River Basin as the research object and
considers a variety of situations. A comprehensive index evaluation is made from the
total degree of urbanization and the degree of ecological environment construction.
The development level is also measured by comparing the coupling degree and
coordination between the two subsystems of urban modernization and the ecological
environment by integrating time and space differences. The main conclusions are
shown below.
1. From 2011 to 2020, the development level of urban modernization in the Yellow
River Basin regions generally shows an upward trend. It develops rapidly after
2018. the comprehensive evaluation index of urban modernization in 2011 is
only 0.21 and grows to 0.63 in 2018. and keeps increasing to 0.79 in 2020,
with an average annual growth rate of 12.6% in the latter two years, and a total
increase of 276.2% in ten years.
2. During the decade, the ecological construction situation rose in fluctuation. It
has gone through three stages of steady development - fluctuating stage -
rapid development. In the latter two years of the rapid development phase, the
comprehensive evaluation index of the ecological environment increased by an
average of 35% per year.
3. In terms of coupling degree, the coupling degree of urban modernization and
ecological environment is basically above 0.95 in the ten years studied in this
paper. Thus, it can be seen that the correlation between the two is very large.
In terms of the degree of coupling and coordination, excluding the two years of
development in 2011-2012 when the economic development was relatively flat,
the rest of the period of ecological environment and town modernization are all
coordinated. From 2018 onwards, coordinated development enters the lagging
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period of town modernization, and the next stage is focused on improving the
quality of town modernization development and promoting economic growth.
Nan Qiao and Xiaochuan Xu came up with the idea. Nan Qiao and Xiaochuan Xu
designed the experiment. Nan Qiao performed an analysis of the results. Nan Qiao
and Xiaochuan Xu finished the paper. All authors read and approved the final
manuscript.
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